Automakers spend billions on technologies that many consumers just don’t use, according to J.D. Power’s 2015 Driver Interactive Vehicle Experience (DrIVE) report. And what’s the least used technology? Built-in connectivity.
Why am I not surprised? Automakers for the last several years have worked hard to promote telematics as the next wave in automotive evolution. Their research, which I believe to be frequently flawed, tells them that people want to use their cars as mobile entertainment venues, offices and communication devices.
That’s a great idea, but there’s just one problem: I have this gadget I carry in my pocket called a smart phone and it seems to do everything that in-car infotainment systems do, but better.
I can carry my phone anywhere, it works essentially everywhere and I buy new models with the latest technology cheaply when I re-up my cell phone contract. No need to trade in my entire car.
I think in-car telematics’ failure to excite consumers is actually indicative of a larger problem affecting the automotive industry.
Thirty years ago, we could sell vehicles based on performance attributes directly connected with a car’s primary function of transportation: power, economy, handling, interior space and safety. At trade-in, those attributes were still present in the vehicle.
A five-year-old cell phone has no residual value because communications technology moves so quickly. The cost of upgrading is low enough to encourage consumers to trade in their old phones for the newest model every three or four years — a habit that leaves automakers green with envy. I know people who trade in their cell phones every six months.
Put simply, smart phones deliver all the connectivity that the majority of consumers will ever need, making in-car telematics largely redundant.
I’d like to see a radical rethinking of the core function of vehicles, rather than drowning the chassis with pointless gadgets. Remember when Mazda had the courage to mass produce the Wankel rotary engine? It was hardly a world-beater for NSU, but Mazda made it work. Similarly, Subaru still champions horizontally-opposed engines in mass production platforms and Volkswagen took a valiant stab at it with their interesting W8 engine.
But who gets the media attention today? Tesla, because their technology is innovative, different and it works. So, why did it take an outsider to the automotive industry to kick start mass acceptance of electric cars? Because auto manufacturing has become a heavily regulated and highly conservative industry.
Ford’s switch of metals to aluminum for the F-150 program, for example, shook the industry to its core. One hundred years ago, it would have been expected to try new materials. Progress is incremental in the car business now — a far cry from a century ago when electric, steam and gasoline powered vehicles fought for dominance and radical innovations swept the industry every year.
Another reason why progress is slow is risk aversion. A new vehicle platform is a billion-dollar proposition, so it simply has to work, both to please shareholders and to protect the careers of development personnel.
This almost guarantees that the next generation of anything will look a lot like the current generation. Remember the Pontiac Fiero? It was a breakthrough in mass production automotive design. The massive Gilman machine that aligned and assembled the structural members in the chassis was a sight to behold, and the result was a highly innovative and marketable plastic bodied sports car.
But GM in those days was GM and years of mediocrity in the engine compartment and poor cost control on the manufacturing side guaranteed that the Fiero couldn’t survive at sales volumes that exceeded the profitable Mazda Miata, which debuted just as the Fiero line shut down.
In those days, the take away from the experiment was “don’t innovate.” I’m delighted to see a different General Motors today, but the excessive financial risk involved in new product development in the automotive industry limits innovation and acts as a barrier to entry for upstarts with good ideas. Let’s hope that 3D printing and other rapid prototyping technologies change this.
In the meantime, give me wind-up windows, manual locks, seats, transmissions and a sound system that doesn’t require a PhD to operate. But maybe keep Bluetooth.