Flow experience influenced by car adjustments

•Development loop of several software versions.•Evaluation of automatic due to manual adjustment of car settings.•Flow scale transferred to car driving.•Questionnaire overview figure.•Added explanation about the link between safety and irritation. Today’s cars offer a variety of possible setting options which have to be chosen by the driver. In order to examine the psychological effect of automatic adjustments in comparison to manual adjustments of the chassis and drive train while driving, a test vehicle was built up and tested in a naturalistic field operation test (nFOT) through various development stages. 207 BMW employees participated in the study focusing on emotional feedback and flow experience. The results were used to improve the function and to start the test scenario again. The automatic adjustment of the car’s setting (driving mode) due to the detection of the intended driving style of the subjects was preferred to the manual adjustments. Additionally, the feeling of safety increased while the level of distraction decreased. Our findings show that in addition to the positive technical aspects of an automatic adjustment, there is also an increase in driving experience, measured by the flow experience and the feeling of safety.