Smart, driven and ready to ride?

Otonomo has developed technology to make it easier to distribute and use connected-car data by securing, anonymizing, standardizing, and aggregating information within a labyrinth of regional regulations.

Lisa Joy Rosner, chief marketing officer of US-Israeli startup Otonomo, says that other uses could include locations of parking spaces; automation of on-demand fueling, a service already offered via smartphone app in some parts of the US; and software fixes when data from cars show a part is reacting to certain temperatures, based on location.

The latest “smart” technology in cars transmits all kinds of data, such as the car’s condition and location, and that could be shared with everyone from your insurance company to advertisers and authorities. TODAY national correspondent Craig Melvin reports.

The beat generation imagined disappearing into the night on an open road and countless baby boomers rejoiced in the freedom granted by a car with a full tank of petrol. “I’m on my way,” Paul Simon sang. “Don’t know where I’m going.” None of them seems to have imagined that their car would record the journey and where they stopped for a burger in order to sell the data to fast food chains. These details, and many others, are now gathered by 60 million cars in the United States in what is only the first phase in the steady transformation of a vehicle into a software device that can discern a driver’s weight, gender, race and everyday habits.

DETROIT — Daniel Dunn was about to sign a lease for a Honda Fit last year when a detail buried in the lengthy agreement caught his eye. Honda wanted to track the location of his vehicle, the contract stated, according to Dunn — a stipulation that struck the 69-year-old Temecula, Calif., retiree as a bit odd. But Dunn was eager to drive away in his new car and, despite initial hesitation, he signed the document, a decision with which he has since made peace.

By 2020, a quarter billion cars worldwide – or 1 in 5 cars – will have wireless connectivity, according to research and advisory firm Gartner. All those connected cars will produce an enormous amount of data, with sensors and cameras measuring and recording everything from traffic and weather to fuel and car performance. They’ll track your whereabouts, speed, mileage and favorite radio stations, and they’ll know if you stop for coffee or use a Bluetooth headset.

When Lisa Joy Rosner decided to join Otonomo, she knew she would be taking her data-driven marketing experience forged at Nuestar and NetBase into uncharted territory -- the connected car. Gartner projects that over 50 million connected cars are sold each year in the US and Europe with each vehicle producing as much as 50 GB of data per hour.

The connected and autonomous world of tomorrow will generate tremendous amounts of data, and data monetization will be a substantial portion of manufacturers’ revenue in the future. otonomo would like to capitalize on the first- mover advantage and be the one-stop destination for the car data needs of customers from various industries. We believe that our data service will usher in more customized features for passengers and play a pivotal role in shaping the car travel experience of the future.

A recently completed Frost & Sullivan report on “Data Monetization in Cars”, focusing on pricing and business models, indicates that if all the connected vehicles with the ability to capture certain data types were monetized, the overall opportunity would amount to ~$33 billion by 2025.

At $10 trillion, the market for data from cars in motion could become five times bigger than the market for the cars themselves.

Cars have become rolling listening posts. They can track phone calls and texts, log queries to websites, record what radio stations you listen to — even tell you when you are breaking the law by exceeding the speed limit.

Israel-based startup otonomo is capitalizing on the fact that cars, once the symbol of American escapism, are becoming repositories of your personal data.

There’s so much data streaming from modern cars that automakers have had trouble making sense of it all.

It’s no secret that data is the hot new revenue source for automakers, who are seeing additional profit opportunities bloom as vehicles become more connected

Regardless whether humans or software algorithms are driving our cars, our transportation will be more connected in the coming years

The most valuable thing about tomorrow's cars is something you'll never even see. Forget the engine. Or the shiny rims. The money is in vehicles' data.

Regulation has always played a huge role in the development of modern automobiles. Safety regulations have brought us seat belts, airbags and crumple zones. Environmental regulations have brought us better gas mileage, lower toxic emissions and even electric cars.

Israel has no indigenous auto industry, but the country’s startup community is serious about autonomous vehicles and is producing a whole host of technologies to help make self-driving cars ready for market, as the infographic above shows...

Top investors, including Bessemer, Battery, Blackstone, & Sequoia, are financing tech startups coming out of the "Startup Nation."