Producing cars that score well in consumer surveys is complex. It means analysing responses to questionnaires by the likes of JD Power and then working backwards to turn them into values that can be designed into future models. It's costly, and only tells you how drivers think your car performs in real life - it doesn't give you the data firsthand or take into account the quirks in their driving habits and peculiar local road conditions. In a perfect world, carmakers would gather data from every single production vehicle, its driver and environment so that engineers could identify the parameters that really matter. Researchers at Braunschweig Technical University's Institute of Automotive Engineering in Germany are working on the next best thing.
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