US 10,373,400 B2 · Vehicle email notification system and method

Abstract

A vehicle email notification system and method in which triggers are used to initiate the generation and transmission of email messages that provide diverse types of dynamic vehicle information to the owner or other authorized subscriber. The email notifications are triggered by different events, some of which are independent of the vehicle (e.g., a 30 day trigger to provide the subscriber with a monthly vehicle status report), and others of which occur at the vehicle, such as a mileage or low oil life trigger. Upon occurrence of a trigger, the notification system builds and sends to the subscriber an email message that contains the dynamic vehicle information and identifies any detected vehicle condition for which action is needed.

Claims27

Dependent claims

A method of providing vehicle information to an owner, comprising the steps of:

establishing one or more owner-configurable triggers that are used to initiate the construction of email messages in a first vehicle system module connected via a vehicle communications bus to an on-board diagnostics system module and one or more other vehicle system modules;
monitoring for the occurrence of the trigger(s) and, in response to determining that at least one of the trigger(s) has occurred:
receiving vehicle data concerning one or more vehicle conditions at an electronic message generating system from a vehicle telematics unit connected to the vehicle communications bus;
constructing a notification message in the form of an email message that includes information concerning the one or more vehicle conditions;
and
sending the email message to the owner via an electronic messaging system.

3 more elements

A method of providing vehicle information to an owner or other recipient, comprising the steps of:

automatically providing dynamic vehicle data to a central data system by executing one or more vehicle software-controlled processes at the vehicle that carry out the steps of:
providing dynamic vehicle data to a telematics unit in the vehicle;
sending the dynamic vehicle data from the telematics unit to the central data system using a cellular communications system;
and
automatically generating and sending an email message based on an owner-configurable trigger utilizing at least some of the dynamic vehicle data by executing one or more centralized software-controlled processes that carry out the steps of:
incorporating received dynamic vehicle data into an email message that is displayed to a recipient using two or more regions along with static vehicle data and one or more predetermined textual messages;
sending the email out over a global public computer network using an electronic messaging system;
monitoring the number of emails sent during a particular time period;
and
restricting the generation and/or transmission of one or more additional emails if the number of emails previously sent during the time period is above a preselected amount.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Vehicle email notification system and method

Life of this patent

Vehicle email notification system and method

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims27