> Industrial News > News   Toyota to Introduce “G-Book” Telematics Service to China in 2009   Toyota Motor made an announcement at the 14th ITS World Congress that it is going to provide its “G-Book” telematics service in China from early 2009. The service demonstrated at the exhibition on the prototype cellphone include seven functions: 1) track the stolen vehicle, 2) call-center-based destination set, 3) accident and emergency report, 4) automatic weather and news report, 5) traffic jam information, 6) navigation to avoid traffic jams, and 7) diagnosis and failure report. The company plans to apply the communications module of mobile network as the in-vehicle hardware support, which is, however, still under negotiation with the Chinese government and telecom operators. Comment: Toyota Motor is the first automaker to announce the launch of telematics services in China. Compared with the diversified G-Book services promoted in Japan, the services to be promoted in China are carefully chosen and much simpler. Though the carefully chosen services are must-have for the China market, Toyota Motor will encounter much rougher problems in China than in Japan and U.S. In the China communication market where the GSM network takes overwhelming advantages of over 90% market share, the powerful wireless carriers along with their action rules are unprecedented for Toyota Motor. GM also announces to promote OnStar service in China in 2009. The two largest automakers and two largest wireless carriers in the world would turn vehicles to reliable communication & information terminals carrying people. Let’s wait and see how they will fulfill it in China, the country with the largest population in the world, in 2008.   Time:2008-02-05 Source:NaviForum Shanghai News Center Relative