Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will have a Sim card embedded into all its future models enabling companies to better manage the cost of running their fleets.
It will help them make decisions on the best time to dispose of vehicles, provide diagnostics data to show when the car needs a service, track the service centre the driver takes the vehicle to, and monitor driver behaviour – effectively the system will replace the need for fleets to invest in telematics.
JLR global connected car director Mike Bell pointed to other benefits of the system, which is wrapped up in the firm’s emergency call technology.
Employees will be able to log their journeys for expenses management, fleets will be able to optimise routes and adapt journeys according to traffic data, while tracking will improve the recovery of stolen vehicles.
“We will also know if the airbag has been deployed and the level of damage so we can automate first notification of loss to speed up the process and provide data to the fleet manager,” said Bell.
Although the system will be fitted as standard, starting with the Range Rover Evoque this year and rolling out to Jaguar models next year, there will be a charge for setting it live.
“There is a cost to JLR to receive the data and to maintain the service, but it will help us to sell more vehicles,” said Bell. “That cost would have to be paid for – we wouldn’t soak it all up.”
The system runs off a mobile phone app. Bell expects a large proportion of fleet customers to take it up.
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Bauer B2B group editor Stephen Briers has been an automotive business journalist since 1995. He has been editor of Fleet News since 2009 and before that was editor of Automotive Management for almost seven years. He now oversees both brands, as well as RAIL magazine.
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