By now, most automotive OEMs are aware of the EU Data Act the EU Commission announced in February, expected to take effect in 2025. The Data Act, which you can learn more about in our overview blog, will introduce new rules on who can use and access data generated by the use of IoT products in the EU. The Act has major implications for all IoT players, but specifically automotive OEMs who have access to trillions of data points generated from their connected vehicles. While important in the EU, the Act impacts automakers on a global scale, as most sell vehicles across several regions. It also is likely to be the first of many policies that will regulate data generated from connected and autonomous vehicles in the future, similar to what we saw happen with global privacy policy following GDPR.

In our recent webinar with Ward Intelligence Analyst, Steve Bell, we broke down what the Act means for OEMs and how they can best prepare for when the Data Act goes into effect. Here are a few of the highlights from the discussion:

The Data Act brings with it economic opportunity

One of the main goals of the Data Act is to bring about economic innovation. It is part of the EU Commission’s plan to create €270 billion of additional GDP by 2028. From an automotive OEM perspective, the Data Act has huge potential to accelerate the customer experience, increasing OEM loyalty, lifetime ownership and consumer spend. Users will be able to leverage their own data to shop for individualized services while manufacturers will be able to better understand and support their customers with access to high-value insights.

A lean data approach that reduces waste will be key for OEMs

The Data Act requires OEMs to make data generated from connected vehicles available to consumers and third parties. Given the hugely vast volume of data connected vehicles create, this is an expensive task. It is critical OEMs look for ways to reduce data waste by limiting data collected from the car, establishing controls to focus on discovering high-value data, and putting processes in place to automatically delete data that’s not needed.

It’s wise for OEMs to invest in cloud and agile frameworks

While the move away from on-premise systems has been in process for afew years now, the Data Act will catalyze the use of cloud applications thatallow for flexible storage and agile development. The cloud can assist inensuring cost-effective data aggregation and is fundamental for applications thatassist in cataloging data to make querying easier for consumers and thirdparties to access the information that are the most relevant to them moreefficiently.

Partnerships will be necessary to break down existing data siloes

One of the greatest challenges for OEMs around the Data Act will not only be in reducing data waste and managing costs but also in breaking down the siloes that exist across their systems today. The connected car ecosystem has grown incredibly complex over the past years and resolving that complexity through powerful partnerships will be fundamental for OEMs in positioning themselves for data transformation success in the next 2-3 years.

Interested in learning more? Be sure to check out the whole discussion by listening to the webinar recording here. If you’d like to discuss how Wejo can help in building efficient data processes to improve customer experiences and manage costs, connect with us today