Telenor has signed a pan-European deal with Nissan to provide M2M connectivity for a range of innovative automotive telematics services that will be offered in the car maker’s new line of all-electric vehicles, which are due to be launched in early 2011.The announcement touches a number of key themes that are likely to be important over the coming months, including B2B2C business models, the use of ICT to deliver reduced carbon emissions, and the deployment of social media as a persuasive technology.
While Telenor’s role in the deal is that of connectivity provider, its ability to offer value-added services for M2M, such as over-the-air management of M2M SIMs, is an important part of the overall proposition.
The automotive applications described by Nissan are extremely innovative.
Its first objective is to use telematics to address customer’s key concern about fully electric vehicles: the fear of running out of battery while driving.
The internal displays offer various visualization modes, including one which tells the driver how many kilometers they can drive at the current speed without requiring a recharge. Similarly, a satellite navigation application, triggered by a single button on the steering wheel, shows the driver the same distance as a “reachable” area on a map, and shows how far the car can go with and without air-conditioning. These features are integrated with real time information from the car’s own instruments, offering functionality that can’t be matched by standalone satnav devices or over-the-top navigation services.
An iPhone app (Android is coming soon) allows the user to remotely monitor the status of the car’s battery, its charging progress, and the ability to switch on the heating or air-conditioning while the car is still connected to the charging point, reducing the need to run either of these from the battery itself.