Wish there were analog-esque(input only) electric 2 & 4 wheelers, which would be repair friendly. As opposed to S/N paired components and digital touch points like screens, which act as single points of failure.
Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
281–290 of 340 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a pile. Blind spot detection system malfunction a lot to the point of being useless. Front collision detection is just annoying. I have driven for 40 years and have never rear-ended anyone or run over a pedestrian. These 'safety' 'features' are only useful to terrible drivers. Decent drivers are just annoyed by the car fighting you. I guess they need to have some way to keep adding features so the price points n…
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…
The only really useful numbers are in the table of fatalities per million miles travelled. We see a big win as airbags were rolled out, but no big win since driver assistance technologies were introduced.
I’m not sure what conclusion you’re deriving from that, but the data seems to support the counter argument that these technologies are of dubious value.
Am I misunderstanding something?
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#283I bought a 2018 Ford Focus RS (comes with a manual transmission). Love it. I have Apple CarPlay, but no other gimmicks.
I didn’t know how to drive a stick before I purchased this car; but had a strong desire to vote with my wallet stemming from the same emotions. I wanted less “technology” in my car.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#284I'll break this into two components: 1. Is there a button for the thing I'm trying to do? 2. Does the button in (1) do what I expect it to do? (2) drives me crazy. And I'm sure it's both a blessing and a curse as cars continue to pack tech under their hoods/into their dashes. The climate system "Auto" function is my favorite nuisance. It used to be that you had temperate and fan speed and they operated rather intuiti…
On my Honda auto seems perfect for me. It looks like it keeps internal temperature and only turns on fan to ventilate, heat, or cool.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#285I guess it depends on what you mean by "digital" features. I purchased a 2021 vehicle, its a GM vehicle. Its my first GM product, my last was a Toyota but very basic model, no tech. This has everything and while I enjoyed it at first, a few things started to happen in the vehicle that made me realize that I don't want this vehicle anymore. Primarily the OnStar "feature", I get an ad like chime every so often, asking…
This matches my impressions of an older GMC (except it didn’t nag about OnStar activation).
That truck had software bugs that’d sometimes run the battery down over night or cause the entire dashboard and onstar voice response system to freak out.
Alarmingly, a powertrain software bug caused it to behave unpredictability in parking lots. The Bolt had the same bug, but it manifested in a more severe way. Search “bolt unexpected acceleration while parking”.
Mine was a base model (only knobs; no touchscreens or even medium resolution displays), though it had rudimentary voice control and internet of some sort.
I don’t plan to buy a GM again, unless they can make one with zero computers for me, or maybe outsource their software development to a competent firm. The fact that they have a self-driving car division terrifies me.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whats the newest car you can buy with a carburator?
Probably something built in the 1980's, if not the 1970's. Fuel-injection was pretty near ubiquitous by around the mid 80's as best as I can remember. I doubt very many, if any, cars were built new with carburetors anytime from 1990 on... Edit: the above refers to the US specifically. As other commentators have pointed out, the situation is different in other regions.
Mid 90’s GMC Sierra trucks had carburetors with comparable fuel efficiency to current models. (Not sure about emissions though.)
It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the newer “Sierra Classic” line (same body style; overlapped the new platform model years) had airbags and carburetors.
Unfortunately, the interiors of those trucks were made of plastics that started shattering a decade ago. Good luck finding one with a working seat and door controls, let alone radio, etc!
As long as you kept them below 80mph, they handled great. Above that, the speedometer was pinned, and tapping the brakes caused them to pull hard to one side. I miss that truck.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> You are allowed to make mistakes in a free country and pay the price.
Like, "let's get rid of all the checks and punish people after they cause damage"?
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, you shouldn't have self tapping screws anywhere near an engine bay. But since you know what they are, I guess their danger is minimized. It is quite OK to run w/o an engine cover, it is a worthless piece of plastic.
They can actually be worse, trapping heat in. But yea, completely non-functional. Remove it if the clips are broken. You aren't missing anything.
They're not "non-functional" at all.
They reduce wind noise, increase mileage particularly in colder weather (and speed up engine warmup time), protect the engine from road debris/road salt/water, and reduce lift generated at highway speeds.
"Trapping heat in" isn't a problem in almost any modern vehicle.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a pipe dream. Even the least desirable muscle cars are fetching $25-30k for "good" condition. Anything remotely desirable is going for far more than that. You could probably get an 80's Camaro or something, but that's not really a "muscle car". That term is generally applied to models from the 60's and 70's.
That price is reasonable according to https://classiccars.com . I’m not looking for something extraordinary.
Between 1962-1974 were good years. find a straight 6 (amc, ford, chev) or slant 6 (dodge, plymouth, chrysler). those were good motors, in cars vans trucks, economical, and because not 'musclev usually a lot cheaper. since smaller, then the whole drive train was lighter, softer rides, and so on. also more room under the hood and easy to work on.
fun car site.
Re: Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?
#290Annoyingly, 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.
Not quite a Saab 900, but perhaps the Bollinger B-1? https://bollingermotors.com/bollinger-b1/
that's very cool.
expensive, but cool.