Last night, on every network news show, the announcement of OnStar as the savior of the world was made. Yes, now when your car is involved in a high speed chase, the police can call OnStar and have the car’s ignition system cut out, bringing the vehicle to a stop. Needless to say, this is probably not good news for you if you happen to be the driver at the time! I am imagining the outcome of the car chase in The Bourne Identity with the Mini Cooper having the wondrous gift of OnStar.

Seriously, the ability of OnStar to do this is probably helpful if you are the one standing on the corner, just after having your vehicle hijacked. If you are Tiger Woods, and you have locked your keys in the car, it is nice to know that someone, somewhere has the ability to unlock it for you. The diagnostic abilities if this system seem to amaze and confound NASCAR drivers, so it must be great, right?

Well, not so quick. Ignoring the Big Brother capabilities of ’someone’ that has such complete control of a big part of your life - think of the possibilities for simple defects. Imagine you in your new vehicle, taking the family on that cross country adventure you’ve been putting off for so many years. You have decided to go on the road less traveled, and are currently somewhere near West Fencepost, Wyoming. Your car conks out, and its just you, the family, and OnStar. Perhaps you think this is a good thing. It certainly seems like it would be. You can get hold of someone on the other end, who can diagnose the problem and send help. Imagine now that the friendly voice has told you that Bubba, from Bubba’s Burger Shack and Auto Repair will be there soon - just after the lunch rush ends. Great news - you won’t be spending the evening listening to those 3 cows behind the fence mooing all night. The population density study of your youth hits home - you’re in the middle of nowhere. Imagine also, that tempering of your joy when you learn that the problem is caused by a defect in the OnStar system, and that it was triggered by your daughter opening the right rear door while the car was at speed, trying to release her dress from the door hinge, but making the ‘brain’ in OnStar believe that an abduction was taking place, and your car was in the hands of someone else. Further complicating the matter is the fact that this is a new design, and just so the ‘culprit’ is permanently discouraged from further tries to abscond with your vehicle, the ignition system, in total, has been burned out. This causes the ‘culprit’ to flee the scene, and look for an older vehicle, missing these ‘helpful’ upgrades, but also leaves you with a vehicle that needs to be towed to - oh, say - Denver, as it is the closest place that the entire ignition system can be replaced.

Now this may seem far fetched, but it really isn’t. If you read about the features that are being included - plus those undoubtedly left unspoken - you get the idea that it could happen. Perhaps you have not been the victim of auto electronics going wrong. As someone who, up until recently, clocked over 50, 000 miles of driving per year, I have been the victim of electronic snafus several times, in a few different makes of vehicle. No one manufacturer can be singled out for defect or quality. There is also the ‘race’ to include improvements to supercede the capabilities of competing systems, and the problems that implementations are prone to have.

Beyond that, there is the ‘Big Brother’ factor, which, if you do much science fiction reading, you know, that each of the protagonists was unaware of the looming disaster awaiting, until the events of doom transpired.

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[tags] OnStar, GM, electronic auto controls, defect rate, included ‘features’, debugging, Big Brother, electronic observation, bugging [/tags]