EV Stupidity Checklist

This makes me think that doing cool reboots of old cars but with EV powertrains would be awesome. Think of an old VW Golf from the 90s with an EV powertrain. Or an old 60s mustang.

My 2005 Honda Odyssey had a locking glovebox. With the move to a start button instead of turning a key or even just the key fob presence (Chevy Equinox we have) or phone apps or cards manufacturers definitely got away from having something that you could lock and unlock.

I thought having the glovebox only unlocked from the screen was dumb when I heard about it but I'd rather have the ability to lock it than not. And it's consistent with the move to using your phone instead of a keyfob.

> Why is everybody always touching these things?

Because people are ... different?

I'll start with your home example. I grew up in a hot environment. Everyone had window ACs and fans (way more efficient than central AC for many types of homes - but that's for a subthread).

With a separate AC and fan, you have two variables you can tweak to get your comfort: Speed of air, and temperature. Believe it or not, some people are not comfortable in a cool room if they're not getting air (and likewise, many/most people are comfortable in a warmer room as long as they get air).

Then you move into a house with no fans and just a central AC and ... it sucks. So you buy pointless table top fans to compensate.

Same with cars. It's not just about the temperature. It's about air. With modern EVs, as I pointed out here[1], it's (almost) impossible to get warm air blowing on your face in cold weather.

Finally, there's the "obvious" reason that applies both in homes and in cars. The temperature you need to feel comfortable keeps fluctuating, and depends on outside conditions. In cold weather, I need to set the car at 70-71F to feel nice. In hot weather, I'll throw up if I drive at those temperatures - I need 60-65F. Same with my house: In winter, I set it to 68-70F to feel comfortable. In summer, I just get cold at those temperatures.

Having a constant temperature in the car doesn't help me if I make a turn and suddenly the sun is coming on my half of the car. Being able to quickly dial down the temperature and have air on my face will cool me in under 10s. Merely dialing down the temperature will take several minutes. Similarly, 10 minutes later when the sun goes behind the clouds, I'm suddenly cold because I don't have the sun compensating for the AC. Merely turning the fan away doesn't help. I need to raise the temperature and keep the air on me to normalize (again - the difference between seconds vs minutes).

If you've never gotten used to that, I can see why you'll settle for something vastly inferior.

A simple example: With my car, I can remotely start the AC. When I've parked the car in the sun, I can start the AC (max cool) 10 minutes before I get in, and it's still a bit warm (but at least not hot). If instead I get into a really hot car with no AC pre-conditioning, it will take at most 1 minute for me to feel cool if I have the AC blowing right at me.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48330246

Yes, but which cars other than Tesla don't give you the choice?

(Never heard of Fisker).

I agree about many screens being commonly too bright, but not really about anything else. My partner's previous company car had a back-up camera with a fine brightness and the current one has none at all. I feel blind backing out of parking spots in this one: such cameras physically sit in spots where it can see things that a driver can never see, from approaching cars to either side (when your view is blocked) to a child walking by just as I am ready to start backing out

I don't remember having this issue in the past (we didn't have cameras in driving school), not sure why. My current approach is to stretch and strain a bunch more, start rolling verry slowly when I think the coast is clear and double check that nothing reveals itself, and then just hope for the best. If someone fell back there while I wasn't yet watching, it's simply tough luck I guess? Don't see a physically other option than, ehh, I dunno, adding a camera with a corresponding screen! ;)

> photons impinging my eyes reflected off the material world at the diffraction limit of the visible spectrum remain much higher fidelity than some shitty parts-bin screens

Consider that the camera can be ~2 meters closer than you are to the target, and/or have more pixels than you can see but that the alert system still uses, so I don't know about this diffraction limit fancy wording trying to put yourself above machines which can, in general, do so many things humans cannot