We have a 2008 Lexus, with the standard big screen on the dash; its UI is objectively terrible - it is like the thing has gone through zero user testing on any of its functions. The sat nav interface is probably the worst - we usually spend 5 mins out of sheer bloody-mindedness trying to program a destination in before giving up and plugging in a smartphone instead.
Please make a dumb car
61–70 of 671 posts
Re: Please make a dumb car
#62One thing I was flabbergasted at recently was Tesla offering, and the government allowing, regular drivers to use a yoke steering wheel like F1 drivers. Not only is it harder for the average person to handle but their firmware hadn't accounted for the fact that if you steer fully left or right the yoke is upside down and if you try and indicate it ends up indicating on the wrong side. What is wrong with a wheel and f…
And all the buttons on the yoke are touch sensitive. That makes absolutely no sense for a control device.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#63I think a lot of the smart car features have to do with legislation. All new cars require a back up camera due to legislation. But a backup camera with a huge 8" screen is only useful for backing up. So the manufacturers try to use that screen real estate for infotainment when the car is moving forward.
Who is pushing/lobbying for that type of legislation? Isn't it a case of regulation helping the incumbents?
I imagine this organization and similar orgs. It would be interesting to see if the new legislation has helped decrease the number of backover accidents.
This appears to be an example of technology solving a design flaw rather than rent-seeking capitalism.
http://www.kidsandcars.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Backov...
Re: Please make a dumb car
#64> Not to mention the privacy and security concerns. Heh. That ship has sailed. Wait until electronic license plates using eInk roll out and update automatically. First they'll just change if you haven't paid your registration, then later if your insurance lapses, or maybe it'll light up with yellow LEDs when there's a kidnapping. It'll be integrated into Fast Pass toll-payment systems, why not? And over the next deca…
So basically all things we think is shit on the internet will be on the road :(
Re: Please make a dumb car
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Elon is weirdly good at getting regulators to just let him do things. FSD beta. The yoke steering wheel. Like a quarter of everything SpaceX does. Does he just have really good lobbyists? Is his force of personality just that good? It’s kind of fascinating.
> it's kind of fascinating. For me I'd replace that with: scary. Full size A4 paper and bigger screens in cars you can stream movies on while driving (distraction leading to accidents); the Las Vegas Loop which is just a tunnel for only one type of car (waste of infrastructure space); pushing untested AI (crashing and killing people). These aren't fascinating things.
I don't like the pedestrian killing murder-machine aspect of their vast In Vehicle Entertainment systems at all. The Vegas Loop tells such a strong tale though, to me, of control over infrastructure itself, in a vulgar & horrific way.
Just like Tesla's charging infrastructure! Can you imagine if you had to find a Ford or a Toyota gas station to fill up at? This world used to be able to get along, to find general welfare. Cooperation used to exist. Tesla keeps being more and more an example of anti-cooperative anti-civil market-capture horseshit. A car no one else can repair, with it's own charging infrastructure, it's own roads: this screams "THE ENEMY" to me. It's the most capitalist-lowlife Lawful Evil behaviors writ large here, on display: vulgar & primitive exercises in dominance, with no pretense that there's space for anyone else in the world, no sense in leaving any room for any one else on the planet.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#66Same with TVs, please. I can't find a single OLED on the market that doesn't have Android or some shitty Samsung OS installed on it.
I went with WebOS, so far the best of them, meaning the less painfull one.
I have an LG TV with WebOS. The OS is fine, but the CPU is underpowered and has difficulty streaming video.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#67> For media, an aux input does it all. Doubles as a charging cable, and you could easily swap it out for different and new devices
I thought aux only carries analog sound, is charging a new feature? Did I miss Aux-C? What does the author mean?
Re: Please make a dumb car
#68One thing I was flabbergasted at recently was Tesla offering, and the government allowing, regular drivers to use a yoke steering wheel like F1 drivers. Not only is it harder for the average person to handle but their firmware hadn't accounted for the fact that if you steer fully left or right the yoke is upside down and if you try and indicate it ends up indicating on the wrong side. What is wrong with a wheel and f…
The steering wheel in an F1 car only goes about 220 degrees in either direction (drivers have to keep their hands on the wheel and their arms aren't made of rubber). The steering in a regular car goes about 540 degrees in either direction (one and a half times around). When parallel parking you often have to turn the wheel three whole revolutions.
F1 steering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVz6IW_wegs&t=45s
Tesla steering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWtJu0q3sBQ&t=44s
Re: Please make a dumb car
#69No post body was provided.
Re: Please make a dumb car
#70I would kill for Ye Olde Manually Wound windows. Electric windows struggle in temperature extremes, and seem to break down far more often than my old hand-cranked windows ever did. Also, I had more precise control with the hand-crank.
I have an entirely unreasonable fear of getting stuck in my car as it slowly sinks, unable to open the windows. It makes me want to get hand-cranked windows.