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Software is eating the car

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Re: Software is eating the car

#391

Post by kingsuper20 »

drdavid wrote: post #269
CogitoCogito wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you want a mechanical door lock, manual windows, no car stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise control, etc... I think an extremely small minority of people who want a "dumb" car don't want those features. I feel like you're just making up a strawman here. It's pretty clear (at least to me), that the people who want a dumb car are talking about things integrating with your phone or being displayed o…

It has been a long time since you could get a truly bespoke car from a major manufacturer in a reasonable price segment. But, you used to be able to order all sorts of stuff - or not order it. For example, you could save a few hundred bucks by not having a rear bumper, not having a radio, opting for manual windows and transmission, opting for no cruise control, etc... There were a multitude of options and you could a…

Fun fact. On export first gen Camaro you could save a few bucks by ordering them with seat belt delete (A48 option).

Re: Software is eating the car

#392

Post by gizmo385 »

jfengel wrote: post #114
arpyzo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a 2014 Subaru Impreza and my brother in-law a 2017. I've driven both extensively. Sometime during those years, Subaru switched from knobs and levers to a touchscreen and the controls are so much worse! 1. The controls on the 2014 are obvious, easy to find, and my choices are readily apparent. In the 2017 I have to search for them and often guess their meanings. If I'm actively driving, I just give up because it…

Huh. My 2020 Impreza has lots of knobs and levers. About the only time I interact with the touch screen is to control the apps I use (mostly maps and podcasts). Even the podcasts app rarely requires me to touch the touch screen; there are volume and back/forward switches right on the steering wheel. (And also on the console below the touch screen.) Maybe that's switching back after 2017, or perhaps you use more of th…

I've got a 2017 impreza and my experience is similar to your's. Everything I'd want to be a nob or switch is and the touch screen is almost entirely controllable quite easily from the steering wheel.

Re: Software is eating the car

#393

Post by kingsuper20 »

crooked-v wrote: post #164
clairity wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Modern cars are absolutely terrible in the UX department, but they are a hell of a lot safer, so there’s that." tangentially, "safety" is highly cargo-culted. things that seem so obviously safer are taken without question as better, but in many cases, such features really only provide a false sense of security along with substantive unintended consequences. most safety features in cars (e.g., lane-keeping) allow p…

> rather than lowering crash/injury/death rates. Motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 have been on a consistent downward trend since the 70s (1.53 per 100,000 in 2000, 1.11 per 100,000 in 2019), so, no, death rates have in fact been lowered.

How much of that is due to faster ambulance/helicopter service, improved emergency room practices?

Re: Software is eating the car

#394

Post by betwixthewires »

sbierwagen wrote: post #376
at_a_remove wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a stock head unit on my car, based on QnX, I'm told. It has some amazing limitations. I will throw out a couple: First, you cannot delete radio stations. You can overwrite a radio station, or you can unplug your car battery, but you can't just flat up delete a radio station you have plugged in. CRU, I guess. Second, it sort of recognizes .mp3 files in the USB drive, but not .wav, and it certainly doesn't under…

I bought a car with an aftermarket radio that has a DVD player in it, which I've never used. When you turn it on, it displays a message warning you not to watch a DVD while driving. Sure, whatever. While the warning message is up, you cannot adjust the volume. I have to make sure to turn down the stereo before parking otherwise there's a solid five seconds on startup when it can't be turned down. Insane.

I just have to get in on this one.

I have this old aftermarket $30 brand new at the time crappy little stereo. No optical drive, the thing doesn't even have an AM receiver. But it does take SD cards, USB drives and AUX. Perfect. That's exactly all an aftermarket system should do, maybe Bluetooth, but I don't use Bluetooth so I don't care. I can fit ~60 albums on one 8gb SD card. Goodbye buffering in the boonies, goodbye book of CDs.

There's no way to navigate directories besides just skipping to the next one. Fine. I've seen some that let you open a menu and navigate using the volume knob, but no SD cards. I tried very hard to find one that has an SD slot and more advanced directory navigation. The two are apparently mutually exclusive. So instead of getting to decide what to listen to, my unit mostly functions as a commercial free music only radio station with a wide, diverse selection of exactly things I like. I can deal with that.

It doesn't load the directories or files in any particular order, like it builds an index by randomly loading directories as they're read and then the files inside. At least it doesn't mix up files between directories. I can deal with albums being out of order I guess. But why it doesn't just load them in alphabetical order is beyond me.

Nothing but MP3 support. I even wrote a bash script to turn FLAC files into MP3 files just for the car, and it can even split FLAC by CUE file. Works just fine for me.

The thing has a predetermined EQ animation. It does not actually correspond to the output, its just an animation. Why? Who knows. But it does.

All in all I've been using the same unit for 5 years across 2 different vehicles. I like it I guess. The window smashers seem to know it isn't worth anything, which is great. If I could navigate better, it loaded directories and files alphabetically, and had an AM receiver, it would be the last aftermarket system I buy for the rest of my life.

Re: Software is eating the car

#395

Post by perl4ever »

grahamburger wrote: post #332
crooked-v wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mazda has been actively removing touch screens in new models. The screens are still there, but the touch part is replaced with physical controls for cabin features/radio and a puck controller for other stuff.

I know HN loves to hate on touchscreens in cars but I don't really get it. Both cars I own and almost every car I've rented in the last few years (that's quite a few) has had a touchscreen. This is pretty much always how it works: 1) The most used functions have physical buttons and knobs, often on both the steering wheel and the center console 2) Touchscreen is used for uncommonly done things, like adding new Blueto…

>uncommonly done things, like adding new Bluetooth connections and adjusting radio settings

Adding new Bluetooth connections is something I do more than one would think, because my car doesn't seem to allow Android Auto via a USB cable alone, and periodically it gets into a bad state somehow. The only solution I've found is to forget the pairing and start over. This has happened to me on multiple cars, two Hondas and a BMW, so I'm not sure whether it's universal or not. If for instance, GM cars didn't have this issue, I'd seriously consider one.

Obviously this is a software problem and not a touchscreen issue per se, but I associate it with the touchscreen and the generally poor standards of car tech these days.

Adjusting radio settings is something that I do quite a bit if I am going on a trip, because any given FM station fades out in a fairly short time. I could stream music from my phone, but I have a limited plan due to spending most of my time using wifi these days.

My car does have a reasonably clever and low mental bandwidth way of using the radio, though. There is a "scan" (touchscreen) button and then it changes through the stations reasonably slowly with a "stop" button in the lower left.

I don't understand your third point - it's supposed to be a mitigating factor? It seems like a good reason to "hate on touchscreens" to me, though.

Touchscreens and software bloat are not really central to what I dislike about modern car tech. It's the fact that the user experience has converged on personal computers, where things tend to stop working without any meaningful diagnostic or error and I end up spending 15 minutes resetting and disconnecting/reconnecting things to make it work when I really just want to get home before my food gets cold, etc.

As long as any given computer system is simple enough that the engineers understood it, it seems fine to me in theory.

Re: Software is eating the car

#396

Post by kingsuper20 »

wyre wrote: post #234
rootusrootus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If electric cars ever become widespread Exclude Tesla and most all EVs on the road today are just normal cars that happen to be electric.

Why is special about Tesla that makes them not a “normal” car that happens to be electric?

Impossibly high collision repair costs?

Re: Software is eating the car

#397

Post by ska »

r00fus wrote: post #166
jonplackett wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same stupid thing that happened with DSLR cameras. Old SLR cameras had a ring around the lens for f-stop and another dial on top for shutter speed. New DSLR cameras even now hide all that stuff in a menu on the touch screen, as if it isn't something you want to change ALL THE TIME - and develop instant muscle memory for.

Could be they want you to buy their Pro item where the actually offer reasonable affordances? Most "pro-sumers" wouldn't bother to adjust what the auto-focus calculates anyway.

> Most "pro-sumers" wouldn't bother to adjust what the auto-focus calculates anyway.

I think that is the 'sumers. The prosumer gear is for people who actually want to play with all that stuff, but don't want to pay $10k for a pro body and lenses.

Re: Software is eating the car

#398

Post by kingsuper20 »

itsoktocry wrote: post #117
Koshkin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If electric cars ever become widespread I have a strong suspicion that soon enough after that we will be able to build electric cars from kits, cheap and with no frills. We are on a cusp of a new technological revolution.

> soon enough after that we will be able to build electric cars from kits I'm skeptical. An internal combustion engine is a complicated, engineering marvel. But a complete engine, as a unit, isn't difficult to remove/insert. It's big, heavy and awkward, sure (so are electric motors and batteries), but an experienced person can do an engine swap in a couple of hours. And yet there aren't many people building ICE cars…

I think it would be a cool idea on a vintage car, but is still too expensive.

Re: Software is eating the car

#399

Post by xxpor »

jude- wrote: post #103
xxpor wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subscription model?

Some of the extra infotainment stuff (read: media content) is subscription only. Some functional extras like full self-driving or faster acceleration are one-off purchases. The rest of the software -- all the things you'd expect the car to do -- comes with the vehicle and gets regular OTA updates.

In addition to the comments about premium connectivity, I don't see how the acceleration unlock is anything but a positive. Car companies have been charging for options for forever, except before you had to make the choice at purchase time. Now the upgrade can happen whenever.

Re: Software is eating the car

#400

Post by [deleted] »

northwest65 wrote: post #289
GuB-42 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want a mechanical door lock, manual windows, no car stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise control, etc... The problem with that dumb car is that it is missing that very convenient feature. So you want a dumb car but with feature X, because feature X is really great. But the other guy will not care about X and will think it is bloat, but Y is really important, while for someone else, it will be al…

> mechanical door lock Power central locking doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. > manual windows Electric windows doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. > no car stereo Car stereos do not need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. > no power steering Power steering doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. Hel…

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