Using your mobile phone while driving could become compulsory, thanks to a new connected car application being jointly developed by Mercedes-Benz and Pivotal.

The Mercedes me app will give drivers real-time information about the status of their cars through their smartphones and smart watches.

Pivotal and Mercedes-Benz are working on the app on Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry and Spring in a bid to give Mercedes drivers information about their car’s vital signs (such as oil, water and petrol levels) and remote control of everything from heating and locks to navigation. The system will work with a navigation tool via iPhone and Apple Watch.

According to Mercedes-Benz by 2020 all vehicles will be emission-free and will feature autonomous driving and deep levels of Internet connectivity. To support these initiatives, it is using Pivotal Labs’ cloud native platform, Pivotal Cloud Foundry with the developer framework Spring Boot.

With Daimler and Mercedes-Benz both anxious to meet emissions targets, their developers were keen to explore all the possibilities of Pivotal’s modern agile software development methods, said Scott Yara, Co-President at Pivotal. “They are now also a great software company,” said Yara.

Daimler’s work with Pivotal’s cloud platform minimized its innovation cycle by helping it develop a system faster than ever, according to Christoph Hartung, Head of Connected Cars at Mercedes-Benz. “Our collaboration with Pivotal will define a new digital driving culture with state of the art information technologies, online communication systems and automotive services,” said Hartnung.