The new resource, which returns a list of up to 1200 features and specifications for an individual car, is seen as a major breakthrough for leasing companies, financiers, OEMs, insurers and for the vehicle maintenance and crash repair industry.

The service also is said to potentially improve customer purchasing journeys on car comparison websites, car advisory websites and OEM websites. It will also be able to drive online services that involve vehicle appraisals.

Developed over the course of this year, JATO’s new API service unlocks access to JATO’s Australian vehicle database, linking license plate and vehicle identification numbers (VIN) to JATO’s specification and pricing data.

JATO is renowned for providing up to 1200 specification data fields for each individual vehicle, whereas competitive services are limited to around 150 data fields for each vehicle.

The company says its API provides access to all passenger and commercial vehicles in the market dating back to 1995. It says it also responds to any marketing events that may impact the specification and pricing of a vehicle, within one day of relevant information being released by manufacturers.

Peadar Walsh, JATO Dynamics regional business manager, Australia & New Zealand, said the API tool provides full-market coverage, with all OEMs included in the database – 63 brands in total – and fully tracking all available options including complex OEM build rules.

To the benefit of many operating in the market, the solution also provides access to the National Exchange of Vehicle and Driver Information System (NEVDIS) fields. This allows customers to track if a vehicle has been stolen or written off.

Mr Walsh also told GoAutoNews Premium that JATO was building its database with high-level features for electric vehicles as well as features involving autonomous connectivity. This data is also available as part of the new registration number API identifier.

Peadar Walsh

The data includes items like the size of the battery pack, the number of kilowatt hours required to charge the vehicle and whether it can do vehicle-to-grid charging.

Referring to the impact of the new service, Mr Walsh said: “Our users up to now have had the ability to access this data but there has been no way to be able to link an individual vehicle licence plate to our data. That’s the missing piece.

“With that enabler, our possibilities within the marketplace are exponential, especially in the digital space where those who are seeking to bring digital solutions into market; be it an OEM trying to offer online end-to-end buying, or a used car sell-my-car type of service trying to accurately describe the vehicle that’s been put on the market for sale,” he said.

“A lot of our leasing customers are already putting their hand up because they want to know, when they on-board vehicles – if they take over a large customer like a multinational client or a large Australian operation that has hundreds of vehicles – these customers want to on-board those vehicles knowing that the information they have for each of them is accurate in their systems. And that is a really torturous process for them right now where they have to validate and even go back and forth with the driver to find out the exact vehicle details.”

Mr Walsh said the insurance sector was also an area of great opportunity for the API.

“Insurance providers just don’t know the depth and breadth of safety features that are on vehicles and these can have such a bearing on premiums and also on the claims at the back end.

“If I apply to an insurance company to insure my car, they can put in the number plate of the car, and know exactly what equipment is in that vehicle. They know that it has collision avoidance, that it’s got lane-keeping and a host of other features designed to avoid an accident that can reduce the risk for the insurer.

“But if there is an accident, they know that a great deal of very expensive equipment is going to be damaged and need replacing. And so that allows them to assess the risk more accurately.

“So being able to understand that a vehicle from a individual rego has the likes of collision avoidance systems all the normal added features that we capture to a really high level of detail, we see that really adding a lot of value in that space.

“And then, on the other side when there is a claim, we are able to assist on their claims management side of things and ensure that the right level of claims are being paid and give them that oversight around the claims process,” Mr Walsh said.

By John Mellor