Extracted from the publication of Craig Trudell, Bloomberg News on The Windsor Star website 27 November 2012
Chrysler Group LLC is emerging a leader in touch screens by letting Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. jump ahead and stumble.
Blunders with the systems, which handle tasks from entertaining with Pandora internet radio to reading text messages and mapping out directions, have dragged on Ford's showings in surveys by Consumer Reports and J.D. Power & Associates. The No. 2 U.S. automaker said last month that it expects to fall short with quality metrics for a second straight year. GM's system for its Cadillac brand has drawn negative comparisons with Ford's in early reviews.
While its rivals plunged ahead with advanced controls and abandoned trusty knobs and buttons, Chrysler has moved more slowly with its simpler Uconnect system..
"We've definitely seen a shift in terms of what breaks," Jake Fisher, the director of Consumer Reports' Auto Test Center, said in an interview at Bloomberg's Detroit bureau. He picked up his iPhone from a conference room table: "Now, it's this as opposed to transmissions and engines."
Consumer Reports, regarded as credible because it forgoes advertising and buys the cars it tests, published an Aug. 22 post on its website: "Why the MyFord Touch control system stinks." Plagued by issues with its electronics, Ford's namesake brand fell seven spots to second-to-last place in the magazine's auto-reliability survey announced last month. its luxury nameplate Lincoln plunged 12 spots.
"We want to be a leader in technology, and so we're having a few growing pains," Bill Ford, the chairman of Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford, told reporters Nov. 19 in Detroit. "Our customers are telling us it's absolutely the right way to go."
Chrysler, which introduced its Uconnect system in 2003, has been relatively quiet in marketing its technology compared with GM and Ford. The automaker has introduced updated versions of its touch screens into new models as they debut rather than blanketing its whole lineup with its latest up-to-date system.
"We're doing more thoughtful integration," Marios Zenios, Chrysler's head of connectivity, said in an interview from the Uconnect command centre in Chrysler's Auburn Hills, Mich., headquarters.
When Zenios joined Chrysler in 2008, the automaker employed three people who specialized in the field of human machine interface, in which designers and engineers work on the layout and software of devices to make them easy to use. Chrysler now has "quite a force" of such personnel, he said, declining to provide a specific figure.
Chrysler has reason to be mum about details concerning its Uconnect staff, said Andrew Watt, chief executive officer of iTalent LLC. Watt's recruiting firm has been tapped by automakers and suppliers for eight to 10 searches this year to fill positions related to mobile technology in vehicles.
"Any intelligence about what's going on when it comes to this talent, you keep to yourself," said Watt, who is based in Troy, Mich.
"These are niche skills and this is the kind of content that attracts young buyers to cars. The only way to get these people is to take them from someone else."
Read the complete entry from Craig Trudell, Bloomberg News on The Windsor Star website