Hasta La Ideas

Chrysler has come up with a rather odd design philosophy for their 200C concept car: No buttons. “You won’t see a single button on this vehicle from the doors to the interior to the infotainment system,” says Chrysler spokesman Jason Monroe, as if that in itself is something brag-worthy.

The touchscreen system inside the car was developed by electronics systems developer the Nartron Corporation, and as their CEO points out, the Chrysler system is like “what Apple did with the iPhone.” Furthermore,

[The system] lets drivers use any smartphone as a virtual key fob to control a host of functions, including locking and unlocking the vehicle’s doors and trunk and rolling the windows up and down. With their smartphones, users can also access a live interior shot of the vehicle as well as check on the status of their home’s security alarm, carbon dioxide and smoke detectors.

…The passenger side of the 200C deploys a UConnect tablet so passengers can access the car’s entertainment features and send recommendations to the driver.

Jeez Louise, where do I begin.

A) Do people not realize that merely copying certain features of the friggin’ iPhone does not make it an automatic design success?

B) How often will we need to see a “live interior shot” of our car–is this in case we lock our kids inside while we’re at the mall?

C) Checking the carbon dioxide detector at home? Is this something we’ve been clamoring for?

D) What I’d really like when driving a car is to have a friend sitting in the back seat avoid talking to me altogether so s/he can “send recommendations” to me via touchscreen.

via ny times wheels blog

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