


GM 350 SOFTWARE SOFTWARE
During that time, the company saw a need for more advanced software development tools to support its work, so it created those and later made them available to other software developers. Mapbox dates back to 2010, with its beginnings as a consultancy offering customized mapping data for government agencies and corporations. Mapbox and GM took the program from concept to release in just nine months, a nearly unheard-of timespan in an industry that has tended to work with three- and four-year development cycles. Impressive was the short development time required to roll out the feature. More than 230,000 users have installed the software, meaning there’s already potential for tens of millions of dollars in new annual revenue for the automaker.Įarly on in exploring possibilities for collaboration with Mapbox, GM “recognized there was an opportunity to further enhance the customer experience – these are some customers who didn’t buy their vehicles with (embedded) voice recognition and/or mapping,” Matt Joshua, vice president-Infotainment Strategy at GM, points out. Maps+ is part of the GM App Access subscription plan, which goes for $14.99 per month. The launch not only provided an element of delight and convenience for existing GM vehicle owners, it opened up a new and potentially ongoing revenue stream for the automaker with vehicles up to four years old. Future capabilities are expected to be added, such as location of charging stations for owners of electric vehicles. It also can suggest convenient service-station stops when it detects the vehicle is low on fuel. The Maps+ service combines Alexa-based voice assistance and a number of other vehicle apps – such as music streaming and points-of-interest services for shopping, parking and restaurants, as well as live traffic reports and speed-limit alerts – into a single interface. That’s when General Motors rolled out Maps+ to existing owners of some 900,000 ʼ18-model or newer GM vehicles that previously did not have built-in navigation systems. For a glimpse of the future and how the software-defined vehicle will change pretty much everything, take a look back to April.
