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When I was a kid and my family went on road trips, my siblings and I played "Punch Buggy," a particularly brutal game of spotting a VW Beetle and punching the kid next to you in the arm. Kids today have less combative forms of in-car entertainment such as DVD players and game machines. But kids in the future may have backseat entertainment that looks like it's straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Recently, General Motors Research and Development tasked researchers and students from the Future Lab, at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel, to … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Sporting booths and displays suitable for a full-fledged car show, major automakers showed off their varying connected car strategies at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show.

But the automaker displays at CES only held a smattering of cars, the space primarily being taken up by standalone dashboards and kiosks showing in-car navigation, audio, phone, and app screens. I never doubted the benefits of data feeds in cars, as integrating Google search with a navigation system is far better than relying on some static, outdated points-of-interest database.

Knowing the glacial pace of automotive development, what surprised me was how quickly automakers … Read more

Green Car Journal announced five finalists for the publication's annual Green Car Vision Award. The award recognizes innovations in fuel efficiency, low emissions, alternative fuels, or electric power.

To be considered for the Green Car Vision Award, vehicles must be in demonstration on public highways today or nearing commercialization but not yet widely available to consumers, Green Car Journal said in a press release.

The five finalists include the BMW i3, the Cadillac ELR, the Ford's C-MAX Energi, the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell, and the Tesla Model S.

The 2012 Green Car Vision Award winner will be announced at … Read more

OnStar is giving the green light to third-party app developers.

The General Motors in-vehicle concierge announced this evening at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that it's making its proprietary application program interface open for third-party app developers, giving them access to the OnStar ATOMS cloud server. (See CNET's live blog of the OnStar event.)

The first third-party app will be RelayRides, a peer-to-peer service in which users rent out their personal cars to other drivers in the area. A demo of the app showed it helping users find, reserve, and unlock OnStar enabled cars using the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Now that OnStar is courting app developers, it's going to be needing a bigger data pipe to feed the new mobile apps it's expecting for the next generation of OnStar-equipped vehicles.

This is where Verizon comes in with its broadband wireless network. OnStar and Big Red have jointly unveiled what they call a "second-generation connected research vehicle" at CES 2012. Based on a Chevrolet Volt, the research vehicle is connected to the cloud via Verizon's 4G LTE network and will be used to help test and develop new capabilities for OnStar's Advanced Telematics … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Ford, BMW, and Toyota have them. Now, OnStar is the next in line to take a stab at the development of in-car apps.

At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, the General Motors-owned telematics provider announced that it is selecting developers to be given access to an OnStar API for the creation of vehicle-specific and vehicle-safe apps for future OnStar-equipped vehicles.

"We want to give people 1,001 reasons to keep their OnStar subscription active," said Eric Litt, chief information officer at OnStar. "We feel that opening up our proprietary API to developers will ensure that OnStar … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Remember when I said that CES 2012 would be a veritable car show?

Well, it looks like I was right, because one of the first press conferences of the big show was held tonight by none other than General Motors for its OnStar telematics and vehicle concierge service. OnStar announced that it is opening its service to third-party developers--with the car-sharing service RelayRides the first of them.

Following is the live blog of that press event. You can also check out our recap of the OnStar news for further details.

Chevy sold 7,671 electric Volts last year, short of its expectation of 10,000. The car has gotten tons of publicity, but that hasn't translated into booming sales.

Even with a $7,500 tax credit dangling like a tasty carrot, buyers haven't flocked to electric vehicles like the Volt and Nissan Leaf.… Read more

After a NHTSA investigation revealed the cause of a fire in a crash-tested Chevy Volt, GM set up a program to reinforce the batteries and coolant systems for previously sold cars.

It is not a recall, but a customer satisfaction program, according to GM. The company will be contacting the approximately 8,000 Chevy Volt owners to arrange a time for the modifications.

GM will add metal brackets to the car's underbody, designed to help prevent a break in the battery casing during a side impact crash. It will also add a sensor that shows when battery coolant is low, and another bracket to prevent overfilling the coolant reservoir. … Read more