With NeverLost, never mind asking for directions

Hertz is equipping rental cars with a built-in global positioning system. Once you catch on to obeying the computer's instructions, it works well.

By RICHARD GRANT
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 7, 2002

You have to feel sorry for London taxi drivers. To get their cab license, they must memorize every street in London. It takes up to a year to acquire what they call "the Knowledge."

It would take me only seconds to acquire this same "knowledge" of many U.S. cities, thanks to a program offered by Hertz.

Hertz has equipped 40,000 rental cars with a built-in Magellan GPS (global positioning system) name NeverLost.

For an extra $8 a day ($12 a day in Canada), a NeverLost-equipped car uses signals from orbiting satellites to indicate on a small computer-screen map exactly where your car is.

More important, NeverLost can also tell you how to get where you're going.

The NeverLost unit looks like a Game Boy and is attached to the dashboard on a flexible shaft. A 4-inch screen displays color maps showing the name of the street your car is on and the direction it is traveling. This is high-tech fun, the type of gadget James Bond had in his Astin Martin when he was tracking Goldfinger.

But NeverLost goes Bond's gadget-genius, Q, one better: The NeverLost is preprogrammed with listings from the local Yellow Pages and AAA guidebooks. All a driver has to do is use a simple arrow keypad to toggle through the listings of attractions, restaurants and hotels, find the preferred destination and touch "Enter."

At this point, NeverLost takes over. The unit shows on the screen and speaks through a sound system, announcing when and where to turn. Thus, the driver is guided through what might be a complicated maze of streets in a strange city. You reach your destination in the shortest way.

At least, that's the theory.

Does it work? Yes . . . but using NeverLost might remind you of The Terminator: Strange things happen when humans cede control to talking machines.

My first test of NeverLost was perhaps the most requested driving route in Memphis -- a straight shot from the airport to Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presely.

On this trip I was the navigator, not the driver. It took me only a few seconds to pull up "Attractions" on NeverLost's Memphis Yellow Pages screen and to toggle down to Graceland. I touched "Enter" and a woman's voice said pleasantly, "Proceed to destination."

Easy enough. A 3-D arrow on the screen showed us leaving the rental-car lot and making a right turn. As we neared the turn, the voice directed, "Prepare to make right turn."

At the actual turning spot, a noise resembling a doorbell sounds. We made the right turn and, putting ourselves in the computer's hands, we started out.

Almost immediately, we made a mistake.

There is a knack to listening to and following instructions in heavy traffic. NeverLost gives ample warning before most turns, for instance telling you that the car is approaching the turn "in five-tenths of mile, on the left." Still, it is often just not feasible in traffic to get into a turn lane in time.

That's where the real value of NeverLost comes into play. Shortly after making a mistake, the computerized voice will say, "Recomputing route." This is stated an even tone, with no inflection that the human has messed up. Still, the implication is there -- and everyone in the car, human and otherwise, knows it.

In a few seconds, the voice will instruct how to recover from the wrong turn, while the map on the computer screen shows the new directions.

Technically, a single driver could operate the NeverLost unit by programming it before driving and then just following the voice commands. In practice, however, it works best with a navigator, who can study the computer screen map and read out more information about upcoming turns.

Once the car is in motion, a single driver is not supposed to operate the machine because this could be distracting -- and dangerous. And the screen is placed far enough from the driver's seat that it would take concentration, not a glance, to read the map.

On our route to Graceland, we took just a half-dozen turns from the airport before we heard the soothing voice say, "Approaching destination on the left." This was technically correct, because Elvis' house was indeed looming on the left. But as navigator I felt a small bit of satisfaction because -- as any human could plainly see -- the parking lot for Graceland is on the right.

And therein lies one of the minor problems with NeverLost. While it works and is easy to use, it can become annoying. Terribly annoying.

For one thing, having NeverLost in the car is like having an authoritative know-it-all in the car who is frequently jabbering away with instructions and warnings. On a long highway trip, this is not a concern -- too few turns to announce. But in a city, the voice can become distracting.

Every time you veer from your route to turn into a gas station or convenience store, the GPS-directed computer assumes you have made a wrong turn and verbally points it out to you. On more than one occasion, I heard myself saying, "Oh, shut up, already."

It can also become so fascinating watching the "blip" that is your car move across the map on the screen that you follow that instead of looking out the window at the scenery you have come to visit.

When a wrong turn sent us across the Mississippi River on an unscheduled trip to Arkansas, rather than taking a second to enjoy the view of the river, I was frantically at the screen trying to enter a new destination.

But these are minor complaints. The fact is, that a GPS system such as NeverLost is so simple, so efficient -- yes, and so helpful -- in an unfamiliar city that it is probably a matter of time and price-reduction before all cars are equipped with them.

The system that Hertz uses even makes easy to find the rental-car return lot: It is one of the choices in the computer, so you only need to touch Enter to get the directions flowing.

On the practical side, if you are looking for an obscure address, not a hotel, restaurant or other commercial attraction, it is a bit tricky to toggle in the information one letter at a time in order to get NeverLost to work.

The verbal instructions can be selected in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. Next could be celebrity voices: Woody Allen might guide you through New York, Dolly Parton might welcome you to Nashville.

But there would still be some limits: No one wants to hear a machine say, "Make a left turn . . . or Ah'll be bahk."

If you go

Hertz has equipped 40,000 mid-size, full-size and premium cars with NeverLost systems. Cost is $8 a day extra in the U.S., $12 a day extra in Canada. Hertz runs a NeverLost Support Line 24 hours a day at 1-800-823-2547 that can help people figure out how to use the equipment or replace and fix it if necessary. The support line can also provide driving instructions -- from a human.

Hertz is the only major rental-car system offering GPS on such a large number of vehicles.

- Freelance writer Richard Grant lives in Denver.

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