Mike Humble

Surprising news has come through that Vauxhalls 24/7/365 concierge, assistant and emergency programme, OnStar, is to be cancelled in the UK and Europe by the end of December 2020.

All new models produced after early 2019 will no longer be fitted as standard or by requested option. First introduced with the new Astra back in 2015, OnStar went on to be available in every Vauxhall car and the Corsa van with many models, including the whole Insignia range being fitted as standard equipment.

OnStar is wholy owned by General Motors and its clear that this was not included in the sale of Vauxhall & Opel to Groupe PSA which took effect last year. The system has been live in the States for over twenty years and currently boasts well over seven million users. Its a deeply impressive feature that I have personally used and experienced many times.

Surely there must be something in the pipeline to replace this but I wonder how this will be achieved as I know GM took out a staggering number of patents. The first little sign something was awry was when I tried to download a destination from the OnStar assistant to the head unit of a Grandland X I was testing recently.

I was told; “its not an available feature at the moment on that car” – possibly because a lot of the vehicles electronic wizardry is PSA based no doubt. Indeed, as time goes by more Vauxhall product will be heavily based on Peugeot / Citroen models… it makes sense of course but this needs to be dealt with in total or at least part.

You see… OnStar is not only a clever piece of labour saving and dare I say it licence saving equipment, its been proven many times to actually preserve human life. To have this level of technology on a volume brand of car isn’t just clever… it was a milestone in the brands resurgence from being an also-ran into a maker of rather decent cars.

As I have previously mentioned, I hope than Vauxhall and Groupe PSA are already working something out to replace this soon to be missed feature. Vauxhall are keeping very tight lipped at the moment but have quoted the following:

 “Vauxhall remains fully committed to its well-established role as a leader in connectivity services and we will share further details on future connectivity solutions at the appropriate time“