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Voltstats being shut down

34K views 142 replies 47 participants last post by  kdawg 
#1 ·
Per the Voltstats Facebook page, Mike is reporting that OnStar is shutting off the API feed he has been using to populate Voltstats. Apparently will be a temporary?? shutdown.:eek:
 
#2 ·
I just saw that. I'm really shocked by this - GM has to know that Voltstats is a huge part of refuting the arguments of doubters, in addition to being a very convenient way for lazy people like me to keep track of how the car is doing without having to keep a log like I did in past cars. I hope GM works with Mike on a solution quickly.

(I wonder what this does to the data on my phone, since Voltstats has been emulating my iPhone to Onstar's servers?)
 
#3 ·
Bummer, I sure hope this is a temporary situation. We all know (and GM should too) how important VoltStats can be to silence the Volt's detractors. As they say "a picture is worth a thousand words".

GM please tell us this is temporary.
 
#4 ·
I sure hope this is temporary. I will be sufferring from VoltStats withdrawal while the data collection is unavailable.

I wonder what the reason for taking this down the API/WebService that VoltStats is using?
 
#5 ·
saghost: It doesn't emulate your iPhone, it just looked like an iPhone to OnStar. It doesn't have anything to do with your phone.

Unfortunately, this impacted my Windows Phone application, too. The writing has been on the wall for a while -- they pushed out mandatory updates to the iPhone application and the Android application. (The latter one also broke people who had unsupported Android devices and had been side-loading the app, too.) I was hoping they were preparing to rev the API for additional support, but not shutting this one down.

At least Mike has gotten some response from them on it -- I haven't gotten any, at any point. With any luck a few thousand pissed off Volt owners on his site, and a half-thousand pissed off Volt and non-Volt Windows Phone owners will vote with their wallets, but I doubt it'll make any difference.
 
#8 ·
saghost: It doesn't emulate your iPhone, it just looked like an iPhone to OnStar. It doesn't have anything to do with your phone.
I may have been a little unclear in my earlier comment. I knew that Voltstats had nothing to do with my phone itself. What I had meant was that since the site used the phone interface, did losing the interface for the site mean losing the interface for the phone?

I think you answered that question with the rest of your post, however - the update results in the phone using a new API and thus the phone is unaffected - for the most popular/common phones, anyway.
 
#6 ·
Here is the message on the Volt stats page that Mike has posted.

GM has informed me that they'll be shutting down the interface I'm using to collect data for Voltstats effective immediately. They've promised to work with me starting Monday to get an alternate API available, so hopefully data collection won't be down that long. I'll keep you all updated as I hear more.

Lets hope it doesn't take long as I am kind of addicted to checking my stats as I am sure some others are as well.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Anyone know who we write to about this.. Voltstats is way more valuable than the OnStar myvolt site (which has been so buggy its not useful. I'm happy if they are trying to fix it and if that means a new API, that is understandable. But you just don't change things without notice.

I use/depend on Voltstats for my tracking and will be very very annoyed if its down because onstar wants to change the API and has not bothered to tell anyone what the new API would be. That is just bad customer support.
Unfortunately, that is what I'm learning to expect from OnStar/Myvolt.com

As of sat 15:45 MST, the iphone app (1.4.1 which is I think is from June or so) still works, which is I believe still using the same API. Lets see if they shut off voltstats and keep the phones working.
 
#10 ·
Voltstats is way more valuable than the OnStar myvolt site (which has been so buggy its not useful.
Man, you got that right. For me, it's dropped data, fails to update tire pressure for long periods, and takes a LONG time to execute remote commands and charge level refreshes, even if ultimately it's going to fail (which it often does). I have a hard time believing just an API refresh is going to fix any of that, as I suspect some of it is due to infrastructure limitations, but I do hold out some hope!

I'm happy if they are trying to fix it and if that means a new API, that is understandable. But you just don't change things without notice.
It happens more often than it should. Good example: If you've ever had to develop a website with FaceBook integration, you'll know what I'm talking about. Carelessly breaking other companies' production websites is standard operating procedure for them.

Good luck with the adjustment, OnStar team. And to the MyVolt site team as well. Despite some bumpiness along the way, MyVolt's use of OnStar integration is still innovative. I sincerely hope this API upgrade is a big improvement, and some MyVolt improvements come along as well. And whomever has been working with VoltStats/Mike Rosack, please keep doing so. They've done well by you and IMHO, they deserve some ongoing goodwill.
 
#9 ·
NoStar has simply failed again and again. It took them something like 18 months after the Volt was delivered to get the MyVolt site showing stats, and even then it has issues. Unfriendly map control via the NoStar website has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time as well.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I have to admit that I have been frustrated with GM for some time, but this seems like a gratuitous bit** slap. Why would the GM brass make this many Volt fans less happy with their favorite car? It isn't a big deal but it is telling. The more I look at GM and its management, the more I want to buy a Ford Fusion Energi. Lately I have been noticing more and more just how cramped my clients' wives will be in the back seat, given that as a Realtor I frequently drive married couples from home to home. The Volt is tight, the Ford Fusion Energi is a bit more roomy.
I have been hoping to trade in my Toyota RAV4 and my Nissan 350Z for a 2012 Volt and a 2005 CTS-V. Now I think that a 2013 Fusion Energi and a 2005 CTS-V sounds a lot better.
 
#21 ·
I have to admit that I have been frustrated with GM for some time, but this seems like a gratuitous bit** slap. Why would the GM brass make this many Volt fans less happy with their favorite car?
OnStar is kind of like a poorly run startup when it comes to the API. For example, they have a great big event at a car show about how they're going to have an API, and Please, Please, Developers, Join Us! They didn't even have to build it, and the developers came. And OnStar ignored them. AFAIK, only 2 organizations have access to their API.

It's been nearly a year since they announced the API, and nothing.

And shutting down an API without any notice? That's RIDICULOUS! They've pre-lost any possible trust their API could possibly have. Any developer will now know that the official GM policy (I include GM here because they unofficially allowed this) is that the API can be shut down at any time without notice. Who wants to use that to, say, run a car rental business knowing you'll be out of business on a whim?

It's almost like they only have a couple of people working on it, and they have no idea what they can and cannot get away with.
 
#13 ·
Let's be optimistic and hope that OnStar will be working with Mike and we will see MORE data on VoltStats going forward. I for one would like to see VoltStats able to get things like gallons burned, kWh consumed, trip distance heuristics, etc ....

OnStar is adding some kWh costs in another OnStar application, perhaps this will be available to VoltStats as well and we can get some operating costs to compare. Being a vocal advocate of the Volt, total cost of ownership is a very compelling story and being able to reference a site like Voltstats with the additional data would be a step up.
 
#14 ·
Didn't we see a post about a new onstart app? Maybe they are fixing all the issues.
 
#16 ·
This is probably a good place to say that the OnStar agents are absolute professionals and every time I have interacted with them they have done a superb job, especially after my accident.

OnStar telematics and remote control functions on the other hand really need to be improved.
 
#18 ·
Because the OnStar app uses the new API, but the new APIs aren't public. They made this huge announcement at CES 2012 (January?) and then nothing. Silence. Dead Air. They were trying to get them opened up "by this summer." This summer, in this case, was Summer 2012. I don't ever expect that they're going to be able to get their act together enough to actually reach out to developers that contacted them.

I can't imagine what the hangups are - corporate bureaucracy, fear, too many lawyers, scaling their servers, trying to find a way to monetize the API (hint: don't - you're not going to get takers), .... - but whatever they are, I doubt they're technical issues.
 
#22 ·
The APIs change on many web sites without notice, but if you have the customer central to your business model for an on network distributed information ecosystem, then GM's practices are very old world in this case if what we are being told is correct.

You people in the US are still very fortunate.

The Holden Volt, as I understand, has no on network, cloud services or smartphone integration. The advanced features being promoted are good by conventional thinking, but in a world of open APIs and information rich distributed ecosystems incubating independent development of services, Holden seems to have missed an opportunity. The Holden Volt seems like the old Nokia version or even Ericcson version, whereas much of the world is experiencing an Apple or Android version.

With network and network centric services integration would, I think, help achieve the objectives in the messaging of it's first commercial. Afterall, much of what the Volt does at a basic level with electricity was done 100 years ago.

The Holden Volt without network integration and network services baffles me.

Time will tell, but we are fortunate to get the Volt at all.
 
#25 ·
Well, now that Voltstats seems to be an archive and OnStar's MyVolt/Remote Link are perpetually dysfunctional I will be taking my Volt on a long trip. J/K, I am going regardless, now at least I will not have to witness the giant crater left in my Volt's already mediocre statistics. Time for some serious engine and fuel maintenance cycles.
 
#26 ·
We haven't heard from Mike Rosack about this, but I am guessing he will try and find a way to capture the OnStar data from where it left off. I wouldn't think it would be too hard to do the math from the last volstats data point to whatever point he is able to pick back up.
 
#27 ·
Mike did post an update on FB.. not today but soon.

Since the variables used differ for different tasks, it will be a gap. For example, he may not update the "days without using gas" coorrectly, but lifetime stuff will be reset as are based on the cars reported lifetime MPG which will show your trip....
 
#28 ·
That was like Monday's update. Yesterday was smething about it more being legal dept.

Zip today.

Dang.

I JUST joined like Thursday I think :)

HAHA! Serves me right for procrastinating.
 
#31 ·
Potentially and impact to their server/services with making ~1800 request consecutively 4 times a day (then down to 2 time a day per their request). Wonder if they were concern about non-voltstats.net users having access? Of course by most standards 1800 is a tiny number ... but dang the RemoteLink and MyVolt.COM are pitifully slow. Perhaps it is car contact that is so slow and sync.
 
#30 ·
This really seems crazy. You have already had working credentials and obviously did not abuse or misuse them. I can't see what a new API has to do with the legal aspect unless OnStar is exposing additional personal information to the API.

Thanks for all your work on the site. Do you see any issues with merging the new data with the old?
 
#36 ·
I'm pretty sure I could speed it up - a lot. Maybe not the contact the car part, but if you carefully watch what happens on myvolt.com, you'll see some of the very worst web programming ever - probably not one line of hand configuration. It's so bad I'd been considering making a movie of it with verbal comments on each utterly idiotic and obvious error, but found that even though I talk very fast, I can't get it all in in the few minutes it takes to update my charge status!

Watch, while you wait, for it to redraw the same graphic over and over and over - erasing previously valid data in the process. Watch it hit this site, then that site over and over to pull content it had already - it's so cross-scripted it's practically malware by itself. It goes and does your validation through yet another server - a complete no-no in security, but also a no-no for speed - there's no need to send your browser here and there - that comm could be more secure and tons faster done internally to their network. Even google's hardware would run this junk slowly - some things don't get fixed by just with faster hardware. This is both a design and an execution issue. EG both stink.

The site was obviously built by some marketer - beautiful pictures, terrible navigation (unless you want to buy a car rather than check on the one you already own - a little message mixup? A little excess greed? Don't use the car you bought already, buy another?) and obviously using some web-monkey-drag-drop tool and no brains at all. I've seen better sites done by 13 year olds with more complexity and security, but yet, far faster and probably needing far less hardware as well. And at least they even grey out buttons that won't work or after you've pushed them and are awaiting a response. Heck, I'd guess that's a simple checkoff in the tool they used and someone just didn't bother to even notice...look carefully, we could have a contest on just how many stupid things this site does, but it'd be at least a 3 digit number of just plain dumb stuff.

Now, one problem is going to be that someone's going to be very upset - to fix this, first someone has to admit what a disaster it is, and it will probably take some major changes to "established IT infrastructure" which is anathema to management, but necessary for good IT practice. And since they are obviously without a clue, how will they know which new hire (all of which would recommend major changing of things, but only a few will actually know how to do it right) has the right answer?

Man, once you've dug an IT infrastructure into that deep of a hole - with the buck having to stop somewhere, the problems aren't just horrible design and bad coding, they get into human nature and management face-saving issues, which problem the application of mere superior computer skills just doesn't solve. And if you can't hear, how can you hire a great singer?

It's possible not all change is for the better...(leaving out other politics). Note that we haven't heard of anyone hacking into this to steal a car or shut one off either - a little bit must be right or that would have happened. So it's going to take someone experienced in both web tech, basic computers, and HUMAN NATURE to solve this one. As they say on slashdot, GoodLuckWithThat.

I just go out in the driveway and ask the car in person...have been. But this is a disaster for GM in the making, because it makes them look clueless in what most people think of as pretty basic tech - we know that's not true across GM, because we own a counterexample, the Volt, but the world at large is another question entirely. And this site faces the world, not just us.
 
#41 ·
It goes and does your validation through yet another server - a complete no-no in security, but also a no-no for speed - there's no need to send your browser here and there - that comm could be more secure and tons faster done internally to their network.
No offense, but I'm not sure someone who can't recognize SAML and understand why its used should be commenting on secure application architecture.
 
#37 · (Edited)
I suspect that MyVolt.com was developed with a prototyping tool and taken to production. Trying to anticipate user interaction in a new application space is difficult, so not a terrible approach. The problem is not rapidly following up with a real application before the user base grows.

They need to have a FAST charge status interface, but only when requested, not every time someone logs in.
They also need to have a FAST remote start interface, for when your heading to the car from your work desk.

The other functions, like charging history and such can take a bit longer and they should add some user centric reports that are scheduled jobs.

They need to allow users to add information, like $/kWh rates, to have integrated into the reports.

For the public, non-Volt owner, they need to let a potential Volt buyer simulate their Volt experience by putting in their daily driving routes and get an idea of what the EV ratio would be, the charging expense, the gasoline consumption, and the options to leverage public charging stations near their regular end points to increase their EV ratio.
 
#38 ·
Just spoke with my Volt Adviser and brought up voltstats, the 12a charging vs 8a charging default desire and the onstar app issues. He was thankful that I called to voice my concerns and stated he will be bringing this to his managers attention. He said the he encourages all feedback from the owners.
 
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