Apple and Hyundai are going to build a car! Okay, maybe not, but even though that partnership appears off the table for now, less publicized have been other technology companies that have announced they are moving into the auto sector to build electric vehicles (EVs). Ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing Technology is building an EV sedan in partnership with China’s BYD. Under the brand IM, for “intelligence in motion,” Alibaba is partnering with SAIC Motor also to build an EV sedan. Search-engine company Baidu, which already built a self-driving taxi, is building an EV in partnership with Geely. Moving into the electric vehicle arena could be viewed as simply chasing a new area of growth, but that is not the main goal of these forays into the auto sector. Le Tu, managing director of Sino Auto Insights, explained the real purpose, saying, “The tech companies have so much consumer data: where we like to eat, what we buy, where we go…One area that is currently a “black box” for tech companies is what we do when we are driving. If they get access to that, [and] combine it with the data they already have, they can anticipate what our needs are and develop services and products that they know we need.” Tu is explaining what we have called the ecosystem model, or networks of companies and interconnected offerings focused on consumers’ wants and needs. Most important, the ecosystem model relies on the accumulation and sharing of data. Since our Context Update on this subject last March, new and established global technology companies have continued to build out their offerings into new sectors and have grown their ecosystems to establish themselves as one-stop shops that can monopolize consumers’ time and attention, fulfill all those consumers’ needs in one place and gather valuable data in the process.