Simpler telematics tariffs: Toyota sends driving behavior in Amazon cloud

Toyota and Amazon (AWS)

Toyota and Amazon will work more closely together in the future: The Japanese automotive group will use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to process and analyze the rapidly growing fleet of connected vehicles. This should serve the development, but also make telematics insurance tariffs possible.

Better evaluation of collected data

More and more vehicles are connected to the manufacturer’s backend via the internet. It is often difficult to understand which data they share and when, and not only for users, but also for car companies to use their evaluations. In the future, Toyota will use Amazon AWS to collect and evaluate the data provided by "connected cars" at a central location.

Connected Cars from Toyota to send data to Amazon AWS in the future

The findings gained in this way should not only be incorporated into the design and development of new vehicles, but also into new service offerings such as car sharing, ride sharing, full-serviceLeasing as well as new communication of upcoming workshop stays and insurance tariffs, which consider the driving behavior of the insured, make possible or simplify.

Telematics tariffs entice with discount promises

There are now more and more insurance companies offering so-called telematics tariffs, and HUK is campaigning for this. So far, they assume that the insured person in the car carries a "GPS black box" (connected to the smartphone) or his smartphone with the insurance company’s app. Based on numerous parameters such as compliance with speed limits, acceleration and braking behaviour as well as the day and time of day, the insurer assesses driving behaviour and promises "reasonable driving" discounts compared to the standard fare.

In the context of an overview of the pros and cons as well as the functioning of such tariffs, the Verbraucherzentrale NRW drew an ambivalent conclusion only at the beginning of August:  Who drives mindfully and is ready to have his driving style monitored, is rewarded by car insurers with lower premiums. However, the so-called telematics tariffs also entail risks."

How telematics tariffs tick so far

In addition to the monitoring of the own driving behavior and the dependence on the algorithm of the provider, the GPS black box therefore in some cases already makes an argument against the telematicsTariff, because the cost of the device or the rent can in case of doubt exceed your savings in the insurance premium". If insurers will be able to access it, Toyota’s cloud solution would eliminate the cost of additional hardware in the future.