# Pelican: Automotive assistant — Navigation, OBD, & car widgets

> Personalized CarPlay driving assistant with navigation, OBD, and custom widgets. (iPhone/iPad app by Fearless design, LLC.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pelican-automotive-assistant/id1663683832 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Fearless design, LLC](https://appshunter.io/developer/321056993)
- Category: Navigation, Utilities
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Rating: 4.00/5 from 79 App Store ratings · 50 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 17+
- Requires: iOS 18.0 · 245 MB
- Languages: American English, Arabic, Dutch, French (France), German (Germany), Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean and 8 more
- Released: 2023-09-16
- Data updated: 2026-09-01
- Monetization: freemium
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pelican-automotive-assistant/id1663683832/reviews.md

## What is Pelican?

The most personal CarPlay driving experience for any car, whether it's a 1999 Toyota Camry or a 2025 Ford F-150.

No ads.
No tracking.
No data sold to insurance companies.

Pelican is a free navigation product with social driving features like sharing the locations of road closures, traffic, and police. Built on OpenStreetMap and a corporate sponsor of the OpenStreetMap foundation, the Pelican community actively contributes to making the map better for everyone.

Pelican's full-time development is covered through memberships that include additional powerful features like trip logging, historical vehicle diagnostics, OBD scanning, "The Fog", "The Danger Zone", and more.

▶ More than just a navigation app

Reduce context switching by customizing your experience with widgets on the map.
Widgets like real-time vehicle data (via OBD), music, weather, compass, speed limit, and more can all be added with the customizable widget editor.

▶ A real-time map connected to the Pelican community

Stay aware of real-time road conditions with Scout reports of hazards, police, construction and accidents made by other Pelican drivers.

▶ Speed limits even while cruising

Whether you're navigating or cruising, see the current speed limit with the CarPlay widget. When navigating, see the weather at your destination with the weather widget.

▶ Open source, offline navigation

With Pelican Navigation, you can navigate while offline and edits you make to OpenStreetMap can affect your drive within 36 hours of publication.

▶ Powerful, real-time vehicle data

Turn your offline car into an online car using iCloud sync and Pelican's powerful OBD scanner. Sync your vehicle state to your Apple Watch for free.

▶ Know how far you can go before you go

See your range outline on the map with Pelican's range overlays.

▶ Privacy and security

All data is stored on your device and never sent to third party servers. If you use iCloud sync, your data is stored on your personal, encrypted iCloud database accessible only to you.

▶ Control your vehicle remotely

Tesla and Volvo accounts are fully supported, with Porsche, Toyota, and Polestar accounts available in closed beta. To join the beta, email support@clutch.engineering.

▶ All your cars, anywhere you want

Personalize your lock screen, home screen, Apple Watch, and CarPlay with vehicle widgets.

Need help? Have feature requests? Reach out at support@clutch.engineering

EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore/dev/stdeula

## Key features

- Customizable CarPlay widgets
- Real-time vehicle data via OBD
- Community-sourced road hazard reports
- Speed limit display
- Destination weather updates
- Range overlays
- Remote vehicle control (select models)

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**Subscriptions**

| Subscription | Price | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Connected Accounts (monthly) | $4.99 | per month |
| Sidecar+: Full access | $6.99 | per month |
| Sidecar+: Annual | $79.99 | per year |
| Sidecar+: Quarterly | $19.99 | per 3 months |
| ScanPlan Quarterly | $14.99 | per 3 months |
| ScanPlan Annual | $49.99 | per year |
| ScanPlan: OBD & CarPlay only | $4.99 | per month |
| Sidecar+: 6-Month | $39.99 | per 6 months |

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| ScanPass - 1 day | $0.99 | one-time |
| ScanPass - 1 week | $2.99 | one-time |
| Park and watch | $19.99 | one-time |
| Sidecar+ Lifetime | $199.99 | one-time |


## Chart rankings

- #68 in Top Free · Navigation (US App Store)

## Recent user reviews (10 of 50)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pelican-automotive-assistant/id1663683832/reviews.md

### 5/5 — Best CarPlay interface

*2026-07-20*

Been beta testing the 5.0 for a short time and it’s by far the best OBD/Carplay integration yet!!

**Developer response:** Thank you for the kind words and for being an awesome beta tester!

### 4/5 — Nice App

*2026-04-21*

A very nice app that shows many checks you are looking for on your vehicle. One thing I am hoping that gets updated on the map section is the MPH display. At times it shows and other times it doesn't. And at times the carry over into a new speed limit is not updated. Outside of that I really like the app. It is very customizable.

### 3/5 — AI coded app with unique features

*2026-04-03*

Is it a good idea to give a AI coded app access to your OBD port? You be the judge. Has cool features, sadly upon determining the development process I'm not comfortable using it now let alone spending $. The nav loses to GMaps for me, wish I could use Pelican's nav more reliably since I wouldn't get the widgets I pay for otherwise

**Developer response:** Pelican’s OBD stack was built long before AI coding was a concept, after hundreds of hours studying SAE standards and rigorous technical implementations covering 30 years of automotive diagnostics protocols. The stack has been further hardened through tens of millions of miles driven by hundreds of thousands of drivers, and not one of those miles was driven using an AI-coded app.

As a solo founder, I do use AI tooling to prototype new features throughout Pelican, but not a single line of code goes into Pelican without being reviewed and tested, and the OBD stack in particular is the most hardened part of Pelican.

It would be more accurate to say today that Pelican has an AI-assisted app development process, and one that has enabled me to improve the stability and quality of Pelican in countless ways. But to call Pelican an AI coded app is to ignore the years of human development time that have been invested into making Pelican what it is today.

Navigation is the next big focus area for me. It sounds like you might already be in Discord, so I invite you to participate in the community discussions around the features I'm working on next including lane guidance and municipal road closures.

### 1/5 — No instructions and support

*2026-03-23*

The interface gives no flow how to get started. Also to get any support you must join GitHub. They themselves are so paranoid of bots make joining a full cavity search process.  I really wanted this app but will not jump through multiple hoops just for them.  I subscribed but will be dropping immediately before my two weeks are up.

**Developer response:** Hi rleedyii,

Please email me at support@clutch.engineering and I can follow up with you. Your car might not be fully onboarded yet so if you let me know your make and model and year and I can help you better ❤️

### 5/5 — App does it all

*2026-03-22*

This app reports more OBD parameters than any other I have used. Outstanding work

### 5/5 — Best automotive app EVER

*2026-03-19*

I stumbled on this app on twitter of all places. It works seamlessly with my car and the developer actively looks to add new vehicles every few weeks. It's such an awesome interface and makes it easy to log trips. Would highly recommend if anyone is looking for a trip logging app that connects directly to their car!


One thing I wanted to add is that some people are probably confused by the purpose of the app. I don't think you should see this app as replacing Google maps for instance. This app is a digital logbook for your drive and it shows everything, your speed, tire pressure, fuel level, all that. And then it logs it for you so you can go back and know your exact statistics from every single drive. I think some people get confused because they open this app and they wonder why it doesn't have all the features that Google I don't think this was first and foremost meant to be a navigation app, it was meant to be a trip logging app.

### 5/5 — Such a cool app!

*2026-03-06*

I love this app, everything regular CarPlay lacks Sidecar provides. It’s such an underrated app that makes having CarPlay so much more enjoyable.

### 3/5 — Has potential, but check compatibility first

*2026-01-16*

There’s a lot of promise from this app, but so far my experience has been very mixed.   Currently I use the BMW app for trip statistics/vehicle status, Waze or AppleMaps for my daily nav/traffic mitigation, and a couple OBD2 apps for scanning and live telemetry.  This app would potentially be a godsend, combining all the above into one, customizable, CarPlay compatible, interface.  

But alas, my vehicle is not yet fully supported and there is no telling how long I’ll have to wait.  

Top that off with the fact that, so far, I’ve found that, yes the app is full of features, but It doesn’t really excel at any of them. Or at least not enough to sway me away from the other apps I’m currently using.  The CarPlay interface and navigation has also been a bit buggy so I’ve ended up running the app on my phone (to test trip logging) and just using other navigation.  

Hopefully someday I’ll come back and give it another shot

### 5/5 — Best automotive app EVER

*2025-12-21*

I stumbled on this app on twitter of all places. It works seamlessly with my car and the developer actively looks to add new vehicles every few weeks. It's such an awesome interface and makes it easy to log trips. Would highly recommend if anyone is looking for a trip logging app that connects directly to their car!

### 5/5 — Best app out there to connect to your OBD2 scanner

*2025-12-08*

Does so much already and developer is very active and responsive to questions and ideas.

## Frequently asked questions about Pelican

### What does Pelican do?

Pelican provides a personalized driving experience for CarPlay, integrating navigation, real-time vehicle data through OBD scanning, community-sourced road condition reports, and customizable widgets. It aims to reduce context switching by bringing essential information directly to your car's display.

### What are the key features of Pelican?

Key features include customizable widgets for the map screen (vehicle data, weather, music, speed limits), real-time road hazard alerts from the Pelican community, speed limit display, destination weather, range overlays, and privacy-focused data storage. Paid features unlock trip logging, historical diagnostics, and OBD scanning.

### How much does Pelican cost?

Pelican is free to use with core navigation and widget features. Advanced functionalities like trip logging, historical vehicle diagnostics, and OBD scanning are available through paid power features, supporting ongoing development of the app.

### What cars are compatible with Pelican?

Pelican is designed to work with any car, from older models to the latest. Remote vehicle control features are currently fully supported for Tesla and Volvo, with Porsche, Toyota, and Polestar support in closed beta. Vehicle state can be synced to Apple Watch for free.

### How does Pelican ensure user privacy?

Pelican prioritizes user privacy by storing all data on your device and never sending it to third-party servers. If iCloud sync is used, your data is stored in your personal, encrypted iCloud database, ensuring it's accessible only to you.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### v5.0.3 — 2026-08-21

Introducing Pelican Navigation: a major expansion of Pelican's driving experience.

▶ Lane guidance
▶ Offline routing
▶ Improved speed limit and road detection while cruising

Scout reports got a massive upgrade too, including suggesting edits to speed limits and traffic light cameras. Backed by a new report grade system, the Pelican TestFlight community has already contributed over 1000 edits to OpenStreetMap.

Department of transportation data is now published to the Pelican map automatically, and municipal road status is rolling out to more cities, states, and countries every month.

New Pelican+ features:
▶ The Fog: a map overlay that erases as you drive, so you can see where you've been (and where you haven't).
▶ The Danger Zone: see how far you can drive before you run out of fuel.
▶ Offline maps: pre-load maps so you can navigate without a connection.

Also new:
▶ See speed bumps and humps along your route.
▶ Wildfires are now shown distinctly from fires.
▶ CarPlay Quick Destinations now match the map's place symbols.
▶ Pelican can open to the Map tab by default.

Search
▶ Fixed bug where brand and category searches (e.g. "Starbucks") could rank a far-away result above a closer one, because drive-time estimates arrived too late to order them.
▶ Fixed bug where dropped pins could report the same address for consecutive houses.

CarPlay
▶ Fixed bug where clearing or dismissing a CarPlay search left the previous results in place, so a new search could show stale ones.

Units & Regional Display
▶ Speed limit signs on the phone and in CarPlay now follow the road you're on, not your device's region. A US-region phone no longer shows a US plate in Ireland.
▶ Fixed bug where "Default" distance and speed units followed your device's region instead of the country you're driving in. An explicit Miles or Kilometers setting still wins.
▶ Construction reports and roadwork settings now read "Roadworks" in British English (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India).

Wildfires & Fire Reports
▶ Fire detail sheets now show fire behavior, fuel type, personnel assigned, and suppression cost to date.
▶ Fire details now appear for every fire report, not only wildfires. Satellite-detected fires previously opened an empty section.
▶ Fixed bug where a small fire's burn area displayed as "0 acres".
▶ Fire reports say "Bushfire" in Australia and New Zealand.

Scout Reports
▶ Fixed bug where map edit speed limit signs were drawn in your region's units and style. A 30 km/h edit could show as "19" on a US sign.
▶ Fixed bug where a map edit with an unknown region drew a US-style sign instead of a neutral one.
▶ Flooded road reports now use a dedicated sticker symbol.

OBD & Vehicle Communication
▶ Fixed bug where clone ELM327 adapters returned no VIN, calibration ID, or ECU names, and an incomplete sensor list. Pelican now repairs their malformed replies and warns you on the Scanner page.
▶ Fixed bug where one malformed ECU response discarded the valid responses from every other ECU.

Trip Logging
▶ Fixed bug where trip recording failed to arm on a cold start after a long park, most often when CarPlay launched the app. Recording began only later, well into the drive.
▶ Fixed bug where the Apple Weather mark in the "Latest trip" footer and logbook journey cards could render oversized, overlapping the trip chart.

Membership
▶ Fixed bug where paid features could intermittently disappear when the App Store couldn't be read — offline, signed out, or receipt not yet synced. Membership is now retained.
▶ Fixed bug where refunded transactions were never finished, which could stop the purchase sheet from appearing.

Settings
▶ Fixed bug where opening Trip logging, going back, then opening The Danger Zone could lock up the app.
▶ The Pelican+ button now appears at the top of The Danger Zone, The Fog, Trip logging, and Offline maps rather than the bottom.
▶ Your account details now show your signed-in email address below "Scouting since".

### v5.0.2 — 2026-08-05

Introducing Pelican Navigation: a major expansion of Pelican's driving experience.

▶ Lane guidance
▶ Offline routing
▶ Improved speed limit and road detection while cruising

Scout reports got a massive upgrade too, including suggesting edits to speed limits and traffic light cameras. Backed by a new report grade system, the Pelican TestFlight community has already contributed over 1000 edits to OpenStreetMap.

Department of transportation data is now published to the Pelican map automatically, and municipal road status is rolling out to more cities, states, and countries every month.

New Pelican+ features:
▶ The Fog: a map overlay that erases as you drive, so you can see where you've been (and where you haven't).
▶ The Danger Zone: see how far you can drive before you run out of fuel.
▶ Offline maps: pre-load maps so you can navigate without a connection.

Also new:
▶ See speed bumps and humps along your route.
▶ Wildfires are now shown distinctly from fires.
▶ CarPlay Quick Destinations now match the map's place symbols.
▶ Pelican can open to the Map tab by default.

Search
▶ Fixed bug where brand and category searches (e.g. "Starbucks") could rank a far-away result above a closer one, because drive-time estimates arrived too late to order them.
▶ Fixed bug where dropped pins could report the same address for consecutive houses.

CarPlay
▶ Fixed bug where clearing or dismissing a CarPlay search left the previous results in place, so a new search could show stale ones.

Units & Regional Display
▶ Speed limit signs on the phone and in CarPlay now follow the road you're on, not your device's region. A US-region phone no longer shows a US plate in Ireland.
▶ Fixed bug where "Default" distance and speed units followed your device's region instead of the country you're driving in. An explicit Miles or Kilometers setting still wins.
▶ Construction reports and roadwork settings now read "Roadworks" in British English (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India).

Wildfires & Fire Reports
▶ Fire detail sheets now show fire behavior, fuel type, personnel assigned, and suppression cost to date.
▶ Fire details now appear for every fire report, not only wildfires. Satellite-detected fires previously opened an empty section.
▶ Fixed bug where a small fire's burn area displayed as "0 acres".
▶ Fire reports say "Bushfire" in Australia and New Zealand.

Scout Reports
▶ Fixed bug where map edit speed limit signs were drawn in your region's units and style. A 30 km/h edit could show as "19" on a US sign.
▶ Fixed bug where a map edit with an unknown region drew a US-style sign instead of a neutral one.
▶ Flooded road reports now use a dedicated sticker symbol.

OBD & Vehicle Communication
▶ Fixed bug where clone ELM327 adapters returned no VIN, calibration ID, or ECU names, and an incomplete sensor list. Pelican now repairs their malformed replies and warns you on the Scanner page.
▶ Fixed bug where one malformed ECU response discarded the valid responses from every other ECU.

Trip Logging
▶ Fixed bug where trip recording failed to arm on a cold start after a long park, most often when CarPlay launched the app. Recording began only later, well into the drive.
▶ Fixed bug where the Apple Weather mark in the "Latest trip" footer and logbook journey cards could render oversized, overlapping the trip chart.

Membership
▶ Fixed bug where paid features could intermittently disappear when the App Store couldn't be read — offline, signed out, or receipt not yet synced. Membership is now retained.
▶ Fixed bug where refunded transactions were never finished, which could stop the purchase sheet from appearing.

Settings
▶ Fixed bug where opening Trip logging, going back, then opening The Danger Zone could lock up the app.
▶ The Pelican+ button now appears at the top of The Danger Zone, The Fog, Trip logging, and Offline maps rather than the bottom.
▶ Your account details now show your signed-in email address below "Scouting since".

### v5.0.1 — 2026-07-24

Introducing Pelican Navigation: a major expansion of Pelican's driving experience.

▶ Lane guidance
▶ Offline routing
▶ Improved speed limit and road detection while cruising

Scout reports have also gotten a massive upgrade, including the ability to suggest edits to speed limits and traffic light cameras. Backed by a new Scout report grade system, the Pelican TestFlight community has already contributed over 1000 edits to OpenStreetMap during our beta testing period.

Department of transportation data is now also being automatically published to the Pelican map, making it easier to plan your route and understand the state of the road ahead of you. Support for municipal road status is rolling out to more cities, provinces, states, and countries every month.

New Pelican+ membership features include:

▶ The Fog: a persistent overlay on the map that erases as you drive, making it easy to see where you've been (and where you haven't)
▶ The Danger Zone: see how far you can drive before you run out of fuel/gas.
▶ Offline maps: pre-load Pelican with offline maps so that you can navigate even when offline.

Other updates in this release include:
▶ See speed bump and humps along your route so you know when to slow down ahead of time.
▶ Wildfires now have their own distinct representation from fires.
▶ CarPlay Quick Destinations now render the place symbol consistent with how they're shown on the map.
▶ You can customize Pelican to open to the Map tab by default.

### v5.0.0 — 2026-07-20

Introducing Pelican Navigation: a major expansion of Pelican's driving experience.

▶ Lane guidance
▶ Offline routing
▶ Improved speed limit and road detection while cruising

Scout reports have also gotten a massive upgrade, including the ability to suggest edits to speed limits and traffic light cameras. Backed by a new Scout report grade system, the Pelican TestFlight community has already contributed over 1000 edits to OpenStreetMap during our beta testing period.

Department of transportation data is now also being automatically published to the Pelican map, making it easier to plan your route and understand the state of the road ahead of you. Support for municipal road status is rolling out to more cities, provinces, states, and countries every month.

New Pelican+ membership features include:

▶ The Fog: a persistent overlay on the map that erases as you drive, making it easy to see where you've been (and where you haven't)
▶ The Danger Zone: see how far you can drive before you run out of fuel/gas.
▶ Offline maps: pre-load Pelican with offline maps so that you can navigate even when offline.

### v4.1.2 — 2026-04-18

Sidecar is now Pelican. Same app, same features, new identity.

Here's what's new in this release.

▶ CarPlay now faster, more efficient, and more informative

Adaptive frame rate reduces CPU and battery usage during steady cruising. Notification banners show scanner status on the CarPlay screen. Navigation icons now correctly adapt to light and dark mode.

▶ Auditory notifications

Hear chimes when your OBD scanner connects, disconnects, or fails to identify a vehicle. Chimes play even with the silent switch on. Configure them in Settings > Notifications > Auditory notifications.

▶ Smarter trip detection

The trip logger activates faster when you start driving, capturing more of your journeys. Start and end times are more precise, using location visit data to refine boundaries.

▶ 29-bit CAN support

Pelican now supports vehicles that use extended 29-bit CAN addressing, including the Jeep Renegade Diesel and similar vehicles that require an adapter warmup sequence.

▶ Export anonymized journeys

Share journey data for debugging without revealing your location history. Export from Settings > Data & backups.

▶ pelican:// deep links

Open the map, navigate to addresses, and switch vehicles from other apps or Shortcuts using the new pelican:// URL scheme.

▶ Pelican bird app icon

A new alternate app icon option in Settings > Personalization.

▶ Longer login sessions

Sessions now stay active as long as you keep using the app, and only expire after 60 days of inactivity.

Other changes:
- Improved compatibility with ELM327 OBD adapters that echo setup commands or use CRLF line endings.
- Pre-2008 vehicles using KWP 2000 or ISO 9141 protocols now report their VIN during initial connection.
- Larger scanner read buffer avoids dropped responses from chatty ECUs.
- Fixed bug where launching the app while music was playing would pause the music.
- Fixed bug where OBD scanner sound effects would interrupt system music playback.
- Fixed bug where sound effects only played from the left channel on stereo outputs.
- Fixed bug where the VIN decoder accepted blank responses as valid VINs.
- Fixed bug where record forms dropped values entered with comma decimal separators.
- Fixed bug where fuel records displayed in the wrong unit after changing unit preferences.
- Fixed bug where the delete button on records was hidden behind the keyboard.
- Fixed bug where mileage was attributed to the wrong vehicle when the scanner connected mid-trip.
- Fixed bug where the trip logger did not restore the previous trip after relaunch, splitting one journey into two.
- Fixed bug where high-speed driving was misclassified as stationary, hiding journeys from the timeline.
- Fixed bug where tapping near the map search bar selected a place behind it instead of the search field.
- Fixed bug where large isochrone requests in Europe failed repeatedly without returning results.
- Fixed bug where the Storage > Signals page spun indefinitely instead of loading.
- Fixed bug where iCloud backup restoration failed on a fresh device.
- Fixed bug where widgets showed stale data or failed to render after an update.
- Fixed crash when backgrounding the app during a database sync or iCloud backup.
- Fixed Polestar vehicles not loading due to an API change.
- Fixed Suzuki Swift Sport showing a generic vehicle icon.

## Apps similar to Pelican

| App | Rating | Price | Category |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Hudhud: Accurate KSA Maps](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hudhud-accurate-ksa-maps/id6477774492) | 4.4 (186) | Free | Navigation |

## More apps by Fearless design, LLC

- [CAN Studio](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/can-studio/id6477373179)
- [ELMCheck](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/elmcheck/id6479630442)
- [Scout, by Sidecar](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/scout-by-sidecar/id6749034239)

All apps by Fearless design, LLC: https://appshunter.io/developer/321056993

## Related topics

[sidecar](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/sidecar) · [pelican](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/pelican) · [said car](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/said-car) · [sidecar automotive](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/sidecar-automotive) · [automotive tech hub](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/automotive-tech-hub) · [wiper driving safety assistant](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/wiper-driving-safety-assistant) · [navigation assistant](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/navigation-assistant) · [easy trip](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/easy-trip) · [fleetime automotive news](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/fleetime-automotive-news)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-01.*