In January GM said the plug-in Chevy Volt will roll out equipped for remote control of battery charging and other vehicle functions via smartphones, and in May the automaker announced plans for version 2.0 of the Volt app to link with Google’s Android and incorporate new location-based services using Google technology. But as OnStar President Chris Preuss commented last spring, the Volt app marked only a first step in a larger effort to expand OnStar (developed by Microsoft) beyond safety and security services.

The app planned for GM’s upcoming 2011 lineup will include — in addition to information like odometer readings, fuel tank level and estimated range — a couple features that could serve to boost fuel economy, depending on drivers’ behavior. First, it will display the vehicle’s “lifetime miles-per-gallon,” designed to give an accurate reading as of the car’s last start. For competitive “hypermiler” types who need just a little feedback to inspire efforts to eke out every possible mile from a gallon of gas, that could be a useful tool, although it may not spur significant change in the grand scheme of fuel consumption.

In addition to the MPG reading, GM says the OnStar app (initially for iPhone and Android phones) will provide information on the current and recommended tire pressure. According to FuelEconomy.gov, having tires inflated to the proper pressure can boost gas mileage by up to 3.3 percent, while under-inflated tires can put a 0.3 percent dent in mileage for ever 1 psi drop in pressure on all four tires. According to GM’s release today, the apps for Chevy, Cadillac, Buick and GMC models will also offer a range of yet-to-be announced features “tailored specifically for each brand’s customers.”

These tools are hardly world-changing, but they could help to make fuel consumption top of mind for more drivers. If that awareness helps pressure automakers like GM to crank out more efficient, lower-emission models, then they’ll be worthwhile.

Image courtesy of GM

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Back in February, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak made headlines complaining that his Toyota Prius had a “scary” software glitch. Not long afterwards, the automaker recalled more than 145,000 of its 2010 Prius and Lexus HS 250h hybrids for a software update in order to resolve “inconsistent brake feel” related to the anti-lock brake system. In addition, documents surfaced showing that federal regulators had asked the automaker back in 2007 to install software to prevent sudden acceleration in its vehicles (an action Toyota didn’t take until this year).

According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 100 people have now sued Toyota over car crashes they say were caused by electronics defects, such as glitches in throttle systems controlled by computers. But Toyota now tells Bloomberg that it has reviewed about 2,000 reports of unintended acceleration since March without finding any evidence of problems with the cars’ electronics.

Toyota’s statement today comes on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report this week on initial government findings supporting the automaker’s position. Official findings have yet to be released, but according to the WSJ’s sources, preliminary results of an ongoing federal analysis suggest that at least some Toyota drivers in accidents were unknowingly stomping on the gas instead of the brakes.

The investigation, conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has been looking at data from the ”black box” recorders in Toyota vehicles involved in accidents where the driver filed a complaint saying the brakes “failed to stop the car from accelerating and ultimately crashing.” according to the Journal report.

How is Toyota hunting for bugs? According to Bloomberg, the automaker has been evaluating system software line by line and “bombarding vehicles with electromagnetic interference at more than twice the level that would occur in real-world conditions,” while also running other tests.

Reviewing each line of code in a car is a massive undertaking. By some accounts, “high-end cars now have more software than jets,” the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Caroline Michaels told us earlier this year. And the New York Times has written that vehicles are now “packed with up to 100 million lines of computer code,” and have “at least 30 microprocessor-controlled devices.”

This week’s findings hardly mark the end of the safety saga for Toyota, which has recalled more than 8 million vehicles to fix dangerously sticky accelerators and floor mats that can fatally pin down the gas pedal. And we’re still likely only at the beginning of a larger wave of anxiety over computer- and software-dependent cars — especially as electric cars roll out in the next few years with even more reliance on software, computing and communication networks to manage a host of services and battery charging.

For the auto industry — where Michaels told us there has historically been room for software suppliers to “manipulate the system” and employ less-than-stellar marketing practices to inflate their expertise — it’s high time to nip this in the bud. Recently we’ve seen some steps in the right direction, like a new database system that will allow automakers to get a more detailed look at potential software suppliers’ strengths and capabilities. Here’s hoping that evidence of driver error in these Toyota cases doesn’t overshadow the persistent need to keep improving cars’ safety as much as their smarts.

Image courtesy of Toyota

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In particular, ABI anticipates free and low-cost navigation apps for mobile phones which will give in-vehicle navigation systems a run for their money. Worldwide, the number of vehicles equipped with GPS and navigation systems will double over the next five years, says ABI research director Larry Fisher. But revenues for those systems will shrink by two-thirds. Overall, the automotive infotainment market will drop to $24.8 billion in 2015, from more than $29.5 billion in 2010, according to the research firm’s forecasts.

What does this mean for the the nascent green car market? Well, automakers have been outfitting their upcoming hybrid and electric car models with loads of software, slick screens showing efficiency and battery information, and the capacity for remote control of battery charging and other functions via smartphones. The charging systems for electric cars will also be managed via communications networks and smart software.

“Electric cars by nature have to be connected cars,” Scott Griffith, the CEO and Chairman of car sharing provider Zipcar (which filed this week to raise up to $75 million in an IPO), told us in an interview last year. He said at the time that designing cars to function more like smartphones — with GPS, an intuitive user interface, a web connection and a set of standard applications and an open platform — could help usher in greener, more connected vehicles. All of that whiz-bang technology at a driver’s fingertips might also help automakers boost their margins, he said, because of the portion of the market that “will pay up for features.”

The shifting market for connected car services described by ABI today suggests growing pressure for green car makers to partner with companies that are controlling the mobile ecosystem. That includes Google and its Android open source operating system for mobile phones, Apple and the iPhone, and the telcos, AT&T and Verizon. Already, General Motors’ has moved to work with Google Android phones for a next-gen mobile app for the Chevy Volt, offering location-based services in addition to scheduling battery charge times (see video here).

But more mobile integration is likely needed from all the green car makers. It would be a mistake for an automaker to think it can control the connection to the car. Web and phone companies have had years of developing compelling applications and services on cell phone screens, while the car companies are just figuring out how — and if — consumers want to surf the web, watch videos on in-vehicle screens (only while parked, one would hope), and monitor things like real-time and cumulative fuel economy (see our list of 8 iPhone Apps for Car 2.0).

Consumers, “will be reluctant to pay high subscription fees” for premium in-vehicle content, when free alternatives are available through mobile devices, says ABI, noting that additional challenges may arise as “driver distraction” faces growing scrutiny from the government.

At the end of the day it’s a fight over the new content distribution platform that will be the car. Who will control it, and what will consumers be willing to pay for?

One way that in-vehicle systems can offer more attractive services is by opening up the platform to third party developers, by implementing standards, and by working with partners in the mobile ecosystem. Down the road, ABI predicts car companies and in-vehicle systems makers can make money from licensing deals with app developers, and could bring in “ongoing service revenue” for web-based services.

Images courtesy of Ford and General Motors

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IT Opportunities in Electric Vehicle Management

Back in January, GM announced that the Volt would roll out equipped for remote control of certain vehicle functions via BlackBerry Storm, iPhone or Droid smartphones. According to the automaker’s release Tuesday, a 2.0 version version of the app for Android phones will incorporate new location-based services using Google technology.

Word of this new partnership between GM and Google comes on the heels of Ford and Microsoft announcing plans to put their longstanding alliance (Microsoft developed Ford’s Sync communication system) to work on smart charging for electric vehicles. Ford plans to use Microsoft’s Hohm tool to minimize energy costs for drivers of upcoming electric Ford models, and to help limit strain on the power grid for utilities.

More details about how GM aims to deploy Google’s technology will come out this week in a demo at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. But the automaker says it has added a new navigation tool to the existing Volt mobile app built for Android phones. The tool will use Google’s voice search, provide vehicle tracking and access to Google Maps, and allow Volt owners to send destination info from their Android phone to their car’s OnStar navigation system for turn-by-turn directions.

OnStar President Chris Preuss commented in a statement today that the Volt app is only a first step in a larger effort to expand OnStar beyond safety and security services. The relationship with Google, he said, “is an example of how we’re evolving our leadership position in connected vehicle technology,” adding, “What we’re talking about today is only the beginning.”

When the Volt launches, version 1.0 of the mobile app will include functions specific to needs anticipated for new electric vehicle drivers. Through their phones, early adopters of the Volt will be able to schedule battery charge times, view whether or not the vehicle is plugged in, check voltage at a charger, get text notifications of interruption or completion of a battery charge and view miles per gallon, electric miles and miles driven — cumulatively and for the last trip (the Volt has a small gas engine that kicks in when the battery charge drops below a set threshold).

For GM, the so-called OnStar Mobile Application could be a key part of marketing the vehicle to gadget-minded consumers. The automaker has said that with this app, the Volt “showcases technology beyond the battery,” something GM needs to do to go beyond niche markets for a $40,000 plug-in sedan. As Andrew Farah, vehicle chief engineer for the Chevy Volt, has put it, “Our whole goal here is to put together a great vehicle for customers, not just a battery on wheels.”

Could the Google/Android link lead to a connection between Google’s energy management tool PowerMeter and GM’s Chevy Volt? At our Green:Net conference, when we asked Google’s Ed Lu if Google had plans to connect PowerMeter with electric vehicle charging (see video around minute 12), he said Google has “a lot of plans in a lot of areas” that he couldn’t yet talk about.

Photo courtesy of General Motors

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Location-Based Services: From Mobile to Mobility

To start, Ford plans to offer a software upgrade option to buyers of the 2011 Fiesta model that offer apps that are compatible with the BlackBerry and Google Android platforms. Next year, after that initial launch, Ford says it will extend interoperability to the iPhone and other smartphones, and offer the upgrade for all vehicles equipped with Sync.

What Ford has dubbed its developer network (which is supposed to be accessible Tuesday through the SYNCmyride web site) seems to be primarily a channel for submitting app ideas and signing up for info on the Sync application programming interface (API) and software development kit (SDK).

Ford has kept a fairly tight grip on Sync-enabled apps so far. The automaker said in its announcement today that it’s still working with “trusted partners” to complete “beta-testing” of the SDK. Ford first announced Pandora, OpenBeak and Stitcher as its “trusted partners” to develop demonstrations of apps hooking up to vehicle controls via the Sync platform back in January, at the Consumer Electronics Show.

So how does all of this fit into a slog toward a more efficient, lower-emission transportation sector? If cars function more like smartphones, with a web connection and an open platform on which developers can build applications, it opens the possibility for a wide and deep pool of services helping drivers better manage their use of fuel, and down the road, their battery charge. Already, Ford has tapped Microsoft’s home energy management tool Hohm to enable smart charging for upcoming electric vehicles.

Mobile apps hardly represent a must-have service for every EV driver (how many smartphone owners did you know back when General Motors’ EV-1 rolled out?), and in the early days of a technology that will struggle to compete on price with conventional vehicles, gizmos and gadgets could potentially add unnecessary cost. But they could also offer a set of tools for drivers to manage data — about topography, traffic, battery status, vehicle health, infrastructure availability, driving behavior — in a way that helps make the nascent world of electric mobility a little easier to navigate. (For more on this, see Green Cars Are the Platform, Now Come the Applications.)

According to Oliver Hazimeh of PRTM Management Consultants, who directs the firm’s North America automotive segment and clean mobility initiative, a handful of key variables are likely to drive an app’s “stickiness” in the EV market after the initial cool factor of smart phones and vehicle connectivity wears off. Hazimeh suggested in an interview (GigaOM Pro, sub. req’d) last year that some of the most successful apps for the upcoming generation of plug-in vehicles will likely be super fast, offer services needed outside the vehicle (such as charge point reservations), feature an ultra simple interface optimized for voice controls, and integrate with vehicle communication systems (such as Sync, or GM’s OnStar) as seamlessly as they do with your home or work computing platform.

Ford, however, isn’t about to take a chance on the hypermiler types or early EV adopters in the app marketplace. Rather, Ford director of connected services Doug VanDagens told us earlier this year that after the three initial partners, applications designed for broader consumer appeal (VanDagens mentioned stock and movie listings or horoscopes) are next in line. VanDagens explained (GigaOM Pro), “We won’t make it available for millions of [developers] out of the gate.”

Panelists will be digging into these topics at our Green:Net conference on April 29 in San Francisco, including: Ford’s Ed Pleet, Product and Business Development Connected Services; GM’s Paul Pebbles, OnStar Chevy Volt Service Line Manager; and Troy Batterberry, Product Unit Manager for Microsoft Hohm.

Images courtesy of Ford Motor

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Ford announced Thursday that the navigation system in vehicles with MyFord Touch (basically an interface that provides easy access and controls in the dash for Ford’s onboard communication system, Sync) will let drivers select a route that prioritizes not only distance or time, but also efficiency — avoiding congested freeways and stop-and-go traffic while maximizing more open roadways likely to allow a constant, efficient rate of speed. In addition, Ford said a new tool will provide feedback to drivers about how their driving behavior affects real-time and cumulative fuel economy. Drivers will be able to view average miles per gallon over the past 5, 10 or 30 minutes.

Hypermiling has gained the most traction among hybrid drivers — notably those behind the wheel of a Prius, one of the first models to prominently display fuel economy data in the dash. And Ford previously developed an instrument cluster dubbed “SmartGauge with EcoGuide” for a pair of hybrid models that, as Grist put it recently, tells “the driver (nicely) whether to ditch the lead foot or keep the good times rollin’.” But as part of MyFord Touch, the new tool will appear in regular gas-powered vehicles, too, starting with select models in the 2011 model year and later extending across all new Lincoln vehicles.

Ford says the efficient routing tool can boost fuel economy by up to 15 percent. We’d like to see much bigger gains. But this type of tech — like the smartphone apps designed to arm drivers with similar data about real-time and cumulative fuel economy, or GreenRoad’s system for the commercial fleet market — represents a tool that’s relatively easy to implement. In combination with other technologies, it could help to reduce emissions from the transportation sector, the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country since 1990.

Photos courtesy of Ford

But that funding — much like the country’s government-led massive financial injection into broadband and mobile infrastructure — has been saving the country more than it’s been spending and could lead to the creation of new markets. South Korea says it has been saving $1.5 billion per year via automatic toll collection, smarter systems that lead to fewer accidents and reduced pollution.

Information technology — computing, software, wireless networks — can save money and reduce the carbon emissions associated with transportation by unleashing information about fuel economy, traffic conditions, and the collective routes of vehicles on the roads, and can make transportation much more efficient. According to The Climate Group’s Smart2020 report, IT can help commercial road transport operators in Europe save more than 33 billion euros ($52 billion) in Europe by 2020.

That type of savings can lead to sizable industries and opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. In the U.S., GreenRoad has been using basic IT embedded in vehicles — sensors, an accelerometor, GPS and customized algorithms — to calculate the relative risk of different driving maneuvers, then communicating that information back to the driver in order to change driving behavior. The result is that GreenRoad’s customers, which are largely commercial fleet operators, can save on fuel costs, and carbon emissions. The company’s latest backers include Generation IM Climate Solutions Fund, which was created by investor David Blood and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

On top of all the efficiencies, cost savings and business opportunities, there’s the planet-friendly incentive behind connected cars and transportation — less fuel burned equals less carbon emitted. CNN says that South Korea plans to connect its ITS systems to services that will be specifically focused on reducing carbon emissions, like suggesting the shortest and most eco-friendly routes. Combined with South Korea’s aggressive investment into the smart grid, that could make for a country with a winning green IT strategy.

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Image courtesy of yewenyi’s photostream and biblicone’s photostream

Hooked up to communications networks and often used by eco-minded and urban consumers, car-sharing networks may offer a prime testing ground for early generations of plug-in vehicles (GigaOM Pro, subscription required) — as well as for the apps and services that may help to pave their way into the mainstream. Already, many car-sharing networks have hybrids in their fleets (it makes sense, given that the organizations running the networks generally pay for fuel).

According to Schneider, the bulk of Zipcar’s members still make reservations and manage their accounts using a personal computer. However, the number of users connecting with Zipcar (the world’s largest car-sharing network) via smartphones is “growing at an incredibly rapid rate, steadily increasing every month,” said Schneider. Up to a third of Zipcar users now own an iPhone he said, and a little less than two thirds own a smartphone. He added, “As folks increase the mobility of their lifestyles, we want to be there,” and as users adopt new mobile devices including the iPad, “we need to be there to keep those numbers growing.”

Beyond the iPad, Beyond the Car

Zipcar has been “watching the tablet computing segment for some time,” said Schneider. But Apple’s entry has made the company take notice. He described two possible use cases that stand out for a tablet with rich media and high processing capabilities in the fleet management and car-sharing environment. While declining to provide more specifics, he said fleet managers could use the iPad to gain a “more powerful tool to ensure all vehicles are in the condition we want them to be in,” and to let drivers know “when they’ve done something well.”

Customers who rent a Zipcar for a few hours or a weekend, on the other hand, could turn to the iPad for help getting oriented in an unfamiliar place, finding relevant attractions and planning multimodal transit routes that incorporate cars, buses, trains, bike sharing or other transportation options (see: Mobility on Demand Takes Aim at Transport Networks’ “Last Mile,” GigaOM Pro).

For Zipcar, Schneider said a key question will be how to balance different services and media for a tablet interface, or as he put it, “How much of the web app to port down, how much of the phone app to port up.” Schneider said it would be “premature” to equip cars in the Zipcar fleet at this point with the tablet, but the company is looking at how to serve customers who own the tablet.

That’s similar to the approach that Ford Motor is taking. With its onboard communication system — Ford Sync, developed by Microsoft — the automaker aims to accommodate the slew of gear and gadgets that consumers might adopt over the eight years or more that they hang onto a car, without investing in hardware that can quickly become obsolete. (Nancy Gioia, the head of Ford’s sustainable mobility technologies and hybrid vehicle programs, has told us the automaker learned this lesson the hard way, after jumping on the mobile phone installation bandwagon in the 1970s and ’80s.)

The Cool Factor

The simple buzz factor of the iPad could be enough to get the attention of some automakers hoping to shake stodgy reputations. As Ford’s Doug VanDagens, who leads the automaker’s connected services group told us, Ford had a simple objective in opening up the Sync API to some third-party developers earlier this year: to “make Ford cars really cool” and boost vehicle sales.

Already, Hyundai has tried to bask in some of the iPad’s glow. The South Korean automaker announced plans last week to include an iPad with the purchase of its upcoming Equus luxury sedan. Actual utility for drivers, however, is limited to a digital owner’s manual and a tool for booking maintenance appointments via the iPad’s Wi-Fi connection.

Hurdles to Larger Impact on Greener Transit

In the transportation sector at large, the iPad may not leave as much of a mark as the smartphones and app stores that are now helping to usher in a world of digital tools meant to help us get around with less fuel and fewer emissions. When it comes to the market for MPG-boosting apps and services, adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles, the iPad seems an unlikely candidate to provide much of a jump start.

Despite some excitement this week about the potential for in-dash installations of the iPad, at least a handful of hurdles stand between the device and a meaningful impact on vehicles’ software, entertainment, information and IT systems (exception: DIYers like these guys in Santa Clarita, Calif., whose video of an iPad installed in a Toyota Tacoma truck has drawn more than 86,000 views on YouTube this week). Here’s four of those hurdles:

Distraction: The iPad is designed to provide an immersive, engaging experience — exactly what you don’t want the driver in the lane next to you (or your newly licensed kid) to have tempting their gaze from the road. For apps and devices meant for use when you’re on the road, convenience and hands-free controls take priority over the “finger-friendly interface” that makes more sense for stationary settings.

As Schneider put it, “Better media inside cars can always lead to safety issues.” This still leaves room for non-distracting apps on the road, which can use innovative methods to minimize the amount of attention required to operate them. As VanDagens put it to us, the 2 million Ford vehicles equipped with Sync can gain “connectivity to the cloud through phones” while letting drivers interact with apps using buttons on the steering wheel, for example, and voice commands.

No Multitasking: Want to listen to Pandora and get real-time feedback on your driving behavior or fuel efficiency at the same time? It’s easy to take multitasking for granted in personal vehicles, but the iPad will use only one app at a time.

Displays in the Queue: Much of the upcoming generation of plug-in and hybrid vehicles will come equipped with a fairly large display screen in the center stack, and onboard communication systems can provide access to smartphone apps. So while aftermarket retrofits like the one in Santa Clarita may appeal in some niche markets for people who crave a big screen but have either a lower-end or older vehicle, the generally high-earning crowd of early adopters buying the first iPads and alt-fuel vehicles can get a built-in screen with much less hassle.

Embedded vs. Mobile: One of the biggest selling points for the iPad is the physical design, and how it opens a world of comfortable surfing in more leisurely settings. As Slate’s Michael Agger quipped, “The iPad world is like an opium den, where one is always reclining, the better to enjoy its strange, new, vivid wonders.”

But EV-centric apps and services (for checking battery charge levels, for example — a function of the apps unveiled for plug-in vehicles from Nissan and General Motors) won’t necessarily be enhanced by the iPad’s lounging potential, larger size or rich media capabilities (the point is to have basic access on the go). Many other core functions, such as battery notification systems, and charging station locators will likely remain embedded in electric vehicles (GigaOM Pro) — no matter how sophisticated and slick mobile devices get. So similar to the way Zipcar is still negotiating how to balance features and services for personal computers, mobile phones and now tablets, it’s unclear at this point that the iPad or other tablets will offer the right balance for EV-centric apps.

The pricing announced today places the LEAF slightly under the retail prices slated for Mitsuishi’s planned i-MiEV, Coda Automotive’s Coda sedan, and Tesla’s Model S (see: Electric Sedan Smackdown). It’s a fair amount higher, however, than the starting price for the conventional sedan models with which Nissan has said it aims to offer a competitive price.

Although the automaker has kept quiet until now on many specifics, Nissan’s director of product planning for North America, Mark Perry (who will be speaking about the emergence of the new networked car at our Green:Net conference next month) said last summer that pricing for the LEAF would be competitive with the Honda Civic, Toyota Camry and the Nissan Altima — which start at less than $20,000.

As for the leasing, the LEAF’s $349 monthly payment comes in at a fraction of the lease payment for a Tesla Roadster, but on the high end compared to leasing offers available cars like the conventional Civic.

Nissan said late last year that it plans to provide the financing for most or all of the LEAF sedans in its initial rollout, as part of an effort to keep upfront costs down for customers. If Nissan is the one issuing the lease contract, the reasoning goes, then it gets to set the residual value (the car’s projected worth at the end of the lease). In general, while other factors also come into play, the higher the residual value is set — based on more optimistic estimates of long-term vehicle value and potential after-vehicle applications for the battery — the lower the monthly lease payments will be.

Nissan first offered a glimpse of the LEAF’s so-called EV-IT system last summer, including an onboard transmitting unit connected through mobile networks to a global data center, and a plan to let drivers find info about available charging stations and view the driving radius within range of their battery charge level on a navigation map.

Nissan said today that it plans to roll into the base price Internet and smart phone connectivity, “advanced navigation,” remote controls for heating, cooling and charging (elements of an iPhone app Nissan showed off in prototype in July), as well as three years of roadside assistance. It’ll cost you an extra $940, however, to get a model tricked out with a solar panel spoiler, rearview monitor, fog lights and automatic headlights.

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Here’s what happened in Texas, as Wired and the Austin News report: A terminated employee from a car dealership called the Texas Auto Center logged into the company’s web-based system and was able to remotely wreak havoc on more than 100 vehicles. The dealership’s system is able to disable the starter system and trigger incessant horn honking for customers that have fallen behind on car payments. It’s meant to serve as an alternative to repossessing the vehicle, and the ex-Texas Auto Center employee, arrested Thursday on charges of computer intrusion, was able to set off the horn command at will and make it so drivers couldn’t start their cars.

Cars are growing ever more connected to communication networks, and upcoming generations of electric vehicles will take it a step further with connections to the power grid. Already, electric car makers have unveiled smartphone apps designed to let users to remotely control certain vehicle functions and battery charging. Down the road, we’ll likely see not only electricity flowing to cars from the grid, but also the flow of data between cars, the grid, home energy management systems, utilities and third-party service providers.

As Ford’s director of connected services Doug VanDagens told us recently (GigaOM Pro, subscription required), “For electric vehicles, connectivity to the web and data are “required over and above what gas engines require.” Apps can use data — about topography, traffic, battery and vehicle health, infrastructure availability, driving behavior — to help orient drivers in the nascent world of electric mobility, both in and out of their vehicle.

While these tools and technologies could help reduce fuel consumption, make electric vehicles more convenient, and enable utilities to prevent excess strain on the power grid as plug-in cars create new demand, that shift to an increasingly digital transportation system brings with it (as Katie has explained in the context of the smart grid buildout) one of the banes of the Internet: hacking.

The stakes, of course, are very different. Certainly nobody wants a virus on their PC. But the prospect of a hacker seizing control of some aspect of a car — a ton of metal capable of going 60-plus MPH, that costs tens of thousands of dollars, and that maybe has a battery in its belly that requires a sophisticated system of thermal controls – is a far scarier thought.

The potential consequences of cyber attacks on a digital power grid could be similarly frightening. Andy Karsner said back in 2008, when he was with the Department of Energy: “This isn’t the cyber-attacking that you think of just for passwords. This is the capacity to destroy hardware in your home, at airports, at military bases, your car, if its connected through the grid.”

We should note that remote immobilization systems like the one involved in the Austin incident have been in use for a decade or more, and yet we have not seen vehicles crippled en masse by hackers. But companies should realize this could be a sensitive issue among consumers, while both companies and regulators need to recognize risks that go along with the transition to increasingly digital and connected systems for transportation and power.

Image courtesy of Defragged’s photostream Flickr Creative Commons.