Here’s a good update for Toyota owners in Malaysia. UMW Toyota Motor (UMWT) has rolled out a new mobile app for its 24Seven Road Assist service.
This means that the existing round the clock roadside assistance service is now accessible via a few taps of the phone. It doesn’t replace the 1-800-888-247 helpline, but is an additional avenue. UMWT says that the app is an industry first in our market.
You’ll expect an emergency SOS button and it’s here, but what’s cool is the real time tracking feature, so you’ll know where exactly help is coming from, and when it’ll arrive, much like tracking your lunch delivery order. This, plus the fact that help is from a trusted authorised Toyota dealer or service provider, means extra peace of mind in unfortunate situations.
They say that nothing is too trivial, and you can request help if you run out of fuel or have a flat tyre. Toyota owners even have the choice of selecting their preferred outlet to assist. The service – which is there 24/7 all year long, nationwide – offers free minor on-the-spot repairs and towing (up to 50km).
“We have been providing our customers with Toyota 24Seven Road Assist for the last 20 years. This is a service that continually undergoes enhancements to ensure that they never have to worry when they are on the road. As mobile technology grows more advanced, naturally the next logical step would be to introduce a mobile application that would bring this service to the next higher level,” said UMWT president Ravindran K.
UMWT has integrated the app with its Vehicle Telematics System (VTS) that is built into the latest models. With VTS, the car can be monitored using GPS, with its location pinpointed by the app. This not only helps the authorities when there is a need for vehicle recovery, but the system is also able to detect impact (accidents), in which case the command centre may dispatch emergency services to the scene.
VTS also allows owners to review trip history with minute-to-minute reports, distance covered and overall duration of journeys. Via the app, one can review driving pattern as well as set safety parameters to monitor the movement of loved ones, such as new drivers. The app can track multiple vehicles.
“As technology advances, so will cars. This is inevitable, and we have seen vehicles rapidly evolving over the last 20 to 30 years to becoming increasingly safer, cleaner, more economical, offering better performance, to now growing even more intelligent and are able to provide greater forms of interaction with the driver. Suffice to say that transportation and communication will become increasingly reliant on one another moving forward in an era of seamless and connected mobility,” said UMWT deputy chairman Akio Takeyama.
The Toyota 24Seven Road Assist mobile app can be downloaded from the App Store for iOS or the Google Play Store for Android devices.
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Great! Now Toyota can track you 24seven and sell you adds 24seven. What an invasion of privacy!
Well, it’s not like Google/Apple/Facebook is not tracking us, and they are as dodgy or worse than Toyota. Of course, this will be at the cost of privacy, but like most mobile apps, it will probably something you need to opt-in, and we are mostly on public roads anyway.
Anyway, I think a lot of car makers, for better or worse, are going for this “ownership experience” now. It will probably reach a point where vehicles ‘talk’ to one another, so that it can prevent accidents better, provide more up-to-date map-routing/traffic info and share connectivity. Maybe even help reduce crime/law breaking, but we are still far from that and a debate for another time.
The car is parked and locked in our garage but system shows it as Ignition On. No tracking available. This app is a sham.
I have the same experience. But the car was parked under the building so could not be detected. The last detection was before the car entered the parking lot so was still on ‘ignition on’ mode. Try parking your car outside garage and check again.