75,000 More Telematics-Connected Avis Cars Being Deployed
Avis Budget Group is adding another 75,000 vehicles equipped with telematics consoles to its fleet of rental cars.
The consoles connect the cars to Avis Budget’s cloud-based connected vehicle platform. The group claims the platform operates wirelessly within its vehicles to enable “two-way data communications between” the cars and its cloud. 50,000 vehicles also equipped with this connectivity have previously been rolled out by the group over the past year.
Avis Budget Group said customers can access the platform via a smartphone app that allows them to automatically select and return vehicles and extend the duration of their rentals if necessary. Perhaps more significantly for the company, it added that the platform is allowing it to cut costs and “streamline operations”.
It said it would do this by accelerating vehicle inventory counting and tracking and automating car processing and maintenance. The consoles are being provided by ID Systems and Avis Budget said it would begin testing them in 2019.
Avis Budget Group chief innovation officer Arthur Orduña said the group was “taking advantage of both OEM and third-party solutions as we move closer to our industry-leading goal of a fully connected fleet in 2020”. He claimed the move would accelerate migration of different auto marques to the group’s connected vehicle platform.
