Best In-Vehicle System: Chevy Bolt

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Regularly conducting user experience benchmarks of infotainment systems to test the usability of a variety of in-vehicle tasks, the In-vehicle UX (IVX) group at Strategy Analytics has added five new systems to their ratings table over the last year. These include: Chevrolet 2017 Volt, Baidu CarLife, Honda 2017 Civic, Mercedes Benz 2017 E-Class and Volkswagen 2016 Golf.

Click here for report “In-Vehicle Infotainment UX Benchmark Ratings Update: 2017 Chevrolet Volt is Highest Rated New System”

 Key report findings include:
  • Tesla’s Model S maintains its top position in Strategy Analytics’ rankings of in-car infotainment systems, as its wide range of usable and accessible features makes the system visually appealing and easy to use.
  • Of the new systems tested in the past year, the 2017 Chevrolet Volt ranked the highest, largely due to strong consumer impressions of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and the intuitive way by which these mirrored systems were implemented.
  • Even for other vehicles which include a mirrored system but did not perform as well, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto repeatedly provide a superior experience. Furthermore and more concerning for OEMs, current owners of these mirrored systems are using them for most of their in-car needs.

“OEMs still have room to innovate within in-car infotainment, particularly in relation to the HMI they are in a unique position to implement. But again, implementing novel HMI for the sake of being new and different is not a winning strategy,” commented Derek Viita, report author and senior analyst. “We have found that novel experiences such as the 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class steering wheel thumbpads are difficult to use and often abandoned for other HMI modalities early in tasks.”

Added Chris Schreiner, Director, Syndicated Research UXIP, “Poor voice recognition was a common pain point among all systems benchmarked over the past year, with the exception of CarPlay’s Siri and Android Auto’s Google Assistant. The successful rollout of natural language voice assistants and contextually aware systems will be crucial for improving the on-board infotainment experience going forward.”