FCA TEAM PREVIEWS NEW CONNECT 5 INFOTAINMENT SYSTEM FOR MEDIA MEMBERS

If you have read probably more than one of my reviews, you may notice that many of my complaints about a car in the what-I-didn’t-like section relate to how the infotainment systems in may vehicles require completion of an advanced course in computer technology.

Systems in luxury European imports like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and to an extent Audi are primary examples. I sometimes think that the reason the Germans lost the war was because by the time they programmed “Normandy” into their tanks’ navigation systems the battle had been decided.

Frankly, I thought it was just me and not being the most techno person, but I learned the other day that I am not alone.

The good folks at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) put together a presentation for members of the Southern Automotive Media Association (SAMA) via Google Meet to showcase their new, updated UConnect 5 infotainment system and revealed that a lot of others aren’t happy with overcomplicated operation of such functions as navigation, cellphone hookups, audio and related functions in their vehicles.

According to Jin Palmer, Head for Infotainment and Feature Planning, more than half of the buyers— 51 percent — said a vehicle’s technology influenced their eventual choice and 64 percent said that having a positive experience with infotainment features on their previous vehicle made them want to buy the same brand again.

An even higher number, 78 percent or nearly four out of five shoppers, said that having a simple-to-use infotainment system was one of the most important factors when they were looking for a new vehicle.

With such customer feedback, Vince Galante, Chief Designer of the User Experience team, said that ease of use was among the top priorities in his team’s development of the UConnect 5 system for FCA products “from Day 1.”

With the user-friendliness of previous versions of the UConnect system, Galante and his team didn’t have to start from scratch.

“We’re really proud of the UConnect system and the customer feedback we get from it so we really didn’t just want to throw it away or blow it out,”  Galante said. “We really started with what we had and built upon it. We made it more powerful, more elegant. We took something that was already easy to use, added some more features to it, and made it even more intuitive.”

The new system can be personalized for up to six different user profiles and will be integrated across the entire fleet of FCA vehicles with specific design touches for Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Maserati models.

Personalization is important because if you happen to lend your car to a friend and he or she messes up all your settings, Galante said you can still select your user profile and have all your own personal settings quickly restored.

The phone system has been enhanced with the capability of connecting two phones simultaneously over Bluetooth and switching between the two of them at will.

The TomTom-based navigation system gives faster route calculation with real-time traffic updates as well as fuel prices, speed camera alerts, and weather updates.

Amazon Alexa also is built in the system, allowing you to give commands like “Alexa, start the car” or “Alexa, play fun music” or “Alexa, navigate to” a specific destination.

“One of the really nice things as a connected voice system, as Alexa gets smarter UConnect 5 will, too,” Galante said. “If you don’t have a connection available, you still will have a voice system in the car and we have upgraded that as well.”

Finally, you will have one-touch access to all your favorite or most frequently used controls by creating up to five custom pages. For somebody like me who often flips to another radio station on a whim that’s a big plus.

Video of the presentation is available on the SAMA news website at www.samaonline.org.