Turn right for Chinese food and check the oil
You know that fancy new Infiniti you bought? The one that offers an infinite number of valet services: It will unlock your door when you’ve misplaced your keys, tell you how to get to that new Chinese restaurant you’ve been wanting to try, direct you to the local station with the best gas prices, or send roadside assistance if, heaven forbid, this expensive little gem of a car should break down?
Who is really providing all those services? Not your auto dealer, that’s for sure, or your manufacturer. There’s a good chance your car is being serviced by Agero, a member of the Cross Country Group (CCG), a privately held Medford company that flies under the public’s radar but is increasingly important to many drivers’ quality of life.
CEO Michael A. Saxton calls Agero a “private label,’’ meaning it’s a company that manufactures goods that are sold under another brand name. “We’re not a retail brand but we supply many billion dollar brands,’’ he says.
Agero—a Latin derivative for “to lead, drive, and move forward’’—started as Cross-Country Automotive Services, an auto club, in the 1970s, the creation of Boston entrepreneur Sidney Wolk, who continues to serve as chairman of the company.
It’s now grown into what Saxton describes as three market verticals—its original business of roadside assistance, insurance claims management services, and (our topic today) a provider of connected vehicle services. These services began in earnest with satellite navigation systems in high-end cars and now number in the 30s (and growing) across the automotive landscape. Among them are turn-by-turn directions, automated vehicle diagnostics (trouble code notifi cation), vehicle slow-down and immobilization capability, and voice texting.
The numbers have been impressive. Agero services 75 million vehicle owners annually and is projected to do $550 million in business in 2012, roughly two-thirds of CCG’s projected $750 million in revenues.
“We’ve grown by record numbers the last three years in a diffi cult economy…and done it in an automotive-centric business. That includes both organic growth and new client signings,’’ says Saxton.
Infi niti’s new JX luxury crossover is the latest vehicle to launch with Agero telematics, the operating system in its Infiniti Connection package. The 2013 Infi niti M luxury sedan, which will arrive later this year, also will be connected by Agero.
How connected can Agero make a vehicle?
“The most robust system, in terms of the number of available services, would be Hyundai’s Blue Link program with around 36 different services,’’ says Saxton. “The Infiniti JX uses a package of 18 services it has customized. In comparison, other companies generally give you in the neighborhood of 14 services.’’
Automotive brands using Agero products for telematics or connected vehicle services include BMW, Toyota, Lexus, Infiniti, Rolls- Royce Motor Cars, and Hyundai.
Connectivity means different things to different manufacturers and to the consumer.
“All the original equipment manufacturers [OEMs or automakers] have different business
models,’’ says Saxton. “We’ll see each OEM put their own spin on it and, over the next few years, see the packages adjusted depending on consumer preference.
“But in some ways it comes back to what Apple founder Steve Jobs always said about consumer research, that consumers don’t know what they want but fi gure it out when they see a product’s capabilities.’’
Hyundai’s Blue Link is representative of state-of-the-art voice-based connectivity offerings.
At the Chicago Auto Show in February, Barry Ratzlaff, director of service operations at Hyundai North America, took a half hour to walk a pair of journalists through Hyundai’s
new Agero-based system.
The key is that it was offered in three layers at three price points: $79, $179, and $279 per year:
• Assurances: Airbag deployment, roadside assistance, and SOS button response.
• Essentials: Door unlocking, remote starting, quick tips (owner’s manual items), voice texting, vehicle diagnostics, stolen vehicle recovery-immobilization-slowdown, panic notification, alarm notifi cation, curfew alerts, geo-fencing, speed alert, automatic trouble code notification, maintenance alert, recall advisor, quick tips, voice text messaging, valet alert, remote headlights/horn activation, monthly vehicle reports, owner’s website and mobile app, and location sharing.
• Convenience/Guidance: POI (Point of Interest) downloads, turn-by-turn daily route guidance, eco-coaching, restaurant ratings, local gas prices, traffi c, and weather.
Voice-based activation is the big area of advances. Agero offers a system that uses natural speech and cloud connections.
“The goal from the start was to make it intuitive, to have a self-correcting server base, and to respond to natural language and regional infl ections,’’ says Gary Wallace, Agero vice president for corporate relations and government affairs.
“For example, I’m based in Dallas and one of the major roadways, I-635, goes right past our offices. Down here, no one would ask the system to get on I-635. They’d say, “Get me on LBJ [the Lyndon Baines Johnson Freeway]. The system wouldn’t know that the fi rst time, but it learns it and makes it part of the dictionary,’’ says Wallace.
The most-used application, says Wallace, is asking for a destination and routing guidance while a vehicle is in motion. Most systems won’t permit manually entering information while a vehicle is in motion, a driver distraction all in the industry are working to eliminate.
“It’s also the toughest for the system to recognize. That’s where our call center [Agero has a half dozen centers] people intervene, often without the driver knowing. The voice system has to work well. If a driver tries to use it unsuccessfully two or three times, they probably never will use it again.’’
The voice-activated systems—including voice to text technology—give all age groups a more equal access. “Gen Y kids, as you’d expect, were able to completely outperform their elders in texting manually while driving on a test track,’’ says Wallace. “But voice activation equalized the groups’ performance to complete a task.’’
Using cloud-based technology means the company—in this case the OEM—has the capability to update software as updated content becomes available during the life of the car.
“That’s a huge advance,’’ says Saxton, “because consumer electronics changes are immediate while automotive systems run in two- and three-year product cycles.’’
Bill Griffith can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MrAutoWriter.
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