Volvo Construction Equipment adds on CareTrack

16 Dec 2009

Announcing plans to build more than 500 charging stations in California for their 2011 Chevy Volt, an electric vehicle, General Motors will partner with four California utility companies.

The Chevy Volt gets 80 miles on a single charge thanks to a lithium-ion battery pack. Volvo announced that its Construction Equipment wing will equip all of its general purpose machines, like wheel loaders, articulated haulers, excavators, and motor graders, with standard CareTrack telematics.

With CareTrack users are able to optimize a machine's productivity and availability for work by tracking its fuel consumption, location, hours of operation, speed, and approaching service intervals.

According to Tomas Kuta, president of customer support for Volvo Construction Equipment, this move is a statement to their customers that telematics are becoming a ‘must have' for ongoing competitiveness in their business. "Soon, the value of CareTrack will be as self evident as other industry technologies like GPS grade control - and our customers will be among the first to wonder how they managed without it."

Using MATRIS, a combination of a Guided Diagnostics and tracking information, the system closely monitors fault reporting, activity warnings, and remote diagnosis. Thanks to the service's satellite technology, data is available securely and instantaneously to any remote online connection.

"Every segment we participate in is being driven toward increasingly sophisticated business approaches by the combined influences of environmental and safety concerns, globalized economies, and ever more demanding end customers," says Kuta. "Higher adoption levels of telematics and the services that can be delivered using the technology will enable our dealers to more effectively tailor and deliver solutions for our customers."