38 ms·

Please make a dumb car

• eternityforest 5y ago
  Screens are cheaper than physical. They also have less to break(Assuming it's all done correctly). Why not just get better UI designers instead of perpetuating the idea of using more physical resources than necessary and not getting safety features like backup cameras?
• random_savv 5y ago
  > 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?
  • Fatnino 5y ago
    He means a typical usb data connection. Friend of mine called me from his rental car asking why his phone notifications were still coming through the car despite having Bluetooth turned off. Of course he was charging his phone from the built in USB port and it was actually a data port.
  • dTal 5y ago
    Aux-PD (power delivery) is definitely not a thing, and now I'm mad I didn't think of it.
    • Gigachad 5y ago
      The iPod nano used aux for data and charging. But not at the same time as audio.
  • jve 5y ago
    Some more: > Not to mention the privacy and security concerns. I was dubious the first time I saw a GPS in a car, my mom’s old RX300, about 20 years ago. “Yeah… that’s how they get you,” I thought Well, that reasoning was flawed 20 years ago - GPS means YOU know where you are, not the other way around. There has to be other communication channel for that data to "escape". If your car is data-enabled with SIM card, only then it is a concern.
    • the_biot 5y ago
      Yup, and anyone with a heartbeat figured that out at some point in the last 20 years. Yet the article also says > Not having GPS or data (or hidden microphones or cameras) also makes your vehicle feel more private, obviously. I can't exclude the possibility that the author is a moron, but I suspect it's just outrage-bait. Like that whole article.
      • kunai 5y ago
        For vehicles with an inbuilt cellular connection like OnStar or Starlink or any of the myriad of other systems like them, the vehicle will regularly phone home your GPS fix from time to time and there is no way to turn it off. I think this is what the author was trying to get at but phrased it poorly due to it being sort of a technicality.
        • jve 5y ago
          How? Escape channel is called internet, not GPS. Obviously if your car has Internet and GPS, it can do it. But if you had only starlink dish on your car, without GPS, I wouldn't be surprised if it was technically possible to track location to some degree of accuracy.
  • raxxorrax 5y ago
    There are some devices that are charged with aux cables, although it is rare. I think that is a bad solution because they almost always cause a short circuit when connecting/disconnecting. Usually that is neglected for audio signals because the power is quite low and devices have respective protections, but if you would use it for charging...
• arealaccount 5y ago
  Get a motorcycle and be one with your vehicle!
  • suyash 5y ago
    Modern sports bikes are marching towards the same future - self balancing bikes, fancy dashboards, electric bikes with no motor etc.
    • bobthebuilders 5y ago
      How can the bike not have a motor? Or like no motor in the engine sense.
      • suyash 5y ago
        Just like electric cars don’t have a motor, another word for motor is transmission in the common parlance.
        • vetinari 5y ago
          Electric cars do have motor; "motor" is literally "engine", the thing that converts energy to motion. If your parlance uses it for the transmission, your parlance is wrong. It is like calling square a circle.
  • hardolaf 5y ago
    You also get to become one with the road in case of an accident.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • rabuse 5y ago
    This is exactly what I did recently. No more "you need to take this to the dealer to fix for thousands with their machine™", and I can replace every single component on the thing my damn self. The less parts, the less that can fail.
• llamajams 5y ago
  I had a frank conversation with an SSE in infotainment about all this not so long ago; he generally agreed with this drift , but when I asked why? Said that what the customers(focus groups) want =\
  • vannevar 5y ago
    I wonder how they assemble those groups. I'm guessing there is some significant selection bias in the process.
• junon 5y ago
  Same 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.
  • Fezzik 5y ago
    I highly recommend TCL TVs. The remotes are super simple (with just the buttons you need), the UI is straightforward and you never have to connect to the internet. I’m on my second panel, only because I wanted to downsize from 65” to a 55” when I moved, and connected to an AppleTV it is a dream to use. Edit, to add: the OLEDs aren’t to market yet… but they’re on the way!
    • junon 5y ago
      All of their products appear to be "smart". Why can't they just make a TV that is... a TV?
      • Fezzik 5y ago
        They may be labeled as smart, but they’re not nerfed at all if you don’t connect to the internet. And there are no notifications or interruptions trying to get you to connect. You can even just hook it up to a set of rabbit ears and set ‘antenna TV’ is your default mode and every time you turn the TV on it’ll go right to over-the-air programs. I’m a big fan, obviously, as I hate smart devices. Edit: grammar.
      • colejohnson66 5y ago
        Because society wants smart TVs. You and a lot of people here don’t, but collectively, people like the idea of having Netflix/Hulu/etc right on their TVs. The cat’s out of the bag now. If you/me want a dumb TV, don’t look at consumer TVs in BestBuy, but expect to be spending over $1000.
        • emptyparadise 5y ago
          Does society really want that or does it not realize that it doesn't have to be this way?
• ab_testing 5y ago
  I 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.
  • missedthecue 5y ago
    This is a great point. It's only logical. After all, a customer who doesn't want to use the infotainment system can ignore it, but the customers who want one will reject your automobile offering out of hand if you don't include one.
    • garyfirestorm 5y ago
      Mechanical things break and require lot of design, testing and validation. A screen solves that problem more efficiently and eliminates 100’s of other parts and wires that go to other buttons.
      • theodric 5y ago
        Counterpoint: it locks all functionality behind a single point of failure, rendering all cabin controls useless simultaneously in the event of a failure of the screen or the upstream chain to the computer driving it (to say nothing of the distraction caused by a system you can't operate by feel with your eyes still on the road)
      • gnicholas 5y ago
        The screen in my Ford CMAX goes out on a regular basis. It appears to be trying to update its software, and hanging in the process. Eventually it comes back, but it could be weeks later. In the meantime, I have no backup camera, navigation, or radio. Fortunately the HVAC is controlled via physical buttons.
      • salawat 5y ago
        Says the bean counter overseeing a software project or industrial offering who has never grasped why those pesky customers assume they factor into a product offering anyway.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• aetherspawn 5y ago
  I generally didn’t agree with the article. I have found that my Toyota Corolla Hybrid has about the right mix of smart and dumb (in terms of dials and knobs), and again in disagreement to the article .. I love my digital speedo! It’s high up on the dash and closer to the road, compared to my old space-wasting meters that were more difficult to read. And the concern about the GPS in our cars invading our privacy.. this would really only concern a certain type of paranoid person. Most people don’t care. I certainly prefer the fully integrated GPS, that dims the radio and such whenever I need to do something. Removing it certainly won’t make any car fly off the shelves! Bad analysis.
  • EdwardDiego 5y ago
    My country's market is dominated by second-hand Japanese imports, a lot of the integrated navigation / entertainment systems are entirely useless if you're not driving in Japan, or can't read Japanese. When my 2005 Mazda MPV suffered a flat battery, the centre console screen which was the navigation / radio / clock / DVD player (yes, really) was bricked, and to this day displays a message in Japanese asking you to please insert the manufacturer's navigation data CD to continue using it. Which no-one has access to, not even in Japan (my brother has been living there for about ten years, and is very helpful for obscure parts requests), so now my radio and clock don't work, because I don't have a CD with data needed for a 16 year old navigation system that, when working, was thoroughly convinced I was driving long distances on the bottom of Tokyo Bay and was desperate for me to turn right and get back on dry land.
    • deadlyllama 5y ago
      New Zealand? My Dad's old Subaru Legacy used its display to show Japan rotating around as we turned corners, us always in the sea. I'm onto my second 2005 Mazda MPV (they're great cars). This time I've replaced the head unit with one of those nasty cheap Android things. Basically a confused tablet with some extra hardware, running any mapping or other app you want.
      • EdwardDiego 5y ago
• porknubbins 5y ago
  Power seats are not a pointless luxury. I’m pretty sure they are continuously adjustable which is much better than trying to pull on some lever and get the seat to pop into approximately the right place. To say nothing of mulitple drivers with memorized positions etc.
  • linux-user 5y ago
    Are all your chairs at home and office also powered?
    • jaclaz 5y ago
      ... and at the restaurant, cinema, etc.?
    • Zababa 5y ago
      Chairs at home and office aren't fixed in place to a vehicle that has a battery.
      • jaclaz 5y ago
        Ok, what about airplane or bus and train seats? They are fixed in place to a vehicle with a battery, still you don't have them powered. Not that car ones (powered, heating, massaging, etc.) are not nice and comfortable, only that they remain a form of luxury.
        • realityking 5y ago
          > what about airplane […] seats? Modern business and first class seats are indeed powered.
        • Broken_Hippo 5y ago
          I don't drive planes nor busses. I'm a passenger: The back seat(s) of passenger cars are often fixed too. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the bus driver's seat is powered. I do drive cars, though, and sometimes other people's cars. I'd much rather be able to adjust while driving so that I can have better control over the car than have to fumble with levers, which might propel me back far enough that I cannot brake. Heck, I might have been having to adjust because I didn't realize how far i needed to press the brake in the first place.
• EdwardDiego 5y ago
  I 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.
  • the_gipsy 5y ago
    Oh no you don't want them
    • tsujp 5y ago
      I've had cars with electric and manual windows. I'm 27 (so you don't think I have been biased by a lifetime of manual) and I prefer manual crank in all but a single use case: the situation where I want to wind up or down the passenger side window.
      • test1235 5y ago
        the feature to have the window open itself fully after a long-pull of the button feels safer to me in certain situations - means I don't have to spend a few seconds with my dominant hand off the wheel (and also more convenient in other situations where I need to quickly open the window and actively drive at the same time, e.g. toll booths, drive thru's)
        • tsujp 5y ago
          I wait until I'm stopped to wind up or down the passenger side window, having an electric equivalent would save me.. actually 0 time. You have to stop at a toll booth to pay the toll, you have to stop at a drive thru to pay and collect your order. It's purely a convenience mechanism to save perhaps 3 seconds of time in the event it's really super hyper critical it's rolled down before stopping (for whatever arbitrary reason).
    • rad_gruchalski 5y ago
      Oh yes, I do. Like I want wipers working at a constant interval.
• theodric 5y ago
  The author's list of demands describe my 2011 Renault Kangoo II, a model they only stopped producing in 2021, very well. Knobs, analog gauges, but also a factory-installed reverse parking sensor. It's down-market and inexpensive, It's a very simple car, and also very simple to work on, as a consequence. 15000-page service manual, as well. Utilitarian (ex-)fleet vehicles (mine was a Swiss Post delivery van) might still check these boxes for folks.
• kylehotchkiss 5y ago
  Reading this made me happy I recently purchased a SUV with big, boring, rubberized knobs that I find myself adjusting without having to look while driving. One addition to the smart tech a dumb car could benefit from - radar cruise control. Increasingly offered on new models and reduces cognitive workload of highway driving.
• robin_reala 5y ago
  The original VW Up dispensed with a screen beyond a small radio display, and just came with a mount for the smartphone you were bound to have with you. Cabin shot: https://cdn1.buyacar.co.uk/sites/buyacar/files/styles/gallery_adv_wide/public/upinterior.jpg https://cdn1.buyacar.co.uk/sites/buyacar/files/styles/galler...
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • ralphhughes 5y ago
    That is a genuinely nice user interface. I can see what virtually everything is from a distance in the picture. I especially like the larger fuel gauge; I drove a car once that had a handful of little LCD rectangles like a coarse bar graph. I struggled to tell if I had 50% or 75% left!
  • wazoox 5y ago
    This is what Dacia proposes in their cars. They know it's better to have a basic system with a radio, bluetooth and a place to store your phone, that will stay up-to-date and usable for years to come (check early-2000s high-end cars GPS and entertainment systems for a laugh).
    • coder543 5y ago
      Apple CarPlay and Android Auto serve the same purpose these days, since they're effectively acting as an external monitor for your phone. The OEM doesn't have to keep anything up to date. Just providing a "dumb" head unit with as close to zero features besides CarPlay and Android Auto would be sufficient to have a good user experience at this point, at least in the context of a "dumb car". Last time I was on Android (~5 years ago), you could actually run Android Auto as an app on your phone, so a phone mount like that would be fine (even if not amazing), but Apple doesn't let you run CarPlay directly on your phone -- it only works with an external display designed for CarPlay, so a phone mount like this is notably worse for iPhone users. CarPlay's interface is much better designed for use in a vehicle than the regular iOS interface. Phone mounts like that have the additional problem that smartphones have continued to grow and grow, and a lot of cars from 5 or 10 years ago that offer any kind of phone charging spot or phone mount can't fit most modern smartphones in the allocated spot... so phone mounts like that can become obsolete even without any electrical components whatsoever.
• russellbeattie 5y ago
  > 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 decade, as the taxes from gasoline disappear, the plates will have integrated travel tracking so you automatically pay $0.02 per mile road usage taxes. It'll be the most fair way to pay for the roads. Yep, this is all coming. First, they'll be add-on plates, but then they'll be integrated into all new cars. Personal transportation is going to look completely different by the end of the century, anyways. Worrying about the number of knobs on your dashboard is like worrying about the color of your horse's blinders or whether your cart's wheels were made out of oak or cedar.
  • prox 5y ago
    So basically all things we think is shit on the internet will be on the road :(
• iRobbery 5y ago
  techcrunch leading me through 'https://guce.advertising.com https://guce.advertising.com' when i open links or their site directly... weird
  • aembleton 5y ago
    It's been like that for years if you haven't set the cookies.
• mab122 5y ago
  I would recommend checking out Dacia and Lada (coincidentally now both are now under Renault group) https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/our-company/our-brands/dacia/ https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/our-company/our-brands/dacia... https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/our-company/our-brands/lada/ https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/our-company/our-brands/lada/
  • otherme123 5y ago
    Lada is known for its low reliability. Dacia seems to be in a more gray area, sometimes scoring well above average, sometimes below. I know someone who had a Lada Niva, and he got stranded because a low quality pipe joint blew. True, the repair was extremely cheap, and it could probably be temporarily repaired with a hose and two zippers. Are you a mechanic that can locate and fix those kind of failures? Then Ladas are for you. You can't tell apart the windscreen fluid from the blinker fluid? Your Lada will spend more time in the repairshop than on the road.
    • swiftcoder 5y ago
      I picked up a Dacia Sandero a year back, seems pretty well-made. Very low-tech too, even has crank windows in back.
      • mab122 5y ago
        I think they are around the "good-tech" level, similar to late 90's / early 2000 cars. Just enough to get you going economically and comfortably but without tech intruding your ride with some infotainment, updates or window slide button in some weird place or with touch control.
    • mab122 5y ago
      My opinion so far is that a lot of people buy Ladas (Niva to be exact) with expectation of it being an offroader. It is not. It is a SUV and when used like usually SUVs are - it isnt as unreliable as some people make it.
• tsujp 5y ago
  One 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 function stalks? Gimmicks like this, and they are gimmicks, are dangerous and it's concerning no regulator seems to care enough to stop it.
  • quartesixte 5y ago
    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.
    • Isinlor 5y ago
      He does not have good lobbyists. Have you seen Tesla being the only company not invited on electric car day in white house? https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a37244461/elon-musk-says-tesla-not-invited-to-white-house-ev-event/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a37244461/elon-musk... Do you know that Tesla will be excluded from tax credits for EVs? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/energy-secretary-defends-tesla-ev-tax-credit-exclusion.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/energy-secretary-defends-tes... Do you know that Texas where Tesla is building its next factory does not allow to sell Teslas? https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-law-keeps-teslas-made-in-the-state-from-being-sold-directly-to-texans https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-law-keeps-teslas-made...
      • noduerme 5y ago
        Eh, he just needs to touch up his PR when it comes to labor relations. > Do you know that Texas where Tesla is building its next factory does not allow to sell Teslas? You think you can't buy a Tesla in Texas? What planet are you on?
• speedgoose 5y ago
  Dumb cars are on the market. You can buy a brand new Dacia with little options. They sell well. You can also buy a Caterham if you really want something simple and fun to drive (but unsafe).
• fungiblecog 5y ago
  couldn't agree more
• Jaruzel 5y ago
  After years of driving a several Mercedes E-Class cars, I now drive a 2004 Jeep Cherokee (not the 'Grand Cherokee'... In the US my Jeep is called the Liberty). It's very basic compared to my Mercs, but oddly I enjoy driving it more - and I'm not one of those 'love cars, love to drive' people. I relate to the point in the article about fancy screens; In my Jeep I fitted a very cheap (£30) Chinese radio head unit. It has almost no display, or useful functions, but it does have Bluetooth, so my phone does all the heavy lifting - internet radio, music, GPS etc. I can upgrade my phone at any point, and my jeeps infotainment system gets a bump-up at the same time.
  • shimonabi 5y ago
    I once bought such a Bluetooth radio. It cost me over 300€ (new starter, new battery) to finally figure out myself that the cheap Chinese radio was draining my battery and preventing my car to start. Sometimes I had to turn the key 30 times (with a full battery) to start the car.
    • frosted-flakes 5y ago
      It's usually pretty easy to wire it up so that it shuts off with the car. A fuse tap can piggyback off of an existing ignition-switched fuse.
• rektide 5y ago
  I'm sympathetic to the pleas here. But I'm a luddite. A real luddite, not, as this article is, a simple petty reactionary: the problem is not technology, it's who owns it[1], it's how we are puppet-ed along via technology (Ursala Franklin would call this example of the car a prescriptivist instead of a holistic technology[2]). Technology is good when it empowers folks broadly, when it is soft. But the car systems of today are all prebaked in a hard, demeaning way- unsoft in extreme- and their systems don't entirely align with the people's interest, & even more rarely align with the power-users interest. Ideally, to me, the car has some built-ins but is a tabula rasa, a blank slate: it presents a robust & thorough API for the car systems, including the main interfaces. Basically I just want a Chrysler with the infamous "Jeep Cherokee" hack[3]. Those cars were a modern miracle of amazingly well designed, consistent API engineering. Users gaining access to those systems, remotely, was shunned as a horrible vile thing, but it was an act of beauty & amazingness, a revelation of wonderfully good engineering. The coverage focused on the malicious acts, & that FUD far out-shined the amazing limitless potential of letting the world try to enrich themselves, make better. Tragic miscarriage against potential: the press murdered any hope of possibility in it's cradle. These cars were/are amazing. QNX OS running DBus protocols to expose all the car's systems: an easy to interface with, exploratory inter-system API for the whole car. We could have built anything here, it feels like. Instead, we damned & cursed the makers for having left some portal open to this computer: we parroted out terror. I guess my gravy-on-top nee-plus-ultra ask atop having access to a car via DBus- the FreeDesktop standard IPC system- would be for the buttons to be more software defined, independent of their subsystems, which I think still wasn't entirely the case. I'd love to have a phone or console app running which can read from the big giant volume knob, for example, as I adjust some windows or the sunroof or the temperature. Infinite flexibility, please. I've said this before[4]. It's disappeared quickly, but Webinos was a very very interesting decade old attempt to define a user-empowering IoT architecture, & had significant interest from BMW/Land Rover. It's basically bitrotted off the internet, last seen early 2021[5], but was a really interesting user-centric system, where devices were linked not to corporate cloud services but to systems of users choice, exposing their capabilities & offerings generally. We need more holistic potentials in the world. We need to stop consigning away possibility, choosing retro-minimalism because we can't imagine any other possibilities than the vice, than the authoritarian, restrained systems of control most technology imposes upon us. We need personal computing to be possible again, broadly in the world, across devices, we need choice, we need agency, we need to stop being damned by computers & start being served by them: this is only possible if we let the users back in, re-open the frontiers. In the end, I think the Chromecast model is basically right. The car should have a pre-baked system, but present some HTML capable interfaces, which themselves expose a couple additional above-and-beyond Web IoT apis to adjust windows, sunroofs, hvac. There should be decoupling (which I think Webinos was an early & technically successful contendor for). [1] https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1478387800542224392 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1478387800542224392 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Franklin#Holistic_and_prescriptive_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Franklin#Holistic_and_p... [3] https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/ https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463898 [5] http://web.archive.org/web/20210115211241/http://webinos.org/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210115211241/http://webinos.org...
• tragomaskhalos 5y ago
  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.
• quattrofan 5y ago
• khazhoux 5y ago
  Our Volvo doesn't let you adjust the volume when you're in reverse. That means if you're backing out of the garage and the music is blaring -- you can't turn it off! The Volvo UI pops up an almost full-display warning when it can't connect to the phone over bluetooth on startup. This UI takes priority over the rear camera. So I guess it's better to hit Timmy and his puppy when I'm backing out, so long as I know my phone's not connected! The Volvo's headlights have "smart" auto-adjustments. That means I can't leave the high beams on, or force it to stay on low beams. It will decide for me! I think maybe I can disable this... somehow. So smart.
  • aitchnyu 5y ago
    My Toyota's head unit bulldozes to reverse mode and if I was in reverse for 10 seconds, the song resumes 10 seconds as if its been playing in the background.
    • asdff 5y ago
      My Toyotas head unit has similar behavior issues. It will connect to bluetooth and start playing the song as soon as you turn on the car, only no music will come out of the speakers until you pause the song, then press play. Why do I have to manually "wake up" the speakers instead of the head unit? Probably because this software took one engineer no more than a week to write before it was shipped out full of these annoyances that would have been avoided had you, you know, tested out connecting a blutooth device to the head unit before production even just once.
  • chakintosh 5y ago
    I'm a UX designer and I've taken delivery of an XC40 Recharge two months ago, and I've never felt dumber in my life. Don't get me wrong, the car is absolutely wonderful, but the UX is so badly designed it makes me question myself. For starters, I have absolutely no clue how to use the lights, fans and wipers. Just last Saturday, a design oversight (and idiocy from my part) caused me to reverse into another car parked behind me, I reversed to leave the parking spot, then instead of switching to D, I forgot it on R all while the rearview camera is showing red lines. For a car equipped with driving assists (collision avoidance and line assists), it shouldn't have let me reverse any more as it was seeing a clear obstacle behind me or at least make me double check by beeping the rearview camera, it only beeps for 5 seconds when it sees an obstacle then stops, same for the open door and seatbelts. There is also the odometer, there are 3 different odometers in the car and all of them are showing different values, one with a TM next to it, another one with this symbol Ø and a third one in the "Driver performance" tab. So which one is the real distance and what's the difference? Only the norse gods know. Also, the charge and fuel left gauges adapt to your driving by going up or down instead of showing you the real amount of fuel/charge left. And it already nearly left me stranded on the highway with 5km left of fuel. This car is amazing but there are a lot of design oversights when it comes to UX.
• jacknews 5y ago
  Haha, the 'smart' cat is well and truly out of the bag now, and the sad thing is we kind of did it to ourselves by demanding, or at least, buying, these features. 'Smart' means manufacturers can put ads on everything, sell your usage data, and of course all the smarts become obsolete or break easily after just a couple of years, often turning otherwise perfectly good hardware into a doorstop. As part of 'right to repair' we should also demand 'right to own UI'; appliances have some standard (electronic/data) interfaces, and you can add off-the-shelf, or even custom UI of your choice.
  • stonepresto 5y ago
    > the sad thing is we kind of did it to ourselves by demanding, or at least, buying, these features. Even more sad is it’s not like people looking for a new car have much of a choice.
• nicbou 5y ago
  I have an old Renault Kangoo. It's a box on wheels. Big enough to fit a bicycle or a bed, small enough to drive like a car. I'm going on a road trip today. This car is a breeze to work on. It's a bog standard car. If something breaks, it can be fixed. The only things that can break are the things that make the car run. You don't need a specially trained technician. You don't need to remove a layer of plastic to get to the engine. There is no touch screen.
• wesleywt 5y ago
  I love my dumb VW Golf MK1. The radio got stolen, so I don't even have that.
• jb1991 5y ago
  > Teslas with missed payments drive themselves to be impounded. Welcome to the future. Is this real? That sounds like a terrible terrible idea, can’t imagine any government body allowing this.
  • dasKrokodil 5y ago
    Yeah I can't imagine it either. With the current state of its "self-driving" technology, the Tesla would probably cause several accidents on the way to the impound lot.
• nikolay 5y ago
  The article describes my own vision 100%. To me, a car is a vehicle, i.e., it needs to transport me from point A to point B most safely and reliably. I don't listen to music when I drive, I don't text or make calls - I enjoy driving, and I focus 100% on this and, thank God, I've never been in an accident, not even a fender bender, and I have over half a million miles behind the wheel. When I'm in Bulgaria, I drive a 2003 Audi A4 1.9 TDI with a stick shift, and I enjoy it much more than my US AT car.
  • noduerme 5y ago
    I'd have a very hard time not playing some music if I were driving an A4 through Bulgaria. But the laser focus between you and the road is the most important thing.
    • nikolay 5y ago
      Why would I want to play music? I enjoy driving more than listening to music. I don't get bored even when I'm driving thru heavy traffic on I-5 or I-405, so, why would I need music not being in a traffic jam and having beautiful scenery?!
      • dagw 5y ago
        Music while driving seems to be one those divisive subjects. Some people basically need music while driving and some people find it pointless or annoying.
        • nikolay 5y ago
          Yeah, some need country music, others - techno. I personally like to be able to hear the engine. I then wonder why race drivers don't listen to music if it has benefits to some people.
      • noduerme 5y ago
        I grew up next to the 405, and I don't think I'd ever call the view from it beautiful! But as far as music. Yes I just want to listen to my motor sometimes. But... I probably shouldn't admit this, but the reason I love driving to loud music is that I drive to the music. I prepare different MP3 mixes for my cars. The Datsun mixes are only music from 1970 to 1983, but I rotate the bands and songs before any long drive. When certain songs really take off I shift in time - I play the car like a guitar, and inevitably I want certain songs to come on when I know I'll be on an empty stretch of road with no cops and I can drive way too fast and shoot the curves. Blasting Kansas in an 80 Datsun at twice the speed limit is probably the closest I've ever gotten to pure joy.
• noduerme 5y ago
  Strongly agree with this article. The car I love is my 1980 Datsun, but it just isn't good in the rain. My daily car is a Fiat 124 Spider. Reason I bought it was it was the least complicated, most direct driver-to-pavement, latest, fastest ride I could get for $20k with a stick shift. I won't buy an automatic. To Fiat's credit, I think they're the last manufacturer selling cars in America whose standard price is for a manual transmission and who charge extra for an automatic. (Which, let's be honest, only an idiot would buy an automatic on a 1.4L turbo that has to be kept revved to a sweet spot smaller than 1500 RPMs per gear). There are four things that piss me off about the Spider. 1: Touch screen which I don't want lit up most of the time, but which doesn't respond to touch to turn it off while you're driving. 2: Stupid as hell autobrake comes on for 2 seconds if you clutch and brake on a hill over 8% grade. You have to toggle the emergency brake or do a heel-toe to not be pushing against your brakes when you start up off a hill. 3: It's beyond me how they could sell this car with a touch screen but without a boost gauge. 4: No ashtray.
  • q1w2 5y ago
    Similarly, I'm making sure I get ever mile out of my 1993 Jeep Wrangler. It's rusting in places, but I absolutely love that I can service the car myself. It has never broken down in almost 30 years!
  • throwaway946513 5y ago
    While not under $20k, the Subaru Impreza and Crosstrek are currently offered with a stick shift on the base trim, and for the Impreza Sport ($23k) it's offered standard with a stick, and an auto optional. This may change soon to only be the WRX and BRZ with a stick shift next year, but currently their lineup is rather competitive for AWD compact cars.
  • aunty_helen 5y ago
    >It's beyond me how they could sell this car with a touch screen but without a boost gauge. Back in the days of our 80's datsuns, when upping the boost you definitely need to keep an eye on it. These days, ECUs have that under control, there will be a MAP sensor that monitors pressure and boost cut / limp mode will follow any overboost situation. My late 2000s BMW for example had a weird compound turbo setup that, to its credit, could build 23psi in a second but if any of the actuators failed could be disasterous for the baby turbo. The ECU was smart enough to measure the normal boost profile and would throw a fault code if it was over/under spooling. The control logic was impressive, I was happy with the response and the intake was kept FOD free, even on the day one of the actuators failed open.
• furyg3 5y ago
  Hear hear. I sold my old 2004 Skoda Fabia (which for Americans has the technology of a 2000 VW golf), since repairs were costing more and the car sharing here in Amsterdam is really becoming reliable for the few times I need a car. Recently I rented a car for a ski trip, a recent Jeep Renegade, oh my lord. It was constantly trying to take the controls from me (god forbid you change lanes without signaling on a totally empty road!), the dashboard screen was constantly changing, and dynamically listed the speed limit in two places, but often it was completely wrong and sometimes it didn't even agree with itself. I am still not clear what it was trying to tell me. The console screen was 'dumb' in the bad way, and would lose connection with my phone constantly, but you couldn't re-connect it because you're not allowed to do that while driving. The interface was of course badly designed and slow to respond, so changing radio stations was a nightmare (which I had to do because my phone wouldn't connect. In the end I just used my ear-free headphones since it was easier. My old Skoda had none of this. Real dials / gauges, simple physical climate controls, and a hole which you can put a stereo head unit in (I put the dumbest one I could find with bluetooth in for €40). I had a strong magsafe mount for my phone and done.
  • noduerme 5y ago
    I've had this experience with rental cars recently. It's terrifying! I usually spend half an hour in the parking lot sifting through menus turning off all the warnings I can find. I like Skodas. Although a Czech friend told me that Skoda in Czech is a car name, a common surname, and a casual term for "idiot".
    • strzibny 5y ago
      The translation is not idiot, but misfortune, damage or pity (Schade for German friends). Funny name for sure.
      • noduerme 5y ago
        Hah. Noted - my friend's English is not the best, but I think his example was like a someone tripping over something in the street. He physically performed something, and I guess I misunderstood! Ah sorry for butchering another language ;) It reminds me of one time I was sitting in a bar in Spain, and a chicken walked inside. And it was a female chicken, not a rooster, so I thought it should be "polla" instead of "pollo". So I waved at the bartender and said "Mira! Está una polla en la barra!" and all the guys in the bar started roaring with laughter because "pollo" is male or female for any chicken, but "polla" in Spain does mean slang for "idiot". After that every time I'd walk into that bar they'd ask if I saw a "polla" hahahahah
• _8j50 5y ago
  We need an eco friendly lada and peugeot 404.
• d--b 5y ago
  Even Dacia, which was the only one making really dumb cars a few years ago stopped doing the electronic-less cars. It’s a shame. There apparently isn’t much of a market for dumb cars.
• devoutsalsa 5y ago
  I'm currently driving a Fiant Panda w/ a manual transmission. It has basically no features. Bluetooth, cruise control, and that's about it. I'm loving it. The only thing I wish it had was four wheel drive, and maybe a holder for my cell phone when using Google Maps.
  • herbst 5y ago
    I hate my panda mostly because the built in radio is only displaying directory names for the far majority of my music collection. I wasn't aware that 16000$ worth of car comes with the music hardware straight out of the 90s Mine is 4 wheel and came with a mobile holder. So there is that :)
• lbriner 5y ago
  I didn't think it bothered me until I read this and then thought of the biggest gripe with my Skoda Octavia and that is when the auto-start doesn't start in traffic and I end up on the receiving end of the beeping of obstructed drivers! The specialist garage doesn't know what's wrong and I don't hold out much more hope for the main dealer who should know best but I've met people who work at main dealers. What is annoying is that it seems to try to start and sometimes immediately stops like a stall. If you press the brake and let ago, it will try again but after this it tells you to restart the car so you have to move the transmission back to park, turn the key with your foot on the brake and then move back to drive to pull away. As you can imagine, this takes longer than it takes for the person behind to beep their horn. It makes it worse because I am usually looking down when it all kicks off so the people think I am not paying attention. I can disable the auto-stop but it gets enabled when you go into Eco-mode so you have to remember this in traffic before the panic begins.
  • lgvln 5y ago
    You can try shifting the steering wheel a little right before you’re about to go. The car will sense it and attempt to restart the engine. That might give you a little more time to restart the whole car if it fails to restart automatically. On another note, are you seeing significant gains in fuel economy while running on Eco-mode?
• niklasmerz 5y ago
  That's exactly why I love my ten year old BMW 1 series as someone who works with computers all day. It's not that old that it's terribly unreliable, ugly and drives bad. It's just a modern car with no extras and awesome driving performance. No screens besides two, small, orange LCDs, analogue gauges, a stick shift, a big not too powerful engine for such a small car and the best steering I ever experienced. My mountain bike is even better. Nothing electronic at all and only mechanical things I can fix myself. I love working on it more than on code sometimes.
• jaclaz 5y ago
  There is also an issue with "standardization" of commands. I have been driving since a lot of time, what happened to me lately a couple of times was that renting a car it takes me some time (I mean 10-15 minutes) to get a minimal confidence with commands and features of the UI, besides the most basic ones that thankfully remain the same, there are lots of them that are, in different make/models, completely different, and I am always scared that I can by mistake enable or disable this or that "smart" thing.
• t0bia_s 5y ago
  I like to know how to repair things that I use. Phone, PC, washing machine... Same is for car. If we let big tech/companies sorround us by things that we don't know how actually works or how to fix them, then we are screwed and completely dependent on their rules and trends. For example imagine that car will be manufactured without opening windows, like modern trains. Or they have implemented CO2 meters that collect data and limit traveling based on regulations made by gonverments.
• squarefoot 5y ago
  I'd be generally fine with "smart" cars, provided they can be kept disconnected 24/7, that is, no phoning home to report where I am going or at what speed, and no ads. Otherwise, then thanks but no thanks.
  • 400thecat 5y ago
    do the dashboards in smart cars display ads?
    • aembleton 5y ago
      Not yet; but it wouldn't surprise me to see that in the next few years.
  • raxxorrax 5y ago
    Sadly the trend is that new shitty cars will come with preinstalled eSims to phone home "diagnostic" data.
• divbzero 5y ago
  This is a major reason I’ll probably never buy a Tesla. I do not want my car to connect to the manufacturer via Internet nor have anything complex enough to justify over-the-air updates. (I also feel similarly about most home appliances.)
• raspyberr 5y ago
  The link says techcrunch.com but uMatrix is stopping me from getting to it because it's trying to go through guce.advertising.com first. Weird.
  • aembleton 5y ago
    Yep, Techcrunch redirects through advertising.com if you don't have cookies set.
• dgudkov 5y ago
  I can totally relate, but I'm afraid that "smart" cars will push out "dumb" cars in dealerships just like "smart" TVs pushed out "dumb" TVs in big box stores. Why? Because people like feeling they have more for less money. Wait until you get bombarded with ads in your "smart" car. It's coming, have no doubts.
• julian_t 5y ago
  My Renault EV, while excellent in many respects, does suffer from Smart Car Syndrome (or is it Dumb Designer Syndrome?) The "please make sure you observe local road laws!" popup obscures the whole touchscreen for over a minute when you start off. It's been showing me this each time I've driven off for three years. I've got the message. The intermittent windscreen wipers are supposed to respond to the rain on the screen, but vary in their response from nothing to double speed, uncorrelated to the actual weather. Can I just have an adjustable "once every few seconds" control? And the best one - timed charging doesn't work over Saturday night/Sunday morning. Every other night, fine, but not then. Completely reproducible. I suspect some sort of date roll-over bug, but Renault have given up trying to find a problem.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• aembleton 5y ago
  My 2008 Prius doesn't have Bluetooth and I have to use a dongle. Its one of the biggest issues I have with the car. The dongle needs power, which is fine - I've got it plugged into a USB socket but everytime I start up the car I have to switch it on; otherwise I've got no audio. When I stop the car, the dongle has a small battery so my podcast continues playing if I don't pause it - I then miss part of it. I rented a car a few years ago that had Bluetooth for the audio and it was wonderful. Stop the car and my music paused, start it and it got going again. I test drove a few new cars recently and of course they all had Bluetooth, but the Dacia Sandero Stepway had wireless Android Auto. You set it up over Bluetooth but after that you no longer needed to plug the wire in to have Android Auto on the screen. Really impressed me, and being a Dacia was the cheapest car I looked at. The Toyota dealership claimed it didn't exist when I asked about getting that on the Yaris.
  • schwartzworld 5y ago
    My 2014 Xterra has Bluetooth, but it's an old Bluetooth that works for calls and not music. I also had to get a dongle, since my phone lacks a headphone jack (another spectacular engineering decision). You should get a better BT dongle though. Mine switches on when the power turns on.
  • JoeJonathan 5y ago
    If you can, I strongly recommend spending $300-500 on a receiver with CarPlay/Android Auto support. The install kits are so good they often look like they're stock installations. I even was able to replace my cigarette lighter with a USB port, so there are no unsightly cables sticking out of my dash or anything.
• joeman1000 5y ago
  How about a GT86? This is about as analog as you can get for a mainstream car.
• saki709 5y ago
  So basically you want golf mk2
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• dbeley 5y ago
  There is the Citroën Ami that has already been talked on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22438418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22438418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24856541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24856541
• stillsut 5y ago
  I went car shopping this year in the new market and found that that if you want more a "dumb" car (UX occurs primarily outside of a touchscreen, no internet, no geolocation) you lose all potential for any nice non-smart features. So no heated/powered seats, no power windows, the material of the interior is refurbished from a spirit airlines airplane, etc. I think manufacturers are hoping that certain aspects of the modern auto become "can't live withouts", e.g. bluetooth, which helps them smuggle all the other more marginally useful, security and ux intrusive features into your model. Now as others have mentioned, these unwanted smart features might actually be required by law/regulation/tax-credit/legal-dept, so it's not bad programming/design but "design by committee" that's dooming our chances of a good dumb car. I wonder how well my car will age when miscellaneous sensor all over the car start failing. It used to just show a light on your dashboard, now I wonder if I'll be grounded - stuck in park - or hounded by incessant bells repeating the same spurious warning over and over again.
  • nerdponx 5y ago
    I can only imagine that there is some financial interest here. By forcing people to bundle in high-margin techno-junk, they can raise the overall profit margins cars relative to cost of living / inflation. That, and/or maybe there are high-value corporate partnerships involved.
    • prova_modena 5y ago
      You're right, car dealers/manufacturers do use options packages to increase profit margins by bundling less popular high margin features with more popular ones. The number of brands that let you spec out a new car using a truly a-la-carte selection of options has shrunk, and is now mostly confined to the ultra high end brands (which make huge margins on everything anyway). However, it's not a new phenomenon, manufacturers and dealers have done this with "luxury" or "sport" features for a long time. This has usually meant adding stuff like alloy wheels, different interior trims, better speakers etc. The difference now is the huge amount of complexity that modern "smart" features bring.
  • buscoquadnary 5y ago
• breakpointalpha 5y ago
  Bought a Mazda CX5 a few months ago. Thank god Mazda currently has the "driver first" mentality. NO Touchscreen! Main input is through a comfortable knob in front of the arm rest, where your hand naturally lands when resting. Gauge cluster is digital, but analog type dials for spedo, etc. AC, Power Cool/heated seats, driver assists, auto-park, all controlled via BUTTONS! It's a modern miracle and one of the big reasons I chose to buy it over a new Tesla Model 3. "Horse and rider" is truly a wonderful concept... Go Mazda!
  • tobyjsullivan 5y ago
    Bought a 2016 mazda this year for exactly the same reason. Perfect combination of nice, big, well positioned LED display but no touch screen. (Maybe you can use touch screen when parked? Never tried.) It's a little slow and the media units can fail, but I'd say all the tradeoffs are very well balanced.
    • codyogden 5y ago
      I have a 2019 CX-3 (dealer's loaner bought in 2020). Prior to the 2021 models, you can use Touch Screen when stopped or parked. 2021+ they disabled touchscreen completely on all models stopped or moving. I really agree with this decision.
    • m-ee 5y ago
      It’s a touch screen but doesn’t work when the car is in motion unless you input the right code to get it in a developer/maintenance mode. I haven’t bothered as the knob is much more ergonomic. The software can be wonky, I have to reset the infotainment every once in a while to get Bluetooth working but overall I’m very happy with the car.
  • darkstar999 5y ago
    My 2018 CX5 has a touchscreen, but it's entirely disabled while the car is moving. So I've never used it. I just wish they saved the time and money not developing it, but I guess it's one of those marketing bullet points.
  • 5y ago
• incomplete 5y ago
  the answer is always miata.
  • galdosdi 5y ago
    How are the latest new ND miatas with regards to this sort of thing, anyway, if you know? The old NB and NA generation miatas (no idea on NC) were just wonderful perfect "dumb cars." Is it still good in the 2022 model year or has it been slightly ruined yet to any degree?
    • incomplete 5y ago
      the ND miata is about as close to 'dumb' as you're gonna get these days. aka it's nearly perfect. :D
• jdhn 5y ago
  One of the reasons that there's not really a "dumb" car anymore is that backup cameras are federally mandated. So you have a camera for backing up, and you need a way to display that. So auto manufacturers say "Hey, we have this screen, people are used to touchscreens due to their phone, and it makes manufacturing easier if we put everything on a screen as it means we can just put a flat piece of plastic where all the buttons used to be, so lets make it a touchscreen!"
  • kurthr 5y ago
    And once you have a computer with an operating system, UI, and (wireless) serial connections most of those features become almost "free". As a result, from the automaker's position adding all those features someone might pay for is "cheaper" for total income than not. You can always disable the features in software and keep the SKU# constant.
  • geenew 5y ago
    Some of the original backup camera models (in ford cars at least) were integrated into the rear view mirror. Worked fine for its purpose and didn’t involve a central dash monitor.
    • ubu7737 5y ago
    • harlanlewis 5y ago
      More than works fine - I prefer this spot so that I always look in the same place to see what's behind me whether I'm going forward or backward. Taking your eyes far away from any windows to focus on a tiny rearview camera view while reversing makes it hard to see other motion with peripheral vision. Lots of after market mirrors support this, but admittedly I've only put them in cars that didn't have a camera to begin with.
      • pavon 5y ago
        My car has both options. I think the idea is you'd use the rearview mirror display primarily at night as an always-on display in place of the anti-glare polarization toggle that some rearview mirrors have, while using the center console for backing-up. I prefer the center console. The rearview mirror is shaped and sized to display the small sliver that you can see out of the rear window which are tiny these days due to increased pillar width, and rounded back to improved crash safety and aerodynamics. The size and aspect ratio of the center console makes it much easier to see details, and doesn't have to compete with bright back-lighting from the sun. Increasing the size of the rearview mirror would be an option - don't know how big you can get before it starts impeding forward view (again, because the front roof slopes down more for aerodynamics than they did in the past).
• protomyth 5y ago
  I'm fine with a touch screen for things like rear camera and plugging in a smart phone, but I want actual volume, temperature, and fan speed knobs. I also want all of the information about the car I can get. For example, I don't want a "tire low light", I want an air pressure in each tire with an flashing indicator that its out of safe range. I don't want an "overheat", I want the temperature and big flashing when its out of range. I do wish for a HUD just because I want my eyes on the road, but I think that's a lost dream. I dearly wish someone would design a car for easy repairs, but we all know that isn't a profit positive thing.
  • mdavidn 5y ago
    Lexus has models with a HUD. It was far less useful than I expected. It displays just a compass, digital speedometer, and indicators for cruise control and lane assist.
    • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      No directions for the route finder? That sounds really lame. The BMW HUD is much more useful, if you have a route going on, the turn instructions appear on the windshield.
      • mdavidn 5y ago
        If it does, then only with the built-in map. No CarPlay support.
  • SamuelAdams 5y ago
    My 2016 Honda CR-V has everything in your first paragraph. I think Honda and Mazda are doing a good job of balancing physical controls versus touchscreen.
  • alanchen 5y ago
    Checkout Mazda3. Hud with navigation is awesome to use.
  • olyjohn 5y ago
• throwaway946513 5y ago
  I bought a 2022 Subaru Impreza Sport Hatchback last year in September. 5 Speed Manual Transmission Heated Seats Cruise Control SXM Radio All-wheel drive No turbo to consume oil, no software to control the car. The Radio has Android Auto, and some software updates available for some nice 'radio features', like showing you the news, weather, sports information, etc. Never used it. I still own a 1999 Isuzu Rodeo, safety and gas mileage were my reasons for getting the Subaru, as well as my desire to modify the Isuzu.
  • tbdenney 5y ago
    The last vehicle I owned about 15 years ago was a late 90's model Rodeo and I absolutely loved it. I hope you take yours out for a spin every now and then!
    • throwaway946513 5y ago
      I love mine, and refused to trade it for the Subie. Unfortunately, the transmission is leaking, and the engine burns oil pretty excessively. Plan is to swap the engine and transmission out of a manual Subaru Outback or Forester and make it a more weekend oriented SUV.
• BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  I am in the group of people who think the more electronics, the better (alone in my family). I do not drive much so if the electronics break then never mind (I did not have this happening for 25 years and I was always looking for the most electronics-packed car). The situation I have today (in France at least) is that I have cars that are full of electronics but the UI is done by the car manufacturer and is horrible. My dream is to have a car where I would configure my display. In my case that would be a large speed indicator, the distance I can drive with the current gas I have, and a display where bad things would be displayed, as they come. What I have is a display full of things I completely do not care about. Temperature of the engine? The engine RPM? I completely do not care about these so I would like to get rid of them. I think however we are very far from that state of bliss.
• pjmorris 5y ago
  Toyota should introduce the brand new 1999 Corolla.
  • bdamm 5y ago
    Right! If this "dumb car" aesthetic is really such a hit, then there are a lot of cars from the 90's that are ready to buy and plenty of shops that are eager to overhaul your old clunker into a hot new legendary UI of a car! Of course, it isn't a hit. The fact is most people want smart cars.
• causi 5y ago
  I love having a dumb car. My wife has a modern car and my experience is superior in almost every way. She has to select a temperature and then her AC system blasts her with freezing or burning air until it decides the car is at the desired temperature. Since the selector only goes down to 65, it's impossible to get medium-temperature air on a nippy day. My dash, on the other hand, has a dial that goes from cold to hot, and I can make the air come out at exactly the temperature I want. She has a button to select where the air comes out and has to cycle through the head/foot/defrost/etc options and then wait for a motor to get what she wants. Mine is a mechanical dial I can turn to any setting instantly with no motor to break later on.
  • driverdan 5y ago
    Automatic climate control has been around for about 40 years and common for 20 years. There is no excuse for not getting it right in 2022. I had cars 20 years ago that had great auto climate control.
  • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    My top gripe about my wife's smart car: She sometimes leaves it with the radio on. A few seconds after bootup (starting the car), the radio starts playing. But it won't listen to the on/off button yet, not for several more seconds. So if I don't want the radio on, I have no way to shut it off until it will let me.
    • pavon 5y ago
      Both my cars have that misfeature, but vary in details. Both take just long enough to start playing that they usually start blaring music as I'm backup up. Nor have I found any way to disable the feature on either. It took months for me to get into the habit of sitting and waiting for it to boot so I could turn it off before I start driving. The Honda CR-V is like you say, it will only turn on if you had the radio on when the car was shut off (makes sense), but turns on long before it is capable of responding to the off button. The Chevy Bolt infuriatingly turns on (almost) every time you get in the car regardless of whether the radio was on or not when you last used it. For the life of me I cannot figure out what heuristics cause it to (very rarely) not turn on. At least its off button is functional at the time it starts playing.
• joshxyz 5y ago
  I like this, reminds me of how much shitty experience HN has on smart TV's.
• it 5y ago
  The things I dislike about my car are all fancy "smart" features. A keyed ignition would have been fine, but they replaced it with a push button. I can stay in my lane just fine, but every time I turn on the car it turns on lane assist and I have to do a button sequence to turn it off.
• giantg2 5y ago
  "Carmakers have always struggled with user interfaces, but until recently the biggest problem we had was “too many knobs.”" My 89 Caprice was awesome and didn't even have this problem. You could operate it by feel, even counting the clicks on the radio tuning dial to know how far you were tuning.
• MarkusWandel 5y ago
  "No screens" is too harsh. My 2012 Civic EX has a colour screen. It supplements the traditional controls in just the right way, for example, with hierarchical menus for things like bluetooth pairing, rarely used configuration items (autolock) and maintenance reminders. It also puts all the visual information - trip computer, radio display and such - in one place. Speedo and tach are still where they belong. Perfect.
• dshpala 5y ago
  I have 2018 Chevy, and it's sufficiently dumb :) I have physical controls for climate, and even a dedicated defroster button. The car supports Android Auto / CarPlay, so I don't have to interact with its horrendous navigation (my favorite part is that it announces route changes in backwards manner, e.g. "Turn left ... in half a mile"). The card was cheap, and has been running without issues. It's not a luxury car for sure, but it does its job.
• roland35 5y ago
  If you want a dumb car, you should really consider the Nissan Frontier. The truck hasn't changed very much since the mid 2000s. I drove one as a rental for a while and it feels like a blast from the past.
  • symlinkk 5y ago
    The 370Z was like that too and it was universally shit on for having a “dated interior”. People just love being contrarians
  • Grazester 5y ago
    The Frontier just got a completely new remake.
• seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Aren't dumb cars going to completely go away once the transition from ICE to EV is finished? I could see them being like antiques or something, but they wouldn't really be economically viable to produce anymore. And of course, the fact that dumb cars would be more expensive to produce is just a side effect of digital being cheaper than analogue after a certain about of development.
  • reidjs 5y ago
    Maybe, but that will take many decades
    • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      I guess in some countries and states? Many countries have deadlines of 2025 (Norway), 2030 (Netherlands), 2035, or 2040 [1], I don't think the hold outs will be able to keep up with ICE production and infrastructure for long after the richer states and countries transition. And once the writing is seen on the wall, no one will want to be the last person to buy an ICE. Things will change pretty rapidly. [1] https://electrek.co/2021/11/10/countries-automakers-agree-go-all-electric-by-2040-weak-new-goal-cop26/ https://electrek.co/2021/11/10/countries-automakers-agree-go...
  • bdamm 5y ago
    Dumb cars aren't more expensive to produce. And EVs don't have to be "tech". It's just that is what people want.
    • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > Dumb cars aren't more expensive to produce. Increasingly they are. Analog connections and dials, for example, are already more expensive than digital ones. It is like...if you wanted to buy a car without power steering you really couldn't. I guess if you want a golf cart you can buy a dumb EV. I don't know how that translates into a real car, however.
• pjerem 5y ago
  There is something we could have on cars since at least a decade or more and that I don’t understand we don’t have : HUDs. I already saw one in a top-end car and it’s absolutely practical. I can’t imagine that it costs anything to embed that in a car (it’s just a monochrome, really bright LED screen) so I assume manufacturers just want to keep them as high prices options.
  • voakbasda 5y ago
    I am guessing patents are the limiting factor. The holders might not want or be able to license the tech more broadly.
• hoppla 5y ago
  I see this problem in other things too. I wanted to buy a radio, but the only option I have is an boxed in android phone running apps and a DAB receiver. I only need two functions, a knob to change channels and one to adjust volume. If I need to play music, some aux input would be nice - that’s it!
  • bdamm 5y ago
    There are some very cheap handheld FM radios. What's the problem?
    • hoppla 5y ago
      FM has mostly been replaced by DAB where I live. But that is not the point. The point is that the industry is incapable of making a simple and good DAB radio. As the only (afaik) country in the world who have transitioned to DAB, there are little incentive for radio manufacturers to create decent radios.
  • benlumen 5y ago
    Here you go: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-2400DEB-K-Portable-Radio-operation/dp/B0002B8CO8/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-2400DEB-K-Portable-Radio-...
• thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  I think the author is just becoming old? Like who mounts their phone on the car anymore on a new car? My 2020 Kona Electric has a pretty intuitive and responsive touchscreen, buttons for climate control, and CarPlay is nice to use? All the smart driving features like emergency braking and lane centering have saved my butt multiple times as well.
• Johnny555 5y ago
  I don't mind having a smart car, in fact, I like most of the "smart" features - lane centering, adaptive cruise, emergency braking, TPMS, lane change cameras, auto headlights, auto wipers, etc. But I want buttons and knobs for everything I use while driving. I probably wouldn't pay extra for built-in navigation (it generally comes with other options that I do want), but I've found it useful a few times when I was outside of cellular coverage.
  • marstall 5y ago
    yes. totally agree. I LOVE adaptive cruise control, but also love/need the ability to work the music and environment selection buttons - switch stations, switch cds, change sources, turn heat up down etc - with just an instantaneous glance followed by touch only.
    • tessierashpool 5y ago
      yeah, touch controls are wildly underrated right now. there'll be a comeback sooner or later.
      • nomel 5y ago
        I don't think they're underrated, they're much more expensive than drawing pixels on a screen, especially now that screens are required, by federal law (back up cameras). I imagine we'll first see them reappear in luxury cars.
    • Johnny555 5y ago
      My Honda Accord is pretty good with this -- it has a lot of smart features, but also has buttons for pretty much everything I need (real clickable buttons or knobs, not touch sensitive buttons that give no tactile feedback) The voice response system is horrible, if I have to use the Honda navigation, I almost always need to stop so I can type in my destination. But since I use Android Auto 99% of the time, it doesn't really bother me.
  • deltree7 5y ago
• thrower123 5y ago
  When the latest car we bought came pre-loaded with 2048 on the absurdly large central touchscreen control, but had no physical knobs to control the heater, I resolved to never buy another new vehicle again.
• Terry_Roll 5y ago
  You can get some pretty nice non-smart cars and they will put a massive grin on your face! Proper old school stuff. 9ff https://youtu.be/P-BTTquGvAw?t=628 https://youtu.be/P-BTTquGvAw?t=628 Von Schmidt Resto-Mod built to your spec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzVr4cpNC58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzVr4cpNC58 Ruf CTR https://youtu.be/ZJwF1BX5uQc?t=1147 https://youtu.be/ZJwF1BX5uQc?t=1147 Personally though, I'd like to see the knobs for the essentials like fan speed and temperature as these get changed all the time, radio channels, mp3/disc selection, and then the less likely things to be fiddled with can go on screen and activated with maybe a few buttons. For example, the roads in the UK are full of potholes, the state use this to keep the speed down on the road, but when driving in Germany on the autobahns (or the continent in general), the roads are better made so being able to setup on the touch screen different car setups which control suspension, ride height, steering input, engine tuning which can then be activated by pushing a button to cycle through comfort mode and sports, would seem to be a better bet, a more efficient way of setting up a car. I hope the car companies log all the buttons pushed and touchscreen settings so that they can optimise their "UX" within the cars better because what I hate about the touchscreen is even on dark mode, at night it still interferes with your night vision a bit, and I'd like to turn it off like I think Saab used to do with their console display at night. Bluetooth, GPS sat nav and all that sort of stuff, its handy in my opinion, but I'm also aware of how you can hack satnav to make a target take routes the satnav wouldnt normally select. The way to do that is to make your targets satnav think there are massive delays on the road, and then it reroutes. I havent heard of anyone who has reported this in the media, but its a doable form of hacking. For the speed freaks, if you havent seen a car doing 259mph (417kph) on the unrestricted German autobahn, this is the link. https://youtu.be/7pg1hhW5qhM?t=153 https://youtu.be/7pg1hhW5qhM?t=153 The Countach that killed the Cannonball, but it shows you need technology if you want to drive fast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7erU_DOfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7erU_DOfE
• DevKoala 5y ago
  I think Mazda fills this space perfectly. I recently purchased a CX-5, and I am incredibly happy with the balance of smart and non smart features. Everything else felt smart to the point of taking control away from me.
• deltree7 5y ago
  Sure, people want simple, but simple is very subjective. I want simple, +Bluetooth Audio I want simple, +rear Camera I want simple, +Cruise Control I want simple, .... https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv-bloatware-and-the-8020-myth/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv...
  • Spivak 5y ago
    It's really not that subjective. Take the feature set of mass-market cars from 2000 - 2008 and then just ... stop. That's your baseline. There's nothing magic about the 2000s it's just happens to be the era juuuust before people started complaining about smart features in cars. * Media controls are handled by swappble receivers that can handle anything from tapes to Bluetooth and satellite radio depending on your preference. Everything else is physical nobs and buttons. * Cars have cruise control, hydraulic power steering, probably power windows, push to start as an aftermarket add-on, and probably remote lock/unlock. Broke teenagers in the early 2000s were able to figure out "basic car with add-ons." It's amazing that huge corporations can't manage.
    • deltree7 5y ago
      It's like you completely missed the point of Joel's blog
      • Spivak 5y ago
        No I just disagree that it applies here. Because these mass-market cars really existed (you can still buy most of them) — they all had basically the same feature sets, the same options packages by different names, sold like hotcakes, and nobody complained about bloat. In the car market you actually can get 80% of the sales with 80% of the features in defiance of Joel. That’s Honda and Toyota’s bread and butter.
• paxys 5y ago
  > Enough already. Make a car that’s pretty much all dumb and watch it sell That's all that you need to know that the author is a tech blogger and not a car salesman.
  • throw10920 5y ago
    Yup - I don't think they know much about what car purchasers actually pay attention to. People will continue to buy "smart" cars until both of the following happen: (1) they pull themselves out of purchase apathy and start caring about the quality of their purchases and (2) the information asymmetry favoring automakers is substantially reduced. Incidentally, if both of these things happen, the consumer market in general will massively improve.
• ngngngng 5y ago
  https://vanderhallusa.com https://vanderhallusa.com Here you go. I see this companies cars driving around sometimes.
  • mdturnerphys 5y ago
    Thanks! I wonder how I haven't heard of this before. Edit: Just saw that the Brawley is off-road only. It doesn't meet DOT standards. That would probably explain why I haven't heard of it.
    • ngngngng 5y ago
      The company makes a few other cars, most of them extremely quirky with only a windshield to protect you from the elements. But depending on the climate you live in, they do indeed make some street legal "dumb cars"
  • JasonFruit 5y ago
    I was very happy until I saw that they're not street-legal.
    • ngngngng 5y ago
      I've fixed the link, the one car I had linked previously was a new offering of theirs that was only for off road use.
• Ralo 5y ago
  I've always taken the stance of cars being nothing more than a product to transport me. I've always found it hard to justify spending $30k more because that one has a nice leather interior, touch screens, and looks prettier. They both do the same job, we'll both arrive at the office at the same time. A $50 used deck with bluetooth is all the tech I need.
• johnboiles 5y ago
  My 1999 Honda CR-V I bought in college still runs and I love the simplicity of the interface. Air controls are a three evenly spaced knobs and a few buttons. The instrument cluster has everything you need with easy to read physical gauges (though I do wish it had battery voltage like my 92 Jeep did). The interface has aged super well because of its simplicity -- it doesn't feel outdated. I replaced the stereo with the cheapest CarPlay unit I can find for navigation, phone charging, and media playback. I love this too since my only screen-based ui in the car gets updates with every new iOS.
• yencabulator 5y ago
  My Jeep Wrangler is the kind of a vehicle you can leave out in the rain without the top, exposed to the elements. Floors have drain plugs, and there's very little electronics where water could intrude. The car stereo is visibly not worth stealing, and if it breaks at most I would take it out to have a new storage cubby. It's very refreshing to own.
  • boring_twenties 5y ago
    I would love one of those but even before the pandemic, clapped out examples from the late 90's with over 100k miles were going for $10-15k++. At least in my area. I'm like, weren't these things $15k brand new?
    • yencabulator 5y ago
      Jeeps hold their value crazy well, at least outside of road salt rust prone regions. Even after the engine blows, some enthusiast will still buy the frame and swap in a monster engine. I paid $15k for an '08 in 2017, and would not sell it below $15k even without the COVID car shortage price bump.
• artpi 5y ago
  4 years ago I bought Dacia Duster - it is a Renault-made car on the chassis of Nissan Quashqai. It costs $10k new, straight from the dealer. Mine costed 13k because I added powered mirrors, electric windows, A/C, and aluminum rims. When I travelled to Mexico, I've seen it very popular there under Renault brand. The car feels cheap, cramped, and has no discernible acceleration :D. It also gets the job done, is dirt cheap to repair, and has so much clearance you can build a whole lean startup under the floor.
• bborud 5y ago
  If you have never driven an old car (35 years or older) you should try. Especially if you can find one with a carburetor engine and a bit of power. It is gloriously relaxing.
• JoeJonathan 5y ago
  While I agree with most of this article, I think having one screen for CarPlay is a huge bonus. I replaced the receiver on my old Mazda, and having just that screen for GPS, music, etc. is great.
• 71a54xd 5y ago
  Unfortunately the government is imminently planning on requiring "smart" features like a law enforcement lowjack for "hot cars"[0] and a remote "kill switch" [1]. Granted, I'd be more than okay building a ranch vehicle or purchasing an old car and deleting these features as willful non-compliance. [0] https://hothardware.com/news/bidens-infrastructure-bill-mandatory-backdoor-car-kill-switch https://hothardware.com/news/bidens-infrastructure-bill-mand... (hot hardware is an oddly good source of electrical engineering news too!) [1] https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/12/29/new-federal-regulations-will-require-new-cars-to-be-equipped-with-hot-car-alert-system/#:~:text=linkedin-,New%20Federal%20Regulations%20Will%20Require%20New%20Cars%20To,With%20Hot%20Car%20Alert%20System&text=The%20new%20provision%20in%20the,has%20one%20in%20most%20models https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/12/29/new-federal-regulation....
  • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29427068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29427068 for a discussion about that, from the top comment: > This is a terrible description of what the law actually does. Let's shine some light on the FUD. The law, H.R. 3684 (as enrolled), defines an "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology" as a system which can do /one/ of the following: 1. "passively monitor the performance of a driver... to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired... and prevent or limit [car] operation if an impairment is detected." 2. "passively and accurately" detect whether someone's BAC exceeds the Federal limit, and prevent or limit car operation if it's detected. 3. Both. This will apply only after the DOT finalizes a rule describing what all those things actually mean in terms of manufacture. The law requires that the Secretary publish this rule within the next three years, unless they think it can't be done, in which case they can push it out another three years. That rule must give car manufactures at least another two years to implement the requirement. It also gives the DOT an out to say that it can't be done, in which case in 2031, they need to write a report to Congress to say why it can't be done. In software terms, this is a user story that was just submitted for development. It's Congress asking the executive branch to do some work, but not actually forcing them to do so. (But in the far-right wing press, "request to explore tech that keeps drunk people from driving" becomes "bill will mandate kill switch!" because of the click bait sound of it)
• geff82 5y ago
  In 2017 I bought a new Renault Twingo in the basic version to commute. It was great in an unexpected way: it didn’t distract at all from driving. It had one great simple feature: you could put your smartphone at the place usual GPS screens are mounted. That is it. So you could use a Renault provided App on your phone or use Google Maps. I missed nothing.
• alanchen 5y ago
  That's why I love my 2019 Mazda3. Modern enough, but not bloated.
• fleddr 5y ago
  Hear hear. And stop messing with the steering wheel. I don't want 17 trillion buttons on a steering wheel. The "safe" area seems to be getting smaller and smaller. As for worst car UI experience ever, it has to be the Seat I'm driving. It has a large touch screen. So you decide you're going to touch an option and your finger is under way to the surface. During this movement, the UI detects you're going to press something and tries to "help" you by moving some sticky menu out of the way or the opposite: revealing some hover menu. So now the thing you were planning to touch has moved during the 0.5s travel. The car is also in constant paranoia mode it seems. I'm parking forwards at about 1mph, slowly approaching the end of the lot, a boundary of shrubs. The car apparently thinks I'm close to dying. Everything is flashing and buzzing. It also has a helpful planning system. I'm in the middle of a huge traffic jam and then it tells me "busy traffic ahead". It has a navigation system where you can pick from 3 routes: fastest, easiest and some mysterious in-between option. Yet all routes lead to the exact same navigation instructions, it feels like somebody just made up the 10 minute "difference" in the UI. When driving this car, I sometimes have this feeling that the makers are laughing at me as I drive it, to see how much you can mess with somebody before they understand they're the subject of a joke. But this is no joke. I'm really quite sure that crappy car UI leads to injury and death. A car is not a Battlefield game that needs 2 years of bugfixing before it's usable.
• Grustaf 5y ago
  100% agree, I hate smart cars, touchscreens, beeping all the time for inscrutable reasons and taking over the steering wheel when you cross a line on the highway without using the indicators. As soon as I can afford it, I'm getting one of these. Electric and no-nonsense: https://bollingermotors.com https://bollingermotors.com EDIT: Oh no, they are changing directions and will focus on trucks instead!
• godot 5y ago
  There are things I agree and things I disagree, which leads me to think this is a pretty opinionated topic. For example with navigation, I thought the phone does it the same but having experienced a Tesla I honestly vastly prefer the Tesla navigation. The bigger screen makes it much easier to glance where on the map I am. You can mount a phone anywhere and it won't be nearly as easily visible. (The GPS screens on my older cars are definitely worse than the phone though) For climate control I agree fully that the older dials and buttons work better. The problem with temperature control is your body is human and you don't always want a constant temperature. I remember in my very old cars from the 90s and early 00s there's way less I have to adjust for temperature. There's a position on the dial that is pretty much always right to use for the entire season. Nowadays if I set it at 68 it's too cold on some days and too hot on some days, depending on what I'm wearing, how I'm feeling that day, etc. I have to adjust it up or down, and then next time I drive I have to adjust it again.
• lobsterboix 5y ago
  I agree with the sentiment, I recently bought a new 2021 prius prime XLE. It has this massive screen in the center dash that everything is on, and i bought it because it was supposed to support android auto. Turns out the lower end (and by lower end i mean the exact same car/engine/body but with a smaller screen and physical controls) was the one that support android auto! i love the car for the most part, but the screen is a huge miss. GPS system on it requires a perfect address and is so slow, its a Japanese car yet the software cant display Japanese on it via song titles. its really a death by 1000 cuts kind of issue.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• temporallobe 5y ago
  My favorite car, ever, was a ‘96 Tercel my mother gave me (she was literally going to junk it). It was completely mechanical and analog, and I absolutely loved it. It was fun, reliable, and dead simple to maintain and operate. Only things I did to upgrade it was to install an aftermarket audio system so I could use my smartphone with it, and I installed slightly wider tires to give it a bit more stability. It reliably got 36-40 mpg on regular gas, and since everything was mechanical (even down to the rack-and-pinion steering), nothing ever broke, ever. That thing had about 400,000 miles on the odo before I sold it. Good times.
• peanut-walrus 5y ago
  My 2019 Kia Stinger has physical gauges and every single thing I need for actually driving is a physical button, knob or dial. Yes, there is a touchscreen, however that is 99% of the time I am in the car connected to my phone, so basically just an external screen for my phone (which I would otherwise have to dangle in some phone holder somewhere). Also, all of the driving "aids" remember the last setting they were set to, so I don't have to disable them every time I sit into the car, which is a common problem with new cars.
• blamestross 5y ago
  Low end pickup trucks targeted for commerical use are pretty dumb. Mine is a 2016 Nissan Frontier and it only has a backup camera (which is honestly needed with a camper top). It has 1 door-key-hole, no power windows or power locks, and an aftermarket stereo. As a software engineer, I feel much safer in it than a car with more sophisticated computer controls XD
• account4mypc 5y ago
  my car from 2010 had a screen that felt really outdated. i removed it and installed a bluetooth system that just has an on/off/volume knob. this feels a lot more modern and has made night driving a lot easier on my eyes.
• gorjusborg 5y ago
  I had the same thought recently, as I was considering the purchase of a new car. Even the 'base models' are loaded with touch-screens, assistive driving and loads of other stuff I don't want. I understand there are people out there that do want this stuff. I would hazard a guess there are many like me that would opt for another car without this stuff if it were available. Brand it 'security-hardened' or whatever, I just don't want to be driving around your IT security nightmare. I also don't want you remotely hot-fixing my ride to make up for it. I think there are people that care about this stuff enough that you could create a brand around the concept of 'just enough tech to make it work'.
• rhacker 5y ago
  Knobs for everything I just want power windows and a NO BEEP remote lock/unlock.
• mperham 5y ago
  Also, consider an e-bike? It's a shame that the US continues to invest in sprawl, roads and parking lots everywhere. Cities could be so much more green and vibrant.
• chungy 5y ago
  > Power seat adjustment, though, that’s a luxury even today. Use the lever. Probably the one thing I disagree with the article on. Power seat adjustment is a heck of a lot safer in the driver seat than manual levers, and it's not even close. If a passenger accidentally adjusts the seat too far forward or too far back while the car is in motion, fine, it's an inconvenience. If the driver does this, they become a road hazard.
  • xd1936 5y ago
    Same could be said for adjusting wheel height. Don't do it while driving, problem solved.
  • 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 5y ago
    What on earth is the driver doing adjusting their seat fore and aft whilst driving?
  • tdesilva 5y ago
    It's not even a safety thing. Power seats with memory functionality are a must-have for anyone that shares their car with someone else. It's so much less annoying to press one button and have the car revert to your preferred seating position with side mirrors angle perfectly vs doing it manually every time.
• Digory 5y ago
  Familiar complaints in Dan Neil's WSJ review of the VW Golf R this weekend: > After a week of fun and wild-eyed frustration with the 2022 Volkswagen Golf R ... I was ready to scold VW’s product planners. Never has so good a car been so let down by its touchscreen, software and switchgear. > But I just don’t have the heart. It’s not like the R’s deciders wanted to put a one-eyed, lowest-bidder monstrosity smack in the middle of their flagship Golf R .... But they had a number to hit, a belt to tighten, and nobody was going home until they did. > ... The VW system’s boot-up is interminable; operators must wait many long seconds in the morning before they can adjust simple things like fan speed and seat heaters. The touchscreen response is like an ATM from the 1990s. The thin horizontal sliders for volume and cabin temperature are not illuminated so they are hard to see at night. wsj.com/articles/2022-vw-golf-r-sporty-stylish-not-the-best-ux-11643317829
• sinab 5y ago
  What I hate about "car discourse" like this is the apparent blindness to public transportation. Trains, bikes, buses, and street cars solve almost every problem that the author complains about. The only outstanding problem, however, is that American infrastructure has been deliberately designed solely around the car. Those who suggest alternative modes of public transportation are immediately written off as "impractical". Discourse ought to be centered around democratizing and diversifying the ways people can get around, not on how one ought to "make dumb cars".
  • afloyd 5y ago
    I would absolutely love to ride a bike or say, roller skate to work, but as i live in a stroad infested car dependent mess of a town, that is sadly impractical at best and outright deadly at worst.
    • kiki_vh 5y ago
      Agree not safe to ride bikes...
    • sinab 5y ago
      I share the same sentiment. Something I've realized recently is that people who complain about car-centrism (myself) often fail to identify ways to start solving these problems. To remedy this, I've been thinking of writing a set of practical posts, sort of a how-to, in which I explore ways to solve these problems. Is that something that would interest you?
      • milkytron 5y ago
        I would be interested. I've also been contemplating how to use my skill set to further decrease our dependence on car centric infrastructure, or help others engage in reducing it. There seems to be a very large community of people in the US who are opposed to more cars. /r/fuckcars has gained a large following rather quickly. Clearly there is demand, but how do we enable people to start making change? Money and NIMBYs are hard to challenge single handedly.
      • 5y ago
• avidphantasm 5y ago
  It should be illegal to make cars with high latency UIs. It routinely takes 1+ seconds for touchscreen button presses to be registered on my 2015 and 2018 Toyotas. This leads to erroneous actions being performed, which is not safe. If I were a software engineer on these teams I would quit if these systems were released on my watch.
  • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    It's worse than "erroneous actions being performed". It leads to the driver watching the UI for a second, which, unless you're stopped, is much too long.
  • asdff 5y ago
    Seriously. Computing hardware is an order of magnitude more powerful than in the early 2000s, but the latency bar has never been raised the entire time. You could buy a $1000 TV and it has the same lag while changing channels as the gen 1 720p flatscreen you had in 2005. Manufacturers collectively realized they can get away with substandard products since consumers have no real choice in the marketplace for a lot of products beyond the competitors who have already raced down to the bottom years ago.
    • avidphantasm 5y ago
      Good point. The Toshiba Amazon Fire 4k TV we inherited from my MIL also has atrocious lag. Oh yeah, it also sometimes forgets to do HiHDPI scaling and the UI is consigned to the upper left corner of the screen until a reboot. Utter garbage.
  • kehrin 5y ago
    I'm beginning to think it's on purpose. It seems impossible to me that cars can't handle PlayStation 2 levels of UI. Perhaps it's done to dissuade you from chaining together interactions. Rather, they want you to do one action, then look at the road while it's loading and then do the next action etc.
    • 5y ago
• smitty1e 5y ago
  Fascinating that, in a purportedly capitalistic economy, there is product demand going unserviced. We argue on good grounds, and the author mentions, that we need standards for safety and reliability, sure. But at what point do we admit that Regulatory Capture[1] destroys innovation to the benefit of only the major players? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
• geocrasher 5y ago
  The culmination of luxury, reliability, and beautiful stupidity: The 1991 Chevrolet Suburban with a 5.7L engine and the 700r4 automatic trans. Comfortable, analogue, and great looking. Easily updated with a backup camera, a modern sound system and remote start, etc. Heated seats are possible, as is any luxury you'd want. Even the engine could be updated to an OBDII compliant LS, and the drivetrain is already as stout as can be. With more modern spring technology, even leaf springs can be made to ride nicely. There are already companies doing restomods like these and selling them, and I doubt they can keep them in stock.
• jhoechtl 5y ago
  I wonder how much weight we could save by leaving out exactly the things the author mentions. BTW budget cars sold in Europe like certain Dacia models are still pretty basic, yet with efficient and modern (ICE) engines. I have even head Dacia does not in EVs.
• lukemunn 5y ago
  Interesting to see a few posts on HN recently advocating for 'dumb' and 'boring' tech. I'd actually been working on an article on 'dumb technology' along the same lines. Comments welcome. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358248465_Dumb_Technology_Calm_and_Convivial_Tools_as_the_Future_of_Digitalization https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358248465_Dumb_Tech...
• 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
  The Bluetooth in my 2102 Scion xB's stock calculator-display headunit works great. I turn on the car, my phone auto-connects, and my last podcast immediately starts playing where it left off. I don't even know how it does that. I receive a phone call, and my music is paused and I can hit the green "pick up phone" button on the headunit, and I'm talking. Call ends, and my music resumes. I can pause the music with the "1" button, skip within a track, skip tracks, even thumbs-up or thumbs-down in music apps, all with a handful of manual buttons on a stock headunit. No "flipping menus", the existing buttons just work. It's amazing. It just works. All without any god damn embedded mobile operating system or fancy graphics. ... oh, and because this headunit has a CDROM bay, it holds my magnetic phone mount better than any of the stick-on or vent-grippy ones. Thanks, dumb car!
• 1970-01-01 5y ago
  >Still, all I want is a car that isn’t as overbearing as all the rest of the devices I already own, sending me notifications, dinging, reporting errors, asking permissions, needing updates — my god! No dings or errors also means no airbag, no ABS, and no way of knowing if your tire pressure suddenly drops. And good luck if you have any issues whatsoever while on a roadtrip. You did expect all mechanics to give a fair and honest price to get you back on the roadway, right?
• maxdo 5y ago
  Typical retrograde article with a narrative I wish everything be like in good old days with no connection to reality. The main message is super pathetic. It claim simplicity but yet targets ICE car. The amount of parts in ICE vs any complicated EV is at least 3 times less. Sometimes more. So you just shift the complexity of running and driving super complex combustion engine towards your safety and comfort in EV and still car is 3 times simpler. 1. So one of points was no GPS. Who want to rely on your phone to know if you able to make to the charging station? What if you forget your phone and you're in the middle of highway deep in the forest? 2. Music. That's not even fun. Aux oh, yeah, how about ~1 billion people with iphone that doesn't have Aux. What if I want to play my music from my apple watch? And good luck managing several bluetooth devices with no screen. And what if some people doesn't want to rely on their device for such a basic thing as music? Really wiring your car with cords to charge your phone, connect aux, mount the phone is the way to make your car simple???? Are you serious? 3. Manual seat control. It seems like every argument in article is a denial of " i hate opinion and need of other people, I want my particular car". If 2 people or more own the same car, they want to adjust it automatically, including mirrors. I bet most of them will be happy to seat in a car, it read their profile from phone in the pocket, adjust seats temp etc including while driving out from drive way. That's already done in tesla including doors. No clicks at all. Screen is used when you need to change predefine settings. Even that can be altered via voice. Btw using voice is also more safe. 4. Climate control zoning. Same thing. How about people want it blow differently with different temp not for a different average temp in the cabin but for different feeling.
• mikewarot 5y ago
  It wouldn't be that hard to come up with a standard set of controls, buttons, knobs, sliders, that could be used everywhere, but conform to a standard data bus protocol, so that you wouldn't have to have miles of wire in every vehicle. Such components would allow for the cost savings of control by wire, without the danger of control by screen.
• gitowiec 5y ago
  In my Mercedes C180, year 2011 the AC zones really work and I have the knobs! With automatic gear (unusual in my country) and turbo, it really feels premium! And I bought it really cheap, as a second owner.
• spandrew 5y ago
  Personally I don't buy this argument to the degree the journalist is spinning it. "No screens anywhere!" is an extreme stance. I enjoy how well CarPlay merges my phone with the display screen (and I enjoy easy music control and turn-by-turn for distance trips). I do overall agree that the controls of modern cars just don't feel 'balanced'. But I don't think an extreme stance like this is going to improve car UX.
  • zestyping 5y ago
    What's extreme about it? When you're driving a vehicle you need to keep your eyes on the road. Putting a screen in the vehicle seems like an extreme stance. It's borderline nuts, even — we have massive campaigns trying to get people to stop looking at their phones while driving.
• clvx 5y ago
  More than making a dumb car, make the right to repair/replace/upgrade in case the car maker stops supporting the service; otherwise, this calls for planned obsolescence.
• azinman2 5y ago
  I just want CarPlay (mostly for maps) and everything else simple manual knobs. The CarPlay screen can double as the backup camera.
• makach 5y ago
  Please don't, unless you can replace the dumb driver. Dumb cars usually involved in dumb accidents because dumb driver drives dumb.
• trimal 5y ago
  While we are at it, please make dumb TVs too.
• amelius 5y ago
  > And besides being non-functional, these interfaces are even ugly! The type, the layouts, and animations scream “designed by committee and approved by someone who doesn’t have to use it.” The main problem is that the car manufacturer has a monopoly on selling you features and updates after you have bought the car.
• throwaway22032 5y ago
  The solution is to just buy old cars. I drive a 20 year old car. It's perfect. It has a CD player and you can use one of those 12 volt bluetooth / aux bongles if you want more. Eventually my local area will probably ban them because they're obsessed with health metrics (cars a few years older are now effectively taxed out of existence). Then I'll have to make do with the log burner. Until one of my neighbours dob me in for that, then I guess I move to the countryside or Eastern Europe or something and leave my house to a VR headset wonk.
• bamboozled 5y ago
  Small dumb electric car is all I want, 4x4 preferred.
• jet_32951 5y ago
  Needed to be said. I will not buy a post-2012 car because of the invasion of nanny features and telemetry. Current rides: 2003 Tacoma truck, 2005 Subaru wagon.
• hit8run 5y ago
  Author hasn’t heard about car play?
• distortedsignal 5y ago
  > Backup cameras are one thing people may not want to go without (and indeed may be required in some cases) — but you’d be surprised how informative a basic proximity beeper is. I think that backup cameras are required in US cars post-April-2018 [1]. I think that's how manufacturers justify getting a screen on the dashboard. Every other (bad) decision is just "let's make the software do _this thing_" and the feature creep leads to terrible UI/UX. [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/driver-assistance-technologies#other-systems-30696 https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/driver-assistance-technologi...
• reph2097 5y ago
  Dacia
• tristor 5y ago
  I have this car and I love it. It id a small volume production nimble and economical sports car. Everything that can reasonably be manual, is. The Subaru BRZ.
• unixbane 5y ago
  Cars went to shit when they got ECUs. Idiots defend it and anything like it because "it saves lives" "saves the environment" or whatever, but they don't know anything and haven't looked at the details themselves for even one second. Prime example: Dieselgate, they thought something or someone was being saved, but absolutely nothing was. Even this stupid article says "X & Y saves lives". Fuck off. Actually, this reminds me how a city is just a bunch of roads designed for these trash technology for people who think they are wealthy to make use of, with no provisions for people who want to just walk places (e.g 3 mile long stretches of private property with no way to get through them without risking getting arrested).
• bigodbiel 5y ago
  We need a return of dumb. From appliances to code. It’s so strange how this behavior has now become “elitist”.
• obloid 5y ago
  My 2012 Volkswagen is getting up in years, but I love it. Manual transmission, no screens, everything is easily adjusted by the driver via tactile controls. I'm loathe to get a new car because it's nearly impossible to find a recent model car without large screens. As for electric cars forget about it. I would love a "dumb" electric car. No screens, no driver assist, no GPS navigation; just a simple vehicle with an electric drive train. But short of doing an electric conversion on an old car I'm probably out of luck.
  • flibberbit 5y ago
    Those were excellent Vws, I worked at a VW dealership around that time and loved driving them. Personally my 2000 Jetta is still going strong, if you're able to afford the maintenance I'm pretty sure you could get many more years out of it (at least until the rings wear out). I'm in the same boat, I've got lovely heated leather seats, nice strong engine, good handling, and a traction control that doesn't piss me off in winter. That's all I need and as "cool" as Tesla's are, I don't expect it'll be nearly as usable after 22 years as my Jetta is. Even VW has now gone down the dark side of EVs, when all I want is an electric 2000 Jetta. It's sad how wasteful these new EVs are.
  • kehrin 5y ago
    If you're in Europe, check out the VW e-UP. It's about as basic as an electric car can get these days.
• sisjohn 5y ago
  Just buy a smart car that is based from your standards, in that way, you can weigh in its pros and cons yourself.
• bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
  I have simply gotten. comfortable with older cars.
• prometheus76 5y ago
  I sold my 1973 Chevy pickup to my brother last year and I have missed it every day since. It was as simple as possible to operate, simple to work on, and all the parts were extremely inexpensive because there weren't any computers or silicon or algorithms involved. I did upgrade the distributor to be an HEI, but that's about as "high-tech" as it needed to be.
• rsolva 5y ago
  I have my eyes set on the german electric car, Sion. It's the closest match I have found to my Toyota Corolla Verso (2006), which have no smart functions, no displays — just a safe and extremely functional car. Sion is reasonably priced (sub €30k), seems to have just the right amount of technology, is spacious and has a decent battery pack (~300km range). Production starts next year. Oh, and it has integrated solar panels, which is a nice bonus! https://sonomotors.com/en/sion/ https://sonomotors.com/en/sion/
• vlark 5y ago
  Basically, he wants my 2008 Hyundai Santa Fe.
• megablast 5y ago
  Cars are destroying the planet. Smart, dumb, electric. So please do not.
• mzmzmzm 5y ago
  I don't own a car but frequently rent them, and there's always a few wasted minutes orienting to whatever insane quirks that particular automaker crammed into the infotainment, lights, AC, radio, etc. And in these minutes if a valet is not yelling at you to start the car and get out of the parking garage already, you're at least already runnning late from the contemporary rental experience. Car UX has undeniably been getting worse.
• greghinch 5y ago
  A dumb TV. Please someone make a dumb TV that otherwise is high spec
• IYasha 5y ago
  As a first step I'd like industry to take: please get rid of all the touch screens! Non-tactile elements should never be used in a vehicle! I propose this for many, many years, since almost got into an accident on a bike while was trying to cancel a call on a touchscreen phone (I knew they were evil right when they appeared).