by Joseph White and Gilles Guillaume
PARIS (Reuters) – Stellantis and Amazon on Wednesday announced several agreements to develop, in particular, the new-generation cockpit of the cars of the Franco-Italian-American automaker.
“Stellantis and Amazon will collaborate to deploy Amazon’s technology and software expertise through the Stellantis organization, including vehicle development, building on-board connected experiences and training the next generation of engineers. automotive software, “said the two groups in a joint statement released in conjunction with CES, the Las Vegas technology show.
This collaboration with the American e-commerce and cloud giant, whose financial terms have not been made public, will relate in particular to infotainment software solutions intended for the future “STLA SmartCockpit” from 2024.
Stellantis has also indicated its intention to use Amazon’s voice command technology, Alexa, for “navigation, vehicle maintenance, e-commerce and payment services.”
Already faced with massive investments to electrify their vehicles, more and more historic car manufacturers are turning to Gafams to accelerate the technological changeover of their cars.
Renault has done the same with Google, co-developer of on-board infotainment for the all-new Mégane.
While some in the industry fear a loss of control to the benefit of the tech giants, Stellantis insisted during a press conference call that the announced agreements were overall “very balanced” between the two groups.
Amazon will thus become the first commercial customer of the automaker’s new Ram ProMaster electric van born from the merger between PSA and FCA, scheduled for 2023.
This enhanced cooperation will help the American distributor to expand its presence in the transport sector, and Stellantis to close the gap with Tesla, which has become a benchmark in the development of electric cars offering sophisticated on-board electronics that can be updated remotely via the cloud.
Stellantis’ software director, Yves Bonnefont, said during the conference call that following the agreement with Amazon, the automaker’s use of Alphabet’s Android system on its vehicles would “evolve with the weather”.
Stellantis also partnered with iPhone assembler Foxconn last May to create a joint venture focused on vehicle connectivity.
On the Milan Stock Exchange, Stellantis shares climbed 3.78% to 18.38 euros around 3:30 p.m.
(Report Joseph White, Gilles Guillaume and Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bangalore, edited by Blandine Hénault and Jean-Michel Bélot)
Copyright © 2022 Thomson Reuters
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