General Motors’ European chief, Karl-Thomas Neumann, believes that the rollout of the company’s OnStar telematics system to Europe will have a revolutionary impact on the auto industry.
GM is planning to roll the 4G-based system out across all model lines starting with selected models from October of this year. The full suite of Opel/Vauxhall OnStar services will be provided free for a 12-month trial period and thereafter for an annual subscription fee.
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The OnStar package in Europe will differ in a number of respects with the OnStar offering in the US, but Europe’s will include a high-speed 4G-based Wi-Fi hotspot capability, emergency response notification and stolen vehicle tracker. A concierge style service will enable subscribers to talk to advisers about accident and breakdown emergencies, as well as more routine matters like vehicle diagnostics and sat-nav set-up (which can be handled remotely).
Around fifty OnStar advisers will initially be recruited to work at a dedicated call centre in Luton and they will be available for 24 hours every day of the year. At a push of an SOS button, OnStar users can request assistance whenever they deem it necessary, for example, if they witness an accident. The OnStar buttons will be located in the overhead centre console or the rear-view mirror on some cars.
Opel/Vauxhall executives were guarded on the question of how much the subscription fee will eventually be after a free first year to users. Brian McCreavy, who is heading the Luton call centre operation, told just-auto that the intention is to keep the fee low. “We want high take-up of this service,” he said. “It will be significantly cheaper than the fee charged for OnStar in the US, which offers different services. Think of it as likely to be in the region of the cost of two cups of coffee per month.”
Opel/Vauxhall chief Karl-Thomas Neumann said the new system will be a “gateway to the future”. He heralded the Europe offering as revolutionary in its impact.
“This will eventually put a 4G pipeline into all of our cars and will change the rules of the business,” he said.
Neumann also stressed that data privacy will be addressed by the OnStar system’s European version. “We want to be transparent,” he said. “So the European version comes with a privacy button. It will be possible to be invisible to the OnStar operator and we see this as a core competency for our system. Our customers will know what happens with the data.”
