Given the high profile connected car initiatives now have attained, it is not surprising that connected car announcements were prominent at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, nor terribly surprising that AT&T (News - Alert) made news.

AT&T has made connected cars a business development priority, and deepened its commitment by concluding a deal with Tesla, the all-electric vehicle manufacturer, to enable current and future Tesla vehicles in North America with high speed wireless connectivity.

AT&T connectivity will power Tesla’s remote engine diagnostics, telematics, and industry-leading infotainment features such as Internet radio, Web browsing, live traffic, weather and navigation, all accessed through the 17-inch touchscreen. AT&T said.

AT&T also said it is providing Long Term Evolution connections for some Audi models, providing what is said to be the “first-ever in-vehicle 4G LTE data connection” with the introduction of the 2015 A3 family.

Pandora (News - Alert), Visteon, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai and Toyota, Visteon, QNX and others demonstrated connected car apps, systems and features as well.

For observers of the U.S. mobile business, it was the AT&T announcements which are most instructive, as they show how the machine-to-machine and Internet of Things trends play out in terms of concrete products.

AT&T also announced its “Drive” connected car platform, said to be a modular, global solution that allows automakers to pick and choose services and capabilities to create differentiated solutions in the marketplace.  

The platform allows AT&T to work with companies to bring new connected vehicle services to market quickly including:

* Global SIM and Global Provisioning

* Unique Global Billing Solutions

* Safety, Security, and Diagnostics Solutions

* Voice Enablement / Safe Driving Solutions

* Service Delivery

* Secure Firmware Updates

* Application Store Capabilities

* Policy Management Solutions

AT&T Drive already is working with Ericsson for the application delivery framework; VoiceBox for natural language interaction; Synchronoss for network activation; Accenture (News - Alert) for big data analytics; Amdocs for billing and Jasper Wireless for the device platform.

Drive Studio is AT&T’s center for app development and testing.

In other news, Pandora, the Internet radio service, announced it will begin rolling out in-car advertising solutions with national brands including BP, Ford Motor Company (News - Alert), State Farm and Taco Bell.