March 10, 2014—Electronics engineering firm DGE, an FEV North America Inc. company, announced Monday the release of its infotainment/telematics benchmarking study.
According to DGE, it is believed that this is the first attempt to apply objective benchmarking to the infotainment/telematics industry.
Findings include time required for bluetooth pairing and time required for route re-calculation. DGE said two of the most interesting finds of the study were that performance does not necessarily improve for systems in more expensive vehicle platforms and that there are large and significant differences in performance between vehicle systems.
DGE said the study allows an OEM or tier supplier to quantitatively compare its system with competitors on an attribute-by-attribute basis, while also providing information about how much improvement is necessary in each area.
"Infotainment and telematics systems are quickly becoming a primary decision making criteria as younger consumers begin buying cars," said Joachim Wolschendorf, president and CEO of DGE Inc. "The evaluation of system performance is currently highly subjective. Given the importance of consumer decision-making on the overall choice to buy or not buy a vehicle, there is a need for objectivity – both in the target-setting phase as well as in the testing and evaluation phase, of today's infotainment and telematics systems."
