Kudos to Jaguar Land Rover for realizing that an open palm is better than a closed fist. The English automaker is opening a technology incubator where it hopes to work with as many as 120 startups over the next 10 years. It wants to capture that creative, free-wheeling spirit that connects ideas in new ways, something that America is known to excel at.
Where better to do that than a city where being weird is a way of life, a city where “a way of life” is probably looked down upon as a corporate cliché.
We’re talking about Portland, where Jaguar Land Rover will open its new technology incubator in May.
The automaker has realized that rather than furiously trying to keep up with innovations with its in-house R&D department, it would be better to invite others in. Thus the company will provide space, funding, and toys for the tech kids to play with. The goal? Usable technologies that easily leapfrog from the phone to the tablet to the automobile.
Consider one example by obnoxiously successful startup Vonsor. When not out buying plaid shirts and rejuvenating themselves at day care centers for adults, this crew has experimented with piping in video feeds from outside and inside the car, editing them using the car’s touchscreens, then posting to social media directly.
Jaguar Land Rover is keeping it weird by opening a technology incubator for start-ups in Portland. Share on XDoes it make sense? Who knows. What Jaguar does know is that its models can go years in between redesigns, and that these cool kids might be able to keep their cars from looking hopelessly outdated before they even arrive at dealerships. Better yet, they’ll be able to update the cars’ tech in between redesign years.
In this way, technology in a car won’t be static: it will be dynamic, modular, and able to be swapped out with more RAM, more disk space, and more connection based on whatever Silicon Valley invents next.
Come to Jaguar Land Rover Cary to check out the newest technology in our cars today.