Car manufacturers are failing to utilise the data being amassed by in-car systems that would enable them to make real-time improvements to cars on the roads in future.

Now Movimento, a provider of ‘over-the-air’ software updates for the automotive industry has partnered with engineering services group Aricent to design a system which would allow carmakers to continuously update and improve vehicle performance and services.

The ‘intelligent automotive gateway’ would have an over-the-air analytics solution for carmakers to identify where enhancements could be made.

“The sensors on today's automobiles generate enormous amounts of data but until today, virtually all of it has gone uncollected and unanalysed,” said a spokesman.

“That situation has now changed with the introduction of the industry’s first reference design for an on-board gateway and cloud-based service that will intelligently bring data from the car to the cloud and turn that data into easy to understand, insightful business intelligence.”

The raw data that is being generated by on-board sensors, cameras, Lidar etc. will only accelerate as advanced driver assistance systems and self-driving cars become a reality-- a rate that will reach 1 gigabits per second by 2020, according to an Intel report.

“This data could amount to 5.4 terabytes daily,” said Mahbubul Alam, chief technology officer of Movimento Group.  "Imagine if this data was analysed and used to create vehicle improvements and cost savings.

"We’re currently gathering less than 1% of the data generated," he added.

"Car manufacturers and tier one vendors have known they need to start making use of all this data but they don't have the resources to properly collect and analyse it.”

The in-vehicle communications gateway relies upon Movimento’s smart data agent to selectively gather, aggregate and filter data and then send to the cloud for detailed analysis and action. The gateway links to a car’s internal communications bus and includes all the connectivity, storage and compute power.

A cloud-based analytics platform and rules engine developed by Aricent allows the carmaker to run both statistical and probabilistic models on the data to determine whether a software or firmware update should be scheduled at an appropriate time, such as at the next schedule service.

Movimento Group is already working with Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Volvo.