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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.

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 Anything the car makers produce will be woefully out of date before I sell the car.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

Cornpop ,

CarPlay is the truth. All that built in shit is utter trash.

happyhippo ,

Android Auto for me

thelastknowngod ,

I live in a city where owning a car is not necessary. For the rare occasions that I do need/want a car I will rent. I go out of my way to request cars with android auto. I don’t know how anyone could buy a car today without it… It’s really unacceptable.

Carter ,

I don’t see the hype with CarPlay/Android Auto. I’d rather just not have a screen in my car.

custer ,

This is the correct answer. Give me more buttons and knobs and switches

TwinTurbo ,

CarPlay and Android Auto actually work well, and you can use the apps that you already have on your phone. The screens are generally more convenient and restrict view less than a phone holder stuck to the window. But without those, I agree that I’d rather have no screen than one with crappy media controls and the car’s own navigation.

Cornpop ,

I gotta have it. Although my car is designed properly with knobs and buttons for ac, seat heat, and radio controls. Was a major factor when deciding what I bought. I absolutely love how seamless CarPlay works with my music and GPS. Nice not to have to have a phone mount on my dash.

boonhet ,

I can control Waze and Apple Music/Podcasts from my steering wheel, or the rotary knob. Or the touchpad if I was a weirdo. It’s amazing.

Yes, you could achieve the same for music/podcasts via bluetooth, but you couldn’t switch between which app is playing, and you didn’t get Waze/Maps/Whatever GPS app you prefer, they’re all better than the built in shit on most cars.

I suppose you could also get by with a paper map for your road trips and stuff, but personally I’m too lazy for that. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want to stop my car to figure out where I’m going.

First ,

Try having an infotainment system that will just randomly disconnect and crash Android Auto every ~10 minutes. I don’t own a car myself, but instead use a non-profit car rental service, so I’ve tried my fair share of different manufacturers and models. The worst of them all is the one in Skoda Superb (VW group company), if you put it back from reverse into drive, it would normally just freeze the entire screen while still on rear camera, and the front sensors wouldn’t work. Then it would reboot the whole infotainment system after some minutes.

The worst physical interface can also be found in VW group cars, both VW ID3 and Cupra Born have a completely horrible capacitive touch button setup, which makes you unintendedly touch them when just holding the steering wheel, doing things like disabling lane control, changing cruise control etc. They said they chose them because they wanted to give a “premium feel”, which indicates they basically did zero user testing. At least they are changing to physical buttons for new models. The software is pretty bad as well, laggy and unintuitive menus. Their CEO recently resigned, and they’ve put $9 billion into increasing their developer team past 10k people, so I assume it has been acknowledged and will get better in newer models.

horizon ,

I have an ID3 and agree with you to some degree. It’s not quite unusable, but the touch buttons are high on the list of things I’d like to change.

I’m not that bothered with the layout of the infotainment system, but it’d be great if it didn’t slow down and crash as often.

If they had gotten those things right is the ID3 would have been such a perfect little car for me. I love it otherwise. Quick, decent ACC, range is fine for its intended use.

First ,

Yeah it’s a great car apart from the infotainment and related buttons, really firm handling and build quality like most other VW models.

horizon ,

I’ve got a Kia K5 rental at the moment and I kind of wish I could have brought my ID3. Although charging infrastructure does seem a bit lacking here in the US compared to home in the Netherlands.

happyhippo ,

No need to add anything to this, I got a Golf 8 🤣

Tbh the infotainment is kinda glitchy when reversing, but never to the point of completely crashing.

That pain with capacitive buttons is real tho.

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.

fubo ,

Some proposed design principles:

  1. It’s a car.
  2. It’s not a goddamn TV.
  3. It’s not your goddamn ads platform or subscription service.
  4. It is, however, a piece of life-safety-critical equipment.
  5. Because it’s a car, the driver wants to deal with car stuff like driving, navigating, fuel, roads, obstacles, and not killing people.
  6. They also want to make it passably comfortable by messing with the heat or AC, the fans, the windows, and the fucking moon roof.
  7. Messing with your phone while driving is Actually Illegal these days in civilized parts of the planet. This is for good reason: people get killed that way.
  8. If the car requires messing with your phone, or messing with something that is basically your phone, then you have failed.
  9. There should be a big knob with a fan icon on it. Turning this knob all the way to the left causes the fan to turn off all the way. Turning the knob all the way to the right causes the fan to turn on all the way.
  10. If I ever have to use a touchscreen to control the side mirrors, I will become an extremely unhappy ape.
Kalkaline ,
@Kalkaline@lemmy.one avatar

Fuck cars

fubo ,

Your kink is not my kink, but your kink is okay.

archomrade ,

Gotta get the cussy.

b34k ,

Agree… but I live in America… so there’s basically no reasonable alternative

CaptainAniki ,

Bitch I biked across this fucking continent. You have choices. Your fucking lazy.

evranch ,

Oh, for those carefree days. But someday if you have a house and a family to support, you’ll quickly find the difference between being lazy and being exhausted by your responsibilities.

I would love to take a month off and bike across the continent. That sounds incredibly lazy to me.

bobs_monkey ,

No shit, I barely have time to ride my bike around the neighborhood after work before making dinner, let alone for a month at a time.

CaptainAniki ,

That’s not the point, high-speed. You have options. Your legs work fine.

CaptainAniki ,

yeah no one ever bikes anywhere ever and its all just grown men in spandex out for a joy ride.

Yes, a month to bike across the county was awesome! I’m sure you’re just the fittest little tiger ever and doing 80 miles a day is easy-peasy!

AnAngryAlpaca ,

Sometimes people don’t want to bike 2h each day to get to work and back, especially if you live in the desert…

alsimoneau ,

Here’s an idea: don’t live in a desert.

Zron ,

Bitch I work in the trades.

You want me strap a condenser, furnace, A coil, 50 feet of line set, and 100 pounds of tools and supplies to a bicycle, and then tell my customers I can only see 2 of them a day because I’m gonna bike from each house and back to the shop for each call?

CaptainAniki ,

Sounds like a letter U problem.

Kalkaline ,
@Kalkaline@lemmy.one avatar

Yeah, I hear you. I wish I had better bike infrastructure and a decent rail system in my city.

zxo ,

I would pay more to get a car with more buttons than you can comprehend and a small little infotainment system that allows you to play music than a super futuristic car with a iPad in the center and nothing else in the center console area.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

physical buttons for the important stuff; stuff like setting interior RBG lighting color and intensity? that can go on soft buttons.

Rivalarrival ,

If a feature can go on soft buttons, it can stay at the fucking factory.

evranch ,

For real if I wanted RGB footwell lighting I would install it myself. And I did, in my first beater car, as a dumb teenager does. I thought it looked pretty cool.

But now as a grown man I want a car to start every time, go fast when I step on the pedal, and have AC like a refrigerator. If it’s a truck I want it to pull heavy trailers and not get stuck in mud and THAT’S IT.

Currently driving a 2008 Crown Vic and a 1978 F350 on propane, both of which do exactly what I want.

Proweruser ,

Adjusting mirrors and seats can go on the touch screen as you do that before the drive and I don’t think those can stay at the factory.

awderon ,

Sometimes I have to readjust the mirrors during a trip depending on how I sit.

boonhet ,

No thanks, mirrors and seats are too important for the touch screen and sometimes need to be adjusted while driving, as you adjust your sitting position.

And really, I don’t want to spend an extra 10 seconds (if you know the car) or 2 minutes (if it’s someone else’s) to get the seat and mirrors adjusted beofre a drive. I want to get in the car, adjust things quickly, and go.

Proweruser ,

How are you people moving in your seat this much? I never had to adjust anything but the rear view mirror and that is manual anyway.

boonhet ,

I’ve adjusted mine twice in the last month alone because I needed to fold down the rear seats. But also sometimes you borrow your car to someone who doesn’t have a memory setting. Or your car doesn’t have memory seats and has multiple users.

If I have to use a touchscreen to adjust my seat once a month, that’s 11 times a year too much for me. Buttons? Fine. Levers and wheels like in old cars? Also fine.

Proweruser ,

Um yeah, you do that before you start driving. All the situations you mentioned don’t necessitate adjusting the mirrors while you are driving.

Or are you one of those people who complain about distracted driving due to touch screens, but then drive off with completely maladjusted mirrors? Bro…

Rivalarrival ,

The proper mirror position for driving on the freeway is maladjusted for parallel parking, and vice versa. Doing both in a single trip requires an adjustment.

boonhet ,

I don’t even want to do that shit on a touchscreen when I’m stopped dude, it should take less than 5 seconds so I can get moving.

deafboy ,
@deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

We share it with other people. I, personally, would just ban short people, but they do exist and they love to move the seat away from my sweet spot.

If I had to use the touchscreen to fix it every time, I’d just leave it in a ditch and set it on fire.

Rivalarrival ,

My posture is completely different in the city, where I am constantly leaning forward and looking over shoulders to clear blind spots, and my foot is regularly on brake and accelerator. Contrast on the highway, where my head and body are mostly still, and my feet are flat on the floor while using cruise control. Since I’m not moving around as much, I regularly move the seat slightly to reduce pressure points.

Similar with the mirrors: For city driving, I want my mirrors a little lower and narrower to see parking spots while backing. For freeway, a little higher and wider gives better visibility of the blind spots without needing to move around as much. For towing, I want them even lower when backing, and even higher and wider on the freeway to clear blind spots.

Yeah, I might go more than a month without touching either the seats or the mirrors at all. But, I might also be adjusting both a dozen times in a single trip.

Proweruser ,

Adjusting mirrors and seats can go on the touch screen as you do that before the drive and I don’t think those can stay at the factory.

Cortell ,

I think it’s hilarious the people waxing poetic about how dangerous it is to use touch screens while driving are downvoting you because they’re adjusting mirrors while driving.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

EQ for the sound system?

Zron ,

My 2004 Honda accord had a good EQ, and it was all controlled with 2 buttons and the radio tuning dial to adjust the levels.

There is no need for a touchscreen in a vehicle. A small screen for displaying information is one thing, but I should not be compelled to play with what amounts to an iPad when I’m driving a car.

Rivalarrival ,

If the sound system is why the touchscreen is in the car, the sound system can stay at the factory.

nbailey ,
@nbailey@lemmy.ca avatar

Get a 2004-2009 car, yank the stereo out and throw an aftermarket headunit with android/carplay in. Best of both worlds!

Calcium5332 ,

2010-2012 will work as well if no tech package. My 2010 Lexus RX350 has no touchscreen, but still has knobs and a backup camera on the back mirror. It’s wonderful.

Rai ,

Ugh one of our cars needs a new head unit, as its mid-2000s aftermarket unit has gone bad. But I can only get the dang thing halfway out. I can’t even get to seeing the wires in the back. No idea how it was put in, but it seems the wires are too short, maybe I have to remove the whole dashboard front thing?

crossover ,

Mazda. They’ve brought back physical buttons and have support for CarPlay if you want it.

zxo ,

I’ve also heard they are decent cars, at this point I’ll just keep driving what I’ve got and hope that in a couple years, more manufacturers will return to making most things controllable by physical buttons.

Proweruser ,

Why 10? It’s not like you do that while driving.

Thing is every knob saved saves time and money during manufacturing. So the companies want to put as much as they can on the touch screen. I don’t mind if they do that with things I do before driving, I mind a lot if it’s something I have to do during the drive.

bobs_monkey ,

Yeah they do it to save money, and then charge you out the ass for “oOh LoOk ItS tHe FuTuRe”

Proweruser ,

Well prices should come down once competition from the Chinese manufacturers picks up. Hopefully at least.

In China you can get a VW ID.3 for 15000€ and a Tesla model 3 for 30.000€.

riskable ,
@riskable@programming.dev avatar

In China, you can get a VW ID.3 manufactured by a state-owned and subsidized company in China. The same is true for the Tesla Model 3.

Basically, the Chinese government is subsidizing electric car (and battery) production (and enforcing domestic protectionist policies) so of course the same version of the car is cheaper in China. The US goes with a different approach, by providing tax write-offs to people who purchase electric cars which is vastly less efficient (and more expensive to US taxpayers).

Proweruser ,

China hasn’t subsidized the EV industry in years. Don’t believe everything you hear from your 60 year old neighbour.

The fact is batteries have come down in price so much that that price of the car is absolutely economically viable. They are just milking us for all we are worth in the west.

Proweruser ,

Why 10? It’s not like you do that while driving.

Thing is every knob saved saves time and money during manufacturing. So the companies want to put as much as they can on the touch screen. I don’t mind if they do that with things I do before driving, I mind a lot if it’s something I have to do during the drive.

FireWire400 ,
@FireWire400@lemmy.world avatar

No. 9 but for media volume, touch controls are garbage and gestures are even more garbage.

Looking at you, VAG.

abcd ,

Oh yeah those shitty VAG touch controls. Went to a customer with my employee in summer. When returning home we opened the sunroof to cool the car down quickly. Couldn’t close that mf for 10kms on the autobahn until everything cooled down. Absolutely horrible.

boonhet ,

When returning home we opened the sunroof to cool the car down quickly

Wouldn’t AC cool it down quicker? And more efficiently at autobahn speeds anyway, drag is worse than running AC at speed.

I don’t disagree with you on the horribleness of the controls though. Worst part is, MB has gone the same route. I’ve got the last generation with physical HVAC buttons. I have no idea what my next car will be, but apparently Mercedes doesn’t want me to buy their cars anymore. Mazda has come out as anti-touchscreen, which I admire, but it’s going to be a hell of an adjustment in terms of suspension and drivetrain comfort.

abcd ,

The plan was to let the heat out for a couple of seconds until the ac was cooled down 😉

Had a Mazda in the past and driving a Honda now. The Japanese cars are often conservative and not as fancy as the European ones but usually they just work in my experience. They are often cheaper and maintenance is also cheaper. My 320HP Civic Type-R has the same maintenance costs then our Fiat Tipo with 120HP. Performance wise it was comparable to a A45 AMG which cost twice as much with maintenance costs about 2-3x of the Honda.

Mazda may be a smaller car brand but their combustion engines are often very innovative.

boonhet ,

I mostly drive slightly bigger cars. So while I’m fairly sure the Japanese will beat the A-class in just about every metric, but they don’t really have a good answer for C-class and above - outside of maybe Lexus, but a 3 year old Lexus is way more expensive than a 3 year old Mercedes. I buy my cars after a few years of depreciation, so I actually like the fact that German cars depreciate a lot in their first few years. But then Lexus doesn’t really have good diesel engines like the Germans do, so fuel consumption differences alone will add up a lot.

To be clear, I don’t really need or want any of the fancy features (aside from Carplay, which is starting to be ubiquitous), but just the suspension setup alone between a C-class and a Toyota Camry is vastly different. The 9 speed auto box is also excellent, to the point that I don’t even feel like I’m driving a tiny 2 liter diesel with only 190HP.

mawp ,

A special place in hell is reserved for whoever the hell keeps putting capacitive buttons on cars, ESPECIALLY when they put them on the steering wheel!

Thadrax ,

No. 9 but for media volume

Thankfully, all cars I’ve driven that had a touch screen also had some media buttons on the steering wheel. I’d prefer to have good old physical buttons in the center console, but at least you didn’t have to use the touch screen.

deafboy ,
@deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

Buttons on the wheel are better than a touchscreen, but they suffer from being all backwards sometimes, as you use the wheel for it’s intended purpose. The old Peugeots had this thing behind the wheel, you can controll the radio with, using just 2 fingers, without looking. It’s the peak user experience. Nothing will ever beat it. I feel a suden urge to buy a beer for whoever came up with it.

cartronics.co.uk/…/Peugeot-207-Steering-Wheel-Con…

Thadrax ,

French cars regularly had sometimes strange looking but often quite useful quirks.

derpysmilingcat ,

…who tf…which car maker has gestures? If you’re gonna gesture how about you gesture your damn hand over to the button?

FireWire400 ,
@FireWire400@lemmy.world avatar

I think mostly VAG (VW-owned brands) and BMW, maybe Mercedes as well. VAG uses them to sense your hand approaching the touchscreen to hide additional items “when you don’t need them”, BMW uses full-on hand waving to navigate menus.

Nioxic ,

Dont worry.

They will make it all voice controlled in the future!

TrenchcoatFullofBats ,

"Alexa, take me Starbucks and play latest episode of “Ow, My Balls”.

otacon239 ,

I have been saying this for years. The last thing your car should do is take your eyes off the road. This is a 1-3 ton box of metal hurdling at 60+ miles down the highway next to a bunch of other metal boxes that can all kill each other.

And car manufacturers seem to be in love with the idea of you forgetting you’re even driving. Add on all the bs lane assisting, warning bells, alerts, automatic correction, and the driver is convinced that the car will protect them.

These are all systems built on software. Last time I checked, that shit has never been reliable. If the software fails, the manufacturer can just hide behind “They weren’t paying attention!”

Mfer, YOU TRAINED THEM TO IGNORE IT. I don’t know what I’m going to do when all the cars from before touchscreens and digital gauges are no longer running or affordable because I hate the idea of having to look at a screen to change volume or turn on the AC.

Modern cars can suck a fuck.

ramjambamalam ,

Mfer, YOU TRAINED THEM TO IGNORE IT

Remember when a self-driving car killed someone walking their bike in Arizona, while the car’s “handler” was watching a movie on their tablet?

Yeah, the employee should have been paying attention, but it’s not realistic to expect someone to stay alert for an 8-hour shift where the task is as monotonous as watching a car drive itself. That’s why commercial transport drivers have mandated breaks and why two pilots are in charge of an airplane at a time.

To be clear, I am in favour of self-driving cars and don’t think they need to be perfect, just better than the average human, but the companies training them need to have standards that are both realistic and safe.

RidcullyTheBrown ,

but it’s not realistic to expect someone to stay alert for an 8-hour shift where the task is as monotonous as watching a car drive itself.

It wasn’t an 8 hour shift and watching the car was the actual job, come on! The driver was the tester. They were testing a system which wasn’t yet ready to go untested. The accident is entirely the fault of the driver in that case.

And it’s not like their reflexes were slower because of boredom. No. They were not paying any attention at all. They were watching a video. That is gross negligence and not the fault of the car or of the manufacturer.

Empricorn ,

They were testing. While it almost certainly wasn’t explicit, they were also testing the worst self-driving car operators. And human nature. Yes, it was their job and they should have been paying close attention every second. But if they were… Is it possible a worse (less-safe) self-driving car would have made it to market? I think fatalities from self-driving cars are going to happen regardless, whether during or after the testing process, and I also think that’s horrible…

RidcullyTheBrown ,

But if they were… Is it possible a worse (less-safe) self-driving car would have made it to market?

The purpose of the testing was to make sure that good products made it to the market. Events like these which are human error have created bad press and have set the concept back by years. And these are not years of research, no. These are years in which the projects have been put on the back burner and we’re getting small increments like lane assist which are bad (as in poor quality) most of the time and give users the false feeling that they have a self driving car.

I think fatalities from self-driving cars are going to happen regardless, whether during or after the testing process, and I also think that’s horrible…

I don’t think that’s the correct way to look at it. Accidents will happen. It is impossible to prevent all of them. But the total number of fatalities would go down dramatically if self driving cars would be more present on the roads and that is a huge win.

42,795 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in US alone in 2022. I think that even with the current technology, this number would still be reduced by half and that is a huge win.

Empricorn ,

The purpose of the testing was to make sure that good products made it to the market.

No, the purpose of testing is to make sure profitable products make it to market. Even the most good-intentioned company (do they exist?) has their priorities set by shareholders.

For example, airlines have a set price they will pay the families of people killed by them. Is it moral? Is it ethical? No. It is financial. What can they offer, without having to enact costly behavior and safety overhauls…

RidcullyTheBrown ,

What can they offer, without having to enact costly behavior and safety overhauls…

Flying is the safest, most regulated, way of travel. There are virtually no accidents because of these regulations. Why would there be a need for an overhaul?

Locrin ,

I mean, these things are going to happen. But that person was attempting to cross 5 lines of traffic after crossing 2 just before. It’s a terrible idea to try that. Here is a picture: static01.nyt.com/…/accident-diagram-1050.png

The driver also ignored safety instructions. You can only plan for so much. Let’s say you put two drivers in the car. They could both be watching the movie and not paying attention. I have no sympathy for the driver being “bored”. I used to have a long boring commute. I listened to audio books and podcasts. I did not fiddle with my phone or watch movies. If you pilot a veihicle with autonomous driving or not pay attention. Most people can handle that just driving themselves around. This person had it as a job. No excuse.

limelight79 ,

I’ll note that you were actually doing something during that long, boring commute - you were driving the car (I assume). In the other case, the person wasn’t doing anything at all and had nothing to focus on…that’s MUCH harder.

Skavargen ,

I’d argue that the safety assistance tech is very, very good and should continue.

Fucking touch screens for HVAC and audio controls are a menace though. How do regulatory agencies allow this?

Then there’s the fucking warning message not to look at your screen that starts every time I turn it on. 90% of the time I am not looking at the screen, so I don’t realize I have to click through their warning message until I’m already driving. All they achieved is distracting me and making me look away from the road.

Locrin ,

I don’t understand why some cars have these warnings and not others? I drive a Tesla Model S 2014. I never get any annoying warnings or distractions that pop up. My dad drives a Audi Q4 Sportback. It has an annoying popup every time you start the car and will also randomly notify you about stuff that you do not really care about while driving? My mothers old Subaru also has a popup every time you start the car that you have to press okay on just to use the fucking radio. So you can’t get in and go you have to wait for it to display it’s shitty little warning. Then press go, then start driving. And this is on old diesel. So it’s not like this is new.

I understand not everyone wants a touchscreen / large display in their car but coming from a Kia Sportage 2012, I am very happy in the Tesla, even if it ment losing some buttons. Most things are controlled with the buttons on the steering wheel.

limelight79 ,

I’d argue that the safety assistance tech is very, very good and should continue.

Not in our Mazda. Frequent false alarms (and in that time, not a single “real” alarm triggered), a nails-on-a-chalkboard sound that irritates me every time I hear it, and the lane “assist” feature likes to steer me back toward obstacles I was trying to avoid, like cyclists, animals, large potholes, oversized loads…

I would like to see the statistics that demonstrate that that technology is reducing crashes and/or reducing the severity of crashes. Because I know ours has trained me to ignore that alarm. I haven’t asked many people, but a few people I know have turned the alarms off.

Wrench ,

My wife’s old Volt would beep at fucking everything. Parallel parked and backing up? You’d think the car was about to explode. Put in drive with enough room to pull out? Same.

Really cemented my desire to drive my old beater into the ground.

IcansmellyourBundt ,

I was in a wreck three weeks ago that may have been avoided if I had not needed to look back and check my blindspot. I made damn sure that my new car had blindspot monitoring. 360° cameras is a bit much but just that little bit of tech can make a big difference.

Wrench ,

I find it stupid as hell that there are conditionary alerts and changed UI when in “car” mode on phone apps, as well as Bluetooth pairing being disabled while driving.

I get it, they want you to not use the apps while driving. But you know what’s even more distracting than messing with a device while driving? Trying to troubleshoot unexpected UXs while driving

Not to mention that passengers exist. Convincing my friend to pull over and put the car in park so I can be navigator and DJ for our little road trip was certainly more distracting than just having an open and predictable UX

Natal ,

I was driving with Waze once, on the highway but first gear like 10km/h because trafic. A popup came and I wanted to discard it because I was nearly at my turn and didn’t want to lose it so I pushed the cross. By the small time I spent doing this, I was already going sideways off my lane.

Lesson learned. Next time it happens I’d rather stay in my lane and take the next exit. But fk the people putting Ads in my car. Let me focus.

Marsupial ,
@Marsupial@quokk.au avatar

Oh, please, tell me, otacon239, how exactly does one suck a fuck?

JigglySackles ,

This trend is why I am saving to swap the engine on my car when it blows. I don’t like any screens in my car but a digital clock, and maybe a readout on the dash. I just want a fun, reliable vehicle with excellent AC, good safety ratings, and decent fuel mileage. Power windows are a bonus. Lol

beigeoat ,
@beigeoat@lemmy.zip avatar

Rather than a screen a good place to mount phone by default which is easy to remove and place would be amazing.

eros ,

That would be awesome. Give me a place to put my phone, connect me to an amp/speakers and noise cancelling mic array via Bluetooth. That’s all I need from a car stereo. AM/FM tuner is nice in an emergency or no data area.

gendulf ,

I don’t like any screens in my car

I thought I didn’t either until I got a car with a built-in backup cam. Extremely helpful, and I feel vulnerable in a car without it.

visiblink ,
@visiblink@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

That’s partly because modern cars have really bad sightlines. The old ones (without airbags) had thinner pillars between the windows and way more glass, which meant that you could see around the car much better.

JigglySackles ,

Yeah I didn’t think about that. I can see that being a good exception. Good point.

slumlordthanatos ,

In the US, they’re mandatory in all new vehicles.

I’d wager this is part of the reason for the ubiquitousness of touchscreens.

HurlingDurling ,

I am waiting for this day as well, and hoping I can then mod my truck to be electric.

JigglySackles ,

That’d be dope too. I wouldn’t mind a customer electro retrofit eventually. Infrastructure needs vast improvements first.

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

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

My wife’s (2023) Rav4 shows texts on the screen when she receives them while driving. I’m just amazed at that.

visiblink ,
@visiblink@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I hate that. I don’t connect my phone because of it.

lingh0e ,

For the record, when you connect your phone to the Rav4’s bluetooth, you can set it to audio/phone only.

visiblink ,
@visiblink@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Thanks. I’ll look to see if my Subaru has the same setting.

lingh0e ,

It’s through your phone. At least on Android, when you connect to a new bluetooth device your phone will specifically ask you what privileges to allow. I limit mine specifically to audio and phone calls.

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.

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.

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…

Perhaps ,

I couldn’t care less about all of the proprietary “infotainment” stuff, but I’ll never buy another car that doesn’t have Apple car play or maybe Android auto if I ever switch back to Android one day. Some manufacturers have talked about killing support.

iwasgodonce ,

I have a 2018 car and the android auto on it doesn’t seem to be compatible with the android auto on phones anymore. It worked fine for a few years, but not anymore. I highly doubt they release a software update for it to make it compatible again.

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.

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