Chevrolet
GM has already been working on making its vehicles highly connected with cellular connectivity. And with autonomous cars on the horizon, the company is exploring new ways it can harness that connectivity to offer new services.
One service it is exploring is streaming content.
"As you get to fully autonomous vehicles that you don't have to stay alert with - which will be a natural part of the evolution - it's almost unlimited the technology that we have today on what you can stream in, what you can allow people to do, how they can really be productive in that time that they are going from point A to point B," GM's CEO Mary Barra told Tech Insider
Barra said that due to safety concerns, the company only currently offers some of these streaming services in the backseat of its cars. For example, the Cadillac Cadillac CT6 has the ability for Apple CarPlay in the backseat. But as self-driving cars advance and regulations catch up, there will come a time where more can be done in the front seat, as well.
Streaming more content into the car isn't the only new service the company is looking at, though.
Barra told Tech Insider that the company is also exploring subscription models for cars.
"We are exploring different models of, 'Do you own the vehicle outright? Or do you have the ability to own this vehicle, but have access to this [other] vehicle. And I think there is a lot we can do to really add value to the customer," she said.
"We put the customer at the center of every decision we make. We look at it from their view, what's going to create value for them... whether it's removing a frustration or giving them a service that they never felt possible while they were traveling from point A to B."
In a way, GM has already begun to lay the foundation for such a service by integrating low-energy Bluetooth into newer cars. This technology could be used to share digital car keys so that verified people could unlock and activate the car simply using their smartphones.
In the more near term, Barra told reporters that the company's OnStar connection would be a big growth area.
For example, she said the company could collect data on a customer's vehicle and alert them before something was about to break and offer to come to them and fix it.
"With 4G LTE and the technology we are bringing into the vehicle, I think we are just at the infancy of the different services and the increased efficiency that we can bring to the customer," she said.