General Motors confirmed over the weekend that it would be temporarily halting the U. S. sales of eight of its 2013 model year cars including the Buick Verano sedan, Cadillac XTS and ATS sports sedans, Chevrolet Cruze, Equinox, and GMC Terrain crossovers, and the Volt hybrid because it discovered a software issue in its popular OnStar in-vehicle security, communications, and diagnostics system. According to Reuters, when an OnStar equipped vehicle is involved in a collision where the airbags do not deploy, the OnStar system fails to send out the requisite alert to an OnStar operator triggering a call to the vehicle to check whether the driver and passengers are okay or need assistance. OnStar does work as designed when a collision involving the deployment of airbags occurs, Reuters says. [read more..]