In-vehicle information provision services have started according to the progress of data communication infrastructure surrounding vehicles. In such information services, a large amount of data related to vehicles and drivers has been accumulated in the data centre and been analysed to provide proper information to drivers. Towards such technical trends surrounding vehicles, a cyber physical system for vehicle applications is proposed here. In the proposed system, the expected continuous spiral information flow for vehicles and drivers is described. In the data centre, accumulated information has been analysed by intelligent information processing of data mining, then finally extracted information has been provided to drivers through a human–machine interface. According to the progress of information processing technologies surrounding vehicles, the current situation and challenges of typical technological areas to realize the system are discussed. Several research activities towards potential new services for drivers are also introduced, mainly based on personal adaptation, big data analysis and web mining.