A Forbes Rant - Is There Too Much Car Gadgetry?

By Jerry Flint

NEW YORK - A few weeks ago I was test-driving Mercedes vehicles. I put a few hundred miles over a weekend into the Mercedes G Class, the $75,000 civilian version of a military four-wheeler, formerly sold here as the Gelaendewagen (overland vehicle). Another weekend I put a few hundred miles into an E Class sedan.

Personally, I enjoy driving with that three-pointed star in front of me. But I had a problem: I couldn't work the radio in those vehicles. Yes, I could use the preset stations already locked in by the Mercedes PR people, but I couldn't just hunt down a new station that wasn't preset. I couldn't find any instructions that made sense in the G Wagon owner's manual. When I ran into the same problem in the E Class, I didn't even try.

Why should I have to study the owner's manual to do something as simple as finding a new radio station? I should be able to turn a dial and move from 820, one of my favorites on the AM band, to 660 with no trouble. But I couldn't.

Look, I know something about radios. I spent two years of my life searching out and intercepting radio messages from the Soviet and Eastern Bloc armies and secret police. But I couldn't hunt down a station on a Mercedes radio. Maybe I was just dumb, but working a car radio shouldn't require a degree in programming.

Testers are also complaining about the new luxury $76,000 BMW 745i, the pride of German engineering, that just arrived here. Everyone seems to love the new Bimmer's speed, handling and braking. But they hate the new electronic controls of what BMW calls the iDrive. There's a knob, the controller, on the center console that operates up to 270 functions. Listen to what Automobile magazine says:

"Tug the controller back, rotate it clockwise two clicks, depress it, rotate it clockwise two more clicks, depress it again and then finally rotate the knob to your desired station. Got it? That's six steps--assuming you know the right path--all while looking at the display instead of the road ahead."

Maybe this is acceptable in Germany because of their tradition of regimentation. I figure Germans are allowed to change radio stations just once a year (on radioungxatzion Gechangentag, an annual holiday), but I don't even want to drive the 745i no matter how good it is. On long drives I hunt stations, and I'm not going to go through iDrive to do it.

This is just the tip of the electronic iceberg. Automakers around the world are all adding or trying to add electronic gadgets and services to their vehicles. Such features are often lumped under the name "telematics" and include everything from cellular telephony, automatic calls to police if the car is in an accident, instant and customized traffic reports, restaurant locations, theater ticket purchases and even such services as having a customer service agent--who may be sitting hundreds of miles away--unlock your car doors by remote control if you've accidentally locked the keys inside.

The car companies envision that they would own and operate telematic services and bring in a huge stream of money. Today, when the car is paid for it becomes a cost center (warranties) without any offsetting revenue. But if these electronics services could be sold with a monthly charge, the cash would continue to pour in. Multiply a $20-a-month service charge times 100 million cars and that's $2 billion a month, forever.

General Motors puts its OnStar telematic equipment in many of its new vehicles for free (meaning the cost of the equipment is buried in the car price) and gives a year of free service. But the money only comes when owners sign up after that initial year. So far, the renewal rate isn't terrific.

People do like phones in their cars, that's for sure. But most everyone already seems to own a cell phone, and many folks even use them in their cars, despite various new laws.

Lots of people may also want the new satellite radio service and be willing to pay extra for it, but that's still unknown. But the other services just haven't caused much excitement.

There's also some feeling that the auto companies shouldn't be the providers of telematic hardware or services, that they should make the cars and leave the wireless business to the experts. Advances in electronics often come faster than new vehicle development, which means that carmakers could be installing outdated or incompatible electronic technology.

Worse, it doesn't always work perfectly, and perfection is important here. OnStar voice-activated phones never seem to understand me--unless I make at least three or four attempts to place a call. That's annoying.

I don't know what will happen in the future. But I'm sure that radios that require six electronic steps to lock in a new station won't survive in the marketplace and that e-mail in cars isn't that important for most people. And I'm also sure that while car companies may eventually make big profits on telematics, it won't be easy.