Traffic is clear, cruise control is set to 65 and I can’t help glancing over as my passenger pulls up a puppy video on her laptop. The sleeping pitbull is so zonked that a woman who is tapping his belly, wiggling his leg and tickling his ear can’t force his eyes open. Everybody in the car giggles as the puppy twitches and rolls over but refuses to wake up.
But back to the road. I’m driving a 2015 Buick Regal with what may be the newest must-have feature: a 4G LTE cellular connection that turns this unassuming sedan into a powerful rolling hotspot.
My passenger is working on her laptop (with occasional amusement breaks); my son, in the backseat, is streaming video onto his own device. And my own smartphone is downloading email and other data through the car’s wi-fi network, reducing data consumption on my cellular plan and saving some battery juice.
General Motors (GM) will include 4G connectivity on most 2015 Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC models, the most aggressive rollout yet of the next big thing in automobiles. Most automakers offer 4G connectivity on select models, or plan to soon, but GM’s fleetwide offering is likely to speed the adoption of in-car connectivity, while perhaps bringing GM some favorable publicity to offset months of awful news about deadly safety problems. “GM will definitely gain an advantage by broadly implementing LTE,” says auto analyst Thilo Koslowski of the Gartner Group. “It’s the first type of move at that scale. They’re raising the bar by doing this.”
Initial uses for in-car Internet might not seem revolutionary, but the technology could eventually transform personal transportation. A vehicle’s 4G antenna typically provides a better Internet connection than cellular service on a mobile device, making everything faster. It also creates a centralized interface, via the car, that's simpler to use than dashboard apps that only work if your phone provides the connectivity. Passengers in a networked car can work on a laptop almost as if they’re in an office. Streaming video—a bandwidth hog—should mostly arrive without the buffering common when it comes via cellular. Instead of ponying up for a portable or in-car DVD player, parents who want to entertain their kids on the road can just pop a tablet or laptop in front of them and stream cartoons.
Other new features have a purely automotive purpose. For most of GM’s 2015 models (on sale now) a smartphone app called RemoteLink can use the 4G connection to lock or unlock the car (in case you leave the keys inside) and activate the lights and horn so you can find it in a crowded parking lot. You can also start the car remotely, to heat or cool it ahead of time, an option that costs around $300 when offered on a standalone basis. GM’s connected cars will also “phone home” once a month—connect to a GM diagnostic service that reports back to owners on whether the car has any problems or needs maintenance. There’s no extra charge for those services during the first five years of ownership. (GM hasn’t decided what to do after that.)
Add-on services
Offering those kinds of features is meant to burnish GM’s image as a technology leader. But carmakers also plan to profit from add-on services. “Once we’ve sold the car, we have an opportunity to monetize the connection,” says Phil Abrams, GM’s chief infotainment officer. “If you have a platform that can deliver great services, people will gravitate toward that platform, and then you can offer them more services. It’s a positive spiral.”
The data connection allowing up to seven mobile devices to connect to the in-vehicle hotspot, for instance, costs $10 per month for 200 megabytes of data usage , and more for higher data limits. (AT&T provides the cellular service, and current AT&T customer can simply add the car plan to their existing contract.) There’s a growing menu of other offerings such as navigation and traffic services that come bundled in packages for $20 or $30 a month. GM also gets a cut when customers sign up for partner services such as Famigo or Tumblebooks, two mobile apps for kids. Some of those services have been offered for a while as part of GM’s OnStar connectivity plan, but 4G makes delivery of such services faster and smoother and opens the door for many more.
A few years down the road, fat data pipes connecting cars with central networks could enable many Jetsonian developments. Cameras on the car could transmit real-time road and traffic conditions to transportation centers and even to other cars, perhaps automatically rerouting travelers around backups using navigation systems. Sensors could report accidents seconds after they happen, which could be life-saving when there are no witnesses to crashes in remote areas. Self-driving cars, if they ever arrive, will depend heavily on real-time data zipping to and from cars through 4G connections or whatever replaces them. Some such services are available today in piecemeal fashion, but mostly through smartphones that can't be easily linked to a broader network.
The risks of a connected car
On our own Internet-connected outing in the Regal, we got a sense of possible pitfalls. We all connected to the Buick hotspot just fine during the second leg of the trip, but on the first leg an unknown technical problem blocked access to the wi-fi network (as happens at home sometimes). There were times when everybody but me (the driver) had headphones on, which can feel antisocial, if you actually like the people you’re traveling with.
Driver distraction may be the biggest concern. Driver distraction was the cause of 18% of all fatal crashes in 2010 – with 3,092 people killed, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Automakers worried about liability have dreamed up all sorts of stopgaps to make sure drivers keep their eyes on the road with so much information buzzing about the cabin. You can’t program certain commands when the car is moving, for instance, and video will never run on an in-dash screen in the front seat with the car in motion. But the few seconds I spent glancing at the irresistible puppy video on a laptop a few feet away reveals how distractions are likely to multiply, anyway.
Even without Internet in the car, a mushrooming array of electronic features has challenged drivers’ ability to stay focused, most notably the problem of texting while driving. “Hands-free” systems that employ voice commands — so the driver’s hands stay on the wheel — can leave drivers lost in aural dead-ends, cursing a disembodied voice, when simply tapping a button or two would be easier. AAA, the motor club, recently published research showing that hands-free devices can increase, rather than decrease, mental distraction. Consumer Reports has dinged nameplates such as Ford and Cadillac for overcomplicated control systems that confuse drivers rather than aiding them.
For all the promise, networked cars will endure controversy if they inhibit safety in real-world driving. The technologists will probably get it right eventually, and once they do, the car, rather than the phone, may once again become the ultimate mobile device.
Rick Newman’s latest book is Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback To Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
