Photo: BMW
This week is all about technology, as the Consumer Electronics Show officially kicks off on Tuesday in Las Vegas, promising to bring a wealth of novelties in areas that vary from medical apparatus to new cars. For the auto industry, CES 2019 is all about connectivity, digitalization, and autonomous operation.
Being a global event, CES is the perfect place to advertise including products that will be available only in certain parts of the world, not only in the U.S. China, one of the largest global economies, will probably be one of the main targets of the gadgetry and tech shown in Vegas.
Among the first companies to announce a China-only product at CES is BMW, which on Monday announced the expansion of its partnership with Internet giant Alibaba for the inclusion of the Chinese voice assistant Tmall Genie in the cars it is selling there.
To be made available by the end of the year of selected BMW vehicles, Tmall Genie comes as an expansion of the already existing partnership between the two companies.
The system will allow BMW customers to do pretty much anything they can do from their homes with the Tmall Genie-compatible device: operate vehicle functions, call up appointments saved in the BMW Connected system, place online orders, view cinema listings or check the weather. All these things can be done, of course, while using the voice as the main input method.
Controlling the BMWs using Alibaba’s voice assistant does not require any smartphone, as the cars sold by the Germans in China come with an embedded SIM card.
“This development sees BMW reaching a new milestone in China in terms of intelligent connectivity between the customer’s vehicle and their digital touchpoints,” said in a statement Dieter May, BMW vice president of digital services.
BMW did not say how much the system will add to the price of a car. More details about the Tmall Genie integration can be found in the document attached below.
Among the first companies to announce a China-only product at CES is BMW, which on Monday announced the expansion of its partnership with Internet giant Alibaba for the inclusion of the Chinese voice assistant Tmall Genie in the cars it is selling there.
To be made available by the end of the year of selected BMW vehicles, Tmall Genie comes as an expansion of the already existing partnership between the two companies.
The system will allow BMW customers to do pretty much anything they can do from their homes with the Tmall Genie-compatible device: operate vehicle functions, call up appointments saved in the BMW Connected system, place online orders, view cinema listings or check the weather. All these things can be done, of course, while using the voice as the main input method.
Controlling the BMWs using Alibaba’s voice assistant does not require any smartphone, as the cars sold by the Germans in China come with an embedded SIM card.
“This development sees BMW reaching a new milestone in China in terms of intelligent connectivity between the customer’s vehicle and their digital touchpoints,” said in a statement Dieter May, BMW vice president of digital services.
BMW did not say how much the system will add to the price of a car. More details about the Tmall Genie integration can be found in the document attached below.
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