Nine Out of Ten Canadians Can Now Access Connected Cars

Long gone are the days of borrowing a parent’s car without telling them and getting away scot-free.

Connected car enablers Mojio and ZTE Canada have announced a partnership with Bell Canada, the third wireless carrier the two companies have teamed up with. Now boasting partnerships with the big three Canadian providers (the other two being Rogers and TELUS) and reaching nine of ten people in the country, Toronto’s ZTE Canada can provide their 4G LTE connected car device while Vancouver’s Mojio will offer their leading open platform and mobile app for connected cars.

ABI Research forecasts there will be 500 million connected cars by 2022, even as Canada severely lags behind other tech hotbeds in terms of early adoption. Only 4.9 per cent of Canadian cars tout built-in connectivity, while countries like the U.S. and the U.K sport connectivity rates of 12 and 11 per cent respectively. Mojio and ZTE are working to meet the gap in consumer demand by partnering with wireless carriers to deliver better access to connected services with a plug and play dive/app combination.

The services being offered don’t simply relate to accessing Google Maps or Spotify, but a whole range of diagnostic and security upgrades.

“Regardless of country or culture, people around the world want access to crucial information about their cars, especially data that empowers them to make smarter decisions about family safety, driving behaviour and vehicle maintenance,” said Mojio CEO Kenny Hawk. “Canadians from coast to coast deserve to get more from the cars they’re already driving and shouldn’t have to wait for a ‘new car’ to take advantage of connected car technology.”

ZTE’s device plugs right into a car’s OBD-II port, the same port used for emissions testing, and is compatible with most cars built after 1996.

With Mojio’s software, the new device offers drivers a few different things, including better access to integral car information like understanding engine problems more clearly or checking battery health. Location tracking is also a core feature, with the ability to add geofences and see when a car exits or enters a set area like the office or home. A 4G LTE wireless hotspot can also be created that will connect up to five phones.

Users can even get push notifications to their phone when their car is started, bumped into, or the OBD-II device is removed.

The features are so in-demand that it has prompted the three largest telecom providers in Canada to partner with the same company—something that does not happen too often.

This newest announcement with Bell Media comes on the heels of the company’s Connected Car launch.

Mojio was founded in 2012 and raised a $15 million Series A funding round late last year. The company continues to work with large providers outside of Canada as well, including Deutsche Telecom and T-Mobile. ZTE Canada is a subsidiary of the China-based ZTE Corporation.