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Safety group pans GM’s new Marketplace in-dash shopping

When it comes to our cars, is the Internet of Things a godsend? Or a hidden menace that will create more problems than it will solve? On the same day General Motors announced it will equip newer-model cars with its in-dash Marketplace e-commerce app, a prominent safety group was shooting it down. National Safety Council President Deborah Hersman tells Bloomberg the technology will only contribute to distracted driving and hurt efforts to stem the tide of rising auto fatalities, which grew 5.6 percent to more than 37,000 in the U.S. in 2016. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says distracted driving was responsible for 3,477 fatalities and 391,000 injuries in 2015, the most recent year for which it has data. "There's nothing about this that's safe," Hersman told Bloomberg. "If this is why they want WiFi in the car, we're going to see fatality numbers go up even higher than they are now." Marketplace, developed with IBM, will allow drivers — or more often, one hopes, their passengers — to order coffee or food, find gas stations and reserve hotel rooms from their dashboard screens. The technology is set to be uploaded automatically to nearly 1.9 million GM vehicles model-year 2017 and later that are equipped with WiFi hotspots and compatible systems. By the end of 2018, about 4 million Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles will be equipped with Marketplace. The app will debut with a limited number of participating retailers, including TGI Fridays, Shell, Exxon Mobil and Starbucks, with more likely to join later. Online retail giant Amazon is also partnering with automakers such as Ford to bring e-commerce capabilities inside the car through its Alexa personal assistant. While convenience is nice, one other thing is becoming clear as the IoT wedges its way into our cars: It's taking aim at some decidedly first-world problems.Related Video: Image Credit: GM Buick Cadillac Chevrolet GM GMC Technology Infotainment in-car entertainment marketplace e-commerce

GM cutting vehicle trim options to save money for electrification

Information continues to filter out about GM's plans based on comments the automaker made during its Capital Markets Day event in February. GM President Mark Reuss said the company's push to save money by rationalizing the number of build combinations will continue in 2020, carrying on the work done in 2019. As GM Authority covers, last year, the carmaker cut 3,500 components across model lines, a 12% drop in the number of parts it needed to stock in its plants. Reuss used the next-generation Chevolet Equinox and GMC Terrain as examples for more cost efficiencies, saying build possibilities — which include international markets and their options — will be cut by more than 50%, and use more shared parts. "We will reduce total trim levels on Equinox and Terrain from eight to six," Reuss said, "reduce engine variants from 11 to 5, reduce build combinations from more than 200 to less than 100 per program, and see significant cost savings of an already paid-for architecture that took the mass out, helping us self-fund electrification programs." GM will plow a large amount of the money it saves into its ambitious EV program. In 2017, the automaker said it intends to have 20 electric vehicles on the market by the end of 2023, some of which could be shared between brands. An automotive analyst at Seeking Alpha and a piece in Automobile attempted to put specifics to what we should expect. As Automobile points out, the first two EVs in the 20-car program are already on sale, being the Ariv Meld and Ariv Merge eBikes available in Belgium and The Netherlands. We've seen the Cruise Origin autonomous rideshare taxi, although we don't know when it will hit the road. The next three, which we should see in the metal shortly, are two Cadillac EVs and the GMC Hummer EV pickup. The Cadillac pair are expected to be sized like the XT4 and XT5, and along with the Hummer, should hit the market starting in late 2021.

GM's Cruise Origin EV platform to be shared by many electric vehicles

GM on Monday announced that it was spending $2.2 billion at its Detroit-Hamtramck facility, part of its $3 billion commitment made after the UAW strike to transform Hamtramck into the company's first plant to exclusively build a wide variety of electric and autonomous vehicles. The operation will eventually employ 2,225 people. Hamtramck is still building the Cadillac CT6 and Chevy Impala. Production of those cars will wind down Feb. 28, when GM will idle the lines for 18 months of retooling. During the transition, more than 800 workers will likely be transferred to build pickups at Fort Wayne, Indiana, or Flint, Michigan. When Hamtramck production of new EVs begins in late 2021, the Cruise Origin electric shuttle revealed last week will be among the first vehicles built there. Also, an electric pickup likely branded as a Hummer to be sold as a GMC, which will be debuted by LeBron James during the Super Bowl this Sunday. GM made quite a few pronouncements during the unveiling of the electric, autonomous Cruise Origin last week in San Francisco. We heard that the Origin was designed to last for for 1 million miles, be "roughly half the cost of what a conventional electric SUV costs today,” and riders could save as much as $5,000 per year by giving up their cars for Origins. Much was left out, as well, such as detailed specs on the platform, and when the Origin could see wide deployment. Carscoops addressed one open question about the platform, reporting that the Origin's bones will be shared among a number of other GM battery-electric vehicles, probably starting with the Cadillac EV due in 2021. The site received confirmation of that tidbit from Megan Soule, the automaker's assistant manager of Electrification, Battery Technology, Fuel Cells, R&D and GM Ventures Communications. It seems what we've been shown in the Origin is the first fruit of the multi-vehicle EV strategy GM CEO Marry Barra presented at the 2017 Barclays Global Automotive Conference. One of the slides (below, full PDF presentation here) touts an "All new multi-brand, multi-segment platform" with a "Structurally integrated all new battery system." The next slide places that modular platform at the center of 11 new vehicles, the van-looking silhouette on the upper right labeled "SAV," for shared autonomous vehicle, apparently in reference to the Origin.