My wife and me are on vacation touring Spain: we have rented a car and have already driven 2,000 km, we are enjoying it a lot. The car we have rented is an Opel Crossland, which is not so great. I am a bit disappointed, it is a mediocre car IMO. Good enough, but I would have prefered a VW T-Cross or a Jeep Renegade, which Sixt said were similar, but unfortunately not available. As the car has some quirks I have read the user manual and among many inconsistencies I have found that that the vehicle will connect “manually or automatically” through the ERA GLONASS service with the “emergency centre” in case of an accident, even if the airbags are not activated. For this a connection with the GLONASS satellite network is necessary (page 108 of the Spanisch instructions I found in the glove compartment: here is the online version for the Opel Astra. I could not find it for the Crossland or in English, sorry.).
The GLONASS satellite network is the Russian equivalent to the US GPS
Now I am wondering whether Russia knows where every single Opel Crossland or even every single Opel is. If so: would it not be an unacceptable risk for any member of the military, specially from Ukraine, but also from NATO, to drive Opels?
Opel used to be part ot the General Motors Group (cite). Was this connection with GLONASS and Opel made before or after Opel and GM went separate ways in 2010? Does GM use GLONASS?
Opel’s new owner is the PSA Group: this group includes Peugeot and Citroën. Do those brands use GLONASS too?
Why on earth did Opel (or Peugeot and Citroën) make this decision? Is GPS so expensive, GLONASS so cheap? Does GLONASS have any advantage at all compared with GPS?
Or did I simply misunderstand something fundamental?
eCall transponders are mandatory in Europe, so why are you mentioning Opel? Did they really have anything to do with it?
As for the GNSS chip, I would be surprised if they did NOT all have GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Baidou, etc. If you do not trust any or all of them, bring a road map.
Navigation satellites just send out microwaves so the receivers can triangulate their (the receiver’s) location. That info may be shared with third parties, but that is done through a cellular service. So I’m guessing the phone company can track you but not the operators of GPS or GLONASS.
I am mentioning Opel because their instruction manual mentions GLONASS, and only GLONASS, as the satellite system their eCall transponder will contact. I assumed the standard satellite system used would be GPS or Galileo, but not the Russian system.
Of course I trust some systems more than others. Don’t you?
But I thought the phone company tracks you by triangulating the terrestrial antennas, not the satellites. Why contact the satellites in case of an emergency?
The PSA Group merged with Fiat-Chrysler in 2021 to form Stellantis.
If you are in an accident, eCall will phone the emergency number where you are (Spain if you are in Spain, Russia in Russia, not the other way around). I have no information about the specific eCall system used by Opel; perhaps someone who knows more about cars can answer that. But, leaving the trustworthiness of the satellite operators aside, what happens is that after an accident your latitude and longitude will be transmitted automatically over the cellular network to 112, not to Krasnoznamensk. Unless there really is something fishy about eCall that we don’t know about…
I think the way it works is that the operator of the system (Onstar or whatever) gets information via cellular from your GPS receiver to locate you. In other words, your car knows where it is thanks to the sats and forwards that info to the emergency services via cell.
There are two things to distinguish here. One is the localisation of a vehicle via satellites. This localisation takes place in the vehicle, not the satellites: The satellites emit signals which are picked up by the receiver in the vehicle and used to determine the distance between the satellite and the receiver; signals from several satellites then allow for a unique determination of the position of the receiver in three-dimensional space.
The other thing is the placement of an automatic distress call by the vehicle in case of emergency, encoding also the position of the car as determined via the satellites. This call is made via the ordinary cellular network.
OK, I see I did misunderstand the procedure. Thanks a lot! That is a relief. Thanks to Elmer_J.Fudd too, what you write goes in the same direction, as I interpret you.
That is not what I claimed!
Triangulating with terrestrial antennae is not very accurate or reliable, especially in the countryside where the cells are very large and you might not be able to hear signals from three towers to do some triangulation. Tower triangulation is an extra that is helpful in cities where the cells are smaller and the reception of sufficient satellite signals might be hampered by buildings.
The Geo-location chipsets get better and better, now listening to multiple satellite constellations. They say the accuracy is about 10m. The latest mass market chips found in some high end smartphones can get that down to 1m. If Opel can only hear Glonass, they probably went for the budget option. Geolocation is receive-only. The other ingredient of any tracking system is a means of sending that location information and that is done using regular mobile phone tech.
ERA GLONASS is the Eurasian Economic Union version of eCall. Basically the previously Soviet states that are not part of the EU make up the EEU. ERA GLONASS is compulsory in cars sold in the EEU. So all car manufactures that sell into these countries have versions of their cars fitted with it. It isn’t an Opel curiosity.
One wonders about the origin of the hire car the OP is driving. Perhaps it was originally delivered to an EEU country, and has found its way to Spain through a range of mechanisms, not all above board. Possibly to avoid taxes and duties. EU delivered cars could be fitted with eCall, and in principle ERA GLONASS and eCall provide the same capability, and it seems the function is considered as a unified capability across the EU and EEU.
Yeah, everything you have should be using everything it can. This is the view of my phone at the moment.
The original user manual in the glove compartment is in Spanish and in Spanish only. And it only mentions ERA GLONASS, like in the link I provided for the Opel Astra. Same words, same layout.
It seems my fears were not justified, but it still does not seem logical. That’s what you get when you read manuals. Confusion. Will be my epitaph.
Perhaps the writer of the manual was using GLONASS as a generic term the same way many people use GPS as a generic term.
I wouldn’t expect GLONASS to be such a generic anywhere outside Russia. After all, Europe has their own satellite nav system:
Yeah neither would I, but who knows what the background of the writer is?
Hmmm, that is interesting. It does seem to make it a Spanish delivered car. No Spanish speaking EEU members.
An ERA GLONASS system would be eCall compatible in all likelihood. Modern sat nav chips can use all constellations. Although compatibility is more the other way around, eCall uses GLONASS as well as the others, whereas ERA GLONASS is only required to use GLONASS. From what I have seen, the EEU are already requiring the system for new cars, whereas the EU have not yet mandated eCall for small cars, only larger vehicles. So maybe they are fitting a system that works with both, but only documenting the EEU requirement. Otherwise it seems just plain odd.
As I crawl, a cracked and broken path …
Perhaps the manual author was working from a technical document that said “GNSS” (generic acronym for a satellite positioning system, see Satellite navigation - Wikipedia ) and mistakenly expanded the acronym to “Glonass”.
That seems unlikely, as the instruction talks about ERA GLONASS. That is too explicit to be the mistake you postulate.
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh
reminds me of the thread about counting to a million just next door. 