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Recently I went to a car vendor's show room, just looking around for curiosity and because someone like the editor of an automotive electronics web site of course has to have at least a distant idea of what he is writing about. The friendly salesman explained me all the bells and whistles of the vehicles on display to me, but when I got granular on the navigation system he got into trouble. He tried to explain me how to enter a trip target but apparently it was too difficult for the poor man. Well, it was not a luxury car with voice-controlled systems. I left the showroom and strolled down the street to a competitor's shop. Here, the salesman was able to demonstrate the operation of the device, but I the user interface was about the opposite of what I would call intuitive and user friendly.
Then I went to one of these electronics shops where navigation systems by the dozen are sitting on their racks. You know this kind of shops — you never find a salesperson who could explain something to you. So I played around a little bit on the navigation systems on display and I found that they were pretty easy and straightforward to operate. No comparison to the in-car devices I just had seen. And the price for these after-sales gadgets was about five to ten times lower than the ones on the car vendor's price list.
How that? Well, since the design cycle for the in-car systems is much longer than for the ones sold through the electronics shops, their technology, their processors, their software and their user interface are already an object for the museum when they enter the car vendor's show room for the first time. I called my car salesperson and asked if the navigation system's software could be updated. Yes, Sir, he said, but when I insisted I found out that all that could be updated was the map data stored on the system's disk. The application software or the user interface could not be modified.
The difference in usability and computing power between the built-in systems and the aftermarket systems is shocking, as is the price difference. Nevertheless, there are some arguments in favor of these expensive antiquities. For instance, their display in most cases is placed in a very ergonomic position, much better than the windows stickers from the electronics super store. And since they are built and wired inside the dashboard they do not cause cable spaghetti in my car. And, a reason than should not be underestimated, I can leave them in the car when I go into a restaurant in the evening without fear that someone will break into the car to steal it.
The ideal solution would be to equip cars with a standardized bay in the dashboard where after-sales navigation systems could be placed, with standard interfaces for power supply and infotainment connection. Unfortunately, automotive OEMs never will do that, told me an expert, since this way they would lose the opportunity to sell their own shockingly expensive navigation options.
I don't believe this. The number of people wealthy enough — or innocent enough — to buy an overpriced but outdated in-car navigation system is limited. When I asked the car sales person how many customers would buy this option, he said "er well we do not sell them every day". Translated from the euphemistic language of the sales guy, I guess this means something like "nobody buys that shit."
So, after all, why for the world do car OEMs insist in their position not to offer standard interfaces for up-to-date electronics?
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