Video: OnStar Stolen Vehicle Slowdown

Here's Cristi Vazquez from OnStar. Cristi, tell us a little bit about how this feature works. Basically what happens right now is about 700 times a month, we help police locate stolen vehicles. This takes it to the next level. And once someone has reported their vehicle is stolen and the police have that vehicle in sight, we'll actually be able to send a signal from the OnStar system to the powertrain system that will take the accelerator away from the thief, and we'll be able to actually slow the vehicle down. <v Kelsey>And then when you slow the vehicle down, is the driver still gonna have control of steering and brakes and things like that. Yep, the entire electrical system of the vehicle will work. The only thing that isn't going to work is the accelerator. There'll be able to pound on it as hard as they want to, as long as they want to, and they're not going to go any faster. <v Kelsey>I gotcha. Okay, and when does this feature start making its way into cars? Actually, there are about 20,000 vehicles right now on the road with this technology and the backend will be ready mid-September. And we'll be hopefully having our first slowdown soon after that. <v Kelsey>Cool. Let's go check it out. Cristi's in the car with us. Here's how it works. Say we've just stolen your vehicle. You're going to contact the cops and say that your vehicle has been stolen, also that it has OnStar. The police dispatcher is going to contact OnStar and they're going to lead them to where the vehicle is. So there's going to be a three-way conversation at this point between the police officers on the scene, the police dispatcher and someone at OnStar. Cristi is going to be playing the part of the police dispatcher, relaying information from the officers on site to the folks at OnStar. The first thing that happens when the police officers find your vehicle is that OnStar activates your hazard lights, which you don't actually see on your instrument panel, but it lets the cops know that, in fact, it's this Impala we stole and not another one. It also lets others around know that there's some sort of emergency going on. If I'm a car thief and I see the cops showing up, I'm obviously going to try to accelerate away. At this point, OnStar has drivetrain controls that they can actually cut acceleration power. <v Cristi>It is now safe to slow down the vehicle. And, here's what happens. I'm sitting here pumping the pedal and nothing's going on. And engine power is reduced, a little indicator comes up. I still have brakes and steering power. So you can avoid other people. You can come to a complete stop and try to throw it into reverse, drive. Nothing's going on. Pretty simple stuff. And now I've been caught. We'll admit Stolen Vehicle Slow Down does sound a little bit big brother to us, but OnStar says you can call and actually have this specific feature deactivated. You don't have to go back to a dealership to get it reinstalled. Also, it won't work again after your subscription runs out, if you don't renew. Finally, each vehicle has its own specific electronic code. So someone else's stolen Impala won't become your problem. We'll have to wait and see how this pans out in the real world before we make our final decision on it. But that shouldn't be too difficult because OnStar says that once it's fully rolled out, Stolen Vehicle Slow Down will be used about 600 times a year. That could mean good news for car buyers and bad news for the crooks. <v Male Announcer>For more car related news, go to Cars.com or our blog Kicking Tires.