Electric Vehicle & Equipment Tracking in South Africa

Only if the machine will tell us. Battery state of charge lives on the machine internal CAN bus, and the FTC305 at R1,899 can read it — but it ships knowing nothing about your machine and has to be told exactly where to look. That means a CAN signal matrix for that model: the baud rate, the message address, the bytes inside it, and the arithmetic that turns those bytes into a percentage. With that it is a configuration exercise. Without it, nothing can be promised. Ask The Tracking Co before ordering rather than after.

Start with whoever supplies the battery management system or the motor controller, not necessarily the brand on the machine. Battery and motor figures are published by those components, and their protocol documents are often easier to obtain than the machine builder own. If you bought the machine through a local dealer, the dealer can usually request it. What you are asking for is the CAN protocol or signal matrix document, sometimes supplied as a DBC file.

Then be realistic about what the project can deliver. Baud rate can be found by trying the common speeds until the tracker hears traffic, but message addresses and byte positions cannot be guessed — they have to be decoded from captured traffic by watching which bytes change when the machine is operated. The Tracking Co charges that as custom development at R750 an hour and cannot guarantee a result on every machine. Location, running hours, geofences and alerts all work regardless, because none of them depend on CAN.

Yes. The FTC305 supports an engine cutoff relay at R199 once-off, fitted alongside the tracker with no ongoing fee, and the machine can then be immobilised and released from the platform or the mobile app. The 4G900L supports the same relay at the same price. Use it responsibly and only on machines you own or manage — and never on a machine that is moving.

Yes. The FTC305 supports driver identification at R499 once-off, either as a tag the operator touches before starting or as a Bluetooth beacon they carry. Trips, hours and events then attach to a named person rather than just a machine. It is identification, not scoring — The Tracking Co does not rank or grade operators. On a shared yard of forklifts this is usually the feature that settles arguments about who had what.

For most machines, yes, and The Tracking Co will say so. The 4G900L is R769 and runs on 9 to 90 volts, which covers 12, 24, 48 and 80 volt systems — so it already handles an electric forklift or a golf cart. It gives you live location, running hours, geofences and alerts. The R1,899 FTC305 earns the difference in two situations only: when you need data off the machine CAN bus, or when the unit has to be sealed against dust and water.

Yes, and it does not need anything special. An electric car takes the same 4G900L as any other vehicle, at R769 once-off plus R50 a month. It wires into the 12 volt system that runs the lights and electronics, not the traction battery, so it does not affect range or charging. The FTC305 is for industrial and light electric machines — forklifts, buggies, scooters — rather than passenger EVs.

The FTC305 is rated IP67 in its cased version and rated for operation from minus 30 to plus 85 degrees, so dust and water are not a problem. For diesel machinery working in dust, damp and vibration, the FMC880 at R1,199 is the established choice and clamps straight onto the battery terminals. The 4G900L is not sealed and needs a protected mounting position inside the machine.

It is wired to the machine power supply and concealed inside the bodywork. There are three routes. Anyone on your team with the technical ability can fit it, and The Tracking Co supplies wiring diagrams and will talk them through it. Your own auto electrician can do it. Or The Tracking Co can arrange an independent installer where one is available. Machine fitting is quoted per site rather than per vehicle, because a yard full of forklifts is a different job to a car.

No. The Tracking Co is month-to-month on every device, and you can cancel at any time with no penalty and no early termination fee. The hardware is bought once and belongs to you permanently, so nothing ties you to the subscription. If a machine is sold or scrapped, the tracker comes off and goes onto the next one. Annual billing is R540 per device per year if you would rather pay once instead of twelve times.