SAN FRANCISCO — Discount Tire/America's Tire has teamed with Motorq Inc., a connected-car software-intermediary company, to offer a connected-vehicle data analytics platform to Discount Tire's fleet customers.
The platform will access and analyze live data streamed directly from connected vehicles, giving Discount Tire's fleet customers insights about their vehicles and drivers to make better business decisions, the dealership said.
"Now, more than ever, fleet managers can benefit from data that makes their fleets more efficient, safe and increases the health of fleet vehicles," Discount Tire Vice President Chris Adams said.
"What's most exciting to us is the ease of getting started: no third-party hardware or software. We believe this is a big benefit for fleet customers of all sizes."
Motorq's cloud-based system collects and monitors embedded telematics data, runs analytics, contextualizes the insights with other information sets, such as weather and mapping, and delivers those insights to fleet owners via customized dashboards and other reporting tools.
"By implementing Motorq's dongle-less telematics solution into our suite of service offerings, our sales team has more tools to offer fleets that help reduce operating expenses and gain visibility into the safety of their vehicles and drivers," Craig Cheatle, national head of business development at Discount Tire, said.
Information across three key categories are available to Discount Tire fleet customers from this new service, the company said, including:
- Vehicle location and travel — Motorq's platform tracks and reports on the location and movement of every registered vehicle. With geofencing, fleet managers can determine if a vehicle is taking unauthorized trips either outside a zone or during after-hours. Data on idling helps fleet managers better control both fuel costs and overall emissions. Having this data can streamline operations and reduces costs for fleets, the company said.
- Vehicle health and maintenance — The dashboard displays the list of fleet vehicles and any needed maintenance or repairs. Rather than a technician visiting each vehicle to check diagnostic testing codes (DTC), the vehicle broadcasts any issues to the fleet manager.
- Safety — Motorq can track a range of driver behaviors, including acceleration, hard braking and speeding, thus identifying risky driving behavior by drivers.
Pricing begins at $9.95 per vehicle, per month, based on volume and term.
"By giving fleets of all sizes access to data that once only was available to large fleets or through expensive aftermarket hardware, Discount Tire and Motorq are democratizing fleet intelligence for fleets of all sizes," Arun Rajagopalan, co-founder and CEO of Motorq, said.