08.10.2026
One Year Later: Did Automotive
Infotainment Quality Actually Get Better?
In 2025, we spent six weeks publishing six articles on automotive infotainment and software quality. We looked at software as a growing root cause behind recalls, what happens when infotainment and cluster failures become safety issues, and how persistent defects can eventually end up in court. We also examined the hidden cost to customers, schedules and brands, why software defects keep slipping through automotive validation, and finally why software quality was becoming a competitive advantage.
A year later, there is enough new data to revisit the subject. Not to prove that we were right, but to ask a much more useful question:
Did things actually get better? The answer is surprisingly mixed.
First, the good news: cars got better
The 2026 J.D. Power U.S. Initial Quality Study reported a major improvement in new-vehicle quality. Across the industry, the number of problems reported during the first 90 days of ownership fell from 192 to 175 per 100 vehicles. Put simply, owners reported noticeably fewer problems with their new cars than a year earlier. Nine of the ten areas measured by J.D. Power improved.
The exception was infotainment. Infotainment problems increased, driven largely by connectivity issues. Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity was the largest single contributor to the increase.
There is another detail worth noticing: among owners who reported a problem related to distracted driving, 46% pointed to the infotainment system or touchscreen as the source. So this is no longer just about an annoying Bluetooth connection or a screen that takes too long to respond. The digital experience has become part of the driving experience — and sometimes part of the safety problem.
What happens after the first 90 days?
J.D. Power's Initial Quality Study looks at the beginning of vehicle ownership. Its 2026 Vehicle Dependability Study looks at model-year 2023 vehicles after three years of ownership.
This is an important distinction. The results do not tell us what happened because of decisions made in 2025 or 2026. Instead, they show what can emerge only after vehicles that once passed development, validation and launch have been used for years. The industry averaged 204 reported problems per 100 vehicles — still the highest problem count since J.D. Power redesigned the study in 2022.
Once again, infotainment stood out. It accounted for 56.7 problems per 100 vehicles. The next most problematic area, vehicle exterior, was at 27.5. In other words, owners reported more than twice as many infotainment problems as problems in the next highest category.
The failures still look very familiar
When we studied infotainment failures in 2025, certain symptoms appeared again and again: black screens, frozen displays, unexpected resets, missing camera images, instrument clusters disappearing and connectivity that works — until it doesn't.
A year later, those symptoms remain remarkably familiar. One 2026 recall covering more than 20,000 vehicles describes a software error that can cause the instrument panel display to fail, potentially removing information such as the selected gear and warning indicators. NHTSA recall documentation
Another recall involving roughly 144,000 vehicles describes an infotainment control unit that can reset, briefly interrupting the instrument cluster display. The manufacturer identified 721 warranty claims and 652 field or service reports potentially related to the condition. NHTSA recall documentation
In August 2026, another recall covered more than 955,000 vehicles globally because a radio software problem could prevent the rearview-camera image from appearing. The planned remedy is an over-the-air software update. Recall report
Technical service information also continues to document customer complaints including black screens, frozen displays after remote start and wireless smartphone-connectivity problems. NHTSA technical service bulletin
It would be wrong to suggest that all these failures have the same technical cause. A black screen might result from faulty software logic, communication between systems, incorrect handling of a particular state, configuration problems, timing issues or a problem that develops only after prolonged use.
Similar symptoms do not mean similar root causes. That is also why a predefined functional test can confirm that a display works, but cannot by itself tell us every circumstance under which that display may stop working after the product enters the real world.
More recalls? Not necessarily. More complexity? Yes.
There is also important context to add to the broader recall story. In our 2025 series, we highlighted the rapid growth of software-related recalls. Since then, NHTSA has noted that overall recall volumes — covering all causes, not only software — have remained generally stable over the previous five years.
What has changed, according to NHTSA, is the complexity of recalls, as vehicles incorporate increasingly advanced technologies. NHTSA / Federal Register
So this is not simply a story about the number of recalls. The more interesting questions are what causes them, how difficult the problems are to reproduce and diagnose, and what happens when software itself becomes both the source of a problem and the way it is fixed.
Software updates help. But they don't eliminate the quality problem.
Over-the-air software updates have fundamentally changed automotive maintenance. A problem that once required thousands of vehicles to visit a workshop can increasingly be fixed remotely. That is real progress. But the ability to update a vehicle should not be confused with the ability to prevent problems.
The 2026 J.D. Power dependability study found that 40% of owners had received a software update during the previous year. Only 27% said the update made their vehicle better, while 58% noticed no difference.
J.D. Power also linked over-the-air updates to a nearly 14% increase in problems this year. There are even cases demonstrating how difficult software remediation itself can become. In 2025, a software update intended to address a rearview-camera safety defect introduced a separate issue that could, under specific conditions, result in a loss of braking capability. That required another safety recall. NHTSA safety notice
This does not make OTA updates a bad idea. Quite the opposite: they are becoming essential. But every software change is also another change to the product — and therefore something that needs to be understood and validated. Fixing software faster is not the same thing as making software reliable.
The courtroom hasn't emptied either
In 2025, we also looked at what happens when infotainment problems persist long enough to become something other than an engineering problem. That story continues. Some of the same brands are still represented in infotainment-related litigation, and new names have joined them.
One case involving allegedly defective infotainment systems in approximately 1.7 million model-year 2014–2023 vehicles reached final settlement approval in 2026. Court record
Another infotainment case continues around allegations including freezes, unresponsive touchscreens, black screens and smartphone-connectivity failures. In June 2026, the court rejected an argument that the recall and available software remedy had already made the relevant claims moot at that stage of the case. Other issues remained open for further proceedings. Court opinion
New litigation has also emerged around digital instrument clusters allegedly going blank during normal vehicle operation. These remain allegations, not findings that a manufacturer is liable. Case summary
The badge on the vehicle is not really the interesting part. The important point is that the symptoms we were discussing in 2025 have not disappeared from customer complaints, safety recalls or court filings.
The cost is becoming easier to see
A 2026 McKinsey analysis estimates that automotive warranty-related costs reached approximately $58 billion globally in 2024, equivalent to around 2.2% of industry sales. For some manufacturers, warranty costs exceed 4% of revenue.
McKinsey also describes automotive quality management as still heavily dependent on retrospective, warranty-led processes — in other words, finding and responding to problems after products are already in customer hands — despite the growing amount of diagnostic and connected-vehicle data available.
That sounds remarkably familiar. One of the questions we asked in our 2025 series was how the industry could move from firefighting to foresight. A year later, it remains a relevant questions.
So, did automotive infotainment quality get better?
The fairest answer is: in some ways, yes. But the fundamental challenge remains. Overall new-vehicle quality improved substantially, and software updates give manufacturers a much faster way to fix problems that do reach the field.
At the same time, infotainment was the only major category in J.D. Power's 2026 initial-quality study that got worse. After three years of ownership, it remains by far the most problematic area of the vehicle. And the failures reaching customers still include the familiar freezes, resets, black screens, missing displays and intermittent functionality we examined in 2025.
This brings us back to a simple distinction. Functional testing can tell us whether a feature works. Requirements validation can tell us whether it does what was specified. Compatibility testing can tell us whether it works with the systems and devices around it. All of those are necessary. But the customer ultimately asks a different question:
Does the complete product continue to work well after days, weeks, months and years of actual use?
One year later, the available evidence gives us very little reason to stop asking it. And with the speed at which we create software about to change dramatically, that distinction may matter more than ever.
