The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the commercial vehicle (CV) industry hard in the past few months, especially the first quarter of this financial year. Beginning second quarter, the industry is slowly recovering with the unlocking process continues to help open up the markets. In the new normal working conditions of social distancing and worker safety, commercial vehicles players are bringing in more digital technology-based features to their operations. Recently, some of the leading players have come out with new improved connected vehicle platforms for the customers to make their operations productive and economical in the new market conditions. Mahindra iMAXX telematics Mahindra Truck and Bus (MTB) announced the launch of its connected vehicle technology, Mahindra iMAXX. This new telematics platform is fitted into Mahindra’s BS VI-compliant CV range, including the BLAZO X range of HCVs, FURIO range of ICVs and LCVs and CRUZIO range of buses. This new technology promises to further strengthen the value proposition of the MTB range for the company’s discerning customers. The new Mahindra iMAXX technology, coupled with the tried and tested BS VI engines (mPOWER and MDI Tech) with FUELSMART technology and aggregates, retaining over 90 per cent of the parts of the erstwhile BS IV vehicles, will help fleet owners and transporters transition to the BS VI ownership experience smoothly and efficiently. As against the regular telematics solutions that focus mainly on location tracking based services and basic vehicle performance analysis, the Mahindra iMAXX is in a different league due to the following: Embedded Device Capability – The core capability of the Mahindra iMAXX embedded device is to absorb large scale high frequency engine and allied system data securely, and transmit on a real-time basis over 4G airwaves for server processing. To put this in perspective, the amount of data transmitted through the Mahindra iMAXX device from the vehicle is on an average 600 per cent higher than the previous generation telematics systems available in the market. Digital Twin Platform – Once such a large amount of data comes into Mahindra iMAXX cloud servers, the machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence models put in place at the Mahindra iMAXX digital twin platform level helps provide accurate, reliable and predictive business and engineering insights. While most telematics solutions fetch and show vehicle data to customers without any further intelligence or analysis built-in, Mahindra iMAXX has the unique capability to add machine intelligence to normal data for enhanced credibility, efficacy and reliability, according to the company. Eicher 100 per cent connected vehicles VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) announced a giant step towards modernising the CV industry with its 100 per cent connected vehicles across its entire product portfolio, powered by their connected vehicle solution – Eicher LIVE. From August 1, 2020 onwards, the trucks and buses built on the EUTECH6 platform are equipped with pre-fitted hardware that would enable them to be completely connected while on the road along with industry first ecosystem. This solution will help extract maximum possible fuel efficiency with savings of up to 10 per cent in fuel costs. It will significantly improve uptime and logistics efficiency, hence the revenue-earning potential for Eicher customers. Being constantly connected, commercial vehicle owners will be able to maximise the potential of earning and saving, while improving service levels to their customers. Unique customer offerings in Eicher’s 100 per cent connected vehicles include: Uptime Centre Support free for two years Fuel management services including Fuel Coaching & Driver Training to extract maximum fuel efficiency Segment specific services made available such as for e-commerce trucks and school busesEicher LIVE advanced telematics offers: Fuel management: Up to 10 per cent savings on fuel costs Uptime management: For maximising utilisation of trucks and buses and 24x7 remote diagnostic support Trip management: Can help vehicles run up to 20 per cent more Tata Motors Fleet Edge Tata Motors announced the launch of Tata Motors Fleet Edge – a next-generation connected vehicle solution that enables fleet management, with informed decision making. Today, more than 2,00,000 Tata Motors M&HCV vehicles are factory-fitted with telematics units. Tata Motors is taking the connected vehicle solutions to the next level with the introduction of Fleet Edge that has the capability of processing large amount of data generated by the Telematics Control Unit (TCU) and offers real-time insights for track and trace, vehicle health, driving behaviour, real-time fuel efficiency and fuel loss alert. Customers will also be able to track the due date of the important vehicle documents. These insights will be available to customers through a user-friendly interface on Tata Motors Fleet Edge portal and will help customers manage their fleet even more efficiently. Fleet Edge is also accessible on smartphones via an app, on real time basis. The Fleet Edge solution is relevant and beneficial across fleet size and is available with the entire M&HCV BS VI range of Tata Motors trucks and buses and a select range of I&LCV and SCV models. The BS VI range of Tata Motors connected trucks come with the latest inbuilt embedded SIM. The TCU used in Fleet Edge is AIS 140 compliant, as regulated by the government, with safety and security functions including the emergency buttons and vehicle location tracking communication to government-authorised backend servers. Fully integrated at the backend with Tata Motors’ systems, Fleet Edge provides an end-to-end connected experience for the customers with better control over their entire business operations. Fleet Edge ensures that a fleet owner is always connected to their truck drivers and the vehicles through cutting-edge features for better control over driver performance. The system also monitors unauthorised vehicle movement and determines the exact location of the vehicle with a user-friendly graphical map. The new connected solutions introduced by these players in their product range are expected to provide a great experience to their customers towards better productivity and economy at a time, when the industry is struggling to come out of the slowdown.