Chevrolet Volt Smartphone App
When the Chevy Volt goes on sale late this year, General Motors intends to leverage its popular OnStar technology to help drivers maximize their 
electric driving time and minimize their use of liquid fuel. To do that, GM created an OnStar/EV lab last year at its Detroit headquarters. Engineers there have been working on how they can utilize available communications technology to save fuel, and the first public result is a new mobile phone application that is being announced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.
When the production version of the Volt was unveiled in 2008, many called the interior very Apple-like because of its smooth white plastic center stack with capacitive touch controls. Thankfully, for those of us who have not fallen prey to the allure of the iPhone, the new mobile phone app is being developed to work on other touch screen phones including the Motorola Droid and Blackberry Storm. Read on after the jump to learn more about what OnStar has created.
The OnStar EV lab located deep within the bowels of GM’s Renaissance Center headquarters is where engineers and programmers have been working on new applications that will first appear later this year with the launch of the Chevy Volt. This new mobile phone application is the first and uses the OnStar communications infrastructure to let drivers monitor and manage the condition of their car’s battery pack.
The mobile app has a user interface that looks visually similar to the instrument cluster in the Volt itself, including the battery state of charge gauge. It works by contacting the OnStar servers, which then contact your car. All new GM vehicles have a built in cellular connection that provides communications with OnStar for emergency services, turn-by-turn directions (even without a navigation system), remote unlock and vehicle health reports. Normally drivers have to either press the OnStar button in their car or use another phone to call OnStar to access these services.
The Volt application, however, will allow direct control of the car. Besides checking the current state of charge, the 
driver can set up several automatic notifications. For example, you can create a reminder for any given time to plug in your car if you haven’t already done so. Since the car can sense if it is plugged in, it won’t send an alert if you already hooked plugged it in when you returned home. However, if you neglected to plug in, you would get a message via your phone or an email to go plug it in at the appointed time. If your car becomes unplugged or loses power for whatever reason, you could also get a notification.
There is also a switch to set charging for “grid-friendly mode.” In this mode, you can plug in the car but it won’t actually start charging the battery until your utility switches over to off-peak rates, saving you money. You can also use the app to pre-condition the climate control system, turning on either the heat or air conditioning while the car is still plugged in so it uses the grid instead of battery power to achieve the desired temperature. It takes a lot more energy to bring the temperature up or down than it does to maintain a steady state, so this greatly reduces the load on the battery and preserves electric range. You can even use the app to take care of more mundane tasks like locking or unlocking the car remotely.
Pre-conditioning the battery is one of the keys to what GM hopes will be a 10 year/150,000 mile life for the Volt pack. By using the mobile phone app, drivers will be able to more easily let the car know when they plan to leave and have the car get itself ready. The app will initially be available for the Apple iPhone, Motorola Droid and Blackberry Storm. OnStar plans to expand availability to other Android phones as well later on. For now, if you have a Motorola Droid or supported Blackberry you can download a demo version of the app to check out the functionality and interface at OnStarMobileDemo. A demo of the iPhone version should be available tomorrow.
Filed Under: Cars & Transport
