VW Commercial Vehicles launches new any-marque telematics service

Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2015   |  

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is launching its own telematics service, designed to work with what the manufacturer describes as "almost any vehicle" in the market.

Designed in conjunction with RAC, which already works with Volkswagen Financial Services, the system costs £12.50 per vehicle per month, plus VAT, and will be available from the company's 71 van centres from this month.

The system will offer the ability to report fuel use and CO2 emissions, monitor how the vehicles are being driven in terms of harsh acceleration and braking or speeding, detect collisions and schedule vehicle servicing, as well as geo-fencing a vehicle to define geographical boundaries.

It will score drivers on their behaviour and fuel usage, highlighting those employees that are likely to be a risk management problem, and is also HMRC compliant to log business mileage.

"This is a white label solution, it fits all vehicles and not just VWs," said Kevin Rendell, head of service and parts at VW Commercial Vehicles UK. "Users want a solution to fit all their vehicles and not just VWs, and with this it meets their needs."

"It could be interesting to sizeable operators but we think it ill be of most interest to SMEs," Rendell continued, who said the scoring metric for driver behaviour will bring the most cost savings through more efficient driving and less vehicle hardship. VW CV has set a flat rate for its telematics platform, rather than some rivals that have a sliding scale depending on number of fitments.

"Our starting point was that telematics can go through the van centres so it's a standard rate so they don't need to handle any degree of negotiations," explained VW CV's head of sales operations Andy Waite. "It gives SMEs something they don't have today, leasing companies won't be talking to them about this kind of solution."



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