Yulon Nissan Motor Co (
"The new TOBE system has become one of the top-five priorities consumers look for in new vehicles, along with oil consumption, price, exterior design and engine power," Hsu Kuo-Hsing (許國興), Yulon Nissan's senior vice president, told a media briefing yesterday.
Transmitting data via Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) telecommunication technology, the Common TOBE System is a telemetric platform offering anti-theft, call center as well as information services, including weather forecasts, a speed warning and news and traffic reports.
According to Hsu, the automaker's sales of Nissan models have reached around 70,000 units annually. Over 40,000 units deploying the intelligent platform have been manufactured every year since the launch of its earlier version in 2002, amounting to over 120,000 units to date.
The system's anti-theft feature managed to reduce theft risks to 0.3 percent, which is lower than the 1.1 percent risks posed on other models in the market, he said.
Currently, Yulon Nissan does not have a competitor in the vehicle-telemetric market as General Motors and Toyota do not market their respective solutions in Taiwan, Hsu said.
With the new launch, the company expects drivers of other vehicle brands to switch to its Nissan models, as TOBE has now become a standard feature in new Nissan cars, he said.
Meanwhile, the auto vendor said it is unfazed by recently soaring crude oil prices and did not expect them impacting its car sales.
"The effect of escalating oil prices on current automobile sales is not significant, though it will have a short-term impact," said Lee Chun-Chong (李俊忠), the company's senior vice president.
He said that despite consumers considering fuel consumption as one of the critical factors when buying a new car, vehicle sales will remain stable in the long run as automobiles have become modern-day necessities.
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