Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 24

HEALTH
WARNINGS
Prognostics know what's wrong with a car
long before the driver does
BY JACK KEEBLER

E

ver been stuck on the road far from home with a breakdown? Not fun. So imagine getting an email or text warning weeks or months before a starter quits, a battery dies
or a fuel pump fails. Some of General Motors' connected-car owners are already getting alerts for the service bay.
Thanks to an engineering discipline called prognostics, carmakers are working on giving customers a digital warning before
a check-engine light comes on. Prognostics tap sensors to monitor starting, charging and running systems, and telemetry hardware sends vehicle health messages to the automaker's centralized processing operation.
Algorithms and artificial intelligence weigh the results and
determine the remaining service life of critical components -
and whether to trigger a warning.
"The most obvious benefit is peace of mind," says Jim Kelly,
GM program engineering manager for vehicle health. "These

24

shift * february 2020

issues are very rare, but our customers can sleep easy knowing
that they are protected by our ability to predict them before they
happen."
GM has offered its Proactive prognostics system with customer warnings via OnStar since the 2015 model year in some
SUVs and pickups and the Chevrolet Corvette, and it has added
more vehicles since.
"In the rare instance that we do predict an issue," says Kelly,
"a Proactive alert transforms a potentially dissatisfying customer
experience into a scheduled maintenance visit."
He says customers who get Proactive alerts are 50 percent
less likely to experience a towing event related to the component involved.
Some other automakers, including Ford and BMW, are working with their suppliers to incorporate prognostics into their
portfolios. This area will gain importance with two of the major



Shift Magazine - February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - February 2020

Shift Magazine - February 2020
FROM THE EDITOR
LETTERS
RUNNING HOT AND COLD
PUSH FOR PRIVACY
‘A TICKING TIME BOMB’
RIGHT ON TARGET
DID YOU KNOW?
THEY’VE GOT GAME
SEAMLESS SHOPPING
FOLLOW THE LEADERS
KEEPING UP WITH THE COBOTS
‘SUPERPOWER’ STARTUPS
MISFORTUNE TELLERS
FORD’S FORMULA
Q&A
WASH, RINSE, REPEAT
‘SELFHEALING’ SOFTWARE
LAST MILE
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - Intro
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - Shift Magazine - February 2020
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - Cover2
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 3
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - FROM THE EDITOR
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - LETTERS
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - RUNNING HOT AND COLD
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 7
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - PUSH FOR PRIVACY
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 9
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 10
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - ‘A TICKING TIME BOMB’
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 12
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 13
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - RIGHT ON TARGET
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 15
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - DID YOU KNOW?
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - THEY’VE GOT GAME
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - SEAMLESS SHOPPING
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - FOLLOW THE LEADERS
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - KEEPING UP WITH THE COBOTS
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 21
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - ‘SUPERPOWER’ STARTUPS
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 23
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - MISFORTUNE TELLERS
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 25
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - FORD’S FORMULA
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - Q&A
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - WASH, RINSE, REPEAT
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - ‘SELFHEALING’ SOFTWARE
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - LAST MILE
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - Cover3
Shift Magazine - February 2020 - Cover4
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