Product Ponderings – Cars and Computers.

This blog all started with an old car I bought for my son, and ended up driving (temporarily). This used Oldsmobile wagon is not the top-of-the-line model. It’s just the basic version of their biggest vehicle, with maybe a cloth upgrade. But that is a very good thing in a used car. It means there is less of that GM electronic tomfoolerly to go wrong now. (See: “Concert Hall Oldsmobile”)

I wrote the earlier blog mostly about the unusually good radio that old car had. I would bet this radio in the wagon is also a bottom line version of a GM radio, with fewer bells-and-whistles. I thought to myself, how odd that this would make it a better radio.

I think I may have stumbled upon something here concerning how American products work. Call it a mind-set our businesses have. The more they add features and accessories to jack up the selling price, the more the degrade the essential reason for buying that product.

For the car radio, they add so many electronic features and design circuits to be more reliable and easy to build, that somewhere along the line, they forgot to make it a good radio with excellent reception and quality sound output. Those two ‘features’ got left on the drawing board (excuse me, on the drafting computer’s hard drive).

Seems there should come a time in a product’s life-cycle that they should shoot the engineers before those guys get a chance to degrade that product with new ‘features.’

You know what I mean? It’s sort of like what most software companies do with their popular software suites. I cringe over upgrading either my Photoshop or Freehand software. I have seen what the newest versions are like, and they suck compared to their earlier versions. Microsoft Word is the same way. I still prefer the old Word 5.0 to their newest version on the Mac, and since it doesn’t work on the new OS X, I now use something else besides MSWord.

Car manufacturers seem to have fallen into the same product trap as the software companies. They lost something essential in the product while they were busy upgrading it.

For instance, one of the ‘New And Improved’ features they are adding to our cars, is in replacing the car keys. My neighbor just spent $2500 on two new keys for his van. You see, he had lost both his keys, and this is the cost of replacing two of those tiny electronic dongles that unlock the car’s computer and ignition.

Whatever happened to using a simple metal key to open and start your car? How is all this new stuff an improvement? Perhaps an electronic dongle car key can be less easily duplicated by a thief, but it can be a very expensive ‘feature,’ can’t it? My poor neighbor lost the use of his van for a week, while the car dealer was waiting for the replacement dongles.

I am wondering about some design features of all the new cars anyway. Most of them now have on-board computers to run everything and to monitor the engine and transmission. I admit, this can improve fuel economy and make the driving experience that much safer and more comfortable. But what happens when the computer fails? Sometimes the cost of finding and fixing the problem is more than the new car is worth. You almost just have to walk away from it and buy another vehicle. Leasing a vehicle suddenly looks like a much better option, doesn’t it?

What’s going to happen to the new drive-by-wire ‘features’ in some of these new cars? You know, where nothing in the car is actually connected to the drive wheels, brakes or engine? Where it’s all computer controlled? Seems to me, a major glitch in this system could easily be fatal! Whatever happened to using a redundant, MECHANICAL system for a backup?

This kind of trouble can be found in any modern off-the-shelf computer, right?

Yes and no.

Our local high school (a private school) where my wife teaches, is a good example here. Their computers were bought through Staples. They are the generic, (not Name Brand) computers you can purchase for next to nothing. The school has a dozen of them in their English lab, and they are used for building the school’s yearbook each Spring.

A typical work session with them means that everyone has to be aware of which of these computers still function in trying to produce a yearbook. One of them still can print to the laser printers. Another of them can still accept flash memory sticks from the digital cameras the students use to get photos of school events and stuff. Another of these computers is still capable of burning a CD. – You get the point here? All of them were completely capable of doing anything we needed when they were first purchased. Now, not one of them can fully function. Each of them has lost certain capabilities in one area or another.

What about a service plan for them? Seems that the school didn’t want to spend the money for one of those, because such a plan was very expensive. Guess this proves the proverb; you get what you pay for, doesn’t it?

It’s OK, though. When all else fails, my wife the teacher brings the work home and finishes it on her three year old, trusty iBook laptop.

This proves one thing. If you really want to be productive, and not end up with junk on your desk at work or at home, BUY A MACINTOSH COMPUTER!

Too bad General Motors, Ford and Chrysler (and the Germans and Japanese) haven’t got this figured out yet.

They are still making products that are better and better, with new and more advanced features, but somehow in all of this, they have forgotten the basic purpose of a car, which is to get from one place to another in an easy, safe and reliable manner.

Many of the mechanical features on cars are being replaced with computerized systems. Of course this is cheaper for the manufacturers, and gives a more advanced feel to their products. But this doesn’t mean that their cars are either safer or more reliable than a car with mechanical systems. It just means that what can go wrong can be more costly, or have more serious (or even fatal) consequences for the consumer.

I already have a clue about what computer to buy and use. Apple Computers are undeniably the most advanced, well built and reliable production computers on the planet. (Apple! I hope you stay in business a very LONG TIME! Please don’t sell your computer division to anyone!)

On the other hand, I think my next car will not be a top-of-the-line model. Nor do I think I want it to have all the newest and greatest electronic features – that is, if I can still buy a car like that. I certainly don’t want a car that has to be unlocked and operated with an electronic key!

Funny that. On my desk, I want the latest and greatest computer. But on the road, I want my car to be computer-free, retro, and more reliably (mechanically) sound.

What have you pondered about the new products lately?