Digi Set To Provide M2M Connectivity For Tesla Cars In Malaysia

SUBANG JAYA (Selangor, Malaysia), Nov 3 (Bernama) -- Digi.Com Bhd is set to provide machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity for Tesla cars following its partnership with Malaysian Green Technology Corporation (Greentech) which is tasked with bringing in the vehicles into Malaysia. Chief Executive Officer Albern Murthy said the telecommunications company was working with Tesla in testing the connectivity using the Digi plan and Tesla's telematics solution on those cars. "They are working closely with our team on how the car could be tracked by users from the mobile phone and everything else. "It's a bit premature to say that when Tesla would use our connectivity, but we are already at the forefront as we are doing the test together with them," he told reporters at the Digi Digital Day here Wednesday. The first batch of 10 Tesla Model S cars were brought into Malaysia by Greentech recently. In February 2016, the government had given the green light for the duty-free importation of 100 Tesla Model S cars as part of its efforts to promote electric vehicles. On its M2M connectivity, Albern said the M2M solution was not new to Digi as it had already provided close to 100,000 connected M2M and the company was looking forward to be part of automation and Internet of Things. "In future, we need 70 per cent of the growth to come from core business and 30 per cent from new products and services. "And we are leveraging this on what we have today on our network, capabilities, touch points channels and customer experience," he said. Digi is also planning to roll out a new concept for its retail stores, which will have more digital collaborations and a lot of engagement with customers and targeting at least 50 per cent of its 30 retail stores nationwide with this new concept next year, Albern said. Meanwhile, Greentech Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Hadri Haris said one of the features agreed with Tesla when it wanted to bring in the cars was to enable the connectivity for the cars to provide software updates. He said Greentech was looking for telcos with forward looking and innovative ideas that could partner them and had chosen Digi after having talks with the telco in middle of this year. "This is a starting point, if there were other cars would want to adopt this communication in their device, may be Digi could be the leader in this space," he added. --BERNAMA