When the latest car we bought came pre-loaded with 2048 on the absurdly large central touchscreen control, but had no physical knobs to control the heater, I resolved to never buy another new vehicle again.
Please make a dumb car
271–280 of 671 posts
Re: Please make a dumb car
#272I 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 m…
Did you look into Subaru? They are still using physical controls for all car functionality. You can get heated seats, heated steering, stereoscopic lane keep assist & adaptive cruise control, etc. There is a touch screen, but I only use it for Apple Car Play.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#273I 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 m…
> I wonder how well my car will age when miscellaneous sensor all over the car start failing.
That's just it, the tech is making the cars less reliable. Will all of these bespoke parts be available in 10, 15, 20 years? I would hate to have to dispose of a working car because the dead now obsolete chip on the bespoke LCD dash module shaped like the cars dashboard is no longer in production. I had cars who's odometers didn't roll 100k miles until they hit 15 years. I have a 2002 van that has 102k miles on it.
> 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.
None of that requires LCD dash boards, tablets, touch screens, phone home, internet, subscriptions, etc. Everyone is just high on the concept of rent seeking and perpetual cash flows. They hate the fact that you buy something and walk away from them. They want you on a leash like a dog and they've been doing a damn fine job leash training you and your children.
Opinion: Mandated lane keeping and other lane keeping/self driving safety garbage is papering over the failure of the human race to govern itself. The people who I see swerving all over the road are either selfish assholes who insist on playing with phones/speeding while piloting a 3000+ lb machine or people who should not be driving at all. Now we have TV commercials that show people diddling touch screens while driving. We have failed.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#274I 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 m…
> these unwanted smart features
Only within the niche HN-type tech crowd. Most people outside of this group want these features, even other techies, including myself.
It's the same discussion on any thread involving smart devices. People want this stuff, that's why there have been over 200M standalone smart speakers sold.
As far as why these things get bundled, that’s just how auto manufacturing works. Every unique configuration costs an additional overhead to the OEM. Bundling allows them to reduce this overhead.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#275Get a motorcycle and be one with your vehicle!
This is exactly what I did recently. No more "you need to take this to the dealer to fix for thousands with their machine™", and I can replace every single component on the thing my damn self. The less parts, the less that can fail.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Front bumpers of most cars/truck are generally plastic and can at least absorb energy of an impact with a pedestrian (albeit the hood is often near neck high and can snap their neck) Tesla paraded their new truck with 'stainless steel body panels all around'. I don't know about you, but I've banged my shin into a steel tow hitch. I don't want anything remotely close to that on the road.
That doesn't make sense to me. I watched some pedestrian crash test videos, there is no energy absorption by the bumper. It's bad news to be hit by any car. (I'm no Tesla fanboy)
Most pedestrian crash tests are at low enough speed that there isn't visible energy absorption, plus most dummies aren't equivalent to most human scales. They tend to be modeled after a 6' adult male at around 200lbs.
The bigger issue with larger vehicles is their height around people current full size or even mid-size SUVs and trucks have gotten larger than their former variants. You're much more likely as a pedestrian to get run over than to be hit by a car and land on the hood or the windshield (which is by far the better position to be in during an accident). The crash bar behind the bumper on all cars have a thick layer of foam that contributes to the 'softness' of a bumper.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Horrifying?
People always have made and always will make mistakes and we've been using technology to avoid accidents or minimize the consequences of them for a long time.
Technology preventing accidents is not horrifying.
The trouble of regulatory bureaucracy or liability is adjacent but separate.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#278You can get some pretty nice non-smart cars and they will put a massive grin on your face!
Proper old school stuff. 9ff https://youtu.be/P-BTTquGvAw?t=628
Von Schmidt Resto-Mod built to your spec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzVr4cpNC58
Ruf CTR https://youtu.be/ZJwF1BX5uQc?t=1147
Personally though, I'd like to see the knobs for the essentials like fan speed and temperature as these get changed all the time, radio channels, mp3/disc selection, and then the less likely things to be fiddled with can go on screen and activated with maybe a few buttons.
For example, the roads in the UK are full of potholes, the state use this to keep the speed down on the road, but when driving in Germany on the autobahns (or the continent in general), the roads are better made so being able to setup on the touch screen different car setups which control suspension, ride height, steering input, engine tuning which can then be activated by pushing a button to cycle through comfort mode and sports, would seem to be a better bet, a more efficient way of setting up a car.
I hope the car companies log all the buttons pushed and touchscreen settings so that they can optimise their "UX" within the cars better because what I hate about the touchscreen is even on dark mode, at night it still interferes with your night vision a bit, and I'd like to turn it off like I think Saab used to do with their console display at night.
Bluetooth, GPS sat nav and all that sort of stuff, its handy in my opinion, but I'm also aware of how you can hack satnav to make a target take routes the satnav wouldnt normally select. The way to do that is to make your targets satnav think there are massive delays on the road, and then it reroutes. I havent heard of anyone who has reported this in the media, but its a doable form of hacking.
For the speed freaks, if you havent seen a car doing 259mph (417kph) on the unrestricted German autobahn, this is the link. https://youtu.be/7pg1hhW5qhM?t=153
The Countach that killed the Cannonball, but it shows you need technology if you want to drive fast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7erU_DOfE
Re: Please make a dumb car
#279I think Mazda fills this space perfectly. I recently purchased a CX-5, and I am incredibly happy with the balance of smart and non smart features. Everything else felt smart to the point of taking control away from me.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#280I don't mind having a smart car, in fact, I like most of the "smart" features - lane centering, adaptive cruise, emergency braking, TPMS, lane change cameras, auto headlights, auto wipers, etc. But I want buttons and knobs for everything I use while driving. I probably wouldn't pay extra for built-in navigation (it generally comes with other options that I do want), but I've found it useful a few times when I was out…
yes. totally agree. I LOVE adaptive cruise control, but also love/need the ability to work the music and environment selection buttons - switch stations, switch cds, change sources, turn heat up down etc - with just an instantaneous glance followed by touch only.