Car rental telematics provider Zubie and mobility technology provider Bosch are bringing smoke detection capabilities to rental car companies, the companies announced April 15 during the International Car Rental Show. 

This integration combines Zubie’s expertise in fleet management with Bosch’s RideCare technology, adding a tool to help enhance transparency, improve customer experience, and boost profitability for car rental operators. 

The tool helps support clean vehicles for customers while enabling fleet operators to enforce smoking policies and unlock new revenue opportunities. It also gives fleet operators real-time insights to improve operations and reduce costs. 

To that end, the RideCare in-vehicle smoke detection technology has been shown to reduce smoking events by up to 90% within six months, helping fleet operators maintain cleaner, smoke-free vehicles. 

Powered by an intelligent sensor box, it provides rental car companies with reliable, real-time data on smoking events, complete with timestamps and geolocation, which helps to maintain a smoke-free fleet and enhance customer satisfaction.

“Operators are seeing up to 90% recovery on smoking claims and as much as $1,200 per vehicle annually,” said Chad Caswell, CEO at Zubie, in an April 15 news release. “Just as important, they now have a clear, data-backed way to show customers why a fee was charged, which improves accountability and transparency.”

RideCare combines expertise from Bosch in advanced sensor technology for mobility applications with cutting-edge AI-enabled cloud services. The retrofit sensor box, easily installed in 15 minutes, meshes seamlessly into Zubie’s software and provides fleet managers with actionable insights via a user-friendly dashboard or API connection.

Philipp Gauss, vice president and head of fleet sales at Bosch in North America, added, “Together, we’re setting a new standard for fleet management, combining Bosch’s technological innovation with Zubie’s deep understanding of the rental car market.”

Bosch has long been a driving force in mobility innovation and is associated with automotive tools such as electronic engine management and the ESP anti-skid system. The company operates in about 60 countries worldwide and works with many major OEM across cars, trucks, and buses.