If the average driver could add just one new high-tech feature to their car, it would be help finding, and paying for, a %&*$ parking spot.
That’s the conclusion of the Connected Features Interest Survey Report, a new study from the technology analysis firm TechInsights. The company advises other companies on what technologies to pursue. So, it may have a financial interest in pushing the idea that cars should have new features they don’t have today.
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On the other hand, have you looked for a parking spot in a city on a weekend night recently? If you had tickets to the show last Saturday at…you know what? Nevermind. You get the idea.
Researchers surveyed 4,990 drivers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and China. They asked them to rank 28 possible new car features by preference.
The ability to find and pay for parking came in first globally and second in the U.S. Americans slightly preferred live traffic information – a feature many 2023 cars do offer.
Analysts noticed a pattern in the responses that car makers might want to understand. The lowest-ranking features, they said, were “in-car games, email or social media integrations, and calendar management.”
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Instead, shoppers want “journey-related” features, the company says. Younger drivers – the cohort you might expect to want games in their cars – want to “avoid receiving streams of alerts during journeys.” Instead, they want “to be automatically rerouted to their destination with parking successfully at their destination cited as their most significant concern,” TechInsights says.
