VEHICLE EMAIL NOTIFICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20070173992A1
• Filed: 12/29/2006
• Published: 07/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: General Motors Corporation (Motors Liquidation Co. GUC Trust)
• Inventors: Correia, John, McCutchen, Shane, Huber, Chester, Oesterling, Christopher, Dorfstatter, Walter, Kapral, Neelie, Samolinski, Steven, Laghrari, Fahd
• Granted Patent: US 10,373,400 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/29
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0278 Product appraisal
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 370/908 Local area network

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.

Claims

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

establishing one or more triggers;

monitoring for the occurrence of a trigger and, in response to determining that the trigger has occurred;

providing vehicle data concerning one or more vehicle conditions to an electronic message generating system;

constructing a notification message that includes information concerning the one or more vehicle conditions; and

sending the notification message to the recipient via an electronic messaging system.

2. The method set forth in claim 1, wherein the step of constructing a notification message further comprises constructing the notification message so that it contains (1) at least some of the vehicle data represented in language characters, (2) vehicle identification information unique to the vehicle, and (3) a diagnostic result indicating whether some action is required to address one or more of the vehicle conditions.

3. The method set forth in claim 2, wherein the step of constructing a notification message further comprises generating an email message using a markup language.

4. The method set forth in claim 2, wherein the step of constructing a notification message further comprises constructing the notification message so that it contains the vehicle mileage or oil life, or both, represented in language characters.

5. The method set forth in claim 1, wherein the step of establishing one or more triggers further comprises establishing the trigger(s) in the vehicle by wirelessly transmitting the trigger(s) to the vehicle.

6. The method set forth in claim 5, wherein the step of providing vehicle data further comprises transmitting the vehicle data to a central data system.

7. The method set forth in claim 6, wherein the trigger(s) include a periodic time-based trigger and wherein the step of providing vehicle data further comprises the steps of monitoring at the central data system for receipt of vehicle data resulting from occurrence of the time-based trigger and, if not received, communicating with the vehicle over a wireless carrier system to obtain the vehicle data.

8. The method set forth in claim 7, wherein the step of communicating with the vehicle further comprises calling the vehicle and setting a new trigger to obtain the vehicle data.

9. The method set forth in claim 1, wherein the step of providing vehicle data further comprises generating a time stamp indicating when the trigger occurred, and wirelessly transmitting the vehicle data and time stamp at a later time.

10. The method set forth in claim 1, wherein the step of providing vehicle data further comprises wireless transmitting the vehicle data from the vehicle following a subsequent startup of the vehicle.

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

initiating a first communication session from a central data system to the vehicle via a wireless communication network and establishing a trigger in the vehicle as a result of the first communication session;

monitoring within the vehicle for occurrence of the trigger and, upon determining that the trigger has occurred,

initiating a second communication session from the vehicle to the central data system via the wireless communication network;

sending vehicle data to the central data system during the second communication session;

generating a notification message that contains at least some of the vehicle data; and

sending the notification message to the owner via an electronic messaging system.

12. The method set forth in claim 11, further comprising the step of establishing a new trigger in the vehicle as a result of the second communication session.

13. The method set forth in claim 11, wherein the trigger is a persistent trigger that is not cleared when it occurs.

14. The method set forth in claim 11, wherein the step of generating the notification message further comprises constructing the notification message so that it contains (1) at least some of the vehicle data represented in language characters, (2) vehicle identification information unique to the vehicle, and (3) a diagnostic result indicating whether some action is required to address one or more vehicle conditions.

15. The method set forth in claim 11, wherein the step of establishing a trigger in the vehicle further comprises establishing a first trigger in the vehicle that occurs independently of the operation of the vehicle and establishing a second trigger in the vehicle that occurs in response to one or more vehicle conditions.

16. The method set forth in claim 15, wherein the first trigger is a time-based trigger and the second trigger is an oil life trigger.

17. 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; and

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 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 along with static vehicle data and one or more predetermined textual messages; and

sending the email out over a global public computer network using an electronic messaging system.

18. The method set forth in claim 17, wherein the step of providing dynamic vehicle data to the telematics unit further comprises sending dynamic vehicle data from one or more vehicle system modules to the telematics unit over a vehicle communication network.

19. The method set forth in claim 17, wherein the step of providing dynamic vehicle data to the central data system further comprises providing the dynamic vehicle data in response to the occurrence of a trigger.

20. The method set forth in claim 17, wherein said dynamic vehicle data comprises vehicle data that changes as a result of operation of the vehicle and wherein the static vehicle data comprises vehicle data that does not change in response to operation of the vehicle.

21. The method set forth in claim 17, further comprising the steps of generating a diagnostic result using the dynamic vehicle data and incorporating the diagnostic result into the email message.

22. The method set forth in claim 21, wherein the step of generating and sending the email message further comprises the step of including in the email message a link that can be used to provide access to additional information about the diagnostic result.

23. The method set forth in claim 17, wherein the step of generating and sending the email message further comprises determining a general diagnostic result indicative of whether some action is required to address one or more vehicle conditions and incorporating into the email message a graphical indicator of the general diagnostic result.

24. The method of claim 17, wherein the method is carried out at least periodically and further comprises the step of 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.

25. The method of claim 17, further comprising the steps of detecting a failed transmission of dynamic vehicle data from the vehicle to the central data system and retrying the transmission during a subsequent communication session over the cellular communication system.

26. A method of providing a vehicle oil life notifications to a subscriber, comprising the steps of:

(a) determining a remaining oil life by monitoring data at the vehicle;

(b) sending an oil life value from the vehicle to a central data system when the oil life falls below a first threshold;

(c) sending an electronic message to the subscriber using the oil life value obtained from the central data system;

(d) monitoring the oil life by iteratively repeating step (a); and

(e) repeating steps (b) and (c) only after the oil life has exceeded a second threshold that is greater than the first threshold; and

(f) periodically repeating the following two steps;

(f1) sending an oil life value from the vehicle to the central data system; and

(f2) sending an electronic message to the subscriber using the oil life value obtained from the central data system.

27. The method set forth in claim 26, wherein step (f) further comprises periodically repeating steps (f1) and (f2) independently of steps (b) and (c).

28. The method set forth in claim 26, wherein step (b) further comprises setting an oil life trigger in the vehicle that causes a trigger event when the oil life falls below the first threshold, and then, when the trigger event occurs, sending the oil life value to the central data system and clearing the oil life trigger in the vehicle.

29. The method set forth in claim 28, wherein step (e) further comprises resetting the oil life trigger in the vehicle when the oil life exceeds the second threshold.

30. The method set forth in claim 26, wherein steps (b) and (f1) each further comprise sending additional vehicle data to the central data system and wherein steps (c) and (f2) each further comprise incorporating at least some of the additional vehicle data into the electronic message.