Published in Transportation

Automatic slips out of gear

by on04 May 2020


Apparently it has been Kung Flued

Automatic has announced that it’ll be abruptly shutting down on 28 May because “the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely impacted our business”.

The outfit is recommending that customers remove the connected car adapters from their vehicles and recycle them. The adaptors allow smart tracking and other vehicle services.

The company said: “With fewer customers purchasing and leasing vehicles and drivers on the road, we unfortunately do not see a path forward for our business.”

But that is a little strange given that the outfit is owned by SiriusXM, which managed to beat its Q1 earnings this week and showed no signs of being under the weather due to the global pandemic.

Automatic says that it’ll continue to offer its services for customers until the 28th as usual and will be giving customers the chance to export their data using a portal on its website here through June 28th. After that point, the company says that it’ll be permanently deleting or anonymizing any personal data, outside of what it needs for “legal, accounting or other corporate records”.

Customers who have bought Automatic’s hardware may be eligible for a rebate for the discontinued service, calculated from how much you’ve used the product since you activated it. For full details, see Automatic’s rebate site  — but note that you’ll have to submit a request before 15 June.

Last modified on 04 May 2020
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