If a cupholder is a distraction, then what’s this?

iDrive. Command. MMI. PCM. Four different driver-interaction systems, all with one thing in common: They come from German companies that are supposed to focus on driving. Let's face it, when you're cruising down the Autobahn at 125 mph, you shouldn't focus on anything other than driving.

So, it was understandable that Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche might have been loathe to put cupholders in their cars. According to these manufacturers, people shouldn't be worried about drinking in their car. Rather, they should take driving seriously. Even today, examine the cupholders in a Boxster, 911, or 3 Series. They look like they can hold a small Dixie-type cup that you'd find at the dentist, not 7-11. (Mercedes finally went Big Gulp with the huge cupholders in their new SUVs, like the ML and GL. But to free up the console space for cupholder goodness, they had to change the gear selector to an error-prone electronic wand on the steering column.)

But why do we need these complicated driver-interaction systems? Functions such as adjusting the seat heaters in an Audi, once just a matter of rolling a small wheel, now involves buttons and the joystick controller. The process wasn't broken, so why "fix" it?!

The systems certainly haven't streamlined dashboards by removing buttons. In our Q7, not only did we have blank spaces where an option button would reside if we had purchased it, we also had MMI buttons that didn't work because we didn't choose that associated option either. So much for elegant, streamlined design.  The process to change from AM to FM to Sirius satellite involves using the buttons and the joystick. Finally, trying to sync up the driver and passenger temperature controls involved four attempts before the system would accept my changes. Certainly not the best way to make the driver focus on the task at hand... driving.

--Mike Quincy