Fiat Chrysler's five year plan: level 3 autonomy coming to most models by 2021, car sharing and in-car purchases for movie tickets, parking, and more in 2019
Ronan Glon / Digital Trends :
Context & Ripple Effects
Fiat Chrysler's autonomy credibility was built through partnerships rather than in-house development: its Pacifica-based self-driving prototype program with Google, Waymo's commitment to buy thousands more Chrysler Pacifica minivans, and its entry into BMW's autonomous partnership with Intel and Mobileye. The five-year plan announced at the 2018 investor day is where those partnerships stop being experiments and become product commitments.
The plan also extends the Uconnect infotainment line — which already gained CarPlay and Android Auto integration back in 2016 — into a commerce layer, with in-car purchases for movie tickets and parking arriving alongside a car-sharing service in 2019.
First-order effects
- Most of Fiat Chrysler's model lineup is now slated to receive level 3 autonomy by 2021, making the company one of the first mass-market automakers to put hands-off driving into mainstream vehicles rather than flagship-only offerings.
- The 2019 launches of car sharing and in-car purchasing give FCA two new revenue streams tied to the vehicle after the sale, not just at the dealership.
Second-order effects
- Intel and Mobileye gain a deployment channel well beyond the BMW partnership they built with FCA, since level 3 hardware would now spread across most of FCA's lineup instead of staying confined to a joint-venture test fleet.
- Rival automakers face pressure to match the bundled model — autonomy plus services plus commerce — or cede the in-car payment and subscription relationships to whoever gets there first, a race GM later joined with its Ultifi software platform for OTA updates and in-car subscriptions.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, automakers restructure around recurring software and services revenue layered on shared fleets, with the car becoming a commerce endpoint — a shift from selling metal once to monetizing every mile.
- Level 3 autonomy reaching most models would also force regulators and insurers to define liability handover between driver and system at scale, since the technology moves from pilot programs like the Waymo fleet onto ordinary consumer roads.
The trend: Automakers are converting vehicles into software platforms with recurring revenue — autonomy, subscriptions, and in-car payments — with partnerships supplying the technology they cannot build alone.