In the 1970s, if you had a car with air-conditioning, you’d probably have been the envy of all your friends, and you’d even have gotten more for your car on the second hand market. Today, it’s pretty much impossible to buy a new car that doesn’t have air-conditioning.
You’re more likely to find that you new car offers not just air-conditioning, but also heated seats (that you can control remotely with your smartphone), climate control, heated windscreens and a whole lot more.
Product innovation has always been top priority for car manufacturers, which is why they are among the top spenders in research and development. The question now is whether this is enough. Product innovation is taking place at such speed that a unique innovation today can easily be copied and manufactured by a rival firm tomorrow.
Product specifications and feature lists no longer offer that unique reason for the customer to choose one car model over another.So where does that leave car manufacturers? How can they find that X-Factor that will make customers desire one of their cars more than their competitors? [Read more…] about The car of the future: Think concierge on the move