Why Your Car’s Infotainment Sucks, And Who's Going To Fix It

I’ve just spent a week driving the new Acura TLX. It has two infotainment screens that link together, with around 15 buttons on the steering wheel that mimic the 15 buttons on the console that, presumably, manage the settings on one of the two touchscreens while sending that information to the other screen. In all honesty, even after seven days with the thing, I’m not entirely sure how it all works. I tried to turn up the bass setting on the stereo the other day but instead turned on the butt cooler. For a brief moment I thought I’d wet myself.

And Honda’s system is far from the most complex on the market.

I’m not just being stupid: A recent study by Nielsen and automotive consultants SBD said 43 percent of participants thought their infotainment systems boasted too much technology, to the point where many didn’t even know certain features existed.

“It’s sort of an arms race — who can have the most technology in the vehicle — and consumers are confused,” said Nielsen Vice President Mike Chadsey, according to Automotive News.

The study said that of the 42 vehicles featured, the aspects most owners were least satisfied with were all relating to their car’s infotainment system — not fancy suspension that reads the road surface while you drive or adaptive cruise control or blind spot monitoring. Innovations like these, while perhaps appearing superfluous on the surface, most definitely enhance our daily lives, but things like smartphone integration or built-in apps or, dare I say it, voice recognition? Things that seem so simple and useful are often complex and, in many cases, seldom work at all.

Then you have technology touted by automakers as “must-have-features,” like a 30-gigabyte hard drive to store all your favorite music, even though said music is already stored on your cell phone. As one Jalopnik commenter put it, all you really need is a few accessible ports: “A phone plugged into the aux port can stream any music service without needing an app in the dash, it can play my music without needing a hard drive in the dash. My phone is what car manufacturers are trying to build into the dash, when all they need to do is accommodate my phone and any future phone I upgrade to.”

His point is valid, but people do like to see and touch something tangible when forking out tens of thousands of dollars on a new car. Which is where Apple CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto come in. Their mission is simple. Take the simplicity and features you enjoy on your smartphone and project them onto the car’s in-built screen. You’ll have all your contacts, messaging, maps, voice recognition, some apps, and music available easily and safely at the touch of a button, and the software can in theory be updated remotely for free as technology advances. (One day we could even have an app store where developers create applications to enhance our driving experience further — and most importantly, you can decide what you want and what you don’t.)

This seems like a no-brainer for the automaker: Keep managing your own core, proprietary software within the car but outsource the display’s look and functionality to a renowned tech company that can do it better than you can. Many automakers are already seeing the light — like Hyundai, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and others, including Honda — but some are still determined to fight for their own in-house systems.

Toyota told Bloomberg that it would partner with Ford to prevent an Apple/Google takeover, maintaining control over their vehicle’s dashboard. This isn’t an outlandish concept. After all, these automakers have invested millions, perhaps billions, over the years to create the ideal infotainment system — what a monumental waste of money it would be to give up and pay a tech company do what you couldn’t.

It isn’t just giving up on the consumer’s visual experience that’s at play here either. General Motors recently filled a patent that suggests it’s looking into partnering with radio stations to lock certain channels in various geographical regions: For example, if you drove through Indianapolis, WIBC 93.3 (who, in our hypothetical world, would be paying GM a giant wad of cash) might become one of your station presets until you get past city limits; when you hit Cincinnati, you may get another radio station also willing to pony up for a parking spot in your dash.

This patent offers all the information you need as to where our infotainment screens are headed in the future — to advertisers. How long is it before we turn our car on only to see an ad for engine oil play on the display? Or to see little banners appear promoting coffee beans? Or sponsored shops on the navigation, telling you how much you need that jam-filled donut that’s waiting just off exit 140 on I-65?

Socially we may not yet be ready to accept this level of intrusion, but it’s coming — one day.

Automakers will earn a fortune selling these ads, too, and having complete control over their screen’s functionality allows them to fully capitalize on it. By adding Apple CarPlay, while not eliminating these options entirely, it does add another layer they have to siphon through to deliver you, the car’s owner, with the monetized ads you never asked for.

So what’s the solution?

The simple solution is not to tick that infotainment box and stick with connecting your phone via Bluetooth, USB or an auxiliary port. You can buy a dashboard mount to use your phone for navigation, and you’ll save thousands at the dealership and you may avoid many of the ads future vehicles will start to offload. But this won’t last long. Touchscreens will be standard on all cars soon enough anyway.

And let’s face it. While many will say they just want a simple, easy way to connect their phones to the car, it’s hard to deny the satisfaction we feel when presented with shiny new technology. Sure, you can change Pandora on your phone, but it remains more rewarding to change the channel on that giant glossy touchscreen.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we love technology — we just expect it to be pretty on the eyes, simple to operate, and most importantly, reliable. Apple and Google, while perhaps not the saviors, do seem to be the best options we have for the foreseeable future. And these systems will only replace the car’s current infotainment system if you select it as an option; Chevrolet has announced it will offer both Apple and Google’s products on the 2016 Cruze, with most other models following suit shortly after.

With these merely being options, automakers can still work on their own proprietary infotainment systems, trying to define themselves among the competition: “I think it’s imperative that auto manufacturers maintain a solid footing in the customer user experience,” said Sam Waxman, a partner at Paul Hastings LLP specializing in technology-rich mergers. “Especially when smartphone manufacturers and ride sharing firms like Uber and Lyft are forcing them to rethink and remake the relationship between car and consumer.”

And that’s perfectly fine. Bar a few stubborn carmakers, the key here is we, the consumer, will soon have options (ones you can buy on the aftermarket too). And these options will have fewer options, and fewer screens, and butt coolers that don’t have a mind of their own. And it won’t lock your radio to Grunge FM every time you drive through Sheboygan.

At least for now, that is.