So, what does Motorq actually do?

The TL;DR:

Motorq tells you everything you need to know about your fleet's vehicles by connecting to them directly, so you have the insights you need to make better decisions for your business.

Okay, let’s unpack…

Cars are computers. Computers generate data. Data is valuable.

Modern vehicles are computers on wheels, bristling with sensors, loaded with software, and, crucially, equipped with a modem. Like for computers, the built-in modem enables vehicles to connect to the cloud (internet) without an aftermarket device. 

Also, like computers, cars generate a lot of data. Think about the amount of data from just one trip. Start location, stop location, time of day, speed, fuel efficiency, and g-force around turns – these are just a few of the parameters that cars know about themselves.

This data is very valuable! If you as the car owner could tap into these data feeds, thereby tapping into everything that the car understands about itself, you could do some cool stuff: find lost vehicles, schedule maintenance at the right times, replace vehicles at the right time, reduce idling, minimize fuel costs, have proactive conversations with risky drivers, pay less for insurance, optimize routes, tell customers when to expect service, etc.

Sure, data is valuable, but it can be difficult.

It’s been well-established that the right data can be hugely valuable. But the right data is often:

1. Hard to access

2. Hard to interpret

3. Hard to action

Access: How do you get the data out of the car in a way that’s useful? Until quite recently, your options were:

1. Buy an aftermarket tracking device and plug it into the onboard diagnostic port. Wait time: months. Cost: $$

2. Convince each individual car manufacturer to let you integrate directly to access the data via the internet. Wait time: years. Cost: $$$$

(BTW, Motorq went with option 2, so you don’t have to.)

Interpret: The data is raw and difficult to interpret. Not to paint all OEMs with a broad brush, but they typically don’t like sharing trade secrets with each other.

In the connected vehicle world, that means there is no data standard.

A harsh-breaking event or an ignition event are coded for in a certain way by Toyota, and in a spectacularly different way by Mercedes-Benz. Oh, and the data schemas and parameters are constantly being updated. Develop data logic today, and it may be outdated next week.

Action: Let’s say you’ve convinced the OEMs and aftermarket device manufacturers to work with you. And then let’s say you’ve built world-class data science and engineering teams to build the data logic to normalize and parse the inputs. First off, congratulations! 

Except now, you have to move those data and insights to where they matter so the right actions can be taken. Should you build an API? A user interface? A Kafka stream? A pipe to a queryable database? ALL THE ABOVE?!

Motorq makes vehicle data accessible, interpretable, and actionable.

Motorq is the connection layer, making vehicle data both accessible and interpretable to a variety of end-users, from fleets and fleet management companies, to dealerships, insuretech businesses, and application developers.

The Motorq platform has three main components:

1. Integration and ingestion of high-quality data

2. Data science and data logic to normalize and transform the data into insights

3. Flexible output of those insights 

Let’s go through each component in turn.

1. Integration and ingestion (access)

Motorq has established commercial and technical partnerships with the top fleet OEMs in the world. These partnerships allow Motorq to tightly integrate and keep up to date as OEMs modify their data packages.

2. Data science and logic (interpret)

Normalization, standardization, and transformation of disparate data inputs happen here. Source-specific, idiosyncratic data goes in; source-agnostic, human-interpretable insights come out the other side.

3. Flexible output of insights (action)

After all the hard integration and data work, it’s time to output the results! Want them in a portal UI? Via API? Streaming via Kafka? In a Snowflake instance?Wherever the data and insights are most useful to you and your business, Motorq is able to deliver to that place. 

I hope you have a better understanding of what Motorq does and how it could help your fleet better support your business.

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