Honda makes advanced connectivity solution available for City, CR-V and Jazz.
15 Dec 2015 | 14366 Views | By Shobha Mathur
Contributing its bit to promote safe driving on congested city roads, Honda Cars India has rolled out Honda Connect, an advanced form of connectivity between the customer, car, his/her family and Honda that can be used on a smartphone.
With the connecting device to be priced at an introductory ...
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Contributing its bit to promote safe driving on congested city roads, Honda Cars India has rolled out Honda Connect, an advanced form of connectivity between the customer, car, his/her family and Honda that can be used on a smartphone.
With the connecting device to be priced at an introductory Rs 2,999 for the first 20,000 units and to be made available at the outlets of Honda’s subsidiary for accessories – Honda Access India – from today, the advanced connectivity option will be available for the City sedan, CR-V and the Jazz to start with. The Honda Connect platform supports connected car features enabled by a connected device and easily integrated with the car.
Using an intelligent automotive application that can be downloaded on the phone freely for the iPhone iOS7.0 and above as well as Android OS 4.1 from the Apple App Store and Google Play, the Honda Connect targets tech-savvy customers to ensure a closer connection with the user. The connected car features will provide its customers important information about their car even when they are not with it enhancing their safety and security.
Speaking at the Honda Connect launch in New Delhi today, Katsushi Inoue, president and CEO of Honda Cars India, said that with rapid motorisation, traffic jams of 2-3 hours every day have become a regular feature and are causing losses of an estimated Rs 4,000 crore annually to the country. Also, every year there around 500,000 road accidents in which around 150,000 people lose their lives and 165,000 vehicles are damaged.
“Honda Connect will make our digital-savvy customers lives more powerful and bond Honda even more closely with its customers.” The launch also marks the 20th inception of Honda Cars in India wherein it has touched cumulative sales of a million units.
Minda i-Connect plays key role
Meanwhile, the connected device has been developed by Minda i-Connect. NK MInda, chairman of UNO MInda, told Autocar Professional that the targeted numbers for the connected device by Honda are very large. Minda i-Connect would look at supplying the connected device to other carmakers as well at a later stage. The first priority is, however, to meet the requirements of Honda. .
Interestingly, the Honda Connect possesses convenience and utility features wherein a Honda owner will get notifications about a vehicle’s maintenance, and will update users on new products and campaigns run by the carmaker. Customers will also be enabled to give direct feedback to the company. The manual SOS feature will allow family and friends to identify their location, facilitate the nearest dealer and fuel station search, insurance and PUC renewal, keep important document photos of their car as also maintain a fuel log.
As part of the safety features, the connected device contains a sensor which can detect an impact and alert Honda Cars India’s 24x7 call centre for assistance. The ‘Locate my car’ feature will allow the buyer to locate his/her car at a single click as the device picks the car’s location every few seconds. Honda Connect also contains the vehicle health monitoring feature with the trip by trip analysis providing all information and statistics related to optimising driving behaviour.