There was just a good article on this topic in today's Wall Street Journal.
The focus of the piece was the reliability of OnStar (and similar products). Although cars equipped with this technology receive better coverage then cell phones, there are still plenty of rural areas in the country where there simply is no signal. OnStar is useless in those areas. Further, in the event of a serious crash, there have been a number of instances where the cell feature was absolutely destroyed and, thus, couldn't work.

The promise of this technology notwithstanding, I believe that the real value of OnStar are the concierge services offered as well as its ability to unlock doors by satellite when people lock their keys in a car (although in my 18 years of driving it's never happened to me).

Lastly, I think it's interesting how the technology is being advertised on television. They are using real recorded phone calls from people involved in accidents where airbags were deployed and OnStar was telephoned automatically. They're scary commercials and you can really sense the fear of the recorded voices in the spots. It immediately communicates how this technology is something that you can rely on in an emergency. Perhaps a bit misleading given some of the current flaws but the concept is solid and it does seem to work most of the time.

jonathan

Posted by: jonathan on December 3, 2002 09:21 AM

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