2015 SAE全球年会的讨论嘉宾认为，随着互联技术和自动驾驶技术变得越来越普及，未来的汽车行业可能将更关注于汽车共享，并从互联服务中获利。这意味着人机交互与商业模式都将发生改变。

互联技术正在迅速地成为一项不可或缺的技术，因此汽车制造商必须想办法从这个信息技术中获利。“在未来的多模式世界中，已经与互联网相连的消费者的需求究竟是什么？汽车应该如何帮助他们满足这些需求？”这是2015 SAE世界大会的一个讨论主题，在讨论中，有两位嘉宾认为互联汽车共有四种创造收入的方法。

“可以把服务费用算在总车价里，也可以算在信息娱乐系统里，消费者可以购买某些功能。”思科系统的Andreas Mai表示。“我们都很熟悉按月支付的订阅模式，还有很多人推崇按次支付，这就意味着，功能已经具备，用户不使用就不用付钱。但我认为这种模式不是非常适合汽车制造商。”

他指出，成功的商业模式一定要非常灵活，足以容纳上述所有方案。

P3北美公司的Mai和David Acton同样认为，汽车共享将成为未来的主流，一旦车间通讯和自动驾驶成为主流，那么共享服务的收费将成为汽车销售收入的一个重要部分。因为如果汽车无需人类驾驶员便能自动行驶，那么人们购买汽车的理由就变少了。进一步说，如果汽车共享成为流行，那么人机交互也必须发生改变，从而让人们能够迅速弄明白怎么操作随机获得的车辆。

“如果有企业想要推行汽车共享服务，那么必须要将人机交互做得非常直观，这样人们才能迅速上手，” Acton认为。“人机交互一直都是差异化竞争的重要元素，而它也将为汽车共享的实现起到关键作用。”

简洁已成为人机交互设计的要点。很多购买者都不喜欢阅读说明手册，他们希望操作越简单越好，最好不需要任何培训。直观的人机交互是汽车发展过程中的一个重要课题。

“汽车运作的原理，将不再是驾驶员必须掌握的知识，” Acton表示。

讨论嘉宾都同意，汽车控制功能的布局和其他相关方面都应该标准化。这种统一的外观与感觉将会成为一种新趋势，代表着消费者对汽车看法的转变。

“汽车行业必须意识到，我们的产品其实是日用品，只不过更加高端而已。”Mai表示。

Connectivity forces business model changes

As connectivity and eventually autonomous driving become more common, the auto industry may evolve to focus more on car sharing and gaining revenue from connected services. That will require changes in human-machine interfaces and business models, according to panelists at 2015 SAE World Congress.

Connectivity is rapidly becoming a necessity, which will force automakers to devise ways to collect revenue from this information technology service. There are four ways revenue can be derived from connected vehicles, according to two panelists during the “What are the Future Needs of a Connected Consumer in a Multimodal World and What can Automotive do to Help?” session.

“It can be put in the price of the vehicle, or it can be in the price of the infotainment system, where the customer buys certain capabilities,” said Andreas Mai of Cisco Systems. “We’re all familiar with a subscription model, where a monthly fee covers the services. There’s a lot of buzz about pay-per-use, where the capability is there, but users don’t pay for it until they use it; but I don’t see that model working well for vehicle makers.”

He noted that successful business models will probably have to be flexible enough to include all those options.

Mai and David Acton of P3 North America Inc. also predicted that car sharing will become more popular in the future, possibly becoming a solid percentage of auto sales once vehicle-to-vehicle communications and autonomous driving become more common. When vehicles drive themselves without requiring a human in the cabin, there’s less reason for people to buy cars. If car sharing becomes popular, HMIs will have to change so people can quickly figure out how to use the features on whatever vehicle they happen to get.

“If companies want to do car sharing, the HMI has to be intuitive so people can immediately operate any vehicle,” Acton said. “HMIs have been a differentiator; it will be a key enabler for car sharing.”

Simplicity is already becoming an important part of HMI design. Many buyers don’t want to read manuals. Instead, they expect controls to be simple enough that no training is needed. This trend towards intuitive HMIs is an important aspect in vehicle development.

“The tolerance level for not knowing how a vehicle works is very, very low,” Acton said.

The panelists agreed that layouts and other aspects of vehicle controls should move towards standardization. This trends towards a common look and feel is part of a major shift in consumers’ view of vehicles.

“The industry has to realize that our products are commodities, with some exception at the high end,” Mai said.