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People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars — For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, wit...

People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars — For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, wit…::People are dissatisfied with the technology in their cars, according to a new survey from JD Power. They especially don’t like the native infotainment systems.

StarDrek ,

Yeah my 2013 Honda has Hondalink, whatever the heck that is and an outdated GPS system which I refuse to pay to upgrade. I typically buy a five or six year old honda which I don’t look forward to next go round, bc I’m sure the tech will be woefully outdated.

Froody ,

The only app I need is Android auto or a decent equivalent. Heck I don’t even need on board GPS. Just let me plug in my smartphone and have it display everything on the car’s screen.

m3t00 ,
@m3t00@lemmy.world avatar

useful technology has been neglected for years. simple thing like autostart and remote warm up/cool down have been outsourced instead of built in. some brands are light years ahead with apps/monitoring and people are figuring that out.

Empricorn ,

It’s not a joke, the majority of people carry around a crazy amount of technology in our phones.

And it’s not meaningfully replaced in the console. I don’t know what GM’s thinking because I will never accept a business or personal vehicle that doesn’t have Car Play/Android Auto ever again. It’s that useful…

ky56 , (edited )

My buying habits mostly consist of living in the late 2000s and what little open source tech there is a available such as framework and pine64. I’m allergic to manufactured ewaste. If i can’t maintain it, i don’t want it.

I love the idea of a computerized car and fully integrated infotainment system. In the same way I would love a fully automated house. The automation and debugging benefits would be incredible. But only if I’m in control at an open source hardware / software level. Otherwise it’s just manufactured ewaste to me.

Beowulf ,

Same reason I’m still driving an older truck. While I’ve been wanting to upgrade to a new truck, I don’t want to deal with the computer controlling every aspect of the vehicle (breaks, accelerator, lights, etc.) As it is now, if I want to turn my headlights on, a relay controls it. Same with the turn signal, radio, A/C, and the list goes on

KreekyBonez ,

I had to drive a newer Subaru recently, and it had no physical interface for any of the fan controls. I had to glance down to change temperature and speed, and that had me really uncomfortable.

Flat screen HMI don’t work in cars, and I am not on board with it as a standard.

duffman ,

I don’t get how my headlights can be set to off and for some reason they are still on. And I don’t need my headlights to stay on for 30 seconds after I leave my car, I want to know that my lights are off and I won’t wake up to a dead battery. (Luckily I just figured out how to disable this)

And automatic lift gates that don’t open unless 10 unknown conditions are met is infuriating. It’s not a useful feature unless your disabled.

I do like those unlock buttons on the door handles when your keys are nearby though… When they work anyways.

Beowulf ,

I do like those unlock buttons on the door handles when your keys are nearby though… When they work anyways.

My Dad has an '08 Toyota Prius that was gifted to him recently. He loves being able to just unlock the door by grabbing the handle. I tried it out for about a week when he was still getting the tags for it and also enjoyed it.

My '10 Ford Ranger is a fleet truck, so simplified its an XL with zero options. The only “upgrade” might’ve been the seats, vinyl instead of cloth. No electronic locks, no alarm, no electronic windows.

nl4real ,

The older I get and the more I get into tech, the less I want of it in my life. Especially when driving two tons of metal on the highway. Fuck that noise.

LordShrek ,

the “term” technology has been corrupted. what people call “tech” is not tech, it is gadgetry.

aquielias ,

they basically kill the car stereo and install scene, back in the 90 to like 2010 you could easly do alot of car stereo mods I mean alot, but then they started to put this screen with car functions embeded on them like AC etc. so you can’t exchange them for what you want.

malloc ,

True story. Next car I own will be a manual. Won’t even bother setting up the electronic junk if it comes with it.

RFBurns ,

…useless tech

Oh, it is “useful”; to the real ‘owners’ of “your” car…

Skates , (edited )

Yup. I’m in Automotive, I work for a company that makes software for basically any car brand you can think of. I just recently left an internally developed project that aimed to create a personal assistant in the car. It was terribly ran and will go nowhere, but other departments in other companies will probably have more success, especially since the rise of chatgpt.

To add to your point though - the main idea on how to sell this assistant to car makers was the features, but the driving force behind developing the project was customer data. Collect a huge amount of info from customers, info that is shared with the car brand, but also accessible to us. To give some credit, discussions were never about using it for evil purposes - imagine a secretary knowing their boss’ schedule, our software would make suggestions like “you can’t make your 1 PM luch appointment with the client, would you like to reschedule it” and “I see you’re headed to Chicago and will arrive in 2 hours, should I make a reservation at that restaurant you like?” or some shit like that. But we all know that it’s not the engineers who decide what the company does with the data once access to that data exists. And knowing where a user eats, having access to their calendar, having access to their phone… This shit can get out of hand so easily when a budget-oriented executive type decides it’s time for this project to be even more profitable by selling the data to advertisers.

Last I heard before I left, the plan was to “get consent” to process this data through a disclaimer when booting the car’s infotainment system, saying that attached devices share data with our servers etc. Read the manuals, ToS and pop-ups and don’t connect your devices to systems that do this. You’re already the client when buying a car worth thousands of dollars. Don’t also be the product.

LordShrek ,

such bullshit. how can engineers not let this happen?

ninja ,

Unfortunately I think engineers, as employees of a company, don’t have a lot of power. You aren’t typically the one making feature decisions. You can always try to talk product people out of bad ideas, but at some point if you refuse to do what you’ve been told to, you lose your job. Some engineers are in a financial position to take that high road, but a lot aren’t. And then even if you do quit, there will always be someone else willing to do what you aren’t.

I think as long as there is money in doing unethical (but legal) things, those things will continue to happen

LordShrek ,

so this is why i think that reasonable engineers (and most actual engineers are reasonable, hence being an “engineer”) should get together and make good stuff. stuff that is not corrupted by perverse incentives. an engineer is capable of understanding the flaws of an economy and how that can be detrimental to the functionality of some tool or system.

teuast ,

unfortunately as long as they’re still subject to the whims of global capitalism, they will never be free from perverse incentives

LordShrek ,

subject to the whims of global capitalism

so how can we make that not be the case? this is what engineers and innovators are thinking about. we are thinking about what the next system will be and planning how to get there.

teuast ,

systemic change is required, that’s for sure. as to the how of that? fucked if i know tbh

visiblink ,
@visiblink@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I just took my '91 Mazda off the road (undercarriage rust) and bought a '24 Subaru Crosstrek with an 11" touchscreen that I did not want. The best feature? You can turn it off and it stays off, every time you use the car.

If you put the heat/AC into auto, there are physical buttons to raise and lower the temperature. The screen flashes on for a second to display the temperature change. There are also physical buttons on the steering wheel to skip through the radio stations (which display between the tach and speedometer) and adjust the volume.

Perfect. I’m so glad not to have to leave that screen on.

TenderfootGungi ,

Just give me an amp with Bluetooth so I can play my phone through the car speakers. Anything the car makers produce will be woefully out of date before I sell the car.

KreekyBonez ,

see also: every mid-to-late 00’s car with specific iPod connection ports

MonsiuerPatEBrown ,

i wonder if what the cassette tape adapter of the future will be like for people into vintage cars from 2010-2023?

KreekyBonez ,

I have a feeling this era of cars won’t last long enough to become vintage

but radio will outlive everything, so those low FM station override things could make a comeback

MonsiuerPatEBrown ,

I am a big FM radio user. I lurve that free RF

HurlingDurling ,

Fuck all of this, and insurance companies that want to track your driving behavior with a module installed in your car.

cantstopthesignal ,

I use rental cars quite often. There’s so much garbage in newer cars. Why is there something trying to control my steering wheel, seriously who thought that was a good idea. Also nothing is tactile responsive anymore. It’s like being sold a bloat ware filled phone where you can only use garbage native apps. They made it so much more dangerous.

ocassionallyaduck ,

The Polestar by Volvo is absolutely going to convince someone to never touch an EV again. Not because of the charging, that was fine. But oh my god the interior design and the UX of their infotainment is among the worst I have ever had to tolerate. I wanted to drive the car into the ocean.

Perkele ,

It’s still better to drive than a tesla, but I agree that the Polestar UX is crap.

2lama ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    lolcatnip ,

    Nobody’s getting arrested for accidentally calling 911.

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