Sycophantic doesn’t begin to describe this interview with Alan Mulally. And he certainly seems to be feeling the love, albeit the strictly butt slapping, high fiving, circle-jerking kind.

Former cockpit designer for Boeing, Mulally is the CEO of Ford and the keynote speaker at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. Which I’ll grant is a nifty PR move on his part, given the apparent centrality to Ford’s marketing platform of the new open source version of the Synch “in-car communications and entertainment system”.

Despite his “special forces-casual” appearance, he actually sounds like a reasonably smart chap, with firm ideas about distinguishing Ford product around the customer. But talk about an unsustainable benefit. Quite apart from the likelihood that most in-car communication devices will be legislated out of existence, these are gimmicks that, if they prove popular, will be knocked off by every competitor within a couple of years.

There’s a world of difference between the need to simplify the myriad data required to pilot a flying apartment block at approximately the speed of sound (his apparent inspiration) and the needs of the “always on” bozo, beetling between work, home and the gym. Information of the digital kind is about as important to driving a car as a functioning cigarette lighter.

A recent study came to the staggeringly elementary conclusion that the single most motivating factor in selecting a car is design. As in people don’t want to drive ugly cars. Dig a little deeper and you’ll probably find they want them to be zippy, reliable, safe, comfy and reinforce one of the following self appraisals: “I’m rich”, “I’m a pimp”, “I’m a jerk”, “I’m rugged”, “I’ve got a small dick”, “I’m a soccer mom,” “I’m an oleaginous spiv”, “I’m green” (actually green with envy of the oleaginous spiv in the fast lane).

My guess is “I tweet” is pretty low down on the list.