Kia Motors India has announced achieving a new 1.5 lakh unit sales milestone in the country. The company, which began its retail operations in August 2019, has achieved this milestone in 14 months, and in October 2020, the company registered its highest ever monthly sales with 21,021 units. Interestingly, 75,000 vehicles or 50 per cent of its total sales so far, were models that featured the company's connected car technology - UVO. This certainly indicates that the trend for connected vehicles is growing in India.
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Out of the 1.5 lakh units, 75,000 were models that came with UVO connected car technology
Kia's UVO connected car technology uses an e-SIM embedded into the car that pairs itself with the user's smartphone. While the UVO technology was initially launched with 37 connectivity features, now the number of features on offer are more than 50. The latest update on Kia UVO technology includes a voice assist wake up command, which is 'Hello Kia' along with nine other new voice commands for calling, weather info, date and time, Cricket score, media control, navigation and climate control. Kia Motors is also offering smartwatch connectivity with the system that can be used with Android, iOS or even Tizen OS.
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(The UVO Connect solution makes use of the cloud or Internet using an in-built SIM card)
Apart from remote access, the system also comes with - live car tracking, car location & destination sharing and search, live traffic information, and find my car. For safety and security, the UVO system is designed to send auto collision notification, SOS-emergency assistance, panic notification, roadside assistance, stolen vehicle notification, stolen vehicle tracking, stolen vehicle immobilization, and safety alert (geofence, time fence, speed, valet, idle).
The UVO smartwatch app was first introduced on the Kia Carnival. The Hello Kia voice command promises a distraction-free drive
Kia Motors India's UVO Connect is currently offered with all its models, right from the entry-level Sonet, to its premium MPV Carnival. Right now, Hyundai India's BlueLink technology and MG Motor India's iSmart are the two connected car systems that are as versatile as the Kia's UVO Connect. Having said that, several other manufactures in India are currently offering some form of connectivity techs like - Maruti Suzuki's Suzuki Connect, Volkswagen's VW Connect or Honda Cars India's Honda Connect. In the luxury segment too, we have Mercedes-Benz India's Me Mercedes and Audi India's My AudiConnect
