The ultimate guide to 2025’s best connected driving features and trends (Part 2)

#5: Hands-free connectivity

Staying connected while driving is essential, but it should never come at the cost of safety.

Hands-free connectivity allows drivers to make calls, send messages and control navigation through voice commands. This feature minimizes distractions and keeps the driver’s attention on the road, ensuring a safer driving experience.

It's designed to cover everything from making calls and sending messages to controlling media playback and navigation systems, all while minimizing driver distraction. 

#6: Immersive navigation experiences

The era of static map displays on dashboards is finally behind us.

With immersive navigation experiences, drivers can view augmented reality overlays on their windshield or heads-up display. This technology provides turn-by-turn directions, points of interest, and even live traffic updates to increase situational awareness and make navigation intuitive.

It enriches the driving journey by providing an intuitive and safer way to navigate through the integration of AR technology, ensuring that drivers remain informed and engaged with their surroundings and merging digital guidance with the physical world.

#7: Customizable in-car settings

Every driver has unique preferences, and customizable in-car settings ensure a personalized driving experience.

"Customized in-car experiences will soon become standard", shared Amin. From seat positions to climate control and infotainment preferences, drivers can tailor their vehicle settings to match their comfort.

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A solution that offers a personalized experience through real-time data delivery is HERE Navigation. It provides accurate traffic updates and essential data to adjust driving routes and information to match changing road conditions and preferences.

Thanks to its ability to easily run on different hardware platforms, HNAV is quickly becoming the navigation software of choice amongst OEM customers who are looking for a truly differentiated experience while maintaining developmental control.

This level of personalization ensures that each user's journey adapts to user needs, making the experience much more comfortable and enjoyable.

#8: Autonomous driving integration

Although fully autonomous vehicles are still in development, partially autonomous driving features are already transforming how we drive. These features allow vehicles to take control under specific conditions, such as highway driving or during traffic jams.

HERE HD Live Map supports autonomous vehicles by providing dynamic, high-definition map data that enables a deeper understanding of the road environment, providing precise lane-level data, speed limits and real-time road changes so vehicles can effectively plan and navigate complex scenarios.

The live updating mechanism allows autonomous systems to constantly adjust to evolving road conditions, increasing both safety and efficiency and laying the groundwork for smarter, more reliable vehicles as we approach a future where full autonomy becomes a reality. 

The outlook

The innovations in connected driving are turning vehicles into smart companions that make driving safer, more efficient and enjoyable.

Ranking these features poses a challenge, as each one is crucial to the future development of connected driving.

But as technology continues to advance, we can expect to see even more innovative solutions in the industry, ultimately creating a seamless and integrated experience on the road.