In the past two years, more than 2 million Chevrolet cars with 4G LTE data connections have been sold, and, according to GM, those connections have chewed through 3 million gigabytes of data. Now each of those bytes will cost half as much, because Chevrolet is dropping the price of its data by 50 percent.
Where a 1 GB per month plan used to cost $20, now it’s $10. Annual plans are still $150, but now users get twice the data allowance: 20 GB rather than 10 GB. The company has also halved the price on its 10 GB/month plan to $40 and added a new 4 GB/month plan for $20.
Interestingly, Chevy notes in a press release that most of this data is being used in Silverado trucks, which is likely because these pickups are used as mobile offices for businesses. Runner-up in the data race is the family friendly beast of an SUV, the Suburban, which can connect up to seven devices via its Wi-Fi hotspot.
Not long after Chevy rolled out 4G LTE connectivity across its model line beginning in June 2014, it began making Apple CarPlay and Android Auto available. You can also add your Chevy to your AT&T Mobile Share Value Plan as if it were a giant rolling smartphone (which it kind of is, most days) or keep your car account separate. You do have to have the basic OnStar package in order to add data.
It’s probably worth noting, too, that while this makes Chevys “connected cars,” it’s not quite V2X (vehicle-to-whatever) technology. Chevys don’t communicate with each other automatically (V2V) or with the infrastructure (V2I) to predict, say, when a light is going to turn red. But GM CEO Mary Barra has said V2V capabilities will be coming to GM vehicles in 2017 with Super Cruise, so stay tuned.