Together with Ericsson, Mecel, Saab, Volvo Cars and Volvo Global Trucks, Wirelesscar founded the association Telematics Valley, for which Thomas Gabinus is the chairman.
"Our most important objective is to establish the region as the global centre for telematics," explains Gabinus, who is aware of similar clusters of telematics companies elsewhere in the world. However, these have not formed an alliance like the Swedes, who therefore hope to gain a competitive edge.
So far, 26 companies have joined. These are all targeting their own special niche market and hardly compete for orders. However, the idea is that they can still support and be useful to each other, although the association does not intend to get involved in any direct business or standardisation collaborations.
Telematics combines wireless communication, positioning technology and the automotive industry. However, Tomas Gabinus sees the slump in the IT and automotive businesses as an opportunity for telematics.
Gittan Cedervall