Wi-Fi in Cars: Going Nowhere Fast

This is not a good time to be in the automobile business, especially in the US. High oil prices mean, of course, high gas prices, which mean less driving but also higher costs for everything else, all of which mean less money to spend on things like cars. As I previously noted, we're in for some rough sledding over the next few years, until research into alternative energy yields positive results - and it will, he said optimistically. As an engineer I am always optimistic, but as a nation and a planet we have waited a bit too long to get started here - hence the rough sledding. In the near term, over the next 10-15 years or so, we need to use alternative fuels, particularly nuclear, to generate electricity, and reserve liquid fossil fuels for vehicles. Beyond that, who knows? There are so many good ideas floating around; we just need the right incentives to pursue the necessary research, and I believe it's quite obvious that these now exist.

Still, the automakers gotta sell what they have today, and they have two key strategies to do so. The first is to add new features that make the purchase of a new car as irresistible as possible (nav comes to mind; that worked for me, along with a six-speed), and second, since the advent of GM's OnStar, to provide value-added services (sound familiar, IT folks?) that simultaneously yield recurring revenue from what used to be a once-every-few-years purchase. Along these lines, we've see fairly involved in-vehicle communications products in addition to OnStar, like Ford's deployment of Microsoft's Sync, and now Chrylser's UConnect.

Chrysler today augmented UConnect with Wi-Fi service, effectively turning the car into an AP with router connectivity to a wireless WAN. The cost is around US$500 plus monthly service. But as much as I truly love wireless and Wi-Fi, it would be hard for me to recommend this product. For most enterprise types, a better solution would be to buy a notebook with a built-in WWAN connection, or an add-on PC Card or ExpressCard or USB adapter, or, better yet, tethered access using an appropriate handset, the most cost-effective solution of all. One also gets to pick one's carrier this way, which could be important is getting the best deal, or if one wants to go with WiMAX. And if you want to provide connectivity for everyone, consider a Wi-Fi travel router or a soft AP. Both are cheap.

The design of the Chrysler Wi-Fi product undoubtedly began long before this year's energy crisis, and, again, you gotta sell what you have today. But I think the car companies should turn their attention to designing and building less-expensive cars that get better gas mileage rather than piling on expensive services designed to consume dollars that consumers no longer have. And, regardless, most people who need this kind of connectivity will more likely get it from, as I noted above, notebooks and handsets with WWAN cards or one form or another, or via handsets and tethered access. While it would be swell to be able to download a movie into one's car and give passengers with a notebook Wi-Fi access while heading to the Ritz-Carlton for a weekend retreat, shrinking household budgets aren't going to support volume deployment of this kind of capability.