Are automakers addicted to in-car features overload?, from Automotive News.
DETROIT — Automakers are so obsessed with imitating smartphones and other gadgets that they have loaded vehicles with a bewildering array of infotainment features and apps that many customers never use.
That was the conclusion of panelists discussing the “In-Car Experience — What Does the Consumer Really Want?” last week here at the SAE World Congress.
The industry must do better with its infotainment and communications controls and displays, they said.
“Vehicles on the road today are overladen with tools,” said David Lyon, a former General Motors designer who left the company in 2012 to form his own consultancy, Pocketsquare. “Most systems today are trying to look like the Apple iPhone. It doesn’t work.”
Customers typically listen to a few radio stations and call just a few people. Carmakers need “features intervention,” Lyon said.The panelists agreed that most motorists don’t need the myriad choices that carmakers offer, and that those choices are not only confusing, they can be dangerously distracting.
