Renault is deepening its collaboration with Google in a bid to increase capabilities on distant software program updates to new fashions resembling the electrical Megane E-Tech and Austral.
“We wish to make the automotive an clever object that learns and one that may be upgraded over the air like a cell phone,” Renault CEO Luca de Meo stated in an interview.
Automakers are scrambling to meet up with Tesla’s tech capabilities, together with the flexibility to ship updates to automobiles remotely.
Increasing the partnership with Google, which began in 2018, will enable Renault to supply extra over-the-air software program updates in addition to extra on-demand companies, the 2 firms stated Tuesday.
The partnership with Google will even assist Renault speed up its “end-to-end digital transformation, from the design of the automotive to its market launch by its manufacturing,” de Meo stated in an announcement.
The brand new in-vehicle digital options will create extra income whereas bolstering the residual worth of Renault automobiles and retain prospects, de Meo added.
Capabilities on demand will embrace drivers having the ability to find their automobiles in giant parking heaps.
“The product stays in reference to the corporate from cradle to grave, for a couple of possession cycle,” the CEO stated.
The enlargement of the partnership with Google reveals Renault’s “horizontal” technique below de Meo, which incorporates collaborations on software program with builders slightly than designing the tech in-house — a method that has yielded combined outcomes at different conventional automakers.
Volkswagen Group delayed essential new fashions and pushed out ex-CEO Herbert Diess in July amid issues at its Cariad software program unit.
“We’re a {hardware} producer; software program is one other sport,” de Meo stated. “If you wish to study to play tennis, you higher go along with somebody who performs correct tennis.”
Automakers and expertise firms together with Sony, Apple and Google, have been working to develop methods to construct future automobiles into platforms extra like smartphones, with billable companies the place key updates are wi-fi.
Reuters contributed to this report