Are Cars Getting Too Complicated?
BY DREW WINTER with Cliff Banks Ward's AutoWorld, Mar 1, 2002 12:00 PM

You'll be using this Aston Martin DB 5 with modifications. Now, pay attention please. Windscreen: bulletproof, as are the side and rear windows. Revolving number plates, naturally, valid in all countries…

Anything else?

Well, I won't keep you for more than an hour or so, if you give me your undivided attention. We've installed some rather interesting modifications. You see this arm here? Now open the top and inside are your defense mechanism controls: smoke screen, oil slick, rear bulletproof screen, and left and right front wing machine guns. Now this one I'm particularly keen about. You see the gear lever here? Now if you take the top off, you'll find a little red button. Whatever you do, don't touch it.

Why not?

Because you'll release this section of the roof and engage and fire the passenger ejector seat.

Ejector seat? You're joking.

I never joke about my work 007.
— James Bond being briefed on the operation of his new car by “Q” in the movie Goldfinger.

James Bond needs lots of gadgets in his car so he can save us from diabolical fiends who want to take over the world.

How many features and gadgets do the rest of us need?

This is a question being asked increasingly by everyone from exasperated automotive journalists to Bob Lutz, General Motors Corp.'s vice chairman in charge of new product development.

Auto makers and suppliers seem hell-bent on offering more and more new features to consumers, from seats that massage your back to telematics systems that read your e-mail to you while you drive. But as the number and complexity of these new-fangled features grows, new questions are arising about how much value they truly offer, and if they're becoming too complicated for the average consumer — especially since most still can't even program their home VCR.

Suddenly issues that used to concern only aircraft manufacturers and pilots, such as human-machine interfaces, driver “workload” and ergonomic issues, have now moved into vehicle cockpits, for better or worse.

Front and center in the debate is BMW AG's new 7-Series, one of the most sophisticated — and complicated — cars ever mass-produced. Critics praise the $70,000 car's ride and handling (see review p. 30), but its controversial iDrive system and complicated electronic shift controls leave even technically savvy drivers wondering if BMW didn't go overboard on the new flagship.

And because BMW is one of the auto industry's most watched and benchmarked brands, the success or failure of many of its features could heavily influence whether or not they ever see the light of day in lower-priced, higher-volume vehicles.

BMW, which has had so much success in the past decade developing one home run vehicle after another, seems surprised by some of the negative response it's getting, although many insiders admit they knew there would be some controversy.

Journalist Georg Kacher, writing in Britain's Car magazine, reports that one high-ranking BMW executive confessed to him (after five glasses of wine) that he had to drive the 745i 3,000 miles (4,800 km) before he fully understood iDrive.

The basics are fairly simple: A knob on the central console controls a monitor on the dashboard. The controller can be moved in eight separate directions or “compass points” corresponding with vehicle systems and 700 different functions. The four main programs, labeled Communications (telephone), Navigation (guidance, etc.), Entertainment (radio, CD player) and Climate (heat, AC, air distribution) are easy enough to understand and access. The four “secondary” menus are at “diagonal” positions of the compass and include BMW assist (roadside assistance and other functions), OB Data (on-board computer and maintenance information), Help (just that) and Settings (activation and deactivation of vehicle settings like traction control). These require a special 45-degree jog of the controller knob and are more difficult to access and navigate.

Programming radio station pre-sets or deactivating the traction control are not simple, intuitive tasks.

In Goldfinger, even 007 is noticeably miffed when Q demands an hour of his “undivided attention” to explain the proper operation of his modified Aston Martin. Should it be a surprise then, that some dealers are concerned that real-life customers might also get angry and leave BMW for another brand rather than be forced to spend an hour learning the intricacies of the new 7-Series?

So far, with 7-Series models on sale for a few weeks in the U.S., dealers are not reporting serious problems, most likely because if you can get the salesman to program in your favorite radio stations, the other basic functions of the iDrive can be figured out, operated by voice activation, or ignored.

“A few people are concerned that it may be complex to drive, but most understand that they only have to use what they want to use or feel comfortable using. For normal, every day driving, the technology is very easy to use. Frankly, I'm 57, just learned how to turn a computer on last year, and I find it very easy to drive,” says Don Crevier, of Crevier BMW, in Santa Ana, CA.

Nearly three dozen journalists attending a preview of the car in late January, including a Ward's AutoWorld staffer, were less impressed. After driving the car more than 300 miles, only a few said they fully understood iDrive. Others complained about the car's complicated starting sequence and electric stalk shifter, which makes it almost impossible to give to a valet parker without an impromptu lesson. In fact, BMW even includes instruction sheets in the glove box for that purpose.

At stake here is not only BMW's drive to match the vaunted Mercedes S-Class in global sales, but possibly billions worth of new electronic comfort and convenience systems now being developed by suppliers for the mass market.

In a speech at the National Automobile Dealers Assn. in January, Lutz complained about the “overtechnologizing of today's vehicles” and said it could be the result of flawed research. “Wherever the blame lies, I don't think it's helping any of us to sell cars. It takes time to train all the sales people to explain it to the customers, and even then a lot of the customers don't want it to begin with. It's not a selling point.”

He suggests auto makers may be trying too hard to sell vehicles with electronic gimmicks instead of focusing on delivering products that look great and are considered a good value.

“Every vehicle that has an Internet connection but lacks an emotionally compelling design is an unsold vehicle with an Internet connection,” he tells dealers.

And in what sounds like a direct swipe at BMW's iDrive, he says: “I'd like to know who decided it was a good thing to have overly complex multi-function displays that require a multi-step operation to activate something that normally is a twist of a knob or a flick of switch.”

It would be easy to dismiss Lutz's comments as those of an old-fashioned 70-year-old, but he's one auto executive who is as comfortable in an aircraft cockpit as he is in a car: He's a veteran pilot who flies his own jet fighter in his spare time, so he's not easily confused by complex controls.

Lutz's concerns have spawned a renewed effort at GM to attack “over-contenting” and maximize the perceived value of current and future vehicles. (Some critics argue, though, that it's just an excuse to cut costs.)

Andy Norton, director of product research at GM's Business Decision Support Center, says GM isn't out to eliminate techy features, only features that potential buyers consider of questionable value for the price. No specific items are being targeted, and teams are looking at vehicles in all the major market segments.

A key research tool is something called a “configurator” which allows focus group members to choose among 120 options and tell researchers what they really want and what they don't value. The price for each option is spelled out, and focus group members have to stay within a specified budget.

“The goal is to reach a better balance between features, content and price,” says Norton.

He's reluctant to reveal too much, but Norton says a recent study of entry-level luxury buyers shows strong acceptance for steering wheels that electrically tilt and telescope, but little interest in a lumbar seat massager that costs $450.

Norton also says there hasn't been a lot of interest in the ability to send and receive faxes from a vehicle, either. Don't expect to see GM spending a lot of time developing that capability.

Another major technology that looks like it is being dialed back throughout the industry is the whole area of 42-volt electrical systems in cars and trucks, says Bob Rivard, vice president of Advanced Technology Development at Robert Bosch Corp. Once predicted to be on a steep growth curve, the high cost of converting to these systems and improvements in conventional electrical systems have changed what Rivard calls “the value equation.”

Even so, not everyone is convinced some sort of content crisis is brewing, or that BMW is way off track.

Will Boddie, Ford Motor Co.'s vice president of Global Core Engineering, says demand varies greatly by geographic region. He argues that even though there may be less interest in the U.S., there is strong demand for techy features that differentiate high-end vehicles in Japan and Western Europe. “For global automotive companies like Ford, one strategy does not fit all,” he says.

A spokesman for Siemens VDO Automotive, which collaborated with BMW on the iDrive, echoes Boddie's statements and says studies done by OEMs in conjunction with suppliers show European consumers are very receptive to new technology in their vehicles. Plus he adds that focus group studies done in the U.S. show that specific groups such as business people who drive 25,000 to 35,000 miles (40,000 to 56,000 km) per year are very interested in electronic bells and whistles such as satellite navigation and receiving e-mail in their cars.

Suppliers also argue that their technologies are all designed to reduce complexity, not increase it, and that many critics will change their minds once they get used to some of the new features.

“I don't see buyers out there that are buying technology (for technology's sake); they're looking for real value. If there's real value, then they're interested in it,” says John Kill, vice president of product development at Visteon Corp.

That's certainly the idea behind iDrive (see illustration, p. 28). BMW officials say a key reason the auto maker moved to the system is because it simply ran out of room to put arrays of buttons and switches, which also were getting confusing.

“In the case of multifunction displays, a movement has been afoot to consolidate the number of large electronic boxes behind the instrument panel into one main box that controls all primary IP functions (radio, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, compact disk player, navigation, mobile phone) and is also able to accommodate new applications such as telematics and e-mail,” says the Siemens spokesman.

“Here, too, we reduce complexity, weight, cost and space, while providing a new integrated user interface that reduces the number of switches and buttons to one or two primary controls. In many cases this “center stack” display approach has been very well received by the market. In some cases, perhaps, the end customer might be less enthralled.” However, he points out that at least one American luxury brand is moving toward a center stack approach with a large display screen on a next-generation model, minus the tactile feedback knob.

One of the keys seems to be improving what experts refer to as the human/machine interface, or HMI. The iDrive is an ambitious early attempt at this, but what many automakers are looking for is the equivalent of a computer mouse for a car, which they really haven't found yet.

Cary Wilson, director of Electrical and Electronic Systems Engineering at Ford, says that in order for some of these advanced systems to enjoy wider acceptance, they have to be easier to use. “We need to come up with some technologies to make them far more intuitive than they are today,” he says.

For instance, he says satellite navigation systems, which still require tedious manual inputting of destination addresses, will soon be able to be programmed by simply saying in a natural voice: I want to go to such and such an address. “That is very doable,” says Wilson.

“Menu structures” also have to be very “horizontal” says Robert Schumacher, business line executive for wireless business at Delphi Automotive Systems. “You don't want to be more than one click deep: one tap on the menu, one click or one voice command,” he says.

“What we clearly understand at Bosch is the guy that wins the telematics race is the guy that has the easiest HMI,” says Bosch's Rivard. “You have to make it simple and intuitive.”

In short, here's how auto makers are hoping to avoid turning off potential customers with overly complicated vehicles in the future:

• Features that add complexity but not perceived value are being weeded out by focus groups and cost/value analyses.

• More complex electronics and feature packages are being carefully matched to the vehicles, geographic region and driver demographic groups where they know they will be accepted.

• So-called Human machine interfaces, touch screens, steering-wheel buttons, voice-activation devices and electronic joysticks, all are constantly being refined and improved to offer simpler, more intuitive operation.

Delphi's Schumacher says the industry also has systems that can curb another burgeoning problem with increasingly complex cars: the driver who is more interested in playing with the buttons than driving. As vehicle electronic systems become more complicated, the driver's “workload” will be carefully monitored, and access to features will be limited according to whether the vehicle is stopped or moving, its speed, and even road conditions, he says.

So in the James Bond car of the future, 007 might not be able to fiddle with the machine guns at 155 mph.

Pity.