Automotive: Stellantis signs major agreement with data specialist Palantir

May 25, Palantir announces that it will be posted on all websites operated by Stellantis, its suite software. Foundry designed to swallow a large number of different data and make it meaningful. Stellantis, it should be noted, includes 14 international automotive brands in a major alliance formed in 2021 between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles of Italy and the United States (FCA) and PSA of France (Peugeot-Citroën). Palantir is an American company specializing in data analysis – the big data – and its use for improvement and decision-making purposes. Simply put, the Denver, Colorado company is developing great visualization tools to explore all aspects of business operations in real time.

An example given by Grégoire Omont, in charge of Stellantis file in Paris, from where the contract will be administered: “The modern car includes 200 to 500 sensors that transmit information at all times. the car group is changing. ” We are talking about billions of data points which must be analyzed and transformed into a decision-making tool. The idea is to anticipate damage before it occurs, detect abnormal behavior and repair it before it spreads.

The car returns to a nightmare

These adjustments can be made in the best possible terms by remodeling the software on the board (this is called OTA for On Air), or to the seller. In the latter case, it is a popular “return” that is the dream of developers because it can damage commercial boundaries if there are too many. In other words, a few percent of the points earned here and there can drastically change the model economy. It is with this concept that Palantir sells its knowledge. For Stellantis, he will extend it to all sectors of the company: car manufacturing, sales, small contract chain management, retailers … Everything is fine to improve. This distribution is accompanied by specific success measures: the client will be able to see in detail the improvement points in all key phases of his operations, and the key to profits that are measured in tens or even hundreds of millions of euros or. dollar.

As usual, Palantir entered through a small door. As a Stellantis, he started in late 2019 with an analysis of quality improvement issues in Fiat Chrysler and then in PSA, which had an urgent need in this area. In three months, Palantir demonstrated what it can bring to a builder.

Two years earlier, Palantir had also set foot on Airbus, helping to solve a problem on the A350 assembly line. The deal was then extended to a wide range of European aircraft manufacturers – and most of all to a hundred or more customers of airlines – and took over the situation in which Airbus was excluded from Palantir in the commercial aviation industry. A year later, Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier, who had signed the entire contract (and at the same time maintained the A350 delivery schedule) was robbed by Palantir, who became French president.

Today, Palantir works with 237 companies or government agencies. This last part represents more than half of the company’s revenue, which it definitely wants to change its portfolio. Partnerships with the public sector are dominated by the security sector: in the United States, Palantir began working for the first time with the CIA – whose In-Q-tel capital was one of its first investors – and placed its programs in the FBI, The NSA (federal network security agency), the immigration control service or even the Pentagon, which gave it the concept of “patriotism”.

In France, this expertise enabled him to obtain a contract with the Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), which sparked a major controversy. DGSI has pretended to distance itself from Palantir, but continues to use its Gotham program, which was created specifically for spy agencies. Like Airbus, Palantir is silent about the amount of the Stellantis contract. At the Paris company headquarters, we simply acknowledge that it has “strategic” shares. At present, the Airbus contract is undoubtedly the most important as it is offered to all its customers. However, a few indicators may give the impression of the importance of the agreement with Stellantis.

First, union car sales (150 billion euros in 2021) are three times higher than Airbus; Palantir’s financial tests show that in the 2021 financial year, its three major clients (including Airbus and British Petroleum) contributed 18% of revenue, or $ 270 million total $ 1.5 billion; finally, the company’s top 20 clients generate an average of $ 43 million a year. Signing with the world’s sixth-largest car manufacturer, which produces in 30 countries, without a commercial agreement, opens the door to the $ 2,700 million car market. So there is a lot to do, in the long run, to change the size of the company.