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Please make a dumb car

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Re: Please make a dumb car

#171

Post by EdwardDiego »

deadlyllama wrote: post #48
EdwardDiego wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My country's market is dominated by second-hand Japanese imports, a lot of the integrated navigation / entertainment systems are entirely useless if you're not driving in Japan, or can't read Japanese. When my 2005 Mazda MPV suffered a flat battery, the centre console screen which was the navigation / radio / clock / DVD player (yes, really) was bricked, and to this day displays a message in Japanese asking you to pl…

New Zealand? My Dad's old Subaru Legacy used its display to show Japan rotating around as we turned corners, us always in the sea. I'm onto my second 2005 Mazda MPV (they're great cars). This time I've replaced the head unit with one of those nasty cheap Android things. Basically a confused tablet with some extra hardware, running any mapping or other app you want.

Haha, yep, NZ, and the 2005 MPV :D

That's not a bad idea at all on the head.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#172

Post by realityking »

jaclaz wrote: post #115
Zababa wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chairs at home and office aren't fixed in place to a vehicle that has a battery.

Ok, what about airplane or bus and train seats? They are fixed in place to a vehicle with a battery, still you don't have them powered. Not that car ones (powered, heating, massaging, etc.) are not nice and comfortable, only that they remain a form of luxury.

> what about airplane […] seats?

Modern business and first class seats are indeed powered.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#173

Post by datavirtue »

theodric wrote: post #28
ab_testing wrote: post #10

I think a lot of the smart car features have to do with legislation. All new cars require a back up camera due to legislation. But a backup camera with a huge 8" screen is only useful for backing up. So the manufacturers try to use that screen real estate for infotainment when the car is moving forward.

Small LCD screens embedded behind double glass in the rear-view mirror are common in the aftermarket backup camera sets. Any sufficiently-motivated car manufacturer could design something similar to meet regs without moving their controls to a central screen.

I had a F-250 with the backup camera screen in the rear view mirror. It was a factory option and it worked perfectly. Kept my eyes on the mirrors with additional feedback from the camera. It was most useful when hitching trailers.

My last two trucks have been lower trim packages to avoid the distracting screens and other "features" I don't need.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#174

Post by salawat »

lacogubik wrote: post #169
mwint wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m having a hard time understanding how “I forgot to change gears and then hit the gas” can be classed a UX problem. Sounds like PEBKAC.

I think what they are implying is that car with so many safety features should be able to handle this situation. Volvo has lot of "collision avoidance" safety features, so one would expect that they could handle this as well. This is common feature in other cars - I rented mazda few years back and it did automatically stop when I almost reversed into another car.

At that point, the driver really is to blame though. Manufacturer's job is to make things affordably; not to save himanity from themselves despite the ongoing insistance by governments that somehow the industrial sector should take on the onus for technically enforcing whatever measures that some bureaucrat sets their sights on today.

This mentality that the car should make up for fundamental defects in safe driving is horrifying.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#175

Post by mab122 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #96
otherme123 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lada is known for its low reliability. Dacia seems to be in a more gray area, sometimes scoring well above average, sometimes below. I know someone who had a Lada Niva, and he got stranded because a low quality pipe joint blew. True, the repair was extremely cheap, and it could probably be temporarily repaired with a hose and two zippers. Are you a mechanic that can locate and fix those kind of failures? Then Ladas a…

I picked up a Dacia Sandero a year back, seems pretty well-made. Very low-tech too, even has crank windows in back.

I think they are around the "good-tech" level, similar to late 90's / early 2000 cars. Just enough to get you going economically and comfortably but without tech intruding your ride with some infotainment, updates or window slide button in some weird place or with touch control.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#176

Post by zqna »

user-the-name wrote: post #127
zqna wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saddenning part that the majority of the drivers are very proud and enjoy their electronic windows. I guess potentially manual windows could be an option in the new cars, but I'm afraid the most of the new car buyers prefer as much of gimmicks in their cars, about which they could boast right after their purchase. The adults are really just children with the thicker wallets.

Why is it sad that people enjoy a thing? They enjoy it because it works and is less of a pain in the vast majority of cases. That is not sad, that is a good thing.

It's sad because there are people who also hate it while they don't really have an option to use a product that fits them. Unless of course one is advised to buy Lada or Mustang 69. People generally like apps that switch on the lights in the living room. Also they like to keep still on slowly moving escalator (yes even down), because it looks that a biggest joy for a consumer is to be able to lose any tactile and physical agency, presumably to conserve their energy that they so badly lack.

For the record, I hate electric windows, because of insensitivity of the button, it's almost impossible to open the window by few millimeters only (just to allow air circulation to avoid condensation on windows). Or in winter if it freezes to the frame, I want to be able to open without a need of warming it up first. Or not to buy the entire lifting mechanism because a 2$ plastic piece brakes inside. I understand the few uses of electrical window, but those can simply be fixed by avoiding farting inside a car, or politely asking the culprit to open their window themselves.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#177

Post by salawat »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #17
missedthecue wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point. It's only logical. After all, a customer who doesn't want to use the infotainment system can ignore it, but the customers who want one will reject your automobile offering out of hand if you don't include one.

Mechanical things break and require lot of design, testing and validation. A screen solves that problem more efficiently and eliminates 100’s of other parts and wires that go to other buttons.

Says the bean counter overseeing a software project or industrial offering who has never grasped why those pesky customers assume they factor into a product offering anyway.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#178

Post by mab122 »

otherme123 wrote: post #60
mab122 wrote: post #40

I would recommend checking out Dacia and Lada (coincidentally now both are now under Renault group) https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/our-company/our-brands/dacia... https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/our-company/our-brands/lada/

Lada is known for its low reliability. Dacia seems to be in a more gray area, sometimes scoring well above average, sometimes below. I know someone who had a Lada Niva, and he got stranded because a low quality pipe joint blew. True, the repair was extremely cheap, and it could probably be temporarily repaired with a hose and two zippers. Are you a mechanic that can locate and fix those kind of failures? Then Ladas a…

My opinion so far is that a lot of people buy Ladas (Niva to be exact) with expectation of it being an offroader. It is not. It is a SUV and when used like usually SUVs are - it isnt as unreliable as some people make it.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#179

Post by stillsut »

I went car shopping this year in the new market and found that that if you want more a "dumb" car (UX occurs primarily outside of a touchscreen, no internet, no geolocation) you lose all potential for any nice non-smart features. So no heated/powered seats, no power windows, the material of the interior is refurbished from a spirit airlines airplane, etc.

I think manufacturers are hoping that certain aspects of the modern auto become "can't live withouts", e.g. bluetooth, which helps them smuggle all the other more marginally useful, security and ux intrusive features into your model. Now as others have mentioned, these unwanted smart features might actually be required by law/regulation/tax-credit/legal-dept, so it's not bad programming/design but "design by committee" that's dooming our chances of a good dumb car.

I wonder how well my car will age when miscellaneous sensor all over the car start failing. It used to just show a light on your dashboard, now I wonder if I'll be grounded - stuck in park - or hounded by incessant bells repeating the same spurious warning over and over again.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#180

Post by salawat »

rektide wrote: post #59

I'm sympathetic to the pleas here. But I'm a luddite. A real luddite, not, as this article is, a simple petty reactionary: the problem is not technology, it's who owns it[1], it's how we are puppet-ed along via technology (Ursala Franklin would call this example of the car a prescriptivist instead of a holistic technology[2]). Technology is good when it empowers folks broadly, when it is soft. But the car systems of…

I'm with you except for one thing.

No web connectivity. Either you're plugged in through CAN, or F-OFF. There is no logical reason for an internet exposed portal to physical car systems. Period.

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