Car rental company Hertz Mexico has announced its entrance into the connected car space, tapping Telefónica Mexico to supply its Smart M2M telematics system – targeting improved efficiency and reduced maintenance costs for its fleet of rental vehicles by monitoring engine data. This doesn’t jump out as a particularly ground-breaking piece of news at first glance, but is one that could form the foundations of an influential Latin American presence in the connected car space – with the potential to progress these technologies to get a foothold in the future autonomous car industry. The Smart M2M platform is a joint development between Telefonica and telematics engineering firm Geotab, for which the latter supplies a telematics module that plugs directly into…