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FEBRUARY 16, 2004
It's Tough Keeping Your Eyes On The Road Even the smallest flaw inside a car can become a big turnoff these days. If a buyer takes a seat and finds the dashboard too shiny or the plastic too cheap, she takes a hike. Even a stereo knob smooth to the touch but guilty of a loud "click" might provoke a sneer. DaimlerChrysler (DCX ) had some consultants study consumer tastes for interiors and found that most people decide within 90 seconds of grabbing the door handle if they like or hate a car. Such heightened scrutiny has carmakers, especially Detroit's Big Three, pushing their designers to make the confines as fancy as they can. In the U.S., General Motors (GM ), Ford (F ), and Chrysler Group are trying to match the well-built interiors made in Japan and add the kind of panache consumers love about European cars. The domestic companies are mimicking some of the computer- assisted design methods used by companies like Volkswagen, upgrading the materials they use, and, in some cases, spending more cash to spruce up dashboards, seats, and gauges in their cars. "Interiors are the new battleground," says David C. McKinnon, Chrysler's vice-president for passenger car development. At GM, interior work was almost a backwater in product development until recently. According to Vice-Chairman Robert A. Lutz, when other departments, such as body engineering or engine and transmission development, went over-budget, the money often came at the expense of interiors. Now he's holding all departments to tight budgets and keeping the spending on interior design intact. GM is even spending significantly more per vehicle on interior development. Says Lutz: "The interior will no longer be a pool of money to pay for overruns with everything else." Spending isn't everything. Ford Motor Co.'s new 500 sedan has a look similar to Volkswagen's cars, which most auto designers and executives fawn over. It didn't require heavy spending, says Ford Chief Operating Officer Nicholas V. Scheele. He points out that consumers think hollow plastic buttons feel cheap, so Ford made the plastic knobs for the stereo and environmental controls flush with the face of the instrument panel. The driver pushes the buttons but doesn't feel the hollow molded plastic pieces. It does feel more solid, and, says Scheele, "it didn't cost us anything more." A FINER FIT. Then there's the smell test. Some buyers are put off by the toxic odor of certain adhesives and plastic materials used inside cars. Chrysler is making sure the smell of genuine leather isn't masked by artificial materials. Automakers also are adopting new methods for eliminating defects before the car is actually being assembled. Lutz has his designers use a computer process similar to the one used by Volkswagen and Audi to make sure all the pieces inside a car fit together with minimal gaps. GM used to design its interior sections on computer screens and make changes manually to make sure they fit inside. Now, Lutz says, the cockpit sections are designed on computer and then pilot interiors are made. The designers use pilot interiors to make sure everything fits, then they rework the interior using computer simulations to work out kinks and close up wide gaps between different sections of the dashboard. It seems to be working. Many American autos still aren't as snappy as foreign models, says Wesley R. Brown, an analyst with Iceology in Los Angeles. But new car interiors like that of the Pontiac Solstice, due out next year, have a sharp array of colors and materials, and everything fits snugly. The Solstice and other sports cars are taking on a classic look with large, stylish gauges. Other mainstream vehicles, such as Ford's F-150 pickup truck, make use of modern touches like digital display screens. If Detroit keeps at it, it could nail the sale inside of 90 seconds.  By David Welch in Detroit Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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