The Problem

We are shopping for a new car.

OK, we've been shopping for a new car for about a year and a half now, but that's a whole other story.

Right now, I have one of those little windshield mounted navigation systems in my car.  I love having nav.  It has made it much easier to get from place to place, especially to unexpected destinations.  Having all the stuff plugged into the 12 volt power outlets (nav, iPod, sometimes some other things), is kind of a drag and clutters up the otherwise nice interior of my car.  So, I decided early on, even before the car shopping process, that I wanted a built-in nav.

These things have been around for a number of years now.  I figured the prices had come down.

No.  If anything, some of them have gone up.

Car manufacturers seem to want around $2000 for the built-in nav.  The little windshield mounted things seem to go for $100 to $600.  Why the discrepancy?

Part of it, on some cars, is that the nav integrates nicely with the other systems, often replacing other display panels or instruments.  That's nice, but is it worth a $1500 premium?

I also believe that part of what is going on is that, as a $2000 add-on, few people are buying them.  Dealers rarely have them on the lot, so you usually have to order them.  Why?  Because it cost $2000 and, to many people, doesn't add much.

I think part of why most people don't think it adds much is because they have not used one.  Some of them even have real time traffic, which I think anyone who lives in a reasonably sized city would come to value.

So, if no one is buying them, the price will stay high as the manufacturer has to make back their R&D costs.  However, if the price remains high, people will continue to not buy it.

The Proposal

Manufacturers should make the in car navigation system a standard features.  Sure, add $250 to the base price of the car.  So few people are buying them now that, by making it a standard feature, even charging less, they will probably take in more money for that piece of hardware than they do now.

This will also change the economies of scale.  The per unit manufacturing costs should go down and the R&D costs are spread across more units.

The first company to do this could score a big PR win, too.  "Now with GPS navigation standard."  There are a lot of people who would not turn down a nav system if it were standard, they just don't want to pay extra for it.  Sure, there are going to be the tinfoil hatters who think it is part of some one-world-government-conspiracy-to-control-and-monitor-the-masses.  Give them a $500 option to take it out.

This technology has been around for a decade or more (with GPS being in the military's hands since 1973).  Why is it still so expensive?