Technology

Some proposed design principles:

1. It's a car.
2. It's not a goddamn TV.
3. It's not your goddamn ads platform or subscription service.
4. It is, however, a piece of life-safety-critical equipment.
5. Because it's a car, the driver wants to deal with car stuff like driving, navigating, fuel, roads, obstacles, and not killing people.
6. They also want to make it passably comfortable by messing with the heat or AC, the fans, the windows, and the fucking moon roof.
7. Messing with your phone while driving is Actually Illegal these days in civilized parts of the planet. This is for good reason: people get killed that way.
8. If the car requires messing with your phone, or messing with something that is basically your phone, then you have failed.
9. There should be a big knob with a fan icon on it. Turning this knob all the way to the left causes the fan to turn off all the way. Turning the knob all the way to the right causes the fan to turn on all the way.
10. If I ever have to use a touchscreen to control the side mirrors, I will become an extremely unhappy ape.

I use rental cars quite often. There's so much garbage in newer cars. Why is there something trying to control my steering wheel, seriously who thought that was a good idea. Also nothing is tactile responsive anymore. It's like being sold a bloat ware filled phone where you can only use garbage native apps. They made it so much more dangerous.

The mindless march for ever-more pointless tech in cars has pushed me into getting into classic cars more and more. Hopping into a old car is such a transformative experience. My smartphone connected through Blutooth into the stereo system is the most advanced thing in the car. The windows are huge and visibility is amazing. The ride is smooth and very forgiving. I can actually feel what the road is like because there aren't 10 layers of computers and electronics between the steering wheel and the tires.

Nowadays, all these companies are doing is trying to use technology to solve a problem created by technology to begin with. I don't need a million cameras and sensors around my car, if I have good sight-lines. I don't need a sensor to remind me to look at the road, if the driving experience wasn't so goddamn boring and devoid of fun and excitement to begin with.

I simply don't need more shit in my cars.

I don't give a shit about the bells and whistles they're adding to cars and the infotainment systems. I am absolutely LIVID that they are starting to lock bits of hardware (or the complete functionality of that hardware) behind subscription paywalls. If i ever buy a car and discover they've locked the heated seats behind a monthly fee, i'm tearing the infotainment system out of the fucking dash and leaving it on fire in front of the dealers house.

...useless tech

Oh, it is "useful"; to the real 'owners' of "your" car...

I have a 2009 Mazda 3 with Bluetooth connectivity and steering wheel button activated voice commands to make calls, configure the phone book and connections etc. This was the sweet spot for technology in cars in my opinion. Oh but the best part is all the dials and LCD clock are all in red light which is wonderful when driving at night.

Everything else I do via voice commands on my smartphone that's mounted on a phone mount on my dash. Like asking for GPS navigation, playing music, sending text messages.

Nowadays the car infotainment system is trying to reproduce what your smartphone already does with controls that are less intuitive.

Also, what's the deal with all the bright white and neon blue colors lighting up everything? Can I get a red filter for night driving maybe? Is that so hard to ask?

What boils my blood is infotainment systems with icons and functionality for premium services that you can't hide or remove. It wastes space and it's just evil. I rented a Toyota Rav4 in Florida and I swear 1/4 of the front screen was for some satellite radio service that wasn't enabled.

I guess I like the idea of having tech in my vehicle, but it doesn't work right. I've found so many flaws in the software that can't be remedied. It's not designed with user control/customization as the main priority. Furthermore, it's tied to main functionality of the vehicle which is restrictive in what it allows you to do upgrade wise.

As an audio enthusiast, it sucks that I can't upgrade my stereo/audio system.

What would be ideal in my world is open, user focused technology, upgradeable and repairable, and not this proprietary bullshit that we currently have. This is not intelligent design.

Also, while I'm thinking about it, it's bullshit that we are forced into these operating systems. Uconnect is garbage. Just give me stock android, with the ability to do what I want to with the hardware in the way that I see fit. The responsibility, freedom, and trust of the consumer has been predetermined. I don't like that.

I have been saying this for years. The last thing your car should do is take your eyes off the road. This is a 1-3 ton box of metal hurdling at 60+ miles down the highway next to a bunch of other metal boxes that can all kill each other.

And car manufacturers seem to be in love with the idea of you forgetting you’re even driving. Add on all the bs lane assisting, warning bells, alerts, automatic correction, and the driver is convinced that the car will protect them.

These are all systems built on software. Last time I checked, that shit has never been reliable. If the software fails, the manufacturer can just hide behind “They weren’t paying attention!”

Mfer, YOU TRAINED THEM TO IGNORE IT. I don’t know what I’m going to do when all the cars from before touchscreens and digital gauges are no longer running or affordable because I hate the idea of having to look at a screen to change volume or turn on the AC.

Modern cars can suck a fuck.

Why do I need a camera in the dash , focused on the driver, Toyota? (Eyes off the road for 5secs results in audio reminder to watch the road)

How long until Insurance or LE can access it?

Yaaaa, extra insurance (or none) for you! “You look away from the road too often, and you cry in your car on the way home from work. Both say you are a risk. “. Now insert your LE scenario….

Fuck everything to do with this shit!

My buying habits mostly consist of living in the late 2000s and what little open source tech there is a available such as framework and pine64. I'm allergic to manufactured ewaste. If i can't maintain it, i don't want it.

I love the idea of a computerized car and fully integrated infotainment system. In the same way I would love a fully automated house. The automation and debugging benefits would be incredible. But only if I'm in control at an open source hardware / software level. Otherwise it's just manufactured ewaste to me.

I couldn’t care less about all of the proprietary “infotainment” stuff, but I’ll never buy another car that doesn’t have Apple car play or maybe Android auto if I ever switch back to Android one day. Some manufacturers have talked about killing support.

Same reason I'm still driving an older truck. While I've been wanting to upgrade to a new truck, I don't want to deal with the computer controlling every aspect of the vehicle (breaks, accelerator, lights, etc.) As it is now, if I want to turn my headlights on, a relay controls it. Same with the turn signal, radio, A/C, and the list goes on

Fuck all of this, and insurance companies that want to track your driving behavior with a module installed in your car.

This trend is why I am saving to swap the engine on my car when it blows. I don't like any screens in my car but a digital clock, and maybe a readout on the dash. I just want a fun, reliable vehicle with excellent AC, good safety ratings, and decent fuel mileage. Power windows are a bonus. Lol

The increasing tech-ification of (all) cars played a role in reducing how much I want a car. Now I'm yearning for the simplicity and visceral feel of a motorcycle, and I will give in to these temptations soon.

The older I get and the more I get into tech, the less I want of it in my life. Especially when driving two tons of metal on the highway. Fuck that noise.

My problem with it is that "standards" aren't really standards. I have a car from 2015. It has an LCD panel that's supposed to connect to your phone. Too bad that the standards changed in 2015... Now it sits there totally useless.

I have a 2006 Chevy Malibu. It goes "vroom" and gets from point a to point b. I bought a Bluetooth thing that plugs into the cigarette lighter and a little hook for my phone so now I can make calls hands free, use the GPS easily, and I can listen to my music.

It's perfect lol

I don't have a problem with Auto Technology, but I have a problem with a small minor feature that has nothing to do with moving a car having an ability to disable the car completely.

When you need a manual just to find out, how to turn on the radio, something is definitely wrong.

Just give me an amp with Bluetooth so I can play my phone through the car speakers. Anything the car makers produce will be woefully out of date before I sell the car.

I've never had a car with a touch screen or whatever fancy centre panel - but I have scrapped old cars because the ECU decided that there was an airbag fault which was not resolved with a new airbag. I'm a full time sysadmin/developer - my car does not need a computer to go, and if it must have one, it shouldn't be a brick covered in epoxy.

I somewhat long to return to dumb electromechanical components like distributors, rather than unimaginably expensive, irreparable, interdependent systems.

#RightToRepair

swapped out my dumb dash unit for android auto and never going back. next car will either have android auto and carplay or it will be easily removable/replaceable or no buy.

My car is 17 years old. It won't be long before I need to look out for a new one. Posts like these make me wary of buying a new one.

What would annoy me the most is having little to no physical buttons for trivial things, and the built in SBC to be slow as fuck. I hate lag on these systems. My wife has a smaller car with android auto and using the interface is just dreadful.

If there would be an electric car with the interior of my current car I would probably take it. It has a small chromosone display, just replace with a color one and let me control it with android auto and done.

It's not a joke, the majority of people carry around a crazy amount of technology in our phones.

And it's not meaningfully replaced in the console. I don't know what GM's thinking because I will never accept a business or personal vehicle that doesn't have Car Play/Android Auto ever again. It's that useful...

When the features are actually anti-features making you pay subscription fees for things that are already part of the car, and everything is buggy as hell, of course no one wants it.

The more features the more they can charge. The more features the more things there are to break. The more there is to break the more the dealers make fixing things.

I want to replace my truck with an electric one. But no one is making bare bones electric vehicles. My current truck has an AM/FM stereo and HVAC. Those are it's only features and I'm fine with that. I use a FM Bluetooth adapter in my cigarette lighter. If it dies I can replace it myself for $20. My phone does the GPS. There will never be an electric vehicle that basic. And Trucks keep getting shorter beds that are higher off the ground. I need to be able to sling drywall and plywood into the top of my bed. That gets harder and harder as the bed gets taller.

I just took my '91 Mazda off the road (undercarriage rust) and bought a '24 Subaru Crosstrek with an 11" touchscreen that I did not want. The best feature? You can turn it off and it stays off, every time you use the car.

If you put the heat/AC into auto, there are physical buttons to raise and lower the temperature. The screen flashes on for a second to display the temperature change. There are also physical buttons on the steering wheel to skip through the radio stations (which display between the tach and speedometer) and adjust the volume.

Perfect. I'm so glad not to have to leave that screen on.

My wife's (2023) Rav4 shows texts on the screen when she receives them while driving. I'm just amazed at that.