Quote:
Originally Posted by rbuzz00
Since OnStar seems to be so unpopular on this forum, it's too bad that it couldn't have been deleted when the car was initially built.
I wonder how much we all had to pay for such an unpopular addition.
|
It originally was a completely separate option, and the first GM car to offer it was the 1996 Cadillac Catera - the Caddy that zigs
But as it became more popular in the early 2000s with so many people buying it - remember at that time cell phones and cellular service plans were still expensive and on-screen navigation was a very primitive and very expensive technology - it became cheaper for GM to just integrate OnStar hardware on all their cars, like power windows.
Also GM advertised the heck out of it. You may remember commercials with people in accidents with airbag deployment and the OnStar checking in and the victim not being fully conscious, then the OnStar rep locates their car and gets emergency responders out to the middle of nowhere on the middle of the night. Those commercials certainly tugged on the heart strings of anyone thinking about buying a car with OnStar.
It became cheaper to make them standard on every vehicle they make than to offer it as an option and have completely different and unique parts for the same car with and without it.
It was really just a matter of production streamlining.