In the late-80s/early-90s GM tried a variety of “modern” instrumentation techniques, including heads-up displays, cars that would speak to you (leading to still repeated jokes about your car saying “door is ajar”), among others.

People didn’t like them.

Which is why it’s back to that classic information in that classic way, again and again.

If a non-displayed critical parameter such as oil pressure went out of tolerance then the car would override the user selection and display the out of tolerance value. I think (I’m not certain) that there was a ‘master caution’ light also.

The reviewers hated this system because they didn’t trust the computer. It was really a pretty neat system, very aircraft like.

I think you’re way underpricing the cost of a gps. If you really think you can make a usable, updatable gps, with a database, that can survive in a car, for $25 then you ought to go put Garmin out of business.

I’d hate having a moving map display right in front of me where the speedometer, tachometer and engine instruments should be. YMMV. Even on an automatic the tach is nice if you are driving on slippery roads, and it’s nice if you ever drive on the autobahn.

I think you ought to also give GM credit for OnStar, which is a really clever and useful safety feature.

I do agree with other posters who commented on the ’souless’ quality of many GM vehicles. Gm has done a lot of clever engineering over time, I think they have a problem with execution and too much committee think.

Both cars–30 years apart–had two exactly the same very annoying “features.”

1 – you could lock the keys in the car very easily

2 – you could leave the lights on & exit the car (to return to a dead battery).

Thirty years apart & they couldn’t figure how to improve those “features.”

Chris: I know that a navigation system is an option on most vehicles sold today, but pricing navigation at $2000 per car, seeing who is dumb enough to pay that, and sticking the nav screen out of the driver’s primary view doesn’t seem like a great long-term strategy. Navigation should be designed into the car, placed where most easily used, and built into the price. As for having the engine instruments taking up all of the screen real estate… in aviation you have the option by pressing a button to see a detailed page of engine data, but it isn’t hogging panel space normally.

On the other hand, my father had an early model Pontiac Solstice. That car was built and designed with passion and it showed. Truly fun to drive, a head turner. That car actually gave me hope for GM.

I must, however, take exception to some of the facts and implied bias of this blog entry.

First, a NAV system (including GPS-based mapping) is an option on most GMC vehicles (which is competitive with most new cars in today’s market), one that I guess Enterprise did not elect to provide in their rental vehicle. The LED-based driver information system (that alerted you that your luggage was in danger of falling out the open back hatch onto the highway) is the standard option.

Second, while SUVs are certainly not ‘economy’ cars, your 8 mpg comment is, in my experience, not correct by at least a factor of two (sometimes close to three). As an owner with a large family to haul around, I really appreciate the economy of scale ability to move everyone (and all their stuff) in one vehicle.

Third, regarding your comment about engine instrumentation, (i) every vehicle I have ever owned, regardless of make or model has had some minimal engine performance instrumentation, and (ii) SUVs are commonly used as tow/haul vehicles and having more versus less engine instrumentation comes in handy in that application. Also, as an engineer and pilot, I assume that you understand the basics of the ergonomics of instrumentation and the reasons why analog dial-type gauges continue to be the display of choice for auto applications.

I hope to see the ’smart’ display applications you discuss that dynamically allocate ’screen real estate’ based on contextual ties between NAV database information and the road, or vehicle status in the next Yukon I buy, in about 8 years…

Cheers.

But I generally agree that in many cars, the location and presentation of many dashboard items is questionable.

While I agree with your overall point, I take issue with calling oil pressure, voltage, and coolant temperature gauges useless. Certainly they don’t need to be front-and-center, but they SHOULD be somewhere.

The voltage gauge lets you see that your alternator is failing BEFORE you wind up on the side of I-10 in the middle of absolutely nowhere. And that tachometer is very important if you’re towing a heavy load through hilly terrain — especially if your SUV isn’t equipped with a transmission cooler. Likewise, the oil pressure gauge lets you see that something’s going wrong BEFORE the engine seizes. Just because the average car owner is too dumb to use these tools correctly does not mean that the mechanically-inclined among us are in the same boat.

Do you rely on warning lights when you’re flying? I would bet that you, like all pilots, scan the instruments to make sure everything is running correctly. Those instruments are hardly useless.

Sure, put them over on the side somewhere or incorporate them into an LCD display, but don’t take them away and don’t call them useless!