TECH/AUTOMOBILE SPECIAL ...Merging Cellphones and Dashboards

Merging Cellphones and Dashboards

No, G.M.’s strategy is not to shortchange buyers, but simply to let them avoid buying what they already own. Today, calling home is rarely done on a phone built into the dashboard, and recorded music is less often stored on CDs jammed into the glove box; increasingly, the smartphone in the driver’s pocket serves both needs.
So G.M.’s newest approach is a fundamental shift in philosophy from the practice of embedding such technology in the bowels of the car. Instead, it will offer an inexpensive link that lets drivers control their phone — and more important, its apps — using the dashboard touch screen.
Although phones have routinely connected to the dash for calls, this system is far more versatile. Buyers of two Chevrolet models will be able to get music and directions through subscription or phone service plans they already have.
Essentially, G.M. is proposing to replace the cellphone’s windshield cradle with software.
There are many benefits to this alternative approach, starting with its lower price. When the Chevrolet Spark goes on sale next month, the upper-level 1LT and 2LT models, which start under $15,000, will come with the infotainment system MyLink and a 7-inch touch screen as standard equipment. (The larger Chevy Sonic will offer MyLink late this summer.)
A cellphone-style infotainment system can bring other advantages: the interface is typically more familiar to users, especially young ones, and its maps are fresher than those of onboard DVDs.
But there can be shortcomings. An app like Google Maps downloads data to a phone while it is in use, and most phone plans limit the amount of data you can use. At the least, it means people would need more expensive data plans.
A solution comes from an app commissioned by Chevy, called GoGoLink, available this fall. A GPS app, it offers touch controls easy enough to use while driving and it stores, rather than streams, data for the maps on the phone. Updates can be made using Wi-Fi, which doesn’t count against data use.
At $50 for the app, which will be available for both Apple and Android products, it’s half the price of a basic portable GPS. It’s a bigger bargain when compared with factory-installed packages that typically bundle navigation with more powerful audio systems and features like voice recognition, weather reporting and traffic alerts — and cost more than $5,000 in a car like the 2013 Acura ILX.
G.M.’s style of cellphone integration required some tough decisions: what buttons go on the dash and which on the screen, and how to make the resulting system feature-filled but not distracting.
“There is a race to see who can integrate it as seamlessly and as intuitively as possible,” said Dave Lyon, an executive design director at G.M.
While automakers know that buyers expect their cars to connect to the Internet, it is unclear how best to do it. The all-inclusive Cadillac CUE system, just arriving in showrooms, and Chevy MyLink, both developed in-house, are perhaps the current extremes of telematics solutions.
G.M.’s telematics push began in 2008, at a time when impressive-sounding systems like BMW iDrive and Mercedes-Benz Comand were well established. Though G.M. was rushing toward bankruptcy, the project was given priority, said Mike Hichme, lead engineer for the CUE system. “The rationale was, Cadillac didn’t have any branded systems to call their own,” he said.
During six months of ride-alongs, engineers traveled to work with commuters, went on the road with salespeople and tagged along for family vacations to see how people used infotainment systems. As it turned out, there was a big difference between what consumers said they wanted and what they actually did. For instance, drivers said they needed access to all of their phone contacts, but their behavior didn’t bear that out.
“I have 100 phone numbers, but I am only calling four people most of the time,” Mr. Lyon said.
The same was true for radio stations, GPS destinations and iPod playlists. The result of that insight was a “favorites” screen, where the driver puts icons for the most commonly used numbers and apps, which also happens to be exactly what smartphones have been doing since the iPhone.
G.M.’s strategy may prove to be ideally timed. For one thing, the economy end of the car market is a segment with lots of young buyers devoted to staying connected through their phones.
“There is an expectation from younger buyers in general,” said Mike VanNieuwkuyk, executive director for global research at J. D. Power & Associates. “We can do these things at home, why can’t do these things in the car?”

By ROY FURCHGOTT NYT120608/10