Report: What We Want From The Connected Car

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People spend an average of six and a half hours per week in their cars, and as dashboards become digital platforms it's creating a massive new market for carmakers, digital-media companies, and even marketers. Revenues from connected services are expected to top $152 billion by 2020.

In a new report, BI Intelligence looks at revenue from connected-car internet services, consumer attitudes to these services and how they will pay for them (including getting ads in return for free content), and the potential for self-driving cars.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Connected-safety features bring in the most revenue of all of today's connected-car services, at $13 billion. But safety will lose its spot as the top revenue stream to driver-assistance in 2017. Connected-safety features will bring in $44 billion in 2020. These connections include alerting customers of road conditions, such as severe weather or an approaching hazard, as well as collision-avoidance. 
• Entertainment is one of the most popular features available for the connected car, but it is not a major revenue driver. The category will account for only $13 billion in revenue in 2020. Entertainment features include integrations with apps such as Pandora, Yelp, and Facebook. 
• But there's still a ways to go before mainstream consumers really understand how they can benefit from the connected car. About 80% of consumers have either never heard of connected cars or are unsure what the term refers to. 
• People who actually use connected car services are satisfied with them. About half of those who have a connected car actually use the car's connected features, and those who do use many of these features shows high levels of satisfaction with them.

• Consumers are pretty split on how they want to pay for these services. 25% of global consumers would be willing to receive in-car advertising if it meant they got free basic services in exchange. This means marketers are likely to have a big opportunity to tap into the connected-car market.