BMW is to showcase a range of innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2015 in Las Vegas to be held from January 6-9.
30 Dec 2014 | 2706 Views | By Autocar Professional Bureau
BMW is to showcase a range of innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2015 in Las Vegas to be held from January 6-9. The carmaker says connectivity between driver, vehicle and environment is about to get even simpler, even more personalised and even more flexible. With the BMW ConnectedDrive ...
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BMW is to showcase a range of innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2015 in Las Vegas to be held from January 6-9. The carmaker says connectivity between driver, vehicle and environment is about to get even simpler, even more personalised and even more flexible. With the BMW ConnectedDrive Store, an extensive range of digital services and features can be booked and updated via the internet on your home computer or directly from the car. The services are ready to use in the car in a matter of minutes. BMW is the only premium manufacturer to offer this convenient route to accessing online-based services. Following the successful launch of the BMW ConnectedDrive Store in Belgium and Luxembourg in early summer and in Germany in October of last year, it will also be available in the USA from spring 2015.
The German carmaker was one of the first manufacturers to recognise the significance of mobile communications, integrating them into its vehicles through BMW ConnectedDrive. With the launch of the BMW ConnectedDrive Store, services and apps are accessible directly from the car via the BMW ConnectedDrive menu. For example, RTTI (Real Time Traffic Information) can be uploaded if you happen to be stuck in a traffic jam and cannot rely on radio traffic news that may be inaccurate or incorrect.
In the car, the store has its own menu option under ConnectedDrive or BMW Online, which can be selected via the iDrive Controller. It is as easy to use as the well-known smartphone stores and displays all the services that are available and already booked. As soon as the password set up in the customer portal is entered, services and features can be directly accessed, also for flexible periods, and are ready to use in the car within a short space of time.
All BMWs in the USA have embedded SIM card
What’s needed to use the BMW ConnectedDrive Store is a connection via a SIM card built into the vehicle. In the USA this is standard on all vehicles. The embedded SIM card is also required for the Intelligent Emergency Call service, which in the event of an accident establishes contact with a BMW Call Centre. The Call Centre agent will speak to the vehicle occupants in their native language if they happen to be abroad and will organise rapid and extensive assistance. Thanks to automatic data transmission, the Intelligent Emergency Call system can also assess the severity of the accident. This allows crucial information to be conveyed to the rescue services even if the occupants are not responding to questions from the Call Centre agent.
Intelligent Emergency Call can also be triggered manually to help other road users, for example to provide first aid at an accident site. Here, too, the system makes for greatly enhanced safety.
Following its successful introduction in Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, the BMW ConnectedDrive Store is to be launched in the USA in spring 2015.