The Role of Big Data in Automotive Design and Engineering

Big data is transforming nearly everything we do and touch every day. This includes having an impact on automotive design and engineering for the future.

What is big data? Although you’ve probably heard the term, you might not understand what it is unless you utilize it every day. What might surprise you is the amount of time and energy committed to it during your normal daily life. Big data refers to extremely large and diverse collections of structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data that continue to grow exponentially over time. These datasets are so large and complex in volume, velocity, and variety that traditional data management systems cannot store, process, and analyze them.

What does this mean for you?

The rapid movement of data and technology in the automotive industry pushes us toward the next phase of integration. That phase has already arrived in the form of Artificial Intelligence. Your car can now tell you when it’s safe to change lanes, keep you a set distance from the vehicle in front of you, and help you avoid a crash. Newer vehicles are also integrated with ChatGPT, which allows the voice command system to act much more naturally than ever before.

Here are some other roles that big data has in the automotive industry and the future of driving.

Predictive maintenance

In some ways this is a development into the future of the Internet of Things (IoT) which allows your vehicle to predict when you need maintenance performed based on the average miles driven each day. This also allows dealerships to monitor vehicle performance data remotely and continuously using integrated in-car sensors that collect data on the health of any given car through AI and data analytics. This allows a small issue to be handled early before it becomes a big problem.

Safe autonomous vehicles

Autonomous vehicles are the future of driving, but how soon will these vehicles be widely used? It’s difficult to predict this because the development seems slow at best and limited, but the same was true of electric vehicles, and we can see how they have grown over the past several years. Self-driving vehicles can use as much as one terabyte of data per hour, which requires access to big data in order to continually provide safe driving and improved technology on any road. AI will play a critical role in autonomous vehicles in the future, and it will require massive amounts of data.

Personalized in-car experiences

Automotive companies have already engineered ways to make your in-car experience more personal than ever. They bring you data-driven insights and preferences through vehicle data, driver data, or contextual data. This means your vehicle might tell you where the nearest location of your favorite store or restaurant when you’re on a road trip, could help you find scenic locations, or set your preferences simply by using a specific key fob or your phone to open the vehicle doors. Vehicles can already set your preferences and save specific profiles; with the use of big data, these preferences could be even more personalized.

Get your insurance discounts

If you’re a safe driver who doesn’t look at your phone regularly, your insurance company can provide you with safe driver discounts based on your driving habits. Most insurance companies send out small devices that you attach to your windshield or OBDII port. This device provides the insurance company with information regarding your driving habits and is collected in such volumes as another use of big data in the automotive industry. Based on your driving habits, you might qualify for some fantastic discounts.

Making your city smarter

The data utilized to improve your driving experience, develop new vehicle design and engineering, and make your life more convenient can also be used to make your city smarter. This means using big data to collect information regarding traffic patterns, parking, road conditions, commuter behaviors, and road construction. This information helps you by feeding information into your vehicle to help you choose the best path and right place to park and understand which roads can help you have the most enjoyable commute. This data also improves the safety of city streets for drivers and pedestrians.

The future of nearly every industry is in big data. The automotive industry is already utilizing massive amount of data to help drivers make better decisions, improve driving conditions, and make vehicles much safer than before. Big data can be used for many driving situations and will continue to be critical in the automotive industry for many years.