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Please make a dumb car

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Re: Please make a dumb car

#451

Post by vb6sp6 »

loudthing wrote: post #282
stillsut wrote: post #179

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 m…

In the US in May of 2018, a federal law went into effect saying all new cars require a backup camera. This means that there needs to be an LCD screen visible to the driver for the camera. This is sort of a slippery slope as far as feature creep. Now that you have this screen, aren't drivers going to expect to see something on it 99% of the time when they aren't backing up? Actually this leads me to realize why some a…

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Re: Please make a dumb car

#452

Post by badwolf »

gnicholas wrote: post #190
khazhoux wrote: post #74

Our Volvo doesn't let you adjust the volume when you're in reverse. That means if you're backing out of the garage and the music is blaring -- you can't turn it off! The Volvo UI pops up an almost full-display warning when it can't connect to the phone over bluetooth on startup. This UI takes priority over the rear camera . So I guess it's better to hit Timmy and his puppy when I'm backing out, so long as I know my p…

Weird! My older (2007) Volvo doesn't let me change the station in reverse, but I can adjust the volume via a knob, or turn off the radio by pushing the knob/button. Hopefully the system on your Volvo can be updated to fix what are presumably bugs in the system!

Same - I've a 2021 XC60. I can turn the volume knob, press the pause button, or use the volume controls on the steering wheel while in reverse. Just not use the touchscreen controls unless I press the "home" button which closes out the rear camera.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#453

Post by pitaj »

xbryanx wrote: post #198
khazhoux wrote: post #74

Our Volvo doesn't let you adjust the volume when you're in reverse. That means if you're backing out of the garage and the music is blaring -- you can't turn it off! The Volvo UI pops up an almost full-display warning when it can't connect to the phone over bluetooth on startup. This UI takes priority over the rear camera . So I guess it's better to hit Timmy and his puppy when I'm backing out, so long as I know my p…

I get why, but my Volvo (2017) WILL NOT let me lock the keys in the car. Which is annoying if I'm trying to safely warm it up on a -15 Minnesota day and have the spare keys in the house. There's lots of forums detailing tricks involving rolling the windows down or locking the car from the back seat. I love all the tech automation and safety features, but at times I find myself befuddled by the designers choices.

My 2004 Ford Escape won't let me lock or unlock the car with the key fob if the engine is running. So I can't warm it up in the morning without either risking it being driven away or having an extra door key for just that purpose. Ugh.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#454

Post by geocrasher »

The culmination of luxury, reliability, and beautiful stupidity:

The 1991 Chevrolet Suburban with a 5.7L engine and the 700r4 automatic trans. Comfortable, analogue, and great looking. Easily updated with a backup camera, a modern sound system and remote start, etc. Heated seats are possible, as is any luxury you'd want.

Even the engine could be updated to an OBDII compliant LS, and the drivetrain is already as stout as can be. With more modern spring technology, even leaf springs can be made to ride nicely.

There are already companies doing restomods like these and selling them, and I doubt they can keep them in stock.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#455

Post by rsync »

enigma20 wrote: post #322
Johnny555 wrote: post #256

I 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…

If all smart features would work perfectly, I wouldn’t mind either. But. - lane centering - in some cars for whatever reason drives to close to middle of the lane - emergency breaking - false positives sometimes. I was overtaking a cyclist, and although I kept lots of distance as the opposite lane was completely free, it made my car slow down a lot. Luckily nobody was behind me - tmps, it's fine till sensors work or…

See my response to your parent, upthread - and the accompanying (and very compelling) seminar about automation dependency in airline accidents.

Please drive your car.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#456

Post by vel0city »

causi wrote: post #442
vel0city wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its too bad your experience with automatic climate control systems is so terrible. I'm of the exact opposite experience. I recently had to have my car in the shop and as a rental they gave me a mid-tier level Nissan Sentra with manual climate controls. I absolutely hated having to manually adjust the climate, usually 2-3 times every trip. Why would I want to fiddle with climate controls when it could be entirely auto…

You're going to have a bad experience if you're always setting it to max cold or max heat instead of just picking a comfortable temperature in the middle and letting the car get to that temp. That's the issue. Suppose the car is at an ambient temperature of 50 degrees. I get in and start it up. I want air that's just slightly warmer than ambient but I can't get it. If I set it to 65, I get hit with air that's probabl…

Your car's automatic climate control system seems terribly designed and not like any one I've ever experienced. The climate control system on my Accord came out in 1996 and it behaved far superior to that. It doesn't just blow max heat/cold until the target temperature, it does a reasonable gradient of temperature differences until its the target temp keeping in mind some kind of comfort profile. This has been the way every other automatic climate control system I've used has behaved, I've never experienced it blasting heat/cold as hard as can be full bore, unless it legitimately needed that to keep up with the losses (having the windows open).

I'm sorry your experiences suck and you have to manually adjust your AC system dozens of times per drive to make your car comfortable. Personally though I see that as a massive step back, not an improvement. Would you mind sharing the make of car so I can be sure to avoid it?

Also, when talking about automatic climate control, do you also have it set to automatic fan speed as well, or just temperature? Maybe your system would perform better if you let it also control the fan speed if you aren't already. For my experiences I pretty much always let directionality, fan speed, and temperature set to be automatically controlled.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#458

Post by jhoechtl »

I wonder how much weight we could save by leaving out exactly the things the author mentions.

BTW budget cars sold in Europe like certain Dacia models are still pretty basic, yet with efficient and modern (ICE) engines.

I have even head Dacia does not in EVs.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#459

Post by cmil15 »

rcpt wrote: post #339
Johnny555 wrote: post #256

I 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…

ACC and LKAS on our 2019 Honda is so awful I simply can't use it. When someone crosses 3 lanes in front of me ACC will hit the brakes hard to maintain the correct distance. It's jolting and scary. LKAS only sees about 80% of the lanes. Rather than just driving like normal which I'm experienced with I have to sit there paranoid that something will go wrong and I'll need to react to a surprise event. I don't know if it…

Surprised to hear that. The ACC on my 2019 CR-V is the best adaptive cruise control I've used, a lot smoother than ACC I've tried in substantially more expensive cars. I agree the LKAS is pretty crappy (off of highways, it seems closer to 60% of lanes), but I've never experienced anything with it that's caused actual problems. The crappiness just comes from it frequently not knowing where the lane is, but I leave it on at all times for the times where it does recognize them.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#460

Post by sinab »

afloyd wrote: post #444
sinab wrote: post #440

What I hate about "car discourse" like this is the apparent blindness to public transportation. Trains, bikes, buses, and street cars solve almost every problem that the author complains about. The only outstanding problem, however, is that American infrastructure has been deliberately designed solely around the car. Those who suggest alternative modes of public transportation are immediately written off as "impracti…

I would absolutely love to ride a bike or say, roller skate to work, but as i live in a stroad infested car dependent mess of a town, that is sadly impractical at best and outright deadly at worst.

I share the same sentiment. Something I've realized recently is that people who complain about car-centrism (myself) often fail to identify ways to start solving these problems. To remedy this, I've been thinking of writing a set of practical posts, sort of a how-to, in which I explore ways to solve these problems. Is that something that would interest you?
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