When the Internet went down at Buff Whelan’s Chevrolet dealership in suburban Detroit, salesmen and women began to panic, as they depend on the Internet to run lease payments, find cars in inventory, and report sales to the factory. And then someone had the bright idea, “Why don’t we use one of our cars?”
According to Automotive News, salesman Matthew Oleszczuk remembered that several of the cars in the showroom were equipped with 4G LTE service through OnStar, a feature that Chevrolet has hyped for the 2015 model year. The connection turns any 4G LTE-equipped Chevrolet into a high-speed Internet hot spot for up to seven devices.
After configuring a Volt, the sales staff was soon connected to the Internet.”We were laughing because the signal was as strong or stronger than when we’re running our internal network,” said Oleszczuk. After a Malibu sedan joined to connect another set of computers, the staffers exploited the opportunity to their customers.
“One lady asked why the Volt was on, and we told her that our land line was down and the 4G connection was keeping our network going,” Oleszczuk said. “She thought that was pretty impressive.”
Comments
I’m impressed with the 4G LTE offered in the new Chev’s. Also wondering if the firmware/software can be applied to a 2014 Impala with MyLink & OnStar?…Anybody know?