Deutsche Telekom says it will announce more partners for its Global M2M Association (GMA) with France Telecom and TeliaSonera in the next two or three months.

Speaking to M2M Zone on the sidelines of last week’s M2M World Congress in London, Jurgen Hase, the head of Deutsche Telekom’s M2M Competence Center, said the new partners would help to expand the GMA’s footprint.

“We will announce some new partners from Europe in the next two or three months,” he said.

Vodafone says its technology is powering India’s first connected cars after signing a deal with Mahindra Reva, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group, to supply M2M technology for the manufacturer’s e2o range of vehicles.

The operator says the partnership will allow e2o drivers to access a range of in-vehicle services using smartphone apps or dedicated web pages.

These include checking on battery power, remotely controlling temperature settings and finding details of local charging stations.

Some 47% of all new vehicles sold in the US will have embedded cellular modules by 2017, representing a doubling in subscriber numbers over the 2013–16 period, according to new research from Parks Associates.

In a new report examining the growth opportunities in the M2M industry, the market-research company also says that around 17.6 million consumers will subscriber to embedded connected vehicle services such as General Motors’ (Detroit, MI, USA) OnStar and Chrysler’s (Auburn Hills, MI, USA) UConnect Access.

California:

The Autotech Council opens its doors to non-members a few times each year to take a deep dive into a segment of the auto industry that is attracting large amounts of innovation and investment. These ½ day, executive-format agendas highlight a few larger vendors who are leading the segment forward and bring dozens of undiscovered companies to the stage as well. These agendas always include plenty of time for networking, business discussions, and an interactive format that promotes relationships between member and non-member companies.

App-connected vehicles are set to account for 20% of all consumer cars in Western Europe and North America by 2017, according to a new connected-cars study from Juniper Research.

According to the analyst firm, advancements in entertainment head-units and higher smartphone penetration will be largely responsible for the increase in app-connected vehicles over the forecast period.

Fuelling the current momentum in the connected-car market, Telenor Connexion has revealed that Japan’s Fujitsu Ten has become its latest telematics customer.

In a statement published on its website, the M2M subsidiary of Telenor (Fornebu, Norway) said that Fujitsu Ten (Kobe, Japan) would use its “connected service solution” for its Remote Engine Start telematics service – a so-called “aftermarket” product the company plans to deploy overseas.

UK mobile operator Vodafone has formed a “strategic alliance” with professional services company Towers Watson to “fast-track” the development of usage-based motor insurance offerings outside North America.

The companies have also confirmed that UK insurance company AIG Europe Limited, a part of international insurer AIG (New York, USA), has signed up to run a pilot.