191–200 of 340 posts
There's going to come a time in the near future where analogish features are going to be seen as luxury components.
Buttons and dials, sure. But no sane person is longing to buy a car without reverse cameras or collision avoidance.
We have no plans to ever sell the two cars we have. I highly recommend copies if you can find them. My wife has a 2007 4Runner. 150K on the odo and all I've ever needed to change was an alternator and brakes. If you do your own work, nothing on the planet is better for a mechanic than a Toyota. Ours is also the V8 (unicorn-ish) but I don't recommend that unless you need to tow something significant. Mine is a 2014 Su…
First tell us your beef with the status-quo. How do you determine what is a digital feature and what is a digital gimmick? What are you trying to avoid exactly? Are remote diagnostics a gimmick? Is the 20 year old CAN bus a gimmick? Automatic headlights? TPMS? ABS? All of this technology contains properties that identify your vehicle from similar vehicles WHILE making the roads safer.
> All of this technology contains properties that identify your vehicle from similar vehicles WHILE making the roads safer. This is simply not true. Things like touchscreens are cheap gimmicks and the roads do not get any safer by using them in a car [1]. Mazda recently announced its decision [2,3] to replace touchscreens with analog controls as they provide more tactile feedback and I hope more manufacturers follow.…
They don't sell them in the US anymore, but I drive a 2019 Honda Fit and it's great. Very versatile (holds four adults, 8ft lumber, 36" doors, etc). The base trim is very tech-lite: bluetooth radio but nothing fancier than that, physically controlled hvac and chair controls, traditional key, basic LTMS (no dedicated chips in the tires, just a calculation based on different angular velocity across the wheels), etc. It…
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Here is a thing that happens: many countries have more or less comprehensive regular vehicle inspections. If your car is showing a warning light or reports an error on the standardized interface, that can cause you to fail the inspection. What a warning light is shown for is at the discretion of the manufacturer though. One example is Anti-lock braking (ABS), which they made mandatory in 2004. If you bought a car wit…
The point of abs isn’t to improve your braking system. It’s to stop you from panicking in an accident situation, locking up the front wheels and losing the ability to steer. Abs actually very slightly reduces the stopping potential of your brake system. But being able to steer and control your car is a bigger benefit under these circumstances.
I certainly agree that you want ABS, it's just to illustrate the pitfalls it creates when you have these additional systems. You can tell much the same story around emissions controls; newer cars pass stricter emissions standards and require extra parts and technology to achieve them.
I think lower-end cars with the base level infotainment option have the least amount of telematics. Surprised car makers haven't started trying to get ad revenue from displaying ads on cars' touchscreens
Don't put the idea into their heads!!! Kidding aside, I think customers can argue that such ads can be distracting to the driver.
Annoyingly, I want an electric car without "digitilization". No distracting central touch screen, no "autopilot" nonsense, proper gauges and indicators, tactile feel. A focus on the driving and safety and ergonomics, not on "we don't need an instrument cluster because iPads are cool, people like their phones and buttons are expensive and break"... A Saab 900 with an electric motor. Please make it.
The Nissan Leaf has some of that but has physical buttons and such and drives much like a classical car. The 62kwh version has 200+ miles of range. Price is very competitive too.
Lada Niva 4x4. Old school soviet, but modernized car. With airconditioning and some modern gimmicks. Very easy to fix and maintain. Good fuel economy, some versions even pass Euro 5 emission limits. I liked WW2 jeeps and their simplicity, this seems like modern equivalent.
+1 for Lada Niva but not sure where OP is. Hard to get one outside Russia and Europe. Dashboard is still the same analog as in the 80s https://static.lada.ru/images/press-releases/vaz_catalogue_n... https://www.lada.ru/en/cars/niva-legend There seems to be a UK dealer https://lada4x4.co.uk/
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What a pile. Your anecdata are not in and of themselves data. Regardless of your skill, or the skill/expertise/attentiveness of any individual driver, drivers as a collective remain dangerous to themselves and pedestrians. How did I come to this conclusion? I reviewed data, here's a couple of sources: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-fatality-data-show... https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx By all…
Generally requests in comments to cite sources or provide data are in fact simply disingenuous attempts to confuse the issue. Regardless, your datas mean nothing -- They are only guaranteed to be incorrect for each individual case. You say collectively drivers are dangerous, but the implication is that we would apply the same rule to all in the interest of 'fairness' or some other such subjective nonsense. So it's 'D…