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So, What is
Your Car's IQ?
A Pune-based startup has come up with a smartplug
that connects cars
to the cloud, allowing the car and its driver to
make decisions based on
real-time data
What
would your car say to you if it could communicate with you? No, not if
it was Christine, Stephen King's famously
possessed car, but just your own,
regular car parked outside your house just
now.
What
if it alerted you when you walked away leaving the headlights on or door
unlocked, reminded you which level and exact
slot of the mall parking you'd
parked
it at, warned you when it was being towed away, alerted you about glass
breakage
or a crash, monitored your engine and battery health, reminded you that
a
service was due, updated you on your insurance, opti mised the route for best
fuel
economy, alerted you of traffic congestion, even predicted upcoming
technical
problems and -you won't like this one -nagged you when you were
driving
too fast, or not safely enough?
But wait, that's the role of your spouse! And what if it remembered the route to
that unex pected jewel of a town you
happened to come across on a driving
holiday, recorded and uploaded it for you to
share on your Facebook page,
gave you personalised tips for smoother
driving (Take your foot off the clutch!
Change
to a higher gear -now!), arranged roadside assistance when your engine
unexpectedly
died on you, found the closest workshop and remotely provided
the
mechanic with all engineering parameters and details?
What if it made your perfect cup of coffee, said “I love you,“ and told you,
you
were the best-looking and most intelligent person it had ever met?
Okay,
now I'm getting carried away -and anyway, that would be kind of creepy,
right?
At
Your Service
Well,
here's the news -apart from those last three things, cars can actually do all
the other chores. In fact, contemporary
automobiles come equipped from the
factory fully enabled to do each one of
those things. It is just that all that data
remains embedded in the bowels of the car
and is of no use to anyone -until it
is unlocked and extracted.
Which
is where Sagar Apte's startup CarIQ and other startups like Zene,
all
based on on-board diagnostics in India, come into the picture.
On-board
diagnostic (OBD) systems were developed in the 1980s to help
technicians diagnose and service the
computerised engine systems of modern
vehicles. A new generation of these systems
is present in most vehicles built
overseas after 1996. Just think of this as
the equivalent of an airplane's little
black
box -the repository of all the complex engineering data the vehicle has
and
collects over its life.
In
July this year, CarIQ started selling a “smartplug“ that is able to download,
collate, analyse and present this data in a
user-friendly format through a mobile
app for car owners. This tiny piece of
hardware is able to plug into and decode
a car's natural intelligence and, using data
analytics and algorithms, can help
your car communicate with you through your smartphone,
tablet or any
other
electronic device.
Interestingly,
CarIQ isn't a me-too version of a global idea that has succeeded in
other countries and being transplanted here,
but a real “made in India“ product,
coincidentally conceived around the same
time as other similar products globally.
Like the Zubie key which plugs into your
vehicle's diagnostic port and transfers
data to the Zubie cloud for instant
analysis, or the Automatic adaptor-cum-app
which “connects your car to the rest of your
digital life“, according to the
Automatic website. Or CloudCar, Moji.io, or
Metromile.
Made
in Pune
In
India, CarIQ has become the first such launch, although another plug-and-play
on-board diagnostic called Zene is ready for
pre-orders, and others are catching
up.
“I always wanted to work in the field of data analytics and IoT (internet of
things).
I wanted my product to launch in India, but also be international, have a
global value,“ says Apte, the initial CarIQ
founder, speaking from Pune.
He
has been joined since by 26 employees, including four more cofounders:
Deepak
Thomas (director, product), Rajendrakumar Rajguru (director, engineering),
Vinu Kanakasabhapathy (di rector,
operations) Hrishikesh Nene
(chief
technical officer) and Anuradha Kothale (project man ager and
quality
analyst).
Apte
takes pride in the flat structure of his company. “Everyone is hands-on and
has more than one responsibility. And that
[re sponsibility] isn't just for their
functionalities, but also for the culture of
the organisation,“ says Apte.
For
Apte, automobiles have always been a pas sion. He discovered the
hidden-in-plain-sight
OBD under the dashboard of his car during one of the times
he took his car in for servicing. Apte used
to question mechanics about everything
to do with his car -and it was then that the
idea of using the data collected by
cars' OBD systems took seed in his mind. “I
couldn't find any courses in
mechatronics -automation electronics,“ says
the car enthusiast, who first started
working on the product in 2012, tinkering on
his own until others joined in.
His
next challenge was finding Indian companies which manufacture what he
calls
“beautiful, miniature products“, because he wanted to design something
not
larger than 1 x 1 square inches.
CarIQ
raised seed capital from Pune-based Snow Leopard and Singapore-based
Pose
Ventures -whose representative Salil Khamkar is on their board -and is now
looking for Series A funding. Apart from
individual sales, its client list includes
CarWale and JustRide, and the startup is in
talks with carmakers, a natural
partner
for the product.
You
can buy the smartplug online in both bluetooth and GSM versions. It is
compatible
with all cars manufactured after 2008. “The complete product...
was
designed, conceived and manufactured right here in Pune,“ says Apte proudly.
The services come bundled in with the cost
of the hardware with no recurring
costs,
but after two years, the company is considering a monthly service charge.
A feature where someone will go to your
house and get your spare car key and
deliver it to you, if you lose yours, is
already available.
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Jyoti
Pande Lavakare
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ETM30AUG15
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