In the first nine months of this year, 3.7 million people bought an Apple iPod personal stereo as the popularity of portable digital music players skyrocketed. James Mackintosh reports.
Yet only one car, a BMW, is available with an iPod link fitted at the dealership. Nobody supplies a car with a built-in player of MP3s, the music industry standard.
For drivers used to having the latest sound technology in their pockets, the reliance on outdated compact disc players or - even worse - cassette decks to entertain them on a journey is often a frustration. The problem is not just limited to music: few cars on sale have a built-in interface allowing a mobile telephone to be linked to the car's speakers and microphone, while none allow a personal digital assistant such as a Palm or Blackberry to be connected.
The motor industry is starting to wake up to the revolution in portable electronics, and it could eventually produce a new generation of vehicles able to keep up with the latest gadgets.
Richard Parry-Jones, chief technical officer and head of product development at Ford Motor, says that cars contain outdated consumer electronics because vehicles are replaced only every five to seven years, while consumer products are updated every 18 months to two years.
As we carry more electronics around, the contrast between the car's dated technology and the latest low-cost gadget - such as the cameras now part of almost every mobile phone - becomes clearer.
But the portable devices could also contain the seeds of a solution. Why should the car-makers bother to keep fighting to ensure the consumer electronics in a car are up to date when they know development times make that impossible? Instead, they can take advantage of the technology the customer already has. "It takes many years to develop a car, so you are always going to see the lag between consumer electronics and the automobile," says Greg Simon, a senior engineer at BMW's Palo Alto research laboratory in California, and developer of the iPod interface.
The Bluetooth mobile could point the way to a solution. It provides a wireless interface in the car so that drivers can connect their own phone, avoiding the need for a separate number for the car. These links, being introduced by all manufacturers, overcome the problem of car telephones rapidly becoming antiquated, while keeping the advantages of the better aerial in the car, controls built into the dashboard or steering wheel and use of the car's speakers and microphone.
Electronics in cars are now the single biggest source of breakdowns and shifting some of the responsibility for the most sensitive items back to the consumer is an attractive prospect for the manufacturers.
Building these devices into the cars themselves would also push up their cost: cars have to meet far stricter requirements than portable devices sold on the high street. "I don't want to compete with a phone company," says Volker Barth, head of the European operations of Delphi, the US vehicle component supplier. "And I can't, because I have to look at a totally different product installed in a car because it has got completely different specifications. It has got to work at -20° and it has got to work at 120°."
According to many in the industry, this could make it attractive to open up at least part of a car's electronics for drivers to plug in their own devices - so long as common standards can be introduced. The problem is not just that defining standards that will last for seven years would be very difficult (who would have thought to define standards for digital music players or camera-equipped mobile phones seven years ago?). There is also a cultural and financial barrier to be overcome. Car-makers make very high profit margins on optional extras - such as upgraded stereos - and are reluctant to give that up.
But there are drawbacks. The electronic networks under the dashboard will have to be more secure than those currently available in order to prevent problems with a consumer device - or even a hacker - interfering with engine or safety systems.
The car companies would also have to provide cradles or a secure place to put external devices to ensure that the passenger seat is not crowded with loose gadgets that distract the driver.
These barriers mean that cars are unlikely to come factory-fitted with general interfaces into which drivers can plug anything they want. But some cars are likely to be compatible - at least with digital music and video players - in the not-too-distant future.