Tencent’s in-car WeChat likely to be landed in 2019

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Chinese Internet giant Tencent has integrated the extremely popular WeChat service into its IoV (Internet of Vehicles) ecosystem and is likely to put the service into practical use in this year, Zhong Xuedan, vice president of Tencent Auto Intelligence, revealed on May 22 at the 2019 Tencent Global Digital Ecosystem Summit. 

When a driver receives a WeChat message on a driving journey, he has to unlock his mobile phone at first and then open the chat box before he sends replies. However, the series of motions would undoubtedly distract the driver from keeping his eyes on the road and lead to potential dangers to other drivers and pedestrians.  

The in-car WeChat is born for elevating driving safety, making drivers’ energy concentrate on roads rather other mobile phone. Based on multiple driving scenarios, developers have tailored a number of functions to facilitate users, such as full voice interaction, dedicated steering wheel buttons and WeChat-activated navigation. 

Using the full voice interaction function, drivers are allowed to control the WeChat progress barely relying on speech. For example, people can answer the call or hang up the phone, search target contacts, launch a chat, and pinpoint a restaurant by giving a simple voice instruction. Thus, drivers can put their hands on the steering wheel and keep their eyes on the road all the time. 

Zhong Xuedan said the in-car WeChat is just a part of solutions for its upgraded “ecological IoV”, which should put human first. In the “ecological IoV” system, full-time connectivity among different scenarios and terminals is achievable by virtue of super ID and WeChat payment. Besides, content services should be adapted to in-vehicle scenarios. To prosper application ecology, developers should work together to provide an in-car application framework that is convenient to be developed.

In a bid to realize the aforesaid targets, Tencent Auto Intelligence announced the plan to build an IoV architecture that aggregates a lot of applications and platforms, like WeChat payment, data platform, AI-based scenario management and content & service management platform.