Investigate How Data Will Be Stored and Used

It is said that “Autonomous vehicles are the equivalent of supercomputers rolling down the highway, generating and transmitting a mind-boggling volume of data – up to 4 terabytes per day, per car.” according to datacenterfrontier.com. Data is very close to becoming the new currency. Companies have never had to deal with this amount of data on a day-to-day basis and with data, comes risk. Being able to keep all of the customers personal information safe, to when they were picked up and where they were dropped off can become quite challenging.  Without the daily limitations on how much a car can drive, currently with humans there is a limit to reduce the risk of an accident.This will bring about an unprecedented amount of data.

Before companies can begin building data centers, they will have to tackle the wireless connectivity issues first.  From that point they can begin to work in all on of the other elements of the cars. The development of 5G is the key to being able to push this self-driving car movement forward. This will help aid in allowing the car to stop in a moments notice, which is critical when lives are at risk.

The data will be stored in data warehouse to be used for in an all business purposes. This information will be analyzed to see when peak times are for any given day or area to what type of customers are using these services. This information could allow the car makers to make deals with many companies. For example, let us say a customer named Patty gets picked up everyday and stops by a coffee shop to get coffee first. If enough customers have this trend then the car company can make a deal with a particular shop to become the main stop for coffee. The company could also offer a specific deal and charge the customer by week, month or day. This will help ensure repeat business. The company could also choose to sell this information to other companies, should they notify the customers first, or put this information into their agreement.

Companies will have to invest a great deal of resources into make sure the data warehouse that they will build are both secure physically and electronically.