'Automotive electronics produces 25GB of data an hour' - what driverless cars means for IT

Next generation of driverless vehicles could produce up to 250GB per hour - meaning firms need the right database technology to exploit this stream

With the news that driverless cars will be allowed on the UK's roads by January 2015 still fresh, IT leaders are now considering what upgrades to their infrastructure and software they may need to exploit the new data sources this development will bring.

Yesterday business secretary Vince Cable made the announcement that driverless cars are imminent:

"Today's announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society," he said.

And today, Mat Keep, ‎principal product marketing manager at NoSQL database firm MongoDB, gave his analysis of what this news means to the IT industry.

"The prospect of driverless cars in the UK is exciting news, especially in promoting safety and energy efficiency. Potentially the opportunities go beyond these essential benefits, into the further development of predictive maintenance, in car services, traffic flow optimisation, supply chain automation, rental services, ride sharing and more - collectively opening up new opportunities for manufacturers, dealers and new market entrants alike," said Keep.

He continued: "Common to all of these opportunities is the need to harvest, store, process and analyse data in new ways - at much higher volumes and speed than ever before. With automotive electronics producing around 25GB of data an hour, with expectations to grow to 250GB in the next generation of vehicles, making the data useful requires a significantly more flexible and agile database than those traditionally being used.

"This is a trend across the Internet of Things, but it will be particularly important for this connected industry to use the right database technology in order to gain the most insight and see the largest benefits," he concluded.