521–530 of 660 posts
> Some of the cars tested collected data you wouldn’t expect your car to know about, including details about sexual activity, race, and immigration status, according to Mozilla. It's not just that I would not expect my car to know about these things, it's that I cannot imagine how my car could possibly know these things. Immigration status? Sexual activity? WTF? How?
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Unfortunately lots of people are happy to pay the markups. Some subreddits, including /r/rav4prime , will ban you for speaking negatively about dealer markups or those who pay them. Here's their hilariously condescendingly worded rule 4: > No demonstrations of economic illiteracy. No negativity regarding markups. You are encouraged to post about current prices and markups and your dealership experiences, but please D…
It's a fair point though. The markups are a function of demand and are totally normal and expected market behavior. People who complain about it are almost exclusively people who don't understand how markets work. It's tiring listening to uneducated people constantly coming through and complaining. If dealers weren't marking up the price, there would be no car at all available for sale. People mistakenly think that i…
1. I'm not uneducated or economically illiterate.
2. A 50% markup on an economy car, even in an upgraded trim, is absurd. This is not even remotely representative of "market conditions".
3. Inflation + supply chain issues provided a pathway for greedy businesses to justify price-gouging customers. There's a difference between supply/demand driving pricing and price-gouging, and it's pretty obvious the direction this went in the car market. There's a /huge/ difference (not just in dollars, but in percentage of MSRP) between a $5k or even $10k markup and a $25k markup on a car with a $50k MSRP. This is especially absurd when you consider MSRP went up across the board due to inflation at the same time. This is dealer's just trying to get an extra slice of pie.
Maybe don't boot-lick price-gougers and learn how supply/demand /actually/ works, and consider not calling people who understand economics "uneducated".
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For me controlling the radio using a touch screen is an issue - i cant take my eyes off the road, and using driving wheel buttons that require fiddling is not great either. I need buttons and dials that leverage muscle memory.
You’re old. Almost no one has that muscle memory anymore. Hell almost no one listens to the radio anymore, people listen to Spotify or podcasts.
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That’s odd because I like the control a clutch pedal gives me in heavy traffic. And I drive a 15 year old diesel!
I'm only 30, but at this point a 15 year old car still feels kinda "new" to me. Up until a few months ago, I drove a 2008 Lexus, felt perfectly modern. But in regards to driving a manual in traffic, does a diesel not make it easier? An engine suited to lower RPMs, but with more torque, seems perfectly suited to clutching in/out to shuffle along.
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That’s odd because I like the control a clutch pedal gives me in heavy traffic. And I drive a 15 year old diesel!
15 years is almost kinda young for many diesel engines
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The touchscreens are really a dealbreaker on new cars. They’re not just prone to quick obsolescence, they’re dangerous.
I recently rented a cheap sedan and was shocked: there was a small screen for carplay that didn't interfere with the dashboard and all the other controls (volume, climate, etc) had hard buttons. After a couple of days of driving I could do everything without looking away from the road. Meanwhile the expensive cars are frightening to drive as you need to look away from the road to do anything.
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> It reminds me of the complaining in the early iPhone days about lack of a physical keyboard. I totally get that. People will always complain about some new design fad, whether it's actually good or not. However... we're talking about heavy vehicles traveling at high speed with humans inside. You simply don't have to takes your eyes off the road as long with tactile controls as you do with touch screens.
Having driven a Tesla for three years now, I basically don’t use the screen while driving. The controls I actually use are on the steering wheel or column (cruise control settings, music control, turn signals) and I have never had a significant issue with leaving wipers, lights and climate on auto
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In the UK it’s illegal to touch your phone while driving (with some exceptions around hands free kits and payments). Even for things that are legal, the Highway Code is clear that you do not touch your radio while driving. I’d presume it would take a dim view of playing with other non-critical functions. So no, just because it’s on your wheel, that doesn’t make it “safe.”
It’s illegal to hold not touch. It is specifically legal to use your phone (in a safe manner) in say a wind screen mount [0]. [0] https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law
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I would love it if it was economical/possible for repair shops to do "dumb swaps" where they cut out all the "smart" bullshit and give you physical buttons and knobs on your dash.
In my moments of programmer hubris I often think, "It can't be _that_ hard to make an open-source controller for a Hybrid Synergy Drive. It's only two motors and a small engine. Come on!"
A lot of people are making comments about defeating the telemetry, but it's not just about selling ads this time. This is about actual surveillance and (eventually) control, and the governments of the world will make this a requirement, and make circumvention of it as illegal as copyright infringement. In the US, the government will throw up it's hands and say it's not us; it's the "free" market, and this must be wha…
just wait until insurance companies demand access to your telemetry or they triple your rates.