Ford is taking what may be the first step in creating a new, cohesive, multi-screen, contextually aware experience between smartphones and cars. The automaker announced this week at the New York International Auto Show, the Ford Personalized Fuel-Efficiency App Challenge, an app-development contest that will let developers tap into Ford’s OpenXC API and give them direct access to data collected by Ford cars.
The contest, which launches this summer, is narrowly focused on using that data to create apps that help improve and/or track fuel efficiency. According to Facebook’s Global Head of Automotive Doug Frisbie, that matters more to consumers than the car's price by a factor of 10. Ford also settled on fuel efficiency because its executives believe there may be more accurate ways of finding real-world MPG ratings via a combination of crowdsourcing and real-time car data.