Tesla, Spotify Team Up To Introduce Music System In Cars

Tesla and Spotify will collaborate to come up with an in-car music system for vehicle owners.

Tesla Motors Inc. has collaborated with Spotify – a music streaming enterprise service – where now both companies will bring the music platform to electric cars. As a Tesla owner is driving his car, he/she will now have access to voice control that will be integrated with the vast library of music tracks that can be streamed on the go.

The collaboration between both the companies will result in the integration of the music streaming service. This will be applicable for both – the present electric cars that have hit the road such as Model (the SUV crossover), along with Model S sedan. Spotify will act as a replacement for Rdio which was the music partner for Tesla earlier. This deal ended when the collaboration with Rdio turned kaput.

Spotify is basically a music service originated from Sweden, thus the operations are more directed towards European consumers along with other neighbor countries.

Thus, Spotify Premium service will only be available to all the car owners that are being driven in the European countries along with Hong Kong and Australia. Tesla drivers in the United States are not being catered yet.

One of the limitations when it comes to Spotify integration is that the account will only work when the user is present in the car. This actually means the owner will have to login to his Spotify account to enjoy this feature. Those who do not have a Spotify account will now have to make one. A software upgrade will soon be launched where Model S drivers will be able to enjoy the feature starting from Monday.

Apart from this, those users that already have a Spotify Premium account can easily link it to their own cars so that they get to enjoy their favorite music while on a roll. Premium subscribers have the advantage of access to the massive catalogue of 30 million songs at their convenience without any monthly fee.

Top level executives have also confirmed that the music giant’s present deal with Uber – the ride hailing service will remain intact even after joining hands with Tesla Motors. He also notified that the company would be coming up with a futuristic car system that will smooth out the integration phase with car partnerships. He hinted by saying, “This is a very important focus for us and a key strategy and you can expect many more exciting announcements from us in this sphere.”

Alphabet's Autonomous Dreams Shattered

State of California makes it tough for autonomous cars to hit the roads

Alphabet Inc. is likely to be very upset since the state of California has come up with safety regulations for the very first time in history targeting driverless cars. The new regulations were drafted by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), where they have set certain barriers while driving the autonomous cars. Google Car venture is one of the aspiring projects of the company that is now prone to vulnerabilities now.

DMV at this point of time is extremely concerned about safety. According to them, autonomous car manufacturers need to conduct more tests and experiences before they are ready to offer these cars to the masses. In compliance with the present precautionary measures, the state has now put a ban on driverless cars to be driven on roads. In case anyone wants to ride in these cars then they need to have a human driver that possesses a valid driving license.

According to the proposal, the autonomous cars will be required to pass a test that will be administered by a third party before being retailed. The companies cannot really conduct any outright sales thus the automotive giants can actually lease the cars but not sell them outright. Moreover, the automotive manufacturers will be required to submit a safety report on monthly bases. They will be also required to reveal any collected information so that they can counter any present cyber attacks.

The cars produced need to have a steering that is visible with pedals and wheels. The driver in such cars also needs to get his hand on a state produced “autonomous vehicle operator certificate,” so in case its required, the driver will take charge of the wheels as per need. The driver will also be liable to comply to the traffic legislation even if the car is autonomous.

The requirements prescribed are a major area of concern for the search engine giant. The company after immense efforts and hardware has finally come up with a car prototype however this seems like a crucial start filled with a lot of miseries. The state of California laws are quite complex that will be tough for Google to comply to.

Johnny Luu, a spokesperson from Alphabet published a written statement according to which, In a written statement, “Safety is our highest priority and primary motivator as we do this. We’re gravely disappointed that California is already writing a ceiling on the potential for fully self-driving cars to help all of us who live here.”

Alphabet To Give A Tough Time To Rivals With Ford Motor Driverless Car Partnership

Alphabet to partner with Fords in the times to come for its driverless cars.

Alphabet Inc., along with Ford Motor Company, is reportedly collaborating with one another to come up with a joint venture where they will manufacture driverless cars together. According to sources close to the company, the Chief Executive Officer of Fords, Mr. Mark Fields is likely to officially announce the partnership in January during the International Consumer Electronics Show.

This collaboration is expected to be extremely lucrative for both the firms. Ford has been experimenting with autonomous cars since a long time and is devoted to conduct test drives of its cars on Californian streets soon. The complex software developed by Google will assist in bolstering the autonomous vehicle program in the times to come.

The search engine giant has already conducted tests on 53 cars that took place on the Texan and Californian streets. It has covered almost 1.3 million miles that have been logged to date. Through this initiative, massive data regarding autonomous driving has been collected.

The good thing for Alphabet with this collaboration is that it can now save billions of dollars that would be required to come up with an automotive plant. Moreover, it also does not have much expertise in assembly and car production. Ford at this point has automotive assembly plants that are ready for manufacturing driverless cars.

Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Alphabet, had claimed during this year that the tech giant is looking for options regarding manufacturing plants that are reliable. The reason is that it wants a partner to make use of their software for autonomous cars. It now seems that Fords is the best possible option to pace up the production of Google cars once they become popular in the consumer automotive market.

No official verdict has been observed from both the organizations as of yet, Alphabet has a history of offering its own software to other companies to assist them in the development of products. This can be governed via the acquisition of Motorola to come up with smartphones running on Google Android.

The previous week, Google made an announcement where it has plans to separate the Google Car segment where it will now function as an independent commodity where Alphabet will be its holding company. This initiative is part of competing with Uber in the times to come in terms of ride hailing.

The company is on the right track provided all the rumors associated to it are proved true.