Navistar’s OnCommand Connection remote diagnostics system will now be free and standard on all 2007 and newer model International trucks, the company announced this week at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville.
It no longer will be charging a monthly fee for the service, the company announced, and it will be giving new OnCommand subscribers what they call a “telematics credit” — a stipend of sorts fleets can use to buy hardware and data service for a fleet telematics system.
Michael Cancelliere, Navistar’s senior vice president for global parts and custom service, said at the company’s annual MATS press briefing that 80 percent of trucks on the road are not equipped with a telematics system, something he says Navistar sees as its “opportunity and obligation” to fix.
Cancelliere also says OnCommand does not trap fleet managers into one telematics hardware or software provider, as the system works with nearly all telematics suppliers.
The credit can be used on base model telematics hardware and two years of data service on International vehicles upon activiation of OnCommand, starting July 2015.
Navistar does not yet have a firm dollar amount on how much it will provide, but will have more details in the coming months, it said.
The OnCommand fee waiver and the telematics credit are part of the company’s recent “Uptime” efforts, announced earlier this year. Navistar says its focus now from manufacturing through a vehicle’s life is to limit downtime with two basic tenets: Keep trucks out of the shop through quality builds, but also to limit dwell time when trucks do need repairs.
