SUNNYVALE, Calif., December 7, 2023 – Sonatus announced the Sonatus Vehicle Personalization Solution enabling automakers to put the power of personalization directly into the hands of their customers and offering them the ability to automatically tailor their vehicle settings and driving experiences according to their preferences. The Solution will be available for production use in Q1 2024. Its builds on the deployment of the Sonatus Vehicle Platform in over 1 million vehicles to date.
Consumers increasingly expect the ability to personalize their cars to their unique preferences and driving styles. In a survey commissioned by Sonatus, 83 percent of respondents said they expect automated profile personalization to become the standard in all vehicles. This includes not just luxury vehicles. Additionally, with more than four in five reporting automated personalization features as something they’d like to have (56 percent) or even a must-have (27 percent) for their next vehicle, drivers are willing to go the extra mile to get it: more than half (54 percent) would switch to a different brand for these features, and even more (66 percent) would purchase an upgraded model to get them.
In the quest to offer dynamic and ever-evolving in-vehicle user experiences, the automotive industry is rapidly moving towards SDVs. Sonatus is introducing the Vehicle Personalization Solution, a cost-effective and technically advanced way for OEMs. This enables them to put the power of personalization directly into their customer’s hands for all types of vehicles. Moreover, this is a departure from the typical practice of limiting such features to premium models.
The Vehicle Personalization Solution provides OEMs with the capability to develop cloud, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), and smartphone applications. These applications allow end users, including individual owners and fleet managers, to define customized routines. Users can automate various aspects, such as cabin ambiance, drivetrain settings, and sophisticated interactions with smart homes and IoT devices.
“The automotive industry is looking to software to rapidly build novel experiences tailored to individual users,” said Jeff Chou, CEO and co-founder of Sonatus. “The Sonatus Vehicle Personalization Solution goes one step further, empowering drivers and fleet managers to create the vehicle experiences they prefer. It also provides OEMs with capabilities that build positive brand affinity across a wide range of vehicle price points.”
The Vehicle Personalization Solution is built on the versatile foundation of Sonatus Automator. It is a no-code orchestration and automation framework for creating routines in the cloud and instantly applying them to vehicles at any point in their lifecycle. The solution also provides an SDK comprising Sonatus Automator, APIs, and documentation. Moreover, this empowers OEMs to rapidly develop end user-facing personalization applications and routines. The routines allow users to automatically apply their preferred settings, for example adjusting the drive mode, seat position, ambient lighting, and much more, either for an individual driver or dynamically adjusting settings in specific situations like highway driving, driving at night, or in the rain.
Sonatus is working with Marelli and AWS to demonstrate the power of this solution in action at CES 2024. Marelli integrated the Vehicle Personalization Solution into its Digital Cockpit. This allows end users to customize and automate vehicle settings using simple, yet highly flexible, “if-this-then-that” routines. Automator Cloud runs on AWS, which serves as a robust online platform to store and manage user preferences.
“The Sonatus Vehicle Personalization Solution brings the full configurability of Marelli’s Digital Cockpit to life,” said Nate Sladek, VP of Strategy and Product Management at Marelli Electronic Systems. “Users are now able to automatically apply their preferences for in-vehicle comfort, convenience, and driving modes for a tailored experience. Additionally, AWS provides the ideal cloud infrastructure to bring these unique innovations to life. Through Sonatus’s vehicle personalization and AWS’s cloud solutions, Marelli’s Digital Cockpit is poised to become both end users’ and OEMs’ preferred solution.”
“The industry’s pace of innovation in its quest for software-defined mobility has never been faster. A collaborative approach is critical for automakers to surprise and delight drivers on the road,” said Stefano Marzani, Worldwide Tech Leader, SDV, AWS. “AWS’s work with Sonatus and Marelli is helping foster the industry’s shift to SDV. We look forward to demonstrating how the power of the cloud is making next-generation vehicle customization a reality.”
“As vehicles become more advanced, we are seeing a clear trend. Consumers expect their vehicles to be more connected and configurable, just like their mobile devices,” said Maitê Bezerra, Principal Analyst, Software Defined Vehicles, Informa Tech. “The Sonatus Vehicle Personalization Solution unlocks one beneficial attribute of SDVs, putting an easy-to-use, useful configuration tool in the hands of OEMs, fleet managers, and vehicle owners.”
