All GM cars will come with On Star and StabiliTrak Standard

[BigAls87Z28]

All Vehicles Sold In U.S. And Canada Will Have Lifesaving Safety Technologies

NEW ORLEANS - General Motors announced today that two proven life-saving safety technologies, OnStar and electronic stability control, will become standard features for retail customers in the United States and Canada, covering all segments and prices except for some commercial vehicles.

The fast-track expansion of OnStar-equipped vehicles begins this year and will be completed in 2007. The first year of OnStar safety and security service is included on all OnStar-equipped vehicles.

Electronic stability control, sold as StabiliTrak, is standard on many GM full-size SUVs and will expand to midsize SUVs this year. Remaining GM SUVs and vans will have StabiliTrak standard by the end of 2007. It will be standard on all GM cars and trucks sold to retail customers by the end of 2010. As enablers of electronic stability control, antilock brakes and traction control will become standard as well

"These moves are consistent with GM's continuing effort to strengthen its brands, build on our history of innovation and leverage our global capabilities," GM North America President Gary Cowger told GM dealers at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention here.

"Only GM offers a full range of cars, trucks and SUVs that provide safety protection before, during and, thanks to OnStar, after a crash," he said.

OnStar, currently available on more than 50 GM models, is recognized as the automotive industry benchmark for safety, security and information services and has been credited with helping to save scores of lives. OnStar features include alerting emergency services when air bags deploy, assisting authorities in locating stolen vehicles and remotely unlocking doors when keys are left inside.

StabiliTrak helps a driver maintain vehicle control during challenging or unexpected driving conditions, such as ice, snow, wet pavement and emergency lane changes or avoidance maneuvers. It is credited in several independent studies with dramatically decreasing the number of single-vehicle crashes, especially those resulting from a loss of control.

"Except for the growing use of safety belts, we have rarely seen a technology that brings such a positive safety benefit as electronic stability control," Cowger said. "Offering OnStar and StabiliTrak standard is another way to provide our customers an impressive combination of value, safety and peace of mind."

Recent studies by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety both indicated that the widespread application of electronic stability control could result in a significant safety benefit.

"Electronic stability control is a technology with significant safety potential," said Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "We at NHTSA commend General Motors for this progressive action to improve the safety of its customers."

Based on stability systems now in use, NHTSA's study reported a 67 percent risk reduction in single-vehicle crashes for SUVs. The IIHS said as many as 800,000 of the 2 million single-vehicle crashes that occur each year could be avoided if stability control was standard on all vehicles sold in the United States.

GM began offering OnStar services and StabiliTrak in 1997 and has more than 3 million OnStar subscribers and 2 million ESC-equipped vehicles on the road.

Source: Auto channel

I LOVE the idea of standard StabiliTrak, but On Star in every car? That scares me.

[Untamed]

They can track you everywhere you go. Monitor your travel routes, then mail coupons to you the next time you go on vacation. Just like a grocery store.


No... they don't really do that. Yet.

[BigAls87Z28]

Uh...yeah, I guess they could do that too...but I was thinking more along the lines on tracking your speed or having the ability to shutting down or taking control of your vehicle.

[Fasterthanyou]

Originally Posted by BigAls87Z28

Uh...yeah, I guess they could do that too...but I was thinking more along the lines on tracking your speed or having the ability to shutting down or taking control of your vehicle.

I'm sure it'll have a dedicated fuse

[Untamed]

Monitoring speed maybe, for the purpose of enfocing the speed limit makes sense. Some European communities have cameras that record the times you pass certain markers, then figure out how fast you went. A few days later, a ticket appears in the mail. I think the Germans are notorious for that. That would suck, but I can see the US headed that way.

But remotely shutting down a vehicle? Sounds dangerous. On-star can already unlock doors remotely. Hopefully you dont piss off an On-star employee huh?

[BigAls87Z28]

They could shut down and take control of your vehicle. More and more cars, especialy GM cars, come with electronic throttle control and electronic assist steering, such as my car .
It wouldnt take much for the On Star computer to remove all control from your vehicle and put it in the hands of someone hundreds of miles away.

I do wish that XM was standard.

[Ian]

the ability to track vehicle speed and shut it down remotely is part of OBD III.

[curt86iroc]

Originally Posted by Ian

the ability to track vehicle speed and shut it down remotely is part of OBD III.

when will we see OBD III in cars ian?



OBD II sucks enough.......

[TheWraith]

Originally Posted by BigAls87Z28

I do wish that XM was standard.

i'm with you there. I don't know why they're gonna go out of their way to make things like stabilitrak and onstar standard, that might be beneficial to 25% of the people, annoy 25% of the people, and 50% of the people will be indifferent about, yet it will surely make it's presence known in the sticker of the vehicle. My brother's 01 gtp had onstar and my 00 didn't, and he never used it once, yet he had this awful obvious blue button on the rear view mirror and a big control box taking up trunk space.

Meanwhile something like xm would actually be useful to 100% of people, and realistically there's no reason why they couldn't work out a deal with xm to roll it right into your car payment or give a free year of that instead of onstar.

they don't care about what the customer wants, there's probably some way they're making money off doing this **** either through some government incentive for safety or a deal with insurance companies or something.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by curt86iroc

when will we see OBD III in cars ian?



OBD II sucks enough.......

OBDII is awesome compared to the planned OBDIII. I doubt we will see OBDIII anytime soon thankfully. The fact that the automotive industry knows where you are all the time, where you are going and how fast you are going kinda clashes with peoples privacy, so until they get that ironed out, OBDIII should be nothing to worry about.