Voice recognition still a top problem says report

Speaking in a presentation at the annual Management Briefing Seminars of the Center for Automotive Research, held in Traverse City, Michigan, Kristin Kolodge, J.D. Power’s executive director of driver interaction claimed that in-car voice recognition systems work so poorly that automakers should give up trying to add new features and go back to the basics. According to the consulting firm’s annual Initial Quality Study of vehicle models sold in the United States, voice activation was identified as the mo
August 12, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Speaking in a presentation at the annual Management Briefing Seminars of the Center for Automotive Research, held in Traverse City, Michigan, Kristin Kolodge, J.D. Power’s executive director of driver interaction claimed that in-car voice recognition systems work so poorly that automakers should give up trying to add new features and go back to the basics.


According to the consulting firm’s annual Initial Quality Study of vehicle models sold in the United States, voice activation was identified as the most common type of malfunction.
Twenty-three percent of problems reported were related to audio, communication, entertainment or navigation. One-third of those infotainment complaints were caused by voice recognition, Kolodge said.

Kolodge noted that in-car systems often don’t work as well as voice recognition systems in smart phones. Part of the problem, she acknowledged, was that in-car systems are vulnerable to road noise, engine noise and passenger conversations.

Automakers should focus on the most basic functions, such as phone calls, navigation and audio and make sure those work well before adding other functions.

For other vehicle parts, a high defect rate would be unacceptable, she noted, "yet somehow it’s acceptable for voice recognition, and it’s been acceptable for years. We’ve got to get back to the basics.”

Location Based Systems

Related Content

  • Preventing connected vehicles creating disconnected drivers
    November 12, 2015
    Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are evolving at a rapid pace – but drivers’ ability to cope with them is not and at some point the mismatch must be addressed. Probably the biggest challenge the transportation industry has ever faced.” That is how Dr Bryan Reimer of Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab describes the challenges posed by semi-autonomous vehicles.
    Read More
  • ITS needs continuity at the policy-making level
    February 1, 2012
    ITS needs to be sold to politicians in plainer terms and we need to be encouraging greater continuity at the policy-making level says Josef Czako, chairman of the IRF's Policy Committee on ITS. At the ITS World Congress in New York in 2008, the International Road Federation (IRF) held the inaugural meeting of its Policy Committee on ITS. The Policy Committee's formation, says its chairman, Kapsch's Josef Czako, reflects an ongoing concern over the lack of deployment of ITS technology on roads in anything li
    Read More
  • US updates ITS strategy for Connected Vehicle deployment
    March 16, 2015
    Jon Masters looks at the USDOT’s new ITS Strategic Plan for the next five years. Emphasis and direction for the next five years of Government led ITS research in the United States has been framed within a new ITS Strategic Plan. The US Department for Transportation’s (USDOT) ITS Joint Program Office (JPO) published the report at the tail end of 2014 after concluding a two-year ITS industry consultation process. The Plan identifies a vision to transform the way society moves and the ITS JPO’s aim of advancin
    Read More
  • Asecap Days 2023: Data drives the best decisions
    December 22, 2023
    Almost all the data being collected by highway operators is going to waste. But if firms collect and analyse these ‘vast lakes of data’ they can investigate threats, monitor management systems and drive up revenues, delegates were told at Asecap Days 2023. Geoff Hadwick reports
    Read More

Highlighted Content