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Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

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Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

#131

Post by dntrkv »

johnea wrote: post #89
judge2020 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a dying breed though, complicated "driver assist" systems are becoming standard or even mandated :(. It saves lives, even if the systems are not 100% effective.

You know, actually paying attention to driving saves lives too. But apparently that is not an option. Driving is just too big of a distraction from playing with instagram...

You do realize, you can be distracted unintentionally, right?

Child crying in the backseat, car malfunctioning, animal crossing the road, object hitting your windshield, a car accident occurring next to you, being fired from your job and your wife divorcing you when you find out you have cancer, a meteor hitting the earth, a big sneeze, I could keep going.

Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

#132

Post by adamrezich »

outworlder wrote: post #113

> and prefer their cars without fancy digital gimmicks What's a 'digital gimmick'? Is stability control a gimmick? ABS? What about cruise control? Lane assist? Auto-breaking to avoid collisions? If you are talking about things like touch screens to control basic functions, then it's understandable. Or maybe you want a car without GPS. In general though, moving functions away from hardware makes things more reliable,…

for at least my whole life until 2019, my dad would trade in his truck for a brand-new one every few years. he's the kind of guy who's excited by bells and whistles just for the sake of them, and he appreciated the new doodads with each new model... until 2019. the new truck that year was full of crap he has zero use for, like a 3G wifi hotspot. every few days after his purchase he went back to the dealership with some new problem with some part of the truck. typically this would only happen once every few years or months, but it happened several times in rapid succession over the course of a couple weeks. maybe my dad just got a fantastically unlucky lemon of a truck, but it's undeniable that feature creep increases points of failure.

Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

#133

Post by willis936 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #111
fletchowns wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a dying breed though, complicated "driver assist" systems are becoming standard or even mandated :(. I'm on the opposite side of this. All the new safety & driver assist features are the best part about getting a new car. I wouldn't buy a new daily driver that doesn't have blind spot monitoring, collision avoidance, lane keep assist, etc. Once you have these features and you are accustomed to how they work, yo…

> I wouldn't buy a new daily driver that doesn't have blind spot monitoring, collision avoidance, lane keep assist, etc. Once you have these features and you are accustomed to how they work, you can't go back. And I don't like them. But only one of us has the government taking away our choice by making them mandatory. I wouldn't mind them if it wasn't for the fact that they universally seem to be points of failure th…

They're not there for you to like them. They're there so you don't kill someone and someone else doesn't kill you. Society collectively fails to give a single ass of a rat about how people feel about their ubiquitous 2-ton death machine.

Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

#134

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

HWR_14 wrote: post #105
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these driver assist systems stop working without an internet connection or something? Seems like you should be able to disable any radios that bother you, unless they intentionally nerfed it.

Do you mean "you can physically destroy the radios if that bothers you"? Because it's not a toggle in a UI.

I’m trying to figure out what the connection is between the driver assist features and the phoning home behavior. Are they just two systems that new cars are likely to have, or are they actually integrated?

Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

#135

Post by rpmisms »

Probably the best option is any car with a manual transmission. These generally don't have any cruise control beyond the basic speed-keeping, no lane-keep assist, and generally are base models with less infotainment tech.

The fun factor should not be discounted, either.

Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

#137

Post by eschneider »

Subaru Crosstrek: If you get it with the (quite nice) 6 speed manual, all the annoying driver aid stuff is deleted. Does come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so if you like fancy radio, you can have that. But the drivetrain is pleasantly stick-and-rudder.

Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

#138

Post by csours »

officeplant wrote: post #97

I 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…

Hard to beat a Chevy Express Van when it comes to low tech.

In general, look for vehicles that have a really old platform or really old 'redesign'. Eg: Look at model history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Express

I'm not sure of any way to look this up across brands and models? Perhaps a good opportunity for a microsite?

In general companies boast about how new their tech is, not how old.

Disclosure: I work for GM, this is solely my own opinion.

If you don't want OnStar or Satellite Radio, there are ways to disable it pretty easily.

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