These Days, Cheap Is the Rule of the Road for Auto Gadgetry

Washington DC June 9, 2009; The AIADA newsletter reported that 21st-century car makers are constantly looking for new features and gadgets they can promote to fatten up profit margins, but the Wall Street Journal reports that right now, a lot of American consumers just aren't that into any of this wizardry, based on results from a recent survey of 19,249 individuals conducted by market-research firm J.D. Power & Associates.

For instance, the idea of a factory-installed navigation system was "definitely" interesting to 22 percent of the people who participated in J.D. Power's "Automotive Emerging Technologies Study" for 2009.

Fuel-saving hybrid-electric technology, priced at $5,000, ranked eighth in the Power study after the price was revealed. That's a respectable showing for such an expensive feature. But the share of consumers who said they are "definitely interested" in a hybrid car dropped to 15 percent in 2009 from 23 percent a year ago. After Power told respondents that a hybrid system would add $5,000 to the price of the car, the "definitely interested" share fell to 4.2 percent.

The loudest message from Power's sample of U.S. consumers is that the economic shock has damped enthusiasm for bells and whistles across the board.