Connected car data is turning vehicles into mobile sensing platforms, creating new possibilities for safer fleets, usage-based insurance, EV management and used-car transactions. It is also opening a less visible contest over who controls the detailed record of where people travel, how they drive and what happens inside their vehicles.
A connected car leaving an apartment complex in Mumbai can record its route, travel time, parking location, speed, braking, acceleration, vehicle health, charging or fuel patterns and, depending on the services enabled, interactions inside the cabin. A single journey may reveal little. A continuous record collected over months can reveal a person’s workplace, habits, medical visits, leisure activities and regular movements.
That makes the connected vehicle more than a consumer product. It becomes part of the urban information infrastructure through which companies can understand mobility behaviour, manage assets and design services. The economic value is already visible in commercial fleets, where data can help reduce fuel use, improve vehicle utilisation, anticipate maintenance and optimise charging. The governance challenge is that the same information can also become personal data when it is linked to a driver or passenger.
India’s connected-car market is expanding rapidly. Around 45% of new passenger vehicles sold in the country in 2025 had embedded cellular connectivity, including factory-installed SIM cards and modems, according to Counterpoint Research as cited in the Economic Times report. The proportion was 37% in 2024 and could reach about 85% by 2030. Counterpoint analyst Abhilash Gupta said India could become the world’s third-largest connected-car market by 2030, after China and the United States.
The scale matters because connectivity changes the relationship between the manufacturer and the vehicle after the sale. Traditional automotive information is concentrated around the point of purchase: the model, variant, mileage and specifications. Connected-car data describes the vehicle’s life after it leaves the showroom—where it goes, how it is driven, when it needs servicing, how an electric vehicle is charged and how its battery performs.
Automakers are building services around that continuing relationship. Hyundai’s Bluelink offers vehicle diagnostics and other connected functions. Kia’s platform includes remote diagnostics. Maruti Suzuki has expanded its embedded Maruti Connect telematics system, including driving analytics and live tracking, into some mass-market vehicles. Tata Motors’ iRA platform provides vehicle location, trip information, vehicle status, driving scores and vehicle-health information.
The commercial opportunity, however, is not simply a matter of collecting more data. Ravi Bhatia, president of automotive research firm Jato Dynamics, told the Economic Times that selling a connected vehicle creates an opportunity for subscription revenue but does not guarantee it. The possible revenue streams include consumers paying for remote access and security alerts, manufacturers using data to improve diagnostics and after-sales services, and permission-based services involving fleets, insurers, charging providers and other partners.
This distinction is important for the urban economy. Connectivity may be embedded in a large share of vehicles, but the services built on top of it still have to demonstrate value. Many connected features are offered free for an initial period, postponing the question of whether owners will pay once the trial ends. Kia Connect has recorded more than 100,000 paid renewals after a three-year free period, providing an early indication that some customers will continue paying for selected services.
Vehicle data is also being packaged as a product. Hyundai’s Vehicle Digital Passport brings together accident history, service records, warranty information, fault alerts and driving behaviour. The report says the service costs Rs 399 per quarter for customers with a Bluelink subscription, which costs Rs 1,999 a year after a free three-year period. A verified record could reduce the information gap between buyers and sellers in the used-car market, particularly when a vehicle’s maintenance history or an electric vehicle’s battery condition affects its value.
For cities, the most immediate value may come from fleets. Ram Prasad, who operates a 10-truck transport fleet outside Pune, uses vehicle information to identify inefficient routes, monitor driving patterns and anticipate maintenance. He is using the data to run his business rather than selling it. That difference illustrates why commercial adoption may move faster than private-consumer adoption: a fleet operator can directly connect data with lower downtime, better utilisation and reduced operating costs.
Magenta Mobility operates more than 2,000 electric three- and four-wheelers. Its connected vehicles can generate data roughly every 15 seconds on location, distance, speed, battery charge, energy consumption, charging behaviour, utilisation, vehicle health and fault indicators. Founder Maxson Lewis said the important question was not how much data a vehicle generates but how it is tracked, structured, interpreted and used.
For an electric fleet, this information has an operational purpose. It can help optimise charging, improve energy efficiency, increase utilisation and detect maintenance problems earlier. At a city scale, aggregated information could also help charging companies understand infrastructure demand. But the supplied evidence does not establish how such aggregated data would be governed, who would have access to it or how individual journeys would be separated from wider mobility patterns.
Insurers are another potential user. Gaurav Arora, chief commercial lines and motor underwriting and claims at ICICI Lombard, said crash severity, speed and braking could help insurers strengthen fraud controls. Distance travelled, trip frequency, travel times, geography, harsh braking and acceleration can create a more individualised picture of risk.
India’s insurance regulator has permitted pay-as-you-drive and pay-how-you-drive products, in which premiums depend partly on usage, distance or driving behaviour. Adoption remains limited, with many products relying on mobile applications or odometer readings. Connected vehicles could make the data more continuous. They could potentially transmit crash severity, speed, braking and the sequence of events in real time, helping insurers reconstruct accidents and respond faster.
The limitation is interoperability. Arora identified the absence of a standardised telematics format across original equipment manufacturers as a major gap. Different data formats make integration difficult and expensive. This is an institutional issue, not only a technical one. If every manufacturer structures, stores and shares vehicle data differently, insurers, fleet operators and service providers face higher costs, while customers may struggle to understand what is being transferred between systems.
The economic value of connected-car data is therefore uneven. Puneet Gupta, director at S&P Global Mobility, said the larger question was finding use cases for which customers would pay. Commercial fleets are more likely to pay because the financial benefits are easier to demonstrate. Private drivers may be less willing to exchange years of location history for a modest insurance discount or a limited subscription service.
That difference brings privacy and consent to the centre of the connected-car economy. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, information that identifies or relates to an individual constitutes personal data. The Economic Times report cites location history linked to a driver, driving patterns and voice commands as possible examples. Trilegal partner Nikhil Narendran said consumers should be able to understand what information is collected, why it is collected, how long it is kept, who it is shared with and how consent can be withdrawn.
The purpose of collection is particularly important. Data gathered to provide navigation or vehicle diagnostics may later have value for advertising, insurance risk modelling or artificial intelligence training. Narendran said those later uses could represent a different purpose and may require separate consent. A general acceptance screen may not adequately explain the difference between a safety feature, a paid service, a partner arrangement and a secondary commercial use.
The policies and manuals cited in the report show how broad collection can become. Hyundai’s published privacy policy says it may collect trip distance, vehicle locations, speed, mileage, braking and acceleration. It also says voice-recognition features may collect voice and text queries, including the voices of others in the vehicle when commands are given. Mahindra’s manual for the electric SUV BE 6 says telematics information may be transmitted for maintenance, troubleshooting, vehicle-quality evaluation, research, charging reminders and software updates.
Suzuki Connect material says the telematics unit cannot be switched off and that data is stored on the company’s servers. These arrangements make the vehicle’s data architecture a practical consumer-rights issue. A driver may understand that remote unlocking or live tracking requires connectivity, but may not know which functions continue after a subscription expires, which information is retained, or whether the telematics unit can be disabled without losing essential vehicle functions.
The Economic Times sent questions to Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Hyundai Motor India, MG Motor India and Mahindra & Mahindra about their connected-vehicle data practices, including collection, consent, sharing and monetisation. The companies had not responded at the time of publication. That absence leaves important implementation details unresolved, particularly around data retention, third-party access and the distinction between optional and necessary services.
The policy landscape is consequently developing around several overlapping responsibilities. Automakers control much of the vehicle interface and the connected-service relationship. Insurers seek usable information for pricing and claims. Fleet operators use data for daily operations. Charging companies may benefit from information on demand and battery use. Lenders and used-car platforms could use vehicle histories to assess asset condition and residual value. Data-protection rules must operate across all these relationships without assuming that the person who owns a vehicle, the person who drives it and the person whose data is collected are always the same individual.
Electric vehicles add another layer. Battery condition is a significant component of an EV’s value, and long-term charging and usage records could support battery-health reports, financing decisions and battery-linked ownership or rental models. A verified history may benefit a used-car buyer, but the buyer’s interest in battery condition does not automatically justify access to years of past journeys. The economic use case and the privacy purpose must remain distinct.
The evidence points to a two-speed market. Fleet operators already have a clear operational reason to use connected data. Manufacturers and service providers are testing subscriptions, vehicle histories and partner services. Private customers, however, are likely to evaluate these offers through a different question: what do they receive in return for granting access to detailed movement and vehicle information?
That question will shape whether connected mobility becomes a trusted urban service or an opaque extension of vehicle ownership. The technology can improve fleet efficiency, support safer insurance claims, inform charging infrastructure and reduce uncertainty in used-EV markets. It can also create a persistent record of urban life that moves between manufacturers, insurers, financiers and technology companies.
What the evidence confirms is that the connected-car market is expanding faster than the rules and standards needed to make its data economy legible to users. The next questions are whether manufacturers adopt more consistent telematics formats, whether consent is separated by purpose, how long data is retained, and what customers can control when a subscription ends. The car may remain parked, but its data relationships will continue to shape the way mobility is managed and valued.
