The American Car industry can’t die soon enough for my tastes.
Ok, that’s a little harsh, but they need to wake up to a few realities out there.
The car manufacturers from other countries are DOMINATING you in every way. Even the mainstay of the US industry (trucks and SUV’s) will be taken away. Truck quality from Toyota and Honda (and to a lesser extent Nissan) has met or exceeded the quality of Ford and Chevy. Almost everyone I know who likes trucks is lusting after a Honda Ridgeline. The Toyota Tundra is an amazing truck as well. And SUV’s? That market is being eaten by the run up in gas prices, and increasing quality from non-US makers. It will take some time for this to manifest itself, but I believe that the truck industry will increasingly move towards the Asian makers, and the Titan, Ridgeline and Tundra are just the first wave.
This whole rant was kicked off by me getting in a wreck just before Labor day. Some kid from Emory rear ended me in Lenox Mall parking lot. He drives a nice, 2007 Honda Civic. His front bumper shattered. I drive a nice Infiniti I-35. I’ve got a nice dent in my bumper. After some time of organizing the insurance companies, etc, I drop my car off, and get picked up by Enterprise to get my rental car.
A Chevy Malibu. THIS is what they (Chevy) think people want?
I guess I should back this off a little bit, and say that the car drives somewhat well. The steering wheel is VERY loose though.
But the focus of this rant is on the interior. I’m somewhat intelligent. I’ve been figuring out my way around user interfaces for a very long time. But this interior center console is a maze of buttons with short hand labels (srce for source for example). Every thing about this car is a UI designer’s nightmare.
There is nothing ‘fun’ about this car. Little that is ‘sporty’. Everything is set up in such a way to just be a LITTLE annoying.
Even in bad interfaces you can usually find something thats ‘nice’. Something that makes you say ‘that’s well done.’ Nothing.
On the off chance someone reads this, here’s a couple of things to fix the issues:
1) Redo EVERYTHING about the center console. First, plan on getting rid of 2/3rds of the buttons. Make some buttons context aware, so that they can be re-used for several tasks.
2) I’m not asking for auto everything, but make some more things adjustable… seat hight, steering wheel hight… these are simple things that are ALREADY SOLVED. Just implement them.
3) Ditch the ‘car computer’ concept. Hey Chevy? Toyota 1985 called. They want their LCD pixel display back. Listen, this concept died back in the 80′s for a reason. Without a simple interface, NO ONE WILL USE IT. You’re just wasting your money designing it, and customers money selling it.
4) And for the love… PUT A STANDARD AUDIO INPUT in the stereo! This simple thing will SELL YOU CARS. To the young, hip people car manufacturers WANT talking about your cars. Don’t bother with in-dash mp3 players. They’re cumbersome and complicated. Just give a sane input that ALL mp3 players can use. That’s a headphone jack. It’s not hard.
Gah.
Take pictures!!
We can use it as entry for a blog I reserved on blogspot: wysiwtf
But you’re forgetting a few things.
1. Middle America loves their American made pickup trucks. There are still people who will (verbally) battle to the death (well, almost) over whether a Ford or a Chevy pick-up truck is better. For towing and such, the big American pick-up trucks are still viewed as highly superior to the imports. That may change, but it’s going to take an awful lot of time to do so.
2. In general, lower end American cars and specifically used American cars are cheaper than the inputs. And there’s a lot of people in the country who are below the average income range (half of the population to be exact) who can’t afford to buy brand, shiny new autmobiles. They just need something to get them from point A to point B. And, they need it relatively inexpensively. Unfortunately, for them, a lot of the lower income people don’t always factor in repair costs (where the less expensive American cars bite you, especially as they get older). So, again, there’s still a market for American cars.
3. Rental cars suck. The Chevy Malibu (unless it’s a newer Malibu Max) is one of the worst (the Impalla’s not much better). Chevy can’t do user interfaces to save their lives. I’ve driven a lot of different rental cars and I still can’t figure out how to set the clock on Chevy vehicles (a real bummer when your trip happens to include a time change weekend). Also, you have to remember that a lot of time, especially if you’re getting a cheap rental car, you’re going to get a lower end model. It’s not going to have all the fancy electronic gizmos that many people see as standard options now (power seats, power locks, power windows, remote lock and unlock key fob thingy). Don’t judge all the cars by the rentals you get.
4. I completely agree with the need for an aux input to be standard on all stereos in all vehicles starting like three years ago. The fact that the stereo in my less than year old Toyota Matrix doesn’t even play MP3s in the standard CD player is highly annoying. The fact that there wasn’t an option to upgrade to a stereo that would, or that had any provision for having an auxilary input attached is just downright embarassing. I really like my Matrix, but the fact that the stereo is stuck in the early to mid-1990s should be an embarassment to the company.
5. And, while we’re ranting about automobile features. Is it too much to ask that vehicle cup holders be designed such that they will accomodate a standard (Nalgene) 32 oz water bottle? Among the younger crowd, water bottles of that size are almost as ubiquitous as iPods and, darn it, cup holders should be sized to accept them.
Dude … someone’s using their gt number. No fair that I can’t access acme and finger the account.
Once upon a time, I was gt6638b.
As a person who deals with total loss Chrysler vehicles for a living I must concur.
I work with Chrysler’s now and I used to work with Fords and boy howdy is the quality utter crap. All Jeeps and all Chrysler/Dodge SUV’s drop value faster than Nike drops an accused dog fighter.
We’re talking in the neighborhood of 20 g’s in the first year. Ford is not *as bad though. And if your prediction comes true, Ford will most likely be the last American car company still standing due in large part to the popularity of the F-Series. In the land of American made trucks the F-Series holds it’s value longer and also doesn’t seem to fall apart as fast as the competition.
But don’t tell any Chevy fans that I said that.
Footnote: Temper the above praise with the knowledge that I would NEVER
I got kicked out due to duplicate content… wierd
Anyway, I would never buy a Ford.