You have no doubt seen the charming TV commercial for the Chevrolet Cruze in which the driver drops off his date, then uses the car’s Facebook feature to check his news feed. We hear the car’s voice read back his date’s posting, “Best first date ever.” Awww, enchanting!

In reality, if the romance is dependent on the Cruze Facebook feature, I’m afraid our suitor would die old and lonely.

In a test, the Facebook Live Update app — which is still in development — demonstrated all of the problems common to voice recognition and automated voice programs. It had a frequent inability to understand what had been said, difficulty reading back names and, well, I’ll get to the rest.

Not to be all Gloomy Gus — voice recognition has come a long way. When you can use it in a silent room with a high-quality mic and train the software to understand your voice, it can be fairly accurate. But it’s much tougher for untrained software to understand when there is background sound, such as road noise in a moving car.

OnStar is an app that is still a work in progress. Any OnStar subscriber can be in the beta test, and the company estimates that about 1,000 are so far. An OnStar spokesman said the company was watching the test to see how the app could be refined, and if it was worth rolling out broadly. My test of the system was done using a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze LTZ.

Before you can use the update feature, you have to go online and link your Facebook account to your OnStar account. I was told that the OnStar network was having some problems over the weekend, which would explain my problems signing on and using OnStar. The company said the problem was being addressed.

When the problems were somewhat ironed out, I pressed a button on the mirror, then asked to connect to the Virtual Advisor. A pleasant female voice asked if I wanted directions or Facebook, I chose Facebook. Then the voice gave instructions on how to use the system.

The problem is that it reads the instructions every time. Eventually I know that I can say “next,” “previous,” repeat” or “stop.” It becomes annoying. No one likes a nag.

That is small change compared to the other difficulties. When OnStar reads back messages, it is not in the same pleasant voice that gives instructions or the clear voice heard on the commercial. It is a robo-voice that makes Speak ‘N Spell sound like John Gielgud. Some messages were completely incomprehensible. It took several listenings to figure out that Jacki from the gym had not “attempted turtles,” but hurdles. Then there are less bothersome but silly elocutions — it pronounced the state Maryland, “Merry Land.” Anyone who lives here knows it’s pronounced “Murlin.” And it’s not just my faulty ears: a passenger in the car understood no more than I did.

Posting from the Cruze to Facebook works better, because it doesn’t try to recognize what you say. It puts up an audio file for people to hear. It sounds about like a mobile phone call from your car, which is what it is.

The problem is that all of the posts read “[YOUR NAME] has posted an audio update from his Chevrolet Cruze using OnStar.” No will have any idea what it is about, other than product placement for the Cruze and OnStar. If this were to catch on, all your Cruze-owning buddies would seem to leave the same message. Of interest? Who knows? OnStar said it was considering ways to address headlines.

But the biggest frustration was the system’s inability to understand my commands when driving. It did well when parked, but when in motion it would tell me it couldn’t understand and give me the full menu of options again. Eventually I would just bellow “STOP! … STOP! … STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP!!!!

In short, the Facebook feature isn’t going add a reason to plunk down $23,000 on a Cruze LTZ. If you are in the market for a competent small car, it could be on your shopping list (more specifics are on the auto pages). But I certainly wouldn’t trust it with your love life.