Why have car manufacturers never installed compasses as standard equipment on cars?

Question

This is the most basic and simple navigation tool since the dawn of time. Boat manufacturers install them as standard equipment, why not car manufacturers? I know you can get them as 'luxury' items, as digital compasses.

I am aware that you can't put compasses too close to the dash, due to EM interference; however, compasses work fine when stuck on the winshield or near the sunvisor.

Every car I've had, I've gone out and bought a compass for. This should not be necessary.

People are so lazy today, they can't even look at a paper map. Also, they pay $5000 for a talking gps display when you can get a handheld gps for under $100. Microsoft Streets makes a gps receiver and software you can plug into your laptop or pda for under $100, and it talks too.

Why are people and car makers so navigationally lazy? Your thoughts?

Answer 1

They've never been standard equipment anywhere that I know of, ever. Part of it may have been the compensation necessary to have a plain magnetic compass function properly in a car; you're always fooling with it and the readings aren't always so great. A magnetic compass also does notably strange things on a steel bridge.

But I strongly suspect that it's simply tradition. Nobody used a compass in a wagon, so nobody thought to ask for one in a car. Road maps didn't come along until the AAA started printing them in the 1920's, at which point auto equipment and accessories were pretty much fixed into the pattern we find them today: my 1927 Sears catalog's auto section looks a lot like Wal-mart's, though in the 1920's such things as oil filters and temperature gauges were still considered extras. (I never checked in that catalog to see if there were compasses.)

In the US, popular culture classifies an auto compass as a sign that you've reached retirement age, though I've never accepted that. I love them. The digital variety doesn't need any compensation and is unaffected by the steel in the car.

Answer 2

Well, to answer your first question, regardless of what you may have observed, compasses just don't work that well inside cars.

Think about it, your car's body, frame and engine are all made of steel, which is magnetic. All this steel tends to interfere with the earth's natural magnetic field, in a complex and unpredictable way. If you don't believe me, just try moving your compass around the inside of your car, and then try stepping out and away from you car. I think you will find that there is a noticable amount of deflection in and around your car.

If you turn the car 90 degrees, you will alter the average magnetic field inside you car, and you will probably get a somewhat different reading for north. 2n2222 also has a good point, that steel bridges don't like compasses very much.

What's worse, the average magnetic field of your car has a tendency to change from day to day, depending on which direction you park it. The fact that the compass moves around at all, doesn't mean that it is pointing in the right direction...

Secondly, knowing which direction is north may help you if you have a map handy, but it won't tell you whether to turn left or right on any particular street. In case you haven't noticed, driving a car around isn't exactly like navigating a ship, or and airplane.....

A ship's compass is usually large and bulky, and its mountings are carefully designed and engineered to cancel the magnetic field of it's steel hull, something that can't be said of those little handheld or dashboard compasses...

Good luck,
~Donkey Hotei

Answer 3

I use a spherical floating compass stuck to the windshield. They are more reliable and long-lasting than the electronic gizmos that are flooding our world. They are reliable enough for ensuring I am traveling in the correct general direction, which is good enough as you can't just point/drive like in a boat or plane.

As GPS systems become more ubiquitous, and government/corporate tracking of our movements become more accepted or prevalent, they will become standard equipment. It is all part of the master plan of knowing where the plebs go and what they do.

Answer 4

Because highways going north to south or south to north have odd numbers, and highways going from east to west or west to east are even numbers. And so you always no which way you are going.

Answer 5

Unless you're out in the middle of a desert, what good is a compas going to do.

You cant just drive "as the crow flies" as it were.
You are restricted to following the road in front of you.