Personally, I do think that there is a need for car coffee maker. With coffee shops and shops offering coffee basically everywhere, it is unlikely that we would be in a place without any coffee.
The rate of expansion might not be that fast now with the bleak economic situation, but at one point in time, I was told that 1 Starbucks outlet is being opened everyday. And we are only talking only about Starbucks; we have not factored other coffee chains and the individual outlets.
With so many coffee shops opening, what are the chances for you to be in a place without coffee? Now, even if that place do not have roast and ground coffee, you can be sure that there would be a vending machine that would dispense hot coffee.
For some of you that do not like the taste of vending machine coffee, this is because you have not tasted the coffee brewed from a car coffee maker. Most of the time, coffee brewed from these coffee machines are cold and lifeless. There is nothing wrong with this machine but probably due to the battery and alternating current, most of the vehicles does not seems to provide enough power to maintain the desired temperature to brew the coffee.
The end result is coffee that is not fully extracted and is not hot. And because there is not enough power into this brewer, the time taken to brew one pot of coffee can be as long as an hour! Now, think about this, do you really think you would drive an hour without passing by any shops that can serve you hot coffee. While, that might be possible, I think on most of our daily commute, it is not very likely.
Personally, I do not think there is much value adds in getting a car coffee maker because if it is hot coffee you are looking for, this machine would not be able to deliver and if it is just coffee you are looking for, the nearest vending machines or coffee shop is not too far away.
Some of you might argue that this would be cool gadget to bring on a camping trip, I beg to differ. Because this brewer takes a very long time to brew a pot of coffee, it is far better for you to brew cow boy coffee using open fire then to be using this machine. Moreover, opening fire cooking is the experience to go with a camping trip right?
So, there might be a small group of folks that has used these machines and found great success with it, but for the majority of us, I do not think this is a machine that is user friendly and would probably not add much value to you in terms of coffee experience.
