Hyundai Venue SUV With Built-In E-Sim Will Be India's First Connected Car, But Is It A New Industry Trend?

Car makers have been racing to come up with connected car offerings in their vehicles in India. Hyundai recently tried to lead the way, with its announcement around its upcoming subcompact SUV - Venue, calling it India¡¯s first connected car. Now, the company has partnered with Vodafone-Idea to be the backbone of these connectivity features.

For this, the Hyundai Venue will come with an inbuilt Vodafone-Idea eSim card as a part of the partnership, thus making the car self-sufficient for its connectivity features. If not for the eSim, the car has to be dependent upon the user¡¯s smartphone for its connectivity. With the eSims, Hyundai aims to eliminate this dependence.

This will also turn out to be the differentiating factor for the Venue than most of the other connected cars in the market currently. Though the companies have not specified a business model for the eSims, it can be assumed that the expense will be bundled as one time-cost within the car's price. Users might be charged for the services though, as the eSim connectivity extends to other Hyundai vehicles.

Hyundai Venue

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So what is Hyundai offering here?

Several services including Apple Car Play, Android Auto, emergency response, navigation, remote operation of car's features like climate control, horn and headlamps, vehicle status and more. The services will now even be connected to the cloud through the car¡¯s in-built system itself.

In addition, the Hyundai Venue will come equipped with the company's 'BlueLink' connected technology, which, in India, will offer SOS, speed alerts, geo-fencing, panic notifications, destination sharing, and even road-side assistance. Voice guidance and recognition in Indian-accented English is also included in this. The best part, all these features can be controlled through your smartphone interface.

(Representative Image: Hyundai)

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The partnership in India follows a pan-European strategic collaboration announced in November last year wherein Vodafone is to provide a fully-connected in-car infotainment and connected car service in Hyundai as well as Kia vehicles.

A visible trend?

The connectivity features are hence, not exclusive to Hyundai. Even MG Motors has entered the race, with a slew of proposed connectivity features in its debut product in India, an SUV named Hector. It is supposed to launch in India in the latter half of the year.

In case we shift our focus to two-wheelers, we would find a similar trend. Notably in India, Ather Energy has been offering connectivity features packaged in its electric scooters, complete with smartphone integration and cloud connectivity. Several high end electric motorcycles are also on the list.

The trend is also being supported by the IT giants, as Apple, Cisco, IBM and others are rushing in to partner with car makers for such connectivity offerings. Reason? There is a huge ground to play on. With the advancement in autonomous driving, wherein most of the time of the vehicle occupants will be at their disposal, even the future of cars is visualised with huge infotainment screens with complete connectivity. Hence, starting early in this race can only be seen as beneficial.