Information Systems in Automobiles – Past, Present, and Future Uses

A technology crucial for the transformation towards a sustainable energy paradigm, electric mobility recently has also drawn interest within the IS community. Electric vehicles are used for energy storage in residential energy management systems as well as in business models that aggregate the storage capacity of thousands of them to enter energy markets. In either case, information systems within the automobile can provide information on trips, driving patterns, and battery conditions. This paper provides an overview of such automobile information systems and current industry trends. We summarize their evolution during the past decades and argue that this evolution is still continuing with new innovations that offer interesting perspectives for IS research. We also illustrate how automobile information systems within electric vehicles can improve prediction accuracy concerning driving patterns and battery conditions. Thereby, they increase the efficiency of energy management systems as well as the profitability of electric vehicle business models