> But what about other expensive, complicated, things I want a choice to get rid of, major things I don't want to pay for, like .. auto stop-start, or the abili

> But what about other expensive, complicated, things I want a choice to get rid of, major things I don't want to pay for, like .. auto stop-start, or the ability for the car to slam on the brakes by itself, or the ability for the car to decide to steer itself if it thinks I've strayed from the middle of the lane. Heck, I don't want a rear camera or blind spot monitoring, I'll check my blind spots myself. They're even working on mandating some sort of monitoring in the next few years to "detect" whether you might be drunk. What are the costs of all those sorts of things? All the sensors? All the computers? All the design/coding? The costs for maintaining all of it? The cost of the extra complexity? No mention of any of that? Depends. The rearview camera thing? Probably not that expensive at this point; development costs have been amortized. Sensors probably are a bit more expensive. The thing that chaps my ass about it is that there's so little commonality among parts between models and makers. We're 40+ years into the microprocessor revolution and ECMs are still mostly bespoke designs that have closed code running on them. Why? One way to deal with the design/coding costs would be to simply spread it across more automotive manufacturers, because at the end of the day, most of them are trying to achieve the same goals with regards to the function of the component. It's like looking at the different lug nut patterns between automakers... there's only so many ways to mount a wheel on a hub and you could reduce the tooling cost to make those wheels if you shared it with someone else. > (Also don't get me started on the extra cost and complexity and loss of maintainability that emissions regulations have added to cars. They used to be dead simple and maintainable.) It's nice to have breathable air, no?