It’s a snow-job: we’re being sold purported advances in car technology that achieve little real benefit. In fact, instead of being better off, we’re paying in cash and fuel consumption for a plethora of unwanted and unneeded gadgets: in-car entertainment, climate control, electric seat adjustment with memory, active steering, electric handbrakes, parking proximity sensors and auto-dimming rear vision mirrors. They’re being foisted on us to disguise the fundamental lack of design progress being made in cars and we are paying for these "advances" in higher fuel consumption.

About the only significant electronic development in cars of the last decade is the widespread fitting of stability control. Like ABS, this system can prevent many crashes. In fact, German statistics show that cars fitted with electronic stability control are involved in fewer accidents.

How so? Well, how much do you reckon a seat that contains no less than six electric motors weighs – some quite hefty in size? Or a sound system that includes a CD stacker, eight speakers (including a subwoofer) and two amplifiers? It’s not even possible to physically pick up the wiring loom of a modern car – it’s too heavy. And how much do all these gizmos cost to develop?

You can be sure that if this stuff was taken out and the resources devoted to better engineering the basics of the car, you’d be paying less and going further on the same tank of fuel.

Yes, there have been significant electronic breakthroughs in car design. Trouble is, all but one happened about a decade ago.