What Is DCM Toyota? [Answered]

The future of just-in-time vehicle services and support has arrived in Japan in the shape of two well-known Toyota vehicles: the Crown, the volume nameplate’s flagship passenger vehicle, and the Corolla Sport, the all-new hatchback variant of the Corolla, debuted just this year.

As the first generation of “Connected Cars,” the Crown and Corolla Sport come equipped with an onboard Data Communication Module (DCM) that connects to a Controller Area Network (CAN).

Toyota’s own Mobility Service Platform (MSPF), an information infrastructure built by the firm for Connected Cars, can provide numerous connected services to T-Connect members utilizing this hardware.

Toyota intends to equip most new passenger vehicles in the home market with DCM in the future.

What does Toyota’s DCM stand for?

Modules for Data Communication

Entune 3.0 will deliver in-vehicle Wi-Fi thanks to the connectivity offered by Data Communications Modules (DCM), which will be available on select Toyota models.

Toyota has teamed up with Verizon to provide this service, which allows up to five devices to connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot at the same time.

Overview

Toyota revealed its next-generation connected car framework at CES 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada, continuing its ambitions to give its consumers with better convenience and increased data security.

The framework leverages on developments in car, IT, and communications systems to enhance Toyota automobiles with service connect.

Toyota’s connected vehicle architecture is anchored by the installation of a Data Communications Module (DCM) into a greater range of its vehicles commencing with model modifications in 2017 in the US market.

Availability will increase to new areas and nations following the US.

Adding DCM will connect Toyota automobiles to cellular telecommunications networks, enhancing the potential to transfer data for products and services.

For vehicles equipped with DCM, Toyota will also provide emergency notification system as a standard feature, which is initiated by airbag deployment during a traffic collision and helps rapid first reaction in an emergency.

To establish the IT infrastructure needed to enable this considerable increase of vehicle data processing, the business will create a Toyota Big Data Center (TBDC) in the Toyota Smart Center.

TBDC will evaluate and process data collected by DCM, and use it to offer services under high-level information security and privacy controls.

Toyota will also establish a worldwide standard DCM by 2019.

Globally Uniform DCM’s are currently varied depending on the location and country, but will acquire a common architecture.

The business will also, under the Toyota Smart Center, build a role to consolidate its DCM communications globally.

At the same time, while using a customer smartphone’s cellular connection with an in-car device, it is very vital to help encourage safer driving and the transfer of vehicle and customer information in a secure manner.

Toyota will collaboratively create standard middleware with UIEvolution, Inc. (UIE) for application to Toyota’s in-car devices globally.

Using this business relationship, UIE can develop a smartphone app which leverages car data and delivers it to third-party service and app providers authorized by Toyota with UIE’s service environments.

It enables a customer’s smartphone to access vehicle data in a highly secure environment through TBDC and Toyota can provide its customers safer and more secure smartphone-car connection services.

At the end of last year, Toyota invested $5 million in UIE through Mirai Creation Investment Limited Partnership, a fund in which Toyota is a partner.

What Exactly Is DCM?

DCM is one of the reasons why Toyota was able to move forward with dealer reorganization one step ahead of other businesses.

In August 2018 president Akio Toyoda emphasized the significance of DCM during “Connected Day” hosted at the “mega web” of Toyota’s commercial facility in Tokyo.

DCM is an in-vehicle communication device. It delivers CAN (controller area network) information related to various in-vehicle ECUs (control computers) to Toyota’s specialized cloud service once a minute.

Starting with the new Crown and new Corolla Sport introduced in 2018, it will be installed on all Toyota vehicles as needed.

How Does DCM Relate to Dealer Restructuring?

Initially the auto business focuses on the planning, development, and production of automobiles but auto makers have no direct contact with the future sales.

Except for few manufacturers like as Tesla in the US, there are no situations when automakers have direct dealers in the global market. In other words it is sales using the franchising technique.

In Japan, Toyota’s direct management ratio is roughly 10 percent whereas Subaru and Mazda have a direct management ratio of over 50 percent which is a unique industrial structure worldwide.

However, regardless of whether these dealers are directly managed or franchised automakers rarely come into direct contact with post-sales car data.

While it may seem that a directly-managed dealer often accesses the customer’s car data, in reality the dealer is only involved in the minimum vehicle information necessary during repairs.

The ownership of the data gathered consequently belongs to the dealer and is generally not shared with automakers unless during recalls.

In this approach, automakers are in a wholesale business with dealers and automakers therefore do not have direct access to consumer car information.

The cause has been influenced by the contract provisions governing consumer data between automakers and dealers, including the relationship with the performance of communication equipment and communication infrastructure.

Toyota examined the terms of this deal at the time of DCM commercialization.

As a result the four dealer networks have been reconfigured.

As Toyota dealers adjust their interaction with Toyota headquarters in the future it is vital to step into a new business model linking DCM with Toyota headquarters.

This includes established enterprises such as new automobile sales, used car sales and vehicle repairs.

The vehicle distribution revolution is in full swing in Japan, ahead of the worldwide automotive sector.

Car dealers have officially entered the Sengoku (survival) stage.

Final Thoughts

Toyota president Akio Toyoda declared in May 2018 that he has “chosen to reinvent Toyota from a car-making company into a mobility company that delivers services connected.

Toyota introduced the all-new Crown and Corolla Sport (hatchback) in June 2018, both of which come standard with an on-board communication device (DCM: Data Communication Module), which Toyota expects to include in practically all of its passenger cars sold in the United States and Japan in the future.

Toyota reorganized its organization in April 2016 to prepare for the truly Connected Car age, developing the Connected Company.

Its strategy includes the following three components.

1. Create a Connected Platform like Toyota App by connecting all cars.
2. Promote the use of big data to benefit customers and society while supporting Toyota’s business transformation.
3. Collaborate with a variety of industries and IT firms to develop new mobility services.

Toyota will build a mobility service platform (MSPF) on top of the existing Toyota Smart Center, which will include all of the functions required for mobility services, and Toyota will become a mobility services and platform provider in collaboration with companies and service operators such as ride share companies, car share companies, taxi companies, and insurance companies, using its MSPF information infrastructure.

Toyota already has partnerships with Uber and Grab for ride sharing, as well as Getaround and Avis for car sharing and rental cars.

In July 2018, Toyota’s Servco dealership in Hawaii launched the car sharing service “Hui.

Toyota plans to expand its car sharing business as a new revenue source for its dealerships in the future.

For taxis, Toyota is developing and testing a “lane-specific traffic congestion information” and a “dispatch support system for taxis for destination assist, automatic collision notification and enhanced roadside assistance.

Toyota will provide more than 3,000 vehicles to support the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, including demonstrations of its Concept-i, a car that recognizes drivers’ emotions and preferences and can converse with them using an artificial intelligence (AI) agent function.

Toyota General Motors will also support transportation services for athletes and affiliated guests around the Athlete’s Village with e-Palette, a next generation electric Toyota vehicle.

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