How It Works: Why does it take so long to get the latest tech in new cars?

Why can't car companies keep up with the tech in our smartphones or the latest trends we keep hearing about?


Back in 1940, American luxury automaker Packard became the first to offer factory-installed air conditioning. It didn’t work very well, and the option could be as much as one-quarter of the car’s price, but it was a start.

Even so, it was more than fifty years before air became standard equipment in lower-priced vehicles. Today, technologies themselves evolve much faster, but it can still take a while for them to show up in vehicles, and especially to trickle down the line from premium cars into the “bread-and-butter” models. So why does it take so long? There are numerous reasons for that, including cost, availability, and consumer preferences.

It always takes time to develop and market new products, but automakers face an even longer timeline, thanks to the complexity of designing, testing, and building a vehicle. While a new cellphone might be winging its way to consumers in a matter of months, an all-new or redesigned vehicle can take a minimum of three to five years. Lacking crystal balls, automakers have to factor in new technologies that haven’t been fully developed yet – and at the same time, have to hope that anything they add that’s currently on the market isn’t considered hopelessly outdated by the time the vehicle comes out. If your brand-new car is only now debuting high-tech hardware that you’ve known about for a year or more, it could be that the vehicle’s introduction finally caught up with the technology’s faster timeline.

Regulations can also play a role in how long it takes for consumers to get the latest-and-greatest. For example, Audi offers “Matrix” headlights in Europe, made up of numerous LEDs that can be individually controlled to create brighter or dimmer light beams. But such lighting systems haven’t been approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the US yet, and since Canada generally harmonizes its regulations with NHTSA, that’s a technology that’s going to take longer to reach our market.

Audi's Matrix LED headlights can provide illumination for the driver without blinding other road users.
Audi’s Matrix LED headlights can provide illumination for the driver without blinding other road users.

Cost is also a huge factor in how quickly technologies get to market, and especially, how long it takes for them to trickle down into less-expensive vehicles. With any product – whether it’s the whole car, or just its high-tech headlights – most of the cost rings up before the first one is even produced. The biggest chunk of the budget is research and development, which spans not just designing the product, but also in market research, testing it, certifying it with any applicable governing bodies, and determining if it can be mass-produced. A supply chain must be set up, which might include sourcing raw materials, or creating dies and programming robots, if necessary, for production. Workers have to be trained in assembling the product, and service procedures have to be determined and written up for those who will eventually repair it.

All of these expenses are amortized over the number made, meaning that the more copies of the product are churned out, the less each one costs. The technology is priciest right after it goes to market and so it’s far more likely to show up on premium vehicles, where buyers are more willing to pay the steeper price for exclusivity.

Only when volume production brings down the technology’s price are automakers able to move it into mid- or entry-priced vehicles. And even then, timing is everything: a high-tech feature can’t work its way down the ranks too quickly, lest a lower-priced vehicle so equipped takes some of the shine off its more premium relatives.

Sometimes, technologies can also get caught up in webs of who owns what, and who is going to benefit. Connectivity software like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto have been developed by their companies for automotive use, but car companies still have to buy licenses before they can offer them. The software providers may dictate the size of the centre screen or how a user connects a phone to it, which can mean a redesign of the infotainment system.

Automakers also need to determine which software is expected to be the most popular – should they go with Apple or Google, for example? – and how much they’re willing to give up against any of their proprietary systems, since the data collected from car owners, who become a captive audience, has become a valuable commodity.

Another reason for what might seem like the glacial adoption of some technologies has to do with customers themselves and how comfortable they are with it – which can depend on the vehicle as well. Those who buy premium electric vehicles like Tesla, for example, may be far more open to higher-tech features, and expect them to be in the vehicle, than someone who purchases an entry-level vehicle for the daily commute.

It becomes a combination of technology evolving – from plain cruise control, to adaptive cruise control that maintains its distance from traffic in front, to that which can change lanes – and with letting drivers gain trust in each new development before adding the next one. It’s all part of why it can be a long time between hearing about new technology, and finding that it’s finally part of your car.
