GM unveiled the plan today in Las Vegas, ahead of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, which runs Thursday through Sunday.
The world’s largest electronics show, CES is becoming increasingly important to automakers as they try to make their cars work easily with the sophisticated mobile phones and mp3 players that are so popular among consumers.
As people become increasingly dependent on their mobile phones for email, Internet, music, movie listings and more, automakers are under pressure to make many of those functions easy to access in the vehicle, even while driving.
While Ford Motor and a few other automakers already offer a sophisticated suite of in-car technology to do some of those things, others have been left playing catch-up or must evolve older technologies to a future more dependent on mobile devices.
Hundreds of automotive and tech firms are slated to show in-car technology during the show this week.
The Volt’s mobile features, powered by OnStar, are just the beginning of a new suite of technological offerings that could be coming to future GM vehicle, said Thilo Koslowski, head of the automotive practice at technology research firm Gartner.
“The car is the ultimate mobile device,” Koslowski said.
OnStar’s new mobile features for the Volt will first be available on the Droid, iPhone and Blackberry Storm smart phones. Eventually, phones could be widely used as a key fob across more GM vehicles.
Source : http://www.freep.com/article/20100105/BUSINESS0101/100105075/1205/business01/New-Chevy-Volt-to-boast-smart-phone-technology
