Automakers May No Longer Feature CD Players

Anthony Fontanelle
June 11, 2007

The dash-mounted CD player could quickly go the way of 8-tracks and quadraphonic sound, a vice president from Siemens VDO said last Thursday at the Ward's Auto Interiors Show in Detroit.

“And it will be a welcome demise because it will free up valuable real estate on the dash for all the other cool gizmos drivers lug around these days, like the cell phone, personal digital assistant and music player, said Frank Homann, the vice president of Siemens VDO's Interior Electronics Solutions group.

Never-ending advances in digital music devices, the take-them-everywhere cell phones and finicky customers who expect to customize their vehicles with portable devices, will push CD players out of most vehicles as early as 2012, said Homann.

Many manufacturers already are integrating new sound technologies in automobiles. The Chrysler Group has offered its U Connect system to give customers with Bluetooth phones to connect to a speaker phone in the car. The company recently launched the My Gig system. The said system will burn CDs to a 20 Gig hard drive in the dash.

"There are systems that cost thousands of dollars, while Bluetooth offers a highly successful voice recognition system and hands-free phone capabilities for much, much less," said Jack Withrow, the director of vehicle entertainment and communications for DaimlerChrysler. "Bluetooth chips are becoming inexpensive, and I expect prices to continue to fall."

The UConnect system, installed in the dashboard, serves as the mobile phone's voice-activated dialer, speaker, and audio receiver. The phone can be placed anywhere in the car while the console serves as a cellular conduit as the driver's voice dials and speaks through the UConnect system in the dashboard.

Aside from Chrysler, Ford, BMW, Saab, General Motors, Mercedes and Toyota are also into Bluetooth connectivity. The Ford Motor Co. will introduce its Sync system later this year. It connects a driver's phone to the vehicle, as well as allows an iPod or other music device to be controlled by the car's stereo. It will also play music saved on a flash drive by connecting to a USB port in the car.

BMW's Bluetooth offering will assume the same basic phone-to-dashboard based function as Chrysler's UConnect. Saab's initial application, however, could be just the beginning, Doug Blank said. "The technology is zooming. I assume it will turn into things where cars can download software into car by sitting down in the vehicle with a laptop to download the software. The flexibility of Bluetooth is not restrictive to just cell phones and headsets. Saab is also planning on allowing navigation systems to link with PDAs,” Blank added.

The hype of Bluetooth connectivity is accelerating as fast as it could that even EBC Active Brakes Direct could not put it to a halt. "Bluetooth has become a worldwide standard, which has made it more cost effective by definition," said Joyce Putscher, the director of the consumer and converging markets and technologies group for In-Stat in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Chris Dragon, the director of marketing for audio company Harmon/Kardon, said that he does not see carmakers opening their dashes to just any devices. "(Automakers) make a lot of money on those technology packages that include CD players and other things," Dragon said. "I don't see them opening up their electrical architecture to outside people any time soon."

Many of the changes in future interiors will start in the more nimble aftermarket arena, Dragon said. Automakers could save between $20 and $40 a vehicle if they eliminated CD players, noted Homann. They also could save money in other ways, such as consolidating some of the electronics behind the dashboard, he noted. But all of this will definitely take time.

Source:  Amazines.com