[scorpian]

Bajaj used to offer this with their insurance packages. Apparently in bajaj it would do analysis of driving pattern, speeds, aggressive driving patterns etc.
I refused to have it plugged it in my cars OBD fearing that later they could use this very data to deny any claim if they needed to do so.

Maybe in your case they are using data to study usage patterns to further improve upon the products,by offering the obd they can get a bigger test bed, rather then testing just one car.

[LEOMAN]

Gathering data is the most important thing now a days . When a player like Mercedes plays such gimmicks i don't understand. It can be anything related to studying driving pattern to rejecting a warranty claim.The kind of technological advancement these companies have we as a customer wont know. All dealer location and service center details can be obtained from google.When a company like mercedes offers something for free it has to be more profitable for the company rather than the customer.

[surajram]

I don’t believe Mercedes would have an interest in the personal details/movement profiles of the car.

No matter how much testing these cars go through, manufacturers still need real-world data for continuous improvement. I would think that’s the intent - to collect near real-time diagnostics data to improve their vehicle design. I would imagine this data to be used as be part of research for new models, or to optimise warranty costs, value engineering etc.

Not sure about Mercedes, but many newer cars have cellular radios and connectivity features that built into the car from the factory - possibly why this is now focused on older cars.

[Sivacar]

Originally Posted by Sanidhya mukund

1. Are my suspicions reasonable?
2. Should I get this thing installed? It comes for free but I don’t see any utility in it.

For Q1. Now a days all the Mercs comes with in-built e-SIM. Which is way ahead than the adaptor. The adaptor tech has now become outdated. Since they have alot of these adaptor in their parts bin. They have no option but to offer it for free to the existing cars.

Q2. Dealer Work shops have specific target to install this adaptor. That is why the workshop is behind you.

Since it is offered for free, you can install it. But the functions are basic and limited.

[Vishal.R]

One possibility is data may be used in future as "training data" to fine tune their autonomous driving algorithms.

[Sivacar]

What ever the data used from the adaptor is mainly from the OBD2 ports available in these cars. Which is mainly for engine transmission and other systems associated with it.

I doubt, data from the adaptor can be used for any thing else. Because the mobile is paired to adaptor via bluetooth. So it can collect data as long as the phone is there inside the car during driving.

[absingh911]

I head customer data analytics for a large telco. My point if view here is that any company that collects data actually does so to improve its product and core business.
Obviously, theoretically the data can be sold to anyone (advertisers and the like), but that requires user consent and adding that part to the privacy policies. Even if a company does that, it would earn immensely small in revenue as compared to what it could achieve with a large data analytics setup continuously improving its products. For an international automotive conglomerate like Mercedes, it makes no financial sense to treat this data privacy lightly.

[dsr001]

Originally Posted by Vishal.R

One possibility is data may be used in future as "training data" to fine tune their autonomous driving algorithms.

I agree with this point, autonomous driving is actually just aimed at replicating human drivers for the most part.

Some specific information extracted for such a use case may be: speeds at various points of a route, actual route taken vs that suggested by navigation, braking performance on various stretches. Maybe this is more important for luxury cars, as their perception by the "other" traffic may be different compared to a budget hatchback/small cars. Thus they need data for their kind of customers, thus getting the expections of performance from autonomous system

[mmxylorider]

With advances in AI/ML algorithms and penetration into preventive maintenance fields, most companies will require huge amount of data to parse through for said models to work. User behavior captured electronically is quite easy and prevalent in Finance, retail, telecom domains. Auto sector is one where the user is cut off from the manufacturer and with proper disclaimers, consents etc such collection will be beneficial long term. Companies can do better in predicting parts failure/replacement along multiple parameters and manage their manufacturing, inventory and SCM appropriately for efficiency and potential cost savings.

[Rajeevraj]

This will slowly become the norm going forward. Today most manufacturers give this as a obd dongle. It will soon start getting integrated and be there by default when you buy a car.

Today there are tons of companies OEMs, startups, cheap knockoffs who offer an OBD dongle. Many of them have mastered the art of decoding the data and doing analytics on the same. It is now pretty common in the commercial vehicle space also.

Being Mercedes, I don't think you need to worry about data misuse. Of course they will be taking the data and using it to improve products and offerings. In general the data would be anonymized when used for such purposes. The would take data privacy pretty seriously.

[meto]

It’s all about consent. I am quite sure that Mercedes is explicitly collecting additional information (Eg: Location) which they could not do simply be selling the car. However, providing the dongle and sign on the dotted line, one is providing certain information about the car or otherwise which Mercedes couldn’t have otherwise gathered. Since there is a pairing to your phone, this adapter can collect a lot more additional information than otherwise possible via ECU. These information can on hand be as simple as real time statistics of the car, to location/pattern information which can be used for advertisement or subscription based services. With most manufacturers moving towards subscription based services, but hardly anyone making enough revenue from them, these kind of devices provides huge scope for analytics and data mining. Its unfortunates that we have become the product without knowing the full implications.

[surajram]

Originally Posted by Vishal.R

One possibility is data may be used in future as "training data" to fine tune their autonomous driving algorithms.

Seems unlikely - Training data for autonomous vehicle development requires information about the environment (Road size, shape etc) and situation (Other cars, pedestrians etc). And these are high volume data streams that require associated sensors, storage and processing which are unlikely to be packaged into such a device size.

[navpreet318]

You guys are getting it all wrong!!!

This is a simple plan to retain more customers to their service. This is the single biggest issue which plagues the whole auto industry. Loosing service customers after free service is over or after the warranty is over.
This and many other connect systems and ways to keep one connected to the dealership. The company workshop. Workshops run the dealerships. Low workshop business means dealerships become an increasingly bleeding business. No one would want to enter into such a business and existing ones would want exit asap.

To counter this companies are striving to keep customers within the workshop.
Just see the points there: service reminders, preferred dealer, dealer locator, roadside assistance, emergency call, online service booking. All these are made to make it super easy for you to just click some buttons and reach the dealership if you breakdown or have a regular service.
Vehicle health- don't we all go casual with our service schedules after the initial couple of years. This will try to get you to a dealership by giving you multiple reminders that you vehicle health might be in trouble.

These are like a digital form of the service reminder executives who keep calling again and again to remind you of your service due date and that the engine oil would go bad leading to major engine failure. And this is extremely important for businesses.

Also with all these digital systems companies make manpower redundant. They also make sure that even in case a dealership shuts down, the customers of that dealership are not lost and can be managed by another dealer and then later by a replacement dealer.

Don't fret too much into your data. This new fad of "oh they want my data and are tracking me" is just getting too much. We aren't that important as we deem ourselves to be.

[zulfi hansi]

I have a E280 CDI of 2008 vintage, and the dealer is insisting that I install the Mercedes Me adaptor, for free of course. I don't see the point for a 13 years old car. Also I'm afraid of glitches being created in my car because of the adaptor. Also I don't want the insurance companies to get to know too much. Guys please advise.

[Sanidhya mukund]

UPDATE:

After going through all the thoughts and comments here, I finally decided to get the adapter installed in my car. Having been using it for the some time now, I can say that it is a nice thing to have, but isn’t something I would miss. It tells you basic stuff like the odo reading, parking location, amount of fuel in your tank and distance to empty. This is useful because it helps you keep track of the fuel efficiency without having to note down odo reading at every fill up:



There is also a driver score dashboard that lets you judge your driving style. This dashboard is customisable and you can chose what you want to see:


It also keeps prompting you with tips on how to use the app better:


I may have also figured out why the dealer gives it away for free:While setting the adapter up, you have to select your preferred dealership. Since they become your ‘preferred service partner’, it becomes easy to contact them with a tap of a button. Due to this, you are much more likely to use their services, thus ensuring a constant flow of business from the particular customer/car:



Talking about my initial suspicion about data profiling, I couldn’t really find it doing anything that my smartphone doesn’t already do. The only thing that I took note of was that there is a particular road where I drive this car often. The adapter knows this and wants me to save it as a frequently visited place:




As you can see, it doesn’t do anything special. However, the primary reason why I installed it is that I now have something that I can show to the chauffeur and say, “Gaadi mein tracker hai” (there is a tracker in the car), which does work effectively in ensuring that he doesn’t misuse the car. Other than this, I found myself forgetting about the adapter and the app about a week after installing it.