Ordering up fried chicken or a chocolate donut is now made possible using GM's in-car e-commerce app, Marketplace.
Using a GM vehicle's 4G LTE-enabled touchscreen, on-demand reservations and purchases are now possible, so you can finally make dinner reservations or pre-order caffeine bombs from the driver's seat.
Partners that have signed on to GM Marketplace include Starbucks, Wingstop, Priceline.com, Dunkin Donuts, IHOP, delivery.com, and ExxonMobile, among others.
Longer-term, the goal of Marketplace is to collect real-time interaction data such as location and time of day to provide personalized suggestions on what to buy.
"The average American spends 46 minutes per day on the road driving. Leveraging connectivity and our unique data capabilities, we have an opportunity to make every trip more productive and give our customers time back," said Santiago Chamorro, vice president for Global Connected Customer Experience at GM. "Marketplace is the first of a suite of new personalization features that we will roll out over the next 12 to 18 months to nearly four million U.S. drivers."
One downside to GM Marketplace is increasing concerns by industry folks that an in-car app will result in more accidents. A consumer safety advocacy group, the National Safety Council, has already made headlines, scolding GM for its contribution to "distracted driving." In turn, GM has argued that smartphones are more dangerous to operate, with Marketplace only requiring up to four steps to place an order.
Others have also criticized the program for encouraging connectivity in excess.
At the moment, millions of 2017 and 2018-model year cars have been equipped with Marketplace through an over-the-air update, with plans to introduce it to new models. There is no need to subscribe to a data plan to use the service.
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