Cars are increasingly becoming digitized. Over the last five years, car manufacturers have embedded onboard computers into almost every new car model produced. Cars are increasingly able to capture more and more data points – from car location to fuel levels to specific driver behavior like incidents of harsh braking. 90%+ of cars sold today are “connected,” meaning they have an onboard computer embedded by the OEM, and the amount of valuable car data being generating is only increasing.
Participants across the automotive ecosystem (fleets, dealers, fuel card companies, auction houses, insurance companies, etc.) would like to get access to individual VIN-level data for a wide variety of use cases. Previously, companies have relied on dongle-based telematics solutions to get data on individual vehicles, but these solutions are expensive, need to be manually installed in every vehicle, and can only provide car data to the hardware owner. Directly accessing the data generated by connected cars presents a more attractive alternative, but this data has been very difficult to access. The data is controlled by the OEMs, who are very selective in who they provide data to. There is also a heavy technical burden to create the data integration with each OEM and to normalize and analyze that data into a usable format, as each OEM streams car data using different formats and languages.
This is why Insight got so excited about Motorq. The team spent that last three years going OEM by OEM, establishing data partnerships as a trusted third-party, and building out API-based data pipelines directly into each OEM. They understood that to build a valuable connected car solution, you needed a software-based approach that works for vehicle-specific data. With these data pipes in place, Motorq is now able to provide customers with a single point of access for VIN-level data. It is the only fully software-based, API-first platform of its kind.
Motorq has built a strong competitive and technical moat that is unique to find in any market. While there are other software-based solutions on the market, they lack direct relationships with OEMs, and can only provide aggregated (versus vehicle-specific) data. Motorq has 9+ relationships (and counting) with the largest OEMs, more than any other vendor in the industry. Motorq has built these unique relationships with OEMs for access to their data given their approach of shared monetization and solving top customer pain points.
Motorq targeted fleet management as the initial use case for their connected car data platform. They help some of the largest fleet management companies in the country offer their customers an end-to-end platform for visibility into their entire fleet, down to the individual driver. Instead of installing hardware dongles for ~$40 per month per car, fleet operators can now pay ~$2 per car per month for much richer data from Motorq’s APIs.
Today, Motorq serves customers across fleets, rental car companies, dealers, logistics, fuel + EV card providers, auctions, aftermarket services, and commercial insurance. Popular use cases include driver behavior and safety data, predictive ETAs for pre-delivery vehicles and dispatching, geo-fencing, diagnostics / predictive maintenance, fuel + EV charging, and fuel card fraud.
We believe we are only in the early innings of the connected car movement as more and more cars on the road become connected every day. We believe Motorq can be the leading solution for all connected cars as new layers of data and analytics come to light. We look forward to tackling new markets and an expanding set of use cases alongside the Motorq team as they continue to pave the way for the next generation of connected cars. Please join us in helping welcome Motorq to the Insight family.
