Volt On-Star IPhone/Blackberry/Android App Makes Cars Smarter

The much anticipated Chevy Volt, an extended range electric vehicle to be offered by GM at the end of 2010, has been called a variety of things (good and bad) since it has been announced.  Regardless of what you think of it, the Chevy Volt has undoubtedly raised the bar for technology in cars.  The most recent example is the new On-Star application for your smart-phone that lets you control various aspects of the car, including:

·         Charge mode and charge status

·         Lock/unlock

·         Remote start

·         Remote climate control (heat up your car before you get there)

The app is free and fully functional, albeit on a demo Chevy Volt that only exists in your phone. I installed the app on my IPhone and have been tinkering around with it for the past week.  It is impressive on a number of fronts. Not only have they managed to make OnStar (more) useful, but they have added some serious tech savvy to the vehicle itself. 

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Most impressive from the Smart Grid perspective is that the vehicle will come with a “grid-friendly” charging mode, which according to the app means that the charging will occur “mostly off-peak”.  Hopefully they will make this the default mode for the app when these vehicles are actually deployed.  If they could also get it to talk to the meter and figure out the price of electricity, then they could show price per charge as well, allowing you to compare the cost of driving your Volt to the cost of running your gasoline car.

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