Topic: An off duty cop voices Ford Dealers' worst nightmares

[articsteve]

This has been touched upon before, but praise the Lord,  Nissan and Toyota aren't getting into this .... yet.

 
My driver was an off-duty police officer hired by Ford Motor Co. to shuttle reporters to various events.

The cop was playing around with MyFord Touch as he drove us.

MyFord Touch is Ford’s new interior and technology that has an 8-inch center console touch screen for music, phone, navigation and climate control. Voice commands can be used for those controls too.

Currently, MyFord Touch is only available on the 2011 Edge and the 2011 Lincoln MKX crossovers.

I asked the cop what he thought of the technology.

He answered sheepishly at first saying he has the hang of using it and it’s “cool.” Then, he more boldly said he finds it a bit distracting though. He noted too many icons in the instrument cluster -- two on each side of the speedometer alone. He also had to frequently take his eyes off the road to use the touch screen because voice commands weren’t an option for one reason or another.

This cop’s reaction echoed what some Ford dealers’ fear many consumers will have to MyFord Touch. Ford dealers, on average, spend an extra 40 minutes now delivering a new vehicle because salespeople must teach so much new technology to buyers. MyFord Touch will be an additional technology to teach already impatient buyers, dealers tell me.

And some dealers worry MyFord Touch might turn out to be a tough sell.

While it can do a lot of neat things, noted one dealer, he worries it might be too much distraction and too intimidating to appeal to many consumers.

He added, “I sure hope not.”

Ford has said MyFord Touch is the leading edge of technology. It’s what buyers want and it will decrease driver distraction because of the voice command options.

Only time will tell if Ford is right.

Or if an off-duty cop just confirmed some dealers’ deepest fears.


Read more: http://www.autonews.com

[rrocket]

WTF is the issue??  I've used the MyTouch on my buddies Flex turbo, and the voice commands work flawlessly...at least for me.  I haven't even bothered to learn the touch screen portion since the voice commands work so well.  Seriously....about as good as it gets for voice commands.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Same here. The voice commands worked like a charm on the Flex I tried last week. I'm not a fan of the touch screens, but they are irrelevant in practice if you use the voice of steering wheel controls.

[sailor723]

As most of you know I'm not a fan of this technology. I think it's at least as distracting/dangerous as holding a cell in your hand and it is the #1 reason I excluded the Edge from consideration in my vehicle search. CR agrees. They removed the Edge/MKX from the recommended list because of MFT.

Interestingly, I heard a story on CBC radio this morning that Toyota has a deal with Microsoft for something similar for their 2012's. The host and the reporter where discussing the distraction issue and also making jokes about the "dreaded blue screen" and having to get the Geek Squad to work on your car rather than a mechanic if it crashed .

[sailor723]

AS....I clicked on your link but didn't see anything about this? 

[articsteve]

I didn't specifically include the link.   Autonews includes it at the end of every article.  There was nothing else to read.  Just one of those teaser articles that is light on content.

Sincerely hope Toyota doesn't get deep into this touch screen stuff.  Radio and HVAC controls have always been supremely user friendly and bullet proof in Toyotas and this is no time to add complexity.

 

[safristi]

..still using Pony Express and the telegraph UP NORTH eh Artic..........

[sailor723]

When I was shopping the Edge and the MKX the sales person admitted that they were running into some resistance to the MFT. The way they phrased it was something like "people either love it or hate it". I'm guessing "hate it" would be mostly among the "over 50" crowd but hey, they're a good chunk of the demographic with enough money to be shopping these vehicles.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

When I was shopping the Edge and the MKX the sales person admitted that they were running into some resistance to the MFT. The way they phrased it was something like "people either love it or hate it". I'm guessing "hate it" would be mostly among the "over 50" crowd but hey, they're a good chunk of the demographic with enough money to be shopping these vehicles.

There was a survey that showed a high percentage of Ford buyers did so because of MFT. I can't remember the numbers.

[sailor723]

Well, that would seem to be in keeping with the "love it or hate it" theory.

[inco]

I hope I fall into the love it category and I'll find out this week. I ordered the Explorer partially because of this technology. Giving up OnStar was a big decision because I loved the versatility and ease of use.

Having the voice commands available was a bonus and I used that all the time with OnStar. MFT takes it to the next level in terms of other things you can do so I do have some learning to do. Pfft, piece of cake (I hope)

[rrocket]

The mainstream US media needs a bogey man.  Maybe this is the new automotive bogey man?  I tried similar technology in 2002 in the Infiniti M45 and Q45 and even back then the voice command technology worked great.

Again...the voice commands work so well, that there is no need to take your eyes off the road to play around with the screen....

[sirAQUAMAN64]

Love it or hate it, this is the future. The population is getting used to advanced smart phones and will expect similar tech in their vehicles, or at least better integrate with their devices. Further, many claim removing buttons will be more reliable and less expensive (not that I necessarily buy into that yet).

If presented intelligently with some redundent controls, I'd like it.

[safristi]

..I personally welcome our new overmasters.................fer the 50th TIME .........................NOW stop TOUCHING me THERE........ Alan Mutually........

[CatsEye68]

This techno-crap is all trendy rubbish. Imagine talking to you typical grease-monkey mechanic about why some feature of this stuff doesn't work as advertised. Good luck with that.

And as a general rule, surveys paid for by the company touting the technology are as worthless as the technology itself.

Meanwhile, Josh or Krista goes careening off the road as they try to get daddy's car to do an illegal download of the latest CGI-crapfest movie.

[Mike]

I didn't specifically include the link.   Autonews includes it at the end of every article.  There was nothing else to read.  Just one of those teaser articles that is light on content.

Sincerely hope Toyota doesn't get deep into this touch screen stuff.  Radio and HVAC controls have always been supremely user friendly and bullet proof in Toyotas and this is no time to add complexity.

 

I am sure Microsoft will be trying to turn Toyota's car into a techno wonderland now that they have partnered up.  I too hope some manual knobs and switches remain in cars.

[safristi]

"manual Knobs" will never go out of err "style"............