Is Car Tech Causing 'Upgrade Envy'?

Car shoppers who haven't sat in a new vehicle in several years are usually surprised when they see the latest dashboards, with their tablet-like touch screens, cloud-connected apps, sophisticated driver-assist displays, and multiple-camera views.

An article this week in the industry trade publication Automotive News told how Bill Russell didn't realize how outdated his 2002 Chevy Silverado pickup was until he traded it in for a 2014 model.

Instead of a radio with knobs and buttons, the new pickup "has a screen with icons like the ones on his iPhone," the article noted. And Russell, a 64-year-old resident of Harper Woods, Michigan, likes that the truck's rearview camera helps him back the pickup without worrying about hitting anything behind him, and that he can use his phone hands-free via Bluetooth.

Like Russell, once most drivers get a taste of such advanced in-cabin technology, they want it. And in much the same way that Apple is able to get people who have a perfectly good iPhone to ditch it for the latest and greatest model, tech is causing quicker turnover in vehicle ownership.

Upgrade Envy
Automotive News called the phenomenon "upgrade envy thanks to a raft of new technologies that make cars safer and easier to drive." Karl Brauer, senior director of insights and analysis for Kelley Blue Book, said that car buying could become like shopping for smartphones due to tech.

"You don't really need a new iPhone," he said. "But you want one."

Recent numbers back this theory. According to Edmunds.com, the average length of auto leases dropped to approximately 36 months in 2014 – the shortest period the car-shopping website has ever recorded. Automotive News added that "in some months, leases shrank to less than three years – not much more than the smartphone replacement cycle."

Another example the article gave of car tech upgrade envy was Mike Fine's. After seeing his son's 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee with the Uconnect system that features apps such as Yelp and Pandora and onboard Wi-Fi, Fine traded in his 2011 Nissan Xterra – and also bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee. "Compared to the Xterra," said the Hingham, Massachusetts resident, "this is a comfortable space shuttle."

"Consumers want a seamless experience in and out of the vehicle," Brian May, who runs Accenture's connected vehicle business service in North America, told Automotive News. "Things they experience on an iPhone or Android are the things they want to experience in a car."

The auto industry practically invented planned obsolescence as a marketing strategy by introducing incremental, annual model changes and larger makeovers every four years or so. But car technology didn't really change dramatically from year to year of even decade to decade. Just think how long the cassette deck stuck around, and how the CD is still hanging on even after the advent of the iPod and in the age of streaming music.

But in just the last half decade or so, in-dash technology has changed dramatically. In 2009, the most cutting-edge in-car tech was iPod integration. In six short years, cloud connectivity has come to cars to provide everything from streaming music to online search, and even in mainstream vehicles like the Toyota Camry.

While automakers are now experiencing booming sales – and the Automotive News article attributes that partly to all the new bells and whistles being offered on new cars – tech can also be a double-edge sword. What's considered new today can quickly become passé, and automakers are locked into much longer product cycles than consumer electronics companies.

Automakers have also struggled with creating infotainment interfaces that are not up to par with the portable device makers they've tried to emulate, which is one reason we're seeing Apple and Google move into the space with CarPlay and Android Auto. And with the exception of Tesla, automakers have also dragged their feet on making software upgrades for their vehicles easy and routine.

Perhaps that's also part of the auto industry's planned obsolescence strategy, although I doubt it. After all, the ability to upgrade the firmware and software of a portable device certainly hasn't slowed down the pace of iPhone sales.