In 2014, we bought a brand new Mitsubishi Space Star. EUR 6990. The only thing electrical are both front windows. No A/C, no radio, no remote key or central key unlock. It did not have a single repair in 7 years. It is the best car I ever owned.
Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
321–330 of 340 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
"safety mechanism" A seatbelt is a safety mechanism. Driving assist functionalities encourage unsafe behaviors of drivers more than safety. Why should I pay attention to the road if my car will automatically brake for me? Well, until the one time it doesn't and someone dies.
> Why should I pay attention to the road if my car will automatically brake for me? Was literally an argument people made against seat belts.
Absolutely nobody made an argument that they don't want to use seatbelts because then they'll just start crashing all the time.
(I'm old enough that seatbelts weren't a thing when I was a kid, so I remember well the arguments when they became common and later required.)
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Although an attentive driver should also be doing that. Society doesn't allow people to say that they're good enough to opt out of safety mechanisms designed to protect us all. This is why 'I don't wear a seat-belt I can brace myself' also doesn't cut it.
"safety mechanism" A seatbelt is a safety mechanism. Driving assist functionalities encourage unsafe behaviors of drivers more than safety. Why should I pay attention to the road if my car will automatically brake for me? Well, until the one time it doesn't and someone dies.
There certainly can be, and have been, surprising drawbacks from what would've seemed like a clear win safety technologies.
For example ABS increased crash rates for a good while when it was new, contrary to all expectations.
From this NHTSA report: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
"Analyses of data from the early 1990s showed significant increases in fatal run-off-road crashes with ABS, on the order of 28 percent. The increase was baffling, given the success of ABS on the test track. However, at that time, many drivers did not yet know how to use ABS correctly."
I observed this effect first hand, because from the late 90s to the late 00s I was frequently a car control clinic instructor. One of the exercises of these clinics was to teach panic braking. In the earlier years most people showed up with non-ABS cars so this was a great exercise in teaching proper braking control.
As ABS cars became more and more prevalent we (the instructors and the school) thought that this exercise can go away since there is no skill to learn braking if you have ABS, just mash the pedal.
Alas, no! It is difficult to believe, but approximately nobody that came to these car control clinics with an ABS car was actually able to initially brake hard enough to even activate the ABS. Sometimes it took many many runs through the braking exercise to finally get it: just press hard on the brake pedal.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why should I pay attention to the road if my car will automatically brake for me? Was literally an argument people made against seat belts.
Absolutely nobody made an argument that they don't want to use seatbelts because then they'll just start crashing all the time. (I'm old enough that seatbelts weren't a thing when I was a kid, so I remember well the arguments when they became common and later required.)
Tons of people thought seatbelts would do more harm than good.
https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/08/people-once-complai...
> trapping people in burning cars or causing drowning or preventing rescue personnel from being able to free those who are injured
> belts cause internal damage when an accident causes the wearer to slam forward
> folks wear them incorrectly, across their stomachs rather than their waists, where they will do more harm than good
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely nobody made an argument that they don't want to use seatbelts because then they'll just start crashing all the time. (I'm old enough that seatbelts weren't a thing when I was a kid, so I remember well the arguments when they became common and later required.)
Tons of people thought seatbelts would do more harm than good. https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/08/people-once-complai... > trapping people in burning cars or causing drowning or preventing rescue personnel from being able to free those who are injured > belts cause internal damage when an accident causes the wearer to slam forward > folks wear them incorrectly, across their stomachs rather than their waists, wh…
After reading the Superfreaconomics chapter on child seats I can believe seat belts do quite some harm in accidents.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
They made seatbelts mandatory too. Yuck! JK! These system do save lives though. Driving is a privilege, not a right. So I’m fine with these mandates as they don’t really get in my way.
The only person at risk when I decided to not wear a seatbelt is me. Laws compelling me to wear one are the epitome of government overreach.
That's patently not true.
- in some situations you can lose control of the vehicle, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCObYDxa3Do
- if you crash, your body will be flying freely in the car, creating danger for other occupants of the car
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think those devices reduce the number of accidents, so I disagree with your premise. I think they serve to help slowly roll out self-driving capabilities.
> I don't think those devices reduce the number of accidents Good for you. But society disagrees and requires them.
People in society are disagreeing about the accuracy of the devices and arguing about it. Kinda circular logic to insist that "this law is about the be passed, therefore it's the will of society, and therefore is correct."
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think those devices reduce the number of accidents, so I disagree with your premise. I think they serve to help slowly roll out self-driving capabilities.
> I don't think those devices reduce the number of accidents Do you have a source for this?
I don't know of any comprehensive studies that have been published one way or the other. I know sometimes the computer causes accidents and sometimes they help prevent them. That said, I've yet to see anything that indicates they prevent an appreciable number of accidents - it's usually pitched as driver convenience and data collection for self-driving.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't think those devices reduce the number of accidents Good for you. But society disagrees and requires them.
People in society are disagreeing about the accuracy of the devices and arguing about it. Kinda circular logic to insist that "this law is about the be passed, therefore it's the will of society, and therefore is correct."
There was also a time where people suggested that vehicles replacing horses was unsafe. They were, of course, correct in a sense, but tended to ignore the decrease in horse related accidents. There was also a time where quite a number of people believed that the human body couldn't cope with speeds over some arbitrary number. They also were proven to be incorrect - mainly because technology enabled people to travel faster and then subsequently made that travel safer.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#330I currently drive a 2021 Nissan NV200 Compact Cargovan. It's about as basic of a vehicle you can get. I'm slowly turning it into a miniRV because I like to go camping at times. Works great as a place to sleep when I visit friends and when conventions get back into full swing and I don't want to spend $300+ on a weekend hotel room. Bonus points for the van being actually smaller than my previous 2015 VW Passat when it…
Which entity is setting that interest rate? I would expect it to work to go to a credit union and have them write a consumer loan you could use to purchase the van. But they may refuse to do that if the typical loan an the type of vehicle is more expensive than the consumer rate.
Handful of banks / Nissan's internal financing program. It was the first I'd ever heard of a specific interest rates for commercial vehicles. I'm not sure what all special rules commercial vans/trucks go under in the US because it doesn't even come with things like a listed crash rating or pollution rating you'd see on the sheet for a normal consumer car.