Global CIO: Why GM's Volt Electric Car Needs An iPhone AppGlobal CIO: Why GM's Volt Electric Car Needs An iPhone App

The app also will let drivers set when they want charging to start. Liedel sees interesting potential here--if we get the kind of smart grid that utilities talk about building.

One big question with the "smart grid" idea, where utilities give consumers information on varying power rates throughout the day, is whether people would really use it. Is the savings from running the dryer at midnight worth the hassle? If you own an electric car, however, and get a much better rate for electricity between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., you'd be highly motivated to take advantage of it. The Volt's smartphone apps will let drivers set that kind of delayed charging.

Why am I pounding away on this one app? No one's going to buy the Volt, which is expected to cost around $40,000, just because of a nifty app on their iPhone, BlackBerry, or Droid. But this smartphone app will be one part of the complicated, emotional mix of factors that go into buying a car. And every CIO needs to be thinking about how smartphones and the mobile Web change our businesses. DirectTV, for example, is running TV commercials touting that customers can use their iPhones to program which shows to record, in case they're away from home and realize they forgot to record a favorite show.

GM, which posted a $1.2 billion loss in the third quarter of 2009, needs Volt to be a blockbuster, not a gimmick. "The Volt is going to be a car you'll actually own and use every day," Liebel says. "With all the features we put into it, I think it's going to revolutionize the electric car industry." To do that, GM needs to do a whole lot of things right, including eliminating the fear and hassles that come with a new experience like electric.

I once interviewed the CEO of a company that made nothing but gas gauge and speedometer needles. Just the needles. He described that part of the vehicle as the "jewel box"--because drivers spend so much time staring at it, it's vital to their perception and affection for a vehicle. For a certain segment of buyers, for them to really love their Volt, GM must get both the real and virtual jewel boxes right.

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