Such as Ubitricity. Founded in Berlin in 2008, VW is present at the Cube Tech Fair with a green e-Golf, which is charged up at a street lamp. The company offers a kind of roaming service for electricity, explains Ubitricity founder Knut Hechtfischer: "We integrate the electricity meter into the car or charging cable — if you charge your car on the go, you always take your own tariff with you."
This means that not only automotive companies are among the cooperation partners of the 40-strong, already quite large start-up, but also energy and telecommunication companies.
Or predict.io: The young company, specializing in big data and also based in Berlin, is developing a technology to collect and convert all sensor data gathered by cars and smartphones into projections. "Take the example of finding a parking spot", says Business Development Manager Christian Schneider: "Up to now, your system has only notified you of a free parking space when it is actually free — and then it is often too late. But the smartphone can already identify if its owner is getting into the car, and the car can recognize that the engine is being started in the parked car. So the free parking space could be announced a few seconds before it actually becomes free."
Theoretically, a Volkswagen or Audi driver could therefore find a parking spot faster than the driver of a competing product. In practice, however, the technology will probably be used by cities to improve traffic flow for everyone. A first pilot project has already been carried out in Copenhagen. At the Cube Tech Fair, predict.io was awarded the Mobility Award by Ideation:Hub Manager Jennifer Geffers.