The new system can handle 4.5 terabytes of data an hour, five times what’s possible today. Detroit Free Press columnist Mark Phelan wrote it’d be like having the capability to read a little less than 26 million books every two hours.
The car will be able to quickly talk to itself and to external parties using 100 Mbps, 1GBps and 10 GBps Ethernet.

GM also can upgrade it remotely with over-the-air updates, similar to a Tesla.

“Over-the-air software updates will allow GM to improve engine performance, fuel economy, ride comfort, steering, navigation and almost every feature on a vehicle, possibly even including updates for safety standards that come into effect years after the vehicle was built,” Phelan wrote May 20.

Over-the-air updates might not have much of an effect on scan tools checking the electronic systems for issues, AirPro operations Executive Director Chuck Olsen said in an interview Thursday.

“I don’t have much of an issue” scanning those vehicles, he said. It doesn’t really affect the tool’s capability, he said.

However, he predicted in a few years that OEMs would just build diagnostic software in the the vehicles themselves.

“You’re gonna log in to the car remotely,” he said, and it should be a “game-changer.”

Olsen also said that various electronics on vehicles are starting to generate data streams besides merely diagnostic trouble codes.