A Big Move For Onstar

by Jeff Gilbert
WWJ AutoBeat Reporter

Interview: Onstar President Chris Preuss talks about new plans.

Onstar has decided to open up its service, and move beyond GM products. That will make Onstar available on virtually all new cars on the road.

"We have made the shift from being a core automotive provider of safety and security telematics to the retail consumer market," says Onstar President Chris Preuss. "We've announced that we now going to offer Onstar to everyone."

Starting in the spring, Best Buy stores will be offering a $299 package that can be installed in your vehicle to provide most of Onstar's services. That includes Automatic Crash Response, Turn-by-Turn Navigation, and access to Onstar's calling center.

The announcement was made at this year's Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, a show that's attracted the interest of the auto industry in recent years.

The system will include a mirror with Onstar's "blue button." It will be connected to an embedded cellular phone.

"That's key," Preuss said, in an interview with WWJ AutoBeat Reporter Jeff Gilbert. "There's a lot of advantages to having an embedded phone. It's very different than depending on your bluetooth connected phone in a crash situation."

Onstar has been working to differentiate itself from Ford's popular Sync system, which connects to the driver's cellular phone. Sync isn't as robust a system as Onstar's and doesn't have a calling center. But, it doesn't come with a subscription fee, either.

Like the Onstar service currently in General Motors vehicles, the new system will come with a range of service plans, starting at $18.95 a month, or $199 a year. Installation is expected to cost between $75 and $100 dollars, and will be handled by Best Buy.

"We're proud to be OnStar's first strategic retail partner for this innovative offering, which is one more way Best Buy can help our customers stay connected whenever and wherever they want," said Lisa Farrell, senior vice president and general manager portable electronics customer solutions group at Best Buy, in a statement released by the company.

The system will be offered starting in the spring. Onstar says it has certified the mirror to work in 99 per cent of the top 20 selling non-GM vehicles that have been sold over the past ten years.

Preuss says that's a large market that Onstar can't pass up.

"We're talking a potential market of ten millions of people to market to as opposed to just a few million with the embedded product. So there's a big upside here."