Car Sticker Not a Good Indicator of Telematics Performance, Study Says

March 10, 2014

Patrick Ponticel

The least expensive vehicle in this sample performed worst, but the second least expensive performed better than two more expensive ones.

DGE, a unit of FEV North America Inc., believes it is the first company to attempt to apply objective benchmarking of vehicle infotainment/telematics systems. There is "no or poor correlation" between vehicle price and system performance, according to its recent benchmarking study. Another finding is that there are, in many cases, "significant differences in performance between vehicle systems." DGE says its newly developed benchmarking service "not only allows an OEM or supplier to quantitatively compare its system with competitors on an attribute-by-attribute basis but, because the evaluation strategy is objective, it provides useful information about how much improvement is necessary, in each attribute area, to become best in class." The study was enabled by DGE's development and testing expertise in connected-vehicle technologies combined with FEV's proven benchmarking methods.