You no longer have to buy a General Motors vehicle to have OnStar in your car. If you drive one of the 20 most popular cars on the road today, you can slap an OnStar mirror on your windshield and put the famous “blue button” at your fingertips.
The $299 gadget provides all of OnStar’s core services, including automatic crash response, turn-by-turn navi, stolen vehicle location assistance, one-button access to emergency assistance and hands-free calling. It’s a brilliant move because several automakers are scrambling to offer in-car connectivity similar to what OnStar and Ford’s Sync have offered for years. This week alone we’ve seen Toyota and Hyundaiannounce their own riffs on those two successful systems.
OnStar enjoys excellent brand recognition, and 80 percent of consumers who buy a GM vehicle cite OnStar as a reason. But OnStar is trying to catch up with Sync, which has been hugely successful as Ford goes nuts with in-car connectivity. Beyond expanding its reach to other brands, the OnStar mirror allows General Motors to easily retrofit its older vehicles, something customers have long requested.
“This move into the consumer electronics space represents the biggest development in our business model since introducing OnStar as standard across all GM products several years ago,” said Chris Preuss, OnStar president, said. “It represents a quantum leap forward in our plans to grow our business and provide a strong new revenue base for GM and OnStar from which we can further develop our core offerings in the factory-equipped market.”
OnStar will sell the 23-ounce mirror through BestBuy (installation will run you $75 to $100) this spring and offer a range of services starting at $18.95 a month or $199 annually. GM says the mirror will work on 99 percent of the top-20 best-selling non-General Motors vehicles sold during the past decade, from the Accord and Altima to the Tacoma and Town & Country. GM says that includes about 55 million cars and trucks, and more models will be added soon.
OnStar currently has more than 6 million customers and expanded into China a little more than a year ago. It also has expanded services to include features like Pandora and Stitcher in an effort to keep pace with Sync.
