It’s the journey, not the destination they say. And it appears that MG has taken this saying, with some tweaks, to heart while coming up with their latest automobile – MG Hector Internet car. This is their ode to the next generation – the internet enable car. They recently had a media orientation vis-à-vis MG Hector and we had a glimpse of their MG Hector journey so far. The car is expected to be in the market by middle of 2019 and from what we learnt, this is worth the buzz.

In fact, there was quiet a buzz at J W Mariott, Aerocity where the event was held. The hall ran houseful and there was palpable excitement in the audience as Rajeev Chaba, President and Managing Director, MG Motor India took stage. He introduced Benedict Cumberbatch, the Hollywood star, as the brand ambassador for MG. Benedict Cumberbatch came to life on the huge screens in the program hall and he looked dashing in the MG automobile. Thereafter, Mr. Chaba took us through the process of developing Hector as a machine suitable for the coming times and introduced the house to their technology collaborators.

Without getting into technical details what we understand is that that the MG Hector Internet Car carries the iSmart Next Gen technology. It has been built in partnership with reputed Technology companies, Cisco, Unlimit, Microsoft, Nuance, TomTom, Gaana, Accuweather, SAP, Teligence, Adobe, Cognizant and Panasonic. All these companies have worked in harmony to provide Indian consumers a state of the art, safe and hassle free driving experience.

Mr. Chaba said that the core features of the new MG Hector Internet car has been built around safety, utility and entertainment. To this end, the MG Hector will remain connected to the internet. Based on the internet, it would be possible to control this car in situ, or remotely, through applications on mobile phone interface.

To facilitate this process for customers, MG Hector Internet car would understand and follow voice commands. We saw a firsthand demonstration of this function at the live booths set up at the event venue. Voice commands got enabled on uttering “Hello MG” and then it was a world of mind boggling experience. These would include commands like opening sunroof, altering the intensity of the air conditioning or modifying the fan speed, rolling windows, radio controls, searching embedded songs and navigation to places. The travel feature on the app will allow the driver to preset the destination. It will also have geo fencing feature.

Incidentally, the Voice Assistant has been built for MG India by Nuance. The Voice Assistant has been trained for Indian English and accents and even recognizing differences in semantics.

In terms of safety and security, Hector has exhaustive features from passenger safety to response to cyber security. All MG cars would come with E-Call feature. In case of a condition where airbags are deployed, E Call is automatically triggered. A message via the connected system is transmitted with exact location, to a response team at Pulse Hub, MG’s customer centre. Pulse Hub instantly calls to reach the vehicle’s Head Unit. If there is no response, Pulse Hub calls the owner’s phone to check and if there is still no response, calls the emergency.

Coming to entertainment, most of us love to listen to music while driving. But creating a personal play list can be a time consuming task. To this end, MG has partnered with the music application Gaana for a seamless musical experience. The customer can listen to music online while driving, download songs and access these offline as well.

Further, The i-Smart system has built in Artificial Intelligence to learn and improve user experiences over time. Hector is the first car in India that would keep upgrading the operation system with regular Over The Air (OTA) updates. Plus did we mention that they have a voice operated sun-roof. It is not just a car, it is a whole new experience in Connected Mobility.

As a mark of MG’s commitment to the automobile sector, Mr. Chaba made a revelation that touched the audience present in the house. MG will be launching a grant to encourage car development. It is definitely a great incentive for startups to step forward and indulge in more research in the vehicle sector.

To sum it up, Juergen Hase, CEO of UNLIMIT, a technology partner for MG put it very well. He said Hector is a future approved open architecture to accommodate upcoming technologies such as 5G internet. And we believe a worthy journey is always towards a brighter future. Amen to that.

The Hector car was not displayed at the event. Some photographs were part of the presentation and it looked like a mean machine. It lives up to the design excellence, a hallmark of MG design through years. We wait with baited breath for the launch of the MG Hector this summer.