Volvo has gone to unique lengths at this year’s Los Angeles Auto Show to demonstrate how tech-savvy it is. There are no cars on display at the automaker’s stand — just multicolored couches and cardboard delivery boxes hinting at its partnerships with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon Inc.
But when it comes to the future of the auto industry, CEO Hakan Samuelsson sounds relatively old-fashioned. He’s betting Volvo will make more money selling connected, autonomous cars to consumers and robo-taxi fleets, rather than taking a cut of the higher margin business of selling data-driven services inside the vehicle.
“Whatever you have in the phone, you would like to have very seamless into the car, and we will make money by making an attractive car and selling more cars, rather than trying to take a fee on the information and the communication,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “That would be the wrong approach.”
Most automakers have tried to keep Google and Apple Inc. at arm’s length, hoping to keep control of such valuable data as a driver’s whereabouts, driving patterns, shopping preferences and infotainment use. The companies also have sought to forge their own commercial partnerships to sell connected services rather than let tech players including Google cash in.