The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) had a big year in 2024, as the group announced NXP Semiconductors and BMW Group as the first two companies to earn CCC digital key interoperability and security certifications. But, the group has much more on its calendar for 2025, according to CCC President Alysia Johnson.
Johnson recently told Fierce Electronics that the next iteration of the CCC Digital Key certification is “weeks away,” and that it will expand from the current version by supporting not only Near Field Communications (NFC), but also Ultra Wideband (UWB) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), two increasingly popular connectivity technologies for digital locks and keys.
This latest version of the certification “will be the most holistic digital key solution yet,” Johnson said.
At the same time, Johnson said that more product certifications are incoming, with more companies set to earn certifications “in the next few months” similar to those awarded to NXP and BMW last year. More of the group’s more than 300 member companies also are progressing through the certification process. Many of those firms will be attending a CCC Digital Key Plugfest in a few weeks that BMW is hosting in Munich, Germany.
Other areas of interest for the CCC include vehicle fleet management, and the group is now finalizing a certification version that will be applicable to rental car companies, rideshare firms, and transportation and logistics companies. In addition, CCC is working on a use case for an automated charging arm for charging electric vehicles.
While digital key technology is currently thought of as something that would be stored on and activated from a smartphone, Johnson said the universe of possible devices with digital key is set to expand. “The word ‘vehicle’ can be broadly defined, and the word ‘device’ can be broadly defined. Certainly, the digital key device could be a phone, but the device also certainly could be in the wearable category–watches, and what have you beyond that.”
All of these factors–the broadening of connectivity technologies, fleet adoption, extension of digital keys to more kinds of devices–are expected to drive major growth in the market for automotive digital keys in the next several years. Transparency Market Research recently forecast that it will be an $11.6 billion market by 2031.