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Meet the woman who puts fun into driving
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Mary Chan joined GM in 2012 after serving about 27 years in the wireless industry. She is heading up a new business unit called Global Connected Consumer. It was created, she said, to merge the digital world with the motoring experience. Her responsibilities including oversight of GM’s OnStar security, safety services via voice and data communication and in-vehicle infotainment functions.
Q: How can you close the gap between the development cycle of consumer electronics, which is 12 to 18 months, and that of auto industry, which features a 4-5 year window?
A: That is the exact problem we are trying to address with the open platform. In the old paradigm, a lot of applications were pre-loaded into a vehicle. Now with an application shop, we can push more content into the vehicle, making both embedded and brought-in technologies more flexible. We are working with Apple and Google to keep up with the software and hardware. Earlier this month, at the International Consumer Electronics Show, we announced our open automotive alliance with Google, where we are building Android services and software environment that will be accommodated in the next generation of GM products.
Building these apps for the vehicle is not just simply translating the existing ones for smart-phones and tablets. There is a lot of unique experience that we have to build to minimize driver distractions.
Q: What kind of applications can third-party developers contribute to GM?
A: There are some application programming interfaces that third-party developers are welcomed to take a look at on developer.gm.com. We certainly need to approve third-party applications. They are not limited to music and news. We want to keep the safety and security capabilities to developers within GM.
Q: OnStar subscription is not free, while the services provided by Google and Apple are. Now that GM is working with these two companies, how are you going to charge for in-vehicle services in the future?
A: In the past, OnStar provided what I call “vertical services,” focused on safety and security, and they will remain as paid services in the future. If you have a car crash, you need roadside assistance, which is something OnStar can provide but Google and Apple cannot, at least for now. China’s consumers are highly tech-savvy. We find the likelihood of interacting with On-Star services 45 times higher in China than in the US.
The other set of services is around Wi-Fi hotspot, infotainment and content-related capabilities. There is a different business model associated with this level of services. When you bring your device into a car, you still have to pay for a device data plan or the services rendered inside the vehicle under the carrier relationship.
Q: How does GM share earnings with carriers?
A: We don't disclose specific arrangements with each carrier. They differ according to regions and cases. In the case of AT&T, if we sell a connected car to a customer who is already an AT&T user, then he can add the vehicle as a device to his mobile share plan, which means he can drive the usage to a bigger data bundle. If he is not an AT&T customer, he can purchase a data plan through OnStar with the security and safety subscription. And one can buy a very flexible data plan for a whole family taking a long vacation trip by car.
In the application space, we can provide Wi-Fi hotspot on a different data rate base, and content bundled with data, like selling e-books.
Q: Are there any new in-vehicle services that we can expect after the 3G-to-4G transition?
A: In the 2G or 3G environment, the service we build is really voice-centric and based on less data. In the 4G environment, because of faster data speed and shorter latency, we are looking at much more real-time services, such as Wi-Fi hotspot within the vehicle, a capability we now provide, supportive of seven devices.
Besides that, we are looking to support simultaneous voice and data capabilities, which cannot be realized in the 3G era. It means the driver can talk to an OnStar advisor and at the same time receive data services provided by mobile devices and applications in the head unit. And this much richer user experience can also be offered to passengers.
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