onstar Nav, all GM models by 2008

Most of you will not be happy about this, I know I am one of them. If anything, I want a screen navigation as an option.



OnStar, GM map out plan for navigation system

DETROIT -- More than 2 million General Motors products will come with factory-installed navigation systems by 2007.

GM will seek to broaden the market for navigation systems through its OnStar telematics network. GM will offer OnStar's Turn-by-Turn Navigation system as a cheaper alternative to systems that use an embedded screen in a vehicle. With the OnStar system, a customer talks to a live adviser.

GM will offer its system as a $100 option during the first year of service on a majority of GM vehicles, OnStar President Chet Huber said in an interview with Automotive News. The service will be free for the first year on most Buick and Cadillac vehicles.

After that, customers will pay $299 a year for the navigation system along with OnStar standard services. If a consumer does not want to renew the Turn-by-Turn, it's $199 a year for OnStar standard service.

Huber said a customer can choose to renew the navigation option each month.

"It's a terrific way to bring navigation services to the broadest market," Huber said. "It seems to be a highly valued system among consumers. The fact that people are willing to spend an additional $2,000 on an embedded-screen system today indicates our feature should help sell cars."

After talking to a consumer, an OnStar adviser sends step-by-step directions to the customer's vehicle through OnStar. The car digitally records the step-by-step instructions, and the audio directions are played automatically through the vehicle's stereo as needed, triggered by the OnStar system's global positioning satellite capabilities.

"It can take you around the city or from coast-to-coast," Huber said.

He said demand for in-vehicle navigation systems is rising. In 2005, 1.2 million model year vehicles were quipped with factory-installed navigation systems, according to a J.D. Power and Associates estimate. That's a 41 percent increase over the 2004 model year, Huber said.

GM installed the navigation technology on some 2006 models at the end of the model year, he said. By 2008, all GM vehicles will have the technology.

"The beauty of this execution is that the actual vehicle piece cost to execute this strategy is zero," Huber said. "So there's no additional hardware cost to these vehicles."


http://www.cheersandgears.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11492

Tom Tom

As long as its modular enough that I can uninstall it, and buy a nice delete plate at the dealer, I wont even complain.

If I have to hack it out, and make a delete plate, Ill be a little upset.

Man that service is expensive.

<<<< unhappy and does not want or need Onstar

<<<< unhappy and does not want or need Onstar


Ditto. I will continue to rebel and buy "older" vehicles instead.

I don't go coast-to-coast and I live in a town of 25,000....no need for that junk. I know my way around Houston without Onstar (lived there for 17 years), to boot.

Honestly, I'd rather have it "just in case."

I've also been in a wreck, and I've been lost on an out-of-town trip. Neither were fun. I'd rather have OnStar and not need it, than be in a situation where it would have saved either time or my life, and not have it.

Situation: What if you're on a road trip alone; didn't want to buy a plane ticket for whatever reason. It's about 11:00pm and you're almost to your hotel room, and you doze off at the wheel. WHAM! There's the guardrail at about 80MPH. Or worse, there's the oncoming lane of traffic at 80MPH (your speed) + 65MPH or greater (the other guy's speed). You don't need to be an expert physicist to realize that's going to seriously mess you up. What if either of you can't get to a phone? Then what?

And for those of you who say "Oh, I'm never going to travel anywhere, anyway," what if you're hit by a drunk? What if you're T-boned by someone who ran a red light or a stop sign and was speeding? What if it's a couple blocks from your house?

Call it personal preference, but I'd rather not lie there bleeding while waiting for someone to find me. I'd rather have someone call, and if I can't tell them how bad I am (or aren't), they'll send someone after me.

I see the point, in those rare cases, but if my time has come and my cellphone and AAA card can't save me....natural selection has done me in then...

Man that service is expensive.

$299 a year is. I'd rather have that money put toward a NAV screen

I love Onstar, and think it is worth the money for it's normal scedule of safety services... but... I just don't see paying that much for this type of "navigation".

Some older folks may actuall perfer this type of "nav" though. Talking to a real live person rather than trying to fumble aroudn with and figure out how to use a navigation system screen maybe apeal to those who like the idea of getting directions, but are techincally challenged. The thing is... how big is that market segment? I'd guess it is rather small.

So I don't get a screen - only a voice, and I have to pay for it whereas any other nav system has unlimited free service?:think:

Talking to a real live person rather than trying to fumble aroudn with and figure out how to use a navigation system screen maybe apeal to those who like the idea of getting directions, but are techincally challenged. The thing is... how big is that market segment? I'd guess it is rather small.

Is this talking to a real live person? Like you tell them where you want to go and they sit there on the 'phone' with you giving you turn by turn steps? What if you're on an 8 hour long road trip?:D

I must have missed that part.:p

So I don't get a screen - only a voice, and I have to pay for it whereas any other nav system has unlimited free service?:think:

I think thats a rather incomplete approach as well. While most Nav systems are pretty dinky OnStar is too.

The ideal approach would be a screen that could be used individually or in tandem with the voice, that way you could also save directions and what not. Or for technophobes you could just hit the button and have whoever read them out to you...

I think the voice is definetly useful for safety situations and is a bit more "luxurious" then the screen as it usually cost more to have a person do something then a machine, and nowadays you have to pay to talk to a person anyway. :rolleyes:

I think thats a rather incomplete approach as well. While most Nav systems are pretty dinky OnStar is too.

The ideal approach would be a screen that could be used individually or in tandem with the voice, that way you could also save directions and what not. Or for technophobes you could just hit the button and have whoever read them out to you...

I think the voice is definetly useful for safety situations and is a bit more "luxurious" then the screen as it usually cost more to have a person do something then a machine, and nowadays you have to pay to talk to a person anyway. :rolleyes:

Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly but you do know that almost every nav system w/ a screen on the market today gives voice-guided navigational directions anyway, right? And you can give it commands that way as well. Theoretically if you don't want to use the screen, you don't have to, ever... though the screen does typically make it alot easier to find addresses on the map rather than speak them out slowly and clearly for the nav system only to find it's listed slightly differently in the nav system's database. But once the address is input (and can be saved for quick future access), it will give you voice directions from there on out, with the screen just being a visual aid.

The Lexus dealer gave me an 06 (new style) GS300 loaner car one time and it had all the options including nav. To be honest, if I had owned the car, I would have turned the voice OFF. I liked having the map as a good suggestion but I have my own little shortcuts and am also more keenly aware of traffic and construction, and so when I decide to take a detour and the voice is telling me that I'm off the guided path and it is recalculating my route - it gets annoying and distracting. So yeah, I like having a map there for reference - even a little line showing me where it recommends I go - but not the voice.

Is this talking to a real live person? Like you tell them where you want to go and they sit there on the 'phone' with you giving you turn by turn steps? What if you're on an 8 hour long road trip?:D

I must have missed that part.:p

I am not 100% certain, but I think it works like this:

Push Onstar button, tell Onstar operator where you want to go. After that, I think you get computerized voice prompts for turn-by-turn instructions.

But, again, I am not 100% sure that is correct.

Mapquest
Good trip planning
and a real paper map
...Can...

do marvelous things when going on a trip!

Am I the only one that just never really needs directions that much? Any trip can, and is, solved with a quick trip to google maps or mapquest for me..

Am I the only one that just never really needs directions that much? Any trip can, and is, solved with a quick trip to google maps or mapquest for me..

I guess the primary advantage of the nav setup is it's more immediately obvious where you are on the map at any given point in time, and instead of looking for signs you can see exactly where the turns and landmarks are. Plus it will show you restaurants, banks, post offices, dealerships, and just about everything else that you may not know the location of in unfamiliar territory.

Oh and lastly the newer nav systems from Honda/Acura also integrate realtime traffic updates into their route suggestions, meaning you don't have to try and find a traffic report on your local FM radio and hope you hear it before you miss your best opportunity to plan an alternative route to get to work or whatever.

I know the way I get to work is typically pretty traffic-free, but when a wreck occurs in some areas the resulting jam can easily double my time to get to work, and there's about three completely different ways I can get to work that all take around 25-30 minutes so if I only knew about the wreck ahead of time I could have planned to go one of the other two ways.

Wasn't there a thread/article posted a while back about the police/fed tracking some criminals through onstar? That seemed to upset some people on here.

I guess the primary advantage of the nav setup is it's more immediately obvious where you are on the map at any given point in time, and instead of looking for signs you can see exactly where the turns and landmarks are. Plus it will show you restaurants, banks, post offices, dealerships, and just about everything else that you may not know the location of in unfamiliar territory.

Oh and lastly the newer nav systems from Honda/Acura also integrate realtime traffic updates into their route suggestions, meaning you don't have to try and find a traffic report on your local FM radio and hope you hear it before you miss your best opportunity to plan an alternative route to get to work or whatever.

I know the way I get to work is typically pretty traffic-free, but when a wreck occurs in some areas the resulting jam can easily double my time to get to work, and there's about three completely different ways I can get to work that all take around 25-30 minutes so if I only knew about the wreck ahead of time I could have planned to go one of the other two ways.

exactly, the only advantage to a regular map is that it is easier to see where things are in relation to a reference point, like a freeway, since you can only fit so much on a screen w/o having to scroll around. On labor day weekend we had a BBQ and I didn't know where it is, just that it's off this one freeway, punched in parks and the nav took me there.

But it is much more convenient with a built in nav. I have a portable one and it's a hassle when on a trip. You have that stuck to the windshield. And at least maybe 2 cell phones plugged in, and if you are a speeder, you have a radar detector as well.

Before I bought a nav, I used to carry paper maps and put them in the glove box, took up ALL the room. Hassle as well, especially at night time. With a navigation, you know exactly when a turn is coming up instead of constantly looking for the upcoming cross st. If it's at night, you can't even see the cross street signs!!

I drive a lot, for work and for personal reasons. I would LOVE to have a nav. as an OPTION.