I wrote this mostly to test-drive the awesome mataroa blogging platform. Wanted to write a short two paragraphs but once I got into it, there was no end to my pent up annoyance at the sorry state of car software UX.
I edited the post to contain that info (a Kia Ceed) as I'd want to avoid that myself too. But sadly I think that means avoiding 90% of all new cars nowadays...
also I suck with car knowledge, but I believe the hot tire pressure is different from when they're cold. Perhaps the car's software doesn't take that into account?
Some cars use "indirect TPMS," which means instead of a sensor in the tire's valve stem, it measures the speed of each wheel and uses some fancy math to determine if the pressure is low.
I'm not sure if the Kia Ceed is one of such cars, but if it is, there may be some wackiness in their indirect TPMS system. Especially considering the OP says it only happens after prolonged driving at high speeds.
We've verified with three tire pressure readers that all the tires are the exact same pressure (within ~0.5 PSI). We've manually done the magic to reset the computer.
The TPMS system light still comes on after a few minutes of driving. Dealer service department has no idea what's wrong.
I believe air pressure increases with temperature, which shouldn't set off a low pressure warning.
I wonder which style of tire pressure monitoring they're using.
One is to measure the output from the wheel speed sensors. A difference in speed is assumed to mean a difference in size. A smaller tire must be a low tire.
The other is to have actual sensors in the tires that read pressures. They're usually paired to the car.
I have a set of tires (with sensors) in the garage that my car will pick up from the driveway. The sensor reads and everything looks great. The alarm will go off to tell me the sensor isn't reading anymore a few KMs from home, and it is correct.
Raising the temp raises the tire pressure, so that definitely shouldn't cause a low pressure warning.
But, broadly speaking, definitely sounds like they didn't take something into account w.r.t. hot tire pressure. Maybe the tire sensors are throwing a warning because the temp is too high, and the software is incorrectly displaying it as a low pressure warning, or... or some other hellish combination of failure.
> the software is incorrectly displaying it as a low pressure warning
The post doesn't specify if the display actually says low pressure, or if the TPMS warning light comes on, which we usually interpret as low pressure (most common case). If it is the TPMS light, I'm sure that's more of an "out of range" warning than "low pressure."
The post specifically says, "It complains about low tire pressure" so I took the author at their word.
But on the other hand, you may be right. Maybe it's just a TPMS light. It's a fun ranty blog post, the author wasn't necessarily being super precise with language =)
But the other other hand, not all TPMS systems can detect overpressure (indirect TPMS only detects underpressure)
Yeah, friction heats the tires (and air inside them) when being driven, more so with more speed and time, creating extra pressure in the tires. I've had my car complain to me about tire pressure a handful of times, only to check the pressure and noticed 3 more PSI than usual in one tire, all others OK.
hot air=denser.
When tires travelling on road, rubber get hot. Hot rubber make hot air.
So, "low pressure" after an extended drive is opposite of expected behavior. More common that you prolly run into yourself is the low pressure light in the mornign when it's cold, that then goes away as you drive for a little bit.
The common sentiment here is that all electronics should be ripped out of the cars, but I think the solution should be for car manufacturers to recognize that UX and software quality matters.
All legacy manufacturers seem to treat software with contempt, as some sort of unimportant annoyance that only needs to be implemented to minimum spec, and has no purpose other than getting regulators off their back, plus maybe looking pretty in the showroom.
Someone has probably written a checklist with "the car must beep whenever the seatbelt is not fastened", sent it to developers in the lowest basement level, they've checked it off checklist, and nobody has given a second thought about how dumb that is when taken literally.
Auto manufacturers don't have the skills to design or implement good UX, and they don't have the leadership with the skills required to hire the people with the right skills.
I feel like the pretty massive consumer support of Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, to the point where supporting it is sometimes used as an explicit marketing element, is a sign to the contrary.
I'm currently renting a newish Fiat 500. If I open the drivers door when the Start/Stop system is engaged, the engine won't restart. I can't even turn the key to start the car - the key needs to be completely removed from the ignition and inserted again. Causing the infotainment system to go into a 30 second restart.
Luckily there's a button that disables the system, which I need to remember to press if I need to get out of the car to open a gate or check I'm centered in a parking spot.
I am really trying to understand what problem the engineers at Fiat were solving when they implemented this functionality. What is the "problem" with the engine restarting when the key is in the ignition in the on position, when I'm sat in the seat, all doors closed, clutch depressed, while the car is still in neutral.
"Oh no! The driver is going to be really confused if they leave the key in the ignition, open the door for three seconds, then get back into the car, and the engine starts when they press the clutch like it would if they didn't open the door. Better brick the entire car until the key is completely removed and reinserted into the ignition."
My car also disables the start/stop system when I unlatch my driver's seatbelt. The engine does start by turning the key, though.
I think the logic is that if the driver left the car, there should be no danger of the engine starting without a driver, in case someone or something accidentally pressed the clutch.
On the subject of automobiles making strange assumptions, my Chevy Bolt EV has a "feature" that I have never been able to understand:
The car has 2 drive modes: "D" and "L". The "D" mode mimics an automatic ICE car--it creeps forward when one lets off the brake, and coasts for a long time when one lets off the accelerator. I always drive the car in "L" mode, which is the aggressive regenerative braking mode. When I let off the gas it slows to a stop quickly (assuming the battery is not near full charge). And it does not creep when I release the brake.
But there is one bizarre exception: If I power on the car and put it in "L" mode, but I haven't yet fastened my seat belt, the car will creep forward when I let off the brake, just like in D. This has caught me off guard a few times, but I've always caught it and hit the brakes before the car rolled into my garage door or a car parked in front of me.
I once brought it up on /r/BoltEV, and someone claiming to be a Chevrolet engineer told me this behavior was by design, but had no good justification for it.
The reason is for safety (so people don't get out of their car while it's halted in L without the parking brake), this did cause me to (slowly) crash once, I am sure people have been nearly injured by the safety feature.
I later replaced my Bolt with a Tesla Model 3 (yeah, I have a lot of complaints here too, but overall it's less annoying) purely for fast-charging reasons, but driving a Bolt again afterwards drove me absolutely insane with their L mode:
- have to enable it each drive
- doesn't work in reverse
- creeps when seatbelt comes unbuckled and sometimes RANDOMLY
- randomly decides it's not going to regen as much even when low on charge
I know it's not the top of anybody else's demands from a car, but what the fuck Chevrolet. There should always be a button for "I didn't buy an EV by accident, now let me fucking drive it normally".
The truth is Chevrolet never intended to allow you to use L mode to drive at all. They only added it in, so you can put on the parking brake, and tap down the gear selector repeatedly to switch between L and D, making your car bounce up and down. I don't know of any other car with an electric twerking lever, and for that reason, it still holds a special place in my heart.
The real explanation is that every “L” or “B” mode on a hybrid or EV exactly duplicates the behavior of the original hybrid, the 2001 Toyota Prius. That vehicle made sure to get as close as it could to the behavior of automatic transmissions of Toyotas built in that time period.
I thought I was buying something more dependable. Now I have to deal with the issues listed and more.
1. Carseat in the back triggers the seat belt unbuckled beeping that never ends.
2. Collision avoidance slams on the brakes when grass is leaning into the road, especially while reversing (a common occurrence in rural areas).
3. Battery dies when doors or trunk is left open due to the car running its computer.
4. Less control over lighting. All the interior lights turn on after turning the car off and opening a door.
5. "Infotainment" that looks like it was made in the early aughts and has no customizability. Why pay for a screen you can do next to nothing with. I can't even replace it to get a real equalizer for audio.
> 3. Battery dies when doors or trunk is left open due to the car running its computer.
This happens with less-smart cars as well. I've heard countless stories of batteries dying on picnics or camping trips because car doors were left open or lights were left on. The computer is just one more thing to drain the battery, but leaving your doors open has been a bad idea for a long time now.
I have to guess you’re driving a Toyota because this is identical to my experience driving mine.
The actual driving experience is awesome. It’s a great vehicle that I’d rate highly based purely on the most basic function of the vehicle. The rest is pretty awful compared to what it could be, I think.
The battery dying due to the trunk being open… I bring a booster everywhere, even on short drives, because the battery could die for such stupid reasons. My wife stops to listen to the radio and look at the city on a local mountain? Dead. Washing the car and leave a door open for vacuuming? Dead. One of the kids turns on the computer without us realizing? Yeah, totally dead. I’ve boosted this car more than a dozen times now. We don’t do anything that wasn’t totally fine with past vehicles.
Oh well. It runs. It gets us to point b 99% of the time. I wish the infotainment unit wasn’t so abysmally bad, but I’ve never had such an easy time driving in bad conditions or hauling things. I love that.
Have you replaced your battery? Because letting your battery drain fully even once can damage it. And if you’ve needed to boost it more than a dozen times, then it almost certainly sounds like it is time to replace.
Definitely, I’m on my 3rd battery now. My family doesn’t realize/understand that draining causes damage so they aren’t as careful as they could be, otherwise we’d likely still be on the 2nd.
The battery thing doesn't sound normal. My car keeps the 12V plugs powered all the time, even parked and locked. Last winter, not driving very often, I noticed one day that the whole car was covered in snow except for a small round spot on the windshield. Turned out I'd left a camera plugged in, recording, for three days straight, generating enough heat to warm the windshield. The car did show a "voltage getting low" warning, but started just fine, I went on a little drive to let it charge and it's been fine since. My car is a humble 2018 Škoda (VW tech basically) still on the original battery, and it does the intelligent charging routine where it only charges when engine-braking and lets the voltage drop often, so it's one abused battery.
Wow, that’s interesting. Even with a brand new battery mine will have issues with rapid draining. I know the alternator is working, so it isn’t that. Maybe others are right that there’s a phantom drain somewhere. A camera recording would kill my battery in under an hour, I’m almost certain. The radio will do it in around 30m.
> The battery dying due to the trunk being open… I bring a booster everywhere, even on short drives, because the battery could die for such stupid reasons. My wife stops to listen to the radio and look at the city on a local mountain? Dead. Washing the car and leave a door open for vacuuming? Dead. One of the kids turns on the computer without us realizing? Yeah, totally dead. I’ve boosted this car more than a dozen times now. We don’t do anything that wasn’t totally fine with past vehicles.
That does not sound normal. AGM batteries are designed to have enough capacity to power car computer and other demanding circuits, but the car would typically intervene before your battery goes dead. Either the battery is bad or there is a phantom drain in some circuit. Get it checked out!
Yes, a lot of cars here in Japan has aftermarket head units thanks to widely adopted 2DIN de facto standards. It's getting trickier as manufacturers copy Tesla more aggressively but if your car has a non-integrated A/C panel, separate from the main touchscreen, chances are the screen can be swapped out for something.
Yeah, AC is totally separate. This is good news. 2DIN will even carry over the camera data? I had no idea it could be that easy. I wonder if I could get CarPlay in this thing. Thanks for mentioning this!
At some point, they stopped being able to sell new model years by innovating on things that matter, and they had to just cram in a bunch of electronics, touch screens, and dubious safety features so they could show forward progress. I would love if (more) manufacturers just said "nope, what you're buying when you buy our new car is unused parts, and a fresh coat of paint—not new features. This is the same car we've been refining for the last 10 years. We got it basically right the first time, and there hasn't been a need to mess with it."
I suppose that the savings in manufacturing, part sourcing, and R&D costs would be non-trivial, but that you'd lose sales to people who actually do think that a slightly bigger touch screen or a yellow light that goes off when your passenger farts is important and will spend extra money on it. And that's one reason we're where we are today.
How much of this is trying to get a higher IIHS safety rating[1]? I liken these features to the idle engine auto-off feature that allows manufacturers to add 1 or 2 city mpgs to their rating even though I've never known a human who likes that feature.
The industry seems to have created this problem for itself by spending huge amounts of marketing money to link new cars with financial status, and pushing hard on financially engineered products like 2-year leases and 0-down loans. Single year product cycles ruin pretty much everything they touch, from automobiles, to phones, to operating systems, to laundry machines.
I agree, but I don't understand why they don't innovate on looks and utility instead. They have the EveryMan commuters down, and the FamilyMan people movers are sorted. Lets fill out the rest of the niches.
I have a 2014 Toyota Tacoma. I get in, start it, and its usually connected to my phone and playing the last podcast before I've even backed out of the garage.
My wife's car is a 2015 Nissan. I get in, start it, and I'm out of the driveway and on the road before the infotainment system has finished booting, and I get to the stop sign before it discovers my phone and plays the podcast. And there's a 20% chance it fails to connect to my phone, and I have to stop at the side of the road and put it in park before I'm allowed to press the buttons to "forget" my phone and re-add it again.
OTOH, my Tacoma is just a two-seater, so if I have any groceries or a dog in the passenger seat, the seatbelt alarm bings at me for a solid minute of driving before giving up. I usually just leave it buckled, and empty, because I haven't bothered figuring out how to disconnect it in the 10 years I've owned it.
I never want this. I fill with rage when a car automatically starts playing things without asking. Yes, it's true, a week ago I listened to something. That was not an invitation for the car to start playing it now.
My mental model is that every car designer peaked in the 80s. An FM radio automatically starts playing whatever it was tuned to when turned off. Therefore every car designer has decided that digital media should work exactly the same way, with no override option.
For me at least, that's the right thing. I do get a bit annoyed that it'll sometimes play some random youtube video I happened to be watching on my phone instead of the podcast, but that's Apple's fault, not Toyota's. I wish there was a way to configure "preferred audio app when connected to this bluetooth device" in the setting somewhere.
But I think playing the last podcast automatically is the right thing. Just like if I have it switched to the radio when I turned it off, when I turn it back on it goes back to radio, turned to the same station. I'd be annoyed if I had to hit the infotainment power button every time, even though I just turned the car on.
Right there with you. And it's never instant, either. Some time (and it's random, not consistent!) between +5 and +30 seconds after I start the car, I will get some random song/podcast/voicemail playing, usually when I'm trying to focus on something else. I hate this behavior so much. Doubly-so in that I can't turn it off.
This had hilarious results for me recently. I loaded the car with my tween kids and their neighborhood friends, realized I forgot something inside, and the history podcast I was listening to started automatically while I was bumbling around. It was an episode about the Marquis de Sade.
Heh, reading the article/rant I was waiting for the Nissan punchline. I was travelling for work a couple months ago and ended up with a Nissan Armada. Pretty much everything the author's complaining about was things I experience. Plus it had a forward collision detector that loved to start freaking out while I was sitting at a rural red light with narry a car in sight for miles.
I was really glad to come home and get back in my 2016 Tacoma :). It has a couple of quirks but it really is a joy to drive every day. I definitely feel your pain about the front seat though, although I've got the Access Cab so groceries and dogs go in the back "seat".
My 2015 Honda Civic LX was the same as your 2014 Toyota Tacoma. Turn it on, it'd connect to my iPhone in 2 seconds, and start playing. It was actually a nice car.
I've rented lots of different cars. I've never had an issue getting my phone to connect to them, and whenever I start the car my phone has connected in a few seconds. Haven't noticed alarms and alerts beeping and popping up or any of that nonsense people are talking about here. Is it certain makes having these issues and I just haven't rented these makes?
It’s astonishing to me that car companies continue to push infotainment solutions like they do. It’s clearly outsourced to the cheapest possible development groups. Say what you will about Tesla, at least the center dash feels contemporary. I’m getting sick of it changing constantly, but on the other hand is my 2021 Hondas computer which feels like it would have been pretty cool in 1994.
You’d think BMW or Porsche would be the company to seriously invest in a Car OS, but it keeps not happening. I guess no one cares?
You’d think BMW or Porsche would be the company to seriously invest in a Car OS, but it keeps not happening. I guess no one cares?
Oh, they care, all right. VW has tried, multiple times (see the whole Cariad debacle). Now GM thinks they can succeed where VW and others have failed.
Automakers simply don't understand the facts of life: there's a club consisting of technology companies who determine how consumers engage with their 'smart' devices, and they ain't in it.
Porsche at least shows some signs of understanding that. They have recently told their parent company to take a long walk off a short pier, and are opening talks with Google. VW AG's technological blundering has probably already cost Porsche billions... and counting.
Right? I just want them to give up. I know the era of the replaceable head unit is over, and probably rightly since modern screens are much larger than you could fit in those days. But please let me swap out the infotainment computer. I can find get a device that provides better maps, phone, and GPS in my old desk drawer.
Just let me flip up the screen and plug an SBC into some USB ports and a DisplayPort.
Mercedes is absolutely terrible at software development. The cars themselves used to be fantastic but it's mostly plastic junk now that just looks flashy and the software is so bad it should be illegal.
I recently got a 2023 Toyota Corolla. I've got my say my experience has mostly been the opposite, but I don't have the blind-spot alert or an auto-closing trunk.
The closest thing I've encountered is mentioned here - the tire pressure alert is way too sensitive. Drop 1-2PSI below the nominal (which happens the moment the temperature drops) and it complains on startup. But it's brief and easy to ignore.
Otherwise, it's been great! It never whines at me and does what I want.
The lane keep assist still requiring input on stop is bizarre. Glad mine doesn't do that!
Also: Fwiw, I think most collision detection systems immediately turn off the lane-keep-assist if something like that is detected to be about to occur. Plus, it doesn't 'fight' you very hard, if you put in any force at all it overrides it - at least on mine.
> The closest thing I've encountered is mentioned here - the tire pressure alert is way too sensitive
That one annoys me to no end. I have a Renault and a Hyundai, but have tire pressure sensors that trigger when the weather changes, if you turn to fast or just at random. The pressure sensors have so many false alarms that I no longer believe them, so they've become pointless... well an annoyance. I've asked if they can be disabled, but no. It's actually kinda dangerous, I could be going 130kph and ignore the pressure warning, because the car has trained me to assuming that the sensor is wrong.
The Hyundai have another incredibly dangerous feature, a loud "BING" when road temperatures hit 4C. So again you're going 80 - 130kph and then "BING" all your attention is drawn away from the road. I know it's cold, it's cold for 6 month of the year. You're stealing my attention at the EXACT point where you know that the road could be icy, brilliant.
My old Jeep had a similar warning (and I think my LEAF does as well, but I’m not 100%).
It’s a chime, not a klaxon. I don’t find it the least bit difficult to prioritize it correctly (any more than alerts on some rental cars suggesting me to take a break after X minutes of driving).
I also suspect it’s a net win for safety, given the overall level of clueless disconnectedness I see in steering wheel holders.
Blind-spot alert is very handy, but mine doesn't beep at all. Just inobtrusive yellow lights on A-pillars. If you signal a turn and there is a vehicle beside you, it flashes.
If it beeped I would've gone mad too.
So overall, it seems some manufactures integrated the new tech well, some did it poorly.
If a car comes up on the left lane (while I am in right), I can see it in rearview, then sidemirror + rearview, then in peripheral vision, the whole time.
It is possible a very small and fast unicycle could find a place to hide, but a normal size car can't.
I have a 2020 Prius Prime and the antediluvian infotainment system that reminds me of a mid-oughts GPS is the only real flaw with its software. Like, start the car and then wait because I'm not allowed to touch the GPS when I'm in motion and it needs like half a minute to boot up to the point where I can actually enter a destination.
Otherwise I like the UI. The pair of thumb-menu navigators on the steering wheel are great, I basically only have to touch the touchscreen for GPS.
Fantastic post. Really, the UX in most new mid-range cars is terrible.
Also, can anyone explain why in the US if I click unlock on the remote, it just unlocks the front door? This keeps happening on rental cars. You have to click twice on unlock to get all the doors to open. Of course if I want to put something in the back seat, that means first breaking my fingers while pulling on the handle, then cursing and clicking the open button on the remote 10 times to makes sure the idiotic system has unlocked ALL the doors. Which I wanted it to do in the first place.
It's in case you're alone, and prevents someone else from being able to jump into the passenger seat and carjack you. Most new cars have a customization option to change that behavior.
If you are sitting in your car and they yank open the passenger door and jump in, they can get a lot closer to you, faster, than they can if they approach you while you are outside your car.
Every remote unlocked vehicle I have used since the 80s has behaved that way. The difference is you can re-program the behavior with the screen in modern cars.
> can anyone explain why in the US if I click unlock on the remote, it just unlocks the front door? This keeps happening on rental cars. You have to click twice on unlock to get all the doors to open.
This is likely configurable. Instructions should be in the owner's manual. It is configurable for both my and my wife's vehicles, one via the touchscreen and the other by pressing and holding unlock for 5 seconds.
Hyundai Tucson has most of these features, except they aren't rude. There are rude features.
When you park the car and hit the pushbutton start/stop, it locks the back doors. Who thought this was a good idea?
You want to circulate air? (because you are driving by the dump or in traffic) Push a button. It turns back to outside air after a time. Maybe this is to deter people from gassing themselves. What's that say about Hyundai owners, yikes!
My mini cooper does the same -- the online consensus seems to be that it does that to prevent moisture buildup inside the car fogging up the windows.
But it sure is annoying during wildfire season when I'm trying to avoid poor air quality outside, I wish they had an override like if you hold the switch down for 5 seconds, it stays in that mode.
I have the opposite air circulation problem with 2013-present Toyota/Lexus models. If you press the pollen filter button (which turns on an ionizer before the filter to make big particles get easily captured by the filter) will automatically set the car to recirculate to help ensure maximum filtration and minimum sneezing. After a few minutes it turns off the ionizer, but also switches back to outside air, throwing away all the carefully cleaned air and triggering a guaranteed sneeze attack after waiting long enough for you to get on the high speed freeway.
Hello Hyundai owner... Evidently you live in a cool environment. When looking online I see this
>That function is called "Automatic Ventilation". Anytime temp is below 59 degrees and recirc is selected for more than 5 min the recirc will automatically change to outside air. However this auto feature can be cancelled. There is a simple procedure outlined in owners manual. It's on page 4/86 in my 2015 Accent owners manual. It's one of those hidden features buried deep in owners manual.
Check your manual and there's likely a way to turn it off.
The auto-revert on air recirculation is a new one for me. I have a Kia and I'm pretty sure the systems are identical, so I'm going to see if mine does the same.
I think the trait I've noticed in my car is that the recirculation turns off if you put the HVAC on "auto".
There's a cool feature where it automatically turns on in certain situations like in tunnels. I wish I could add my own recirculation areas since i often drive by a smelly sewage treatment plant.
In every car I’ve ever looked into, the baffle that selects between recirculate and windshield intake is intentionally leaky enough to prevent CO2 and moisture buildup even in full recirculate mode.
If you buy a car then they later ask you to accept a new TOS you should be able to refuse and return the car for a full refund.
You thought you had a contract with them, then they made you a counter offer. Under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) I think you have the right to refuse and get your money back.
They should be forced to have separate updates for fixes/updates and another for new features. fixes/updates should not require new ToS, and should be possible to auto-update for safety reasons. new features should be forced to wait for an intentional agree to update before installing.
The problem with trying to keep it under the original TOS is that the company will just ignore your rights and pretend you agreed to the new TOS. What proof do you have that you did not click "I agree?"
If you have the right to return a 3-year-old car with collision damage and get a 100% ful refund, then they will NEVER change the TOS and ask you to agree.
Also, this was the Uniform Commerical Code (UCC) for many years until they decided (IIRC) that software was not subject to the UCC. Maybe we can make the case that software has come of age and fraud is now fraud?
The problem here is that new features often involve some refactoring work. Then, if you didn't opt for feature X, the company isn't going to go out of their way to make and ship and maintain a fix for the old non-refactored version, so if you want fixes, there is no way to get them without feature X... Unless they are using feature flags of course, but then no fixes/updates are exactly "safe" for the combination of features agreed to.
Why can't they just maintain stable branches with bugfixes backported to them? You don't need feature flags for this, you can literally do this with just semver. Plenty of products support some number of previous minor versions but will backport bugfixes to them, and plenty of others have LTS releases that have a longer window of bugfixes still being made without new features.
If the claim is that there's something fundamental about car software that makes this less possible than literally every other type of software in existence, the burden is on the car companies to prove it. I strongly doubt this is the case, but if it is, I'd argue that the more prudent thing is to just _not_ keep adding features, because fixing bugs for the multi-ton behemoths hurtling alongside one another at high speeds sounds more important than literally anything that they could provide to the car that people have already decided is worthy of purchasing with the current set of features.
This being enforced sure would put an end to TOS being revised. (Which, overall, would be a good thing.)
What I dream about is consumer protection laws mandating that the car owner can simply opt out of whatever 'services' the car offers and then not be nagged about it.
Just a large, friendly dialog box with the two options 'Sure, collect all the data you can about me, my passengers, my driving habits, the environs I drive in, and whatever inferences you may derive from collating data, including, but not limited to the above. The data will be sold to whoever are willing to pay us for them.' and 'Just leave me the heck alone!'
This shit is so hilarious, it's a Kia... as Mozilla recently researched, they have updated their TOS to include storing "sexual orientation". What the hell do you need that info for? Why even expose yourself, as a company, to the potential public shaming once someone finds out that on page 542 of your new terms it says "we want to know what turns you on"?
The company doesn’t need that info. One random product manager or marketing manager that wants a promotion and has a KPI to beat Subaru cares about that metric for the 6 months that metric matters to them, and as a result hundreds of millions of people must suffer from undue stalking behavior.
oh. mine has exactly 5,000 slots for mp3 filenames. Not seeing more. A 2022 top-model car. And that "supercomputer" boots in freaking 35+seconds..
Well, i have 35000 songs to listen to. so.. Bundle them together.. LP-sides-like.
I bet it's shit on purpose. Now, if you pay 5000 euros more for the premium model, you'll get 10 times more songs and boot in 10 seconds (I.e., they'll flip the premium model flag bit in the car software)!
it was a top-ever model. No further premiums.
comeon, who can fit more than 5000 pieces on a 256Gb USB stick?
but, i forgot these ones..
> goddamn tires
ah yes. ding.. it complains about tire pressure being different. Nah, it won't tell which tire. Or how much (1% or 10% or 70%).
So if you see me suddenly stopping in empty mid highway, and walking 3 times around the car kicking each tire 2 times exactly, that's a good omen.. when the sun heats on the left..
> wiggling the wheel
ah and this one. On a laser-straight highway. With perfectly aligned wheels and drive train. With 170km/h. You must wiggle the steering wheel.. or you'll be ding-donged to insanity. Safety first?
> ah yes. ding.. it complains about tire pressure being different. Nah, it won't tell which tire. Or how much (1% or 10% or 70%).
I've given up on tire pressure sensors. Our tire pressure alert light is probably on 50% of the time.
Check tires, half the time they all read fine. They all look fine. They're OK, then the temp drops 10 degrees F, now the light's on. Man, I just can't be bothered. Tell me which the fuck tire you're worried about (which you fucking know!) and I'll start paying attention again. The guessing game is no fun.
I see, perhaps in that case you have to wait for a couple of years for a very reasonably priced upgrade (subscription model!) to unlock the extra features (that are there all the time, just restricted by software).
So far my newest car is a 2006 BMW with just enough electronics to be helpful but not so much I get the constant noises I've had when renting anything newer. Amazingly nothing major has let go yet.
Did enjoy renting a Tesla Model 3 but I can't stand the 'modern minimal apartment' driving experience, give me a Supra style wrap around cockpit or give me death.
What I came to say though, is this is making me want to restomod my way through the rest of my car ownership career, I'm almost done with a 1981 Mini but after that putting tesla motors and pi driven dashboards in cars exclusively from pre 2010 has a growing appeal.
A 1981 Mini is a great way to get killed. I've had 11 of them (not a typo) and I can probably do a tear down and rebuild while blindfolded but I wouldn't drive one day to day for any amount of money. I did take one on a trip to Scotland and it was a fantastic experience and tons of fun comments from passers by (Clubman, Innocenti engine boosted as far as it would go) but seeing the truck wheels pass by from below the axle is a sobering picture. Please drive something solid.
Hi fellow mini owner! For anyone else reading this - I wholeheartedly agree. Do not buy a mini without knowing what you're getting into.
For myself - Mini's were my first two cars, and the second one is the one I'm restoring. For some reason I still don't fully understand my parents encouraged me to own a vehicle with the reliability and structural strength of a wet paper towel.. And if you know me I'm not exactly risk averse. But I love that thing and it's still one of the most fun vehicles I've driven after all this time. It's also possible to rev it out without constantly breaking the speed limit, something that the BMW and my CBR 1000RR both struggle with (CBR gets plenty of track time).
It's been repainted, solid subframe mounts, blue coil springs, adjustable dampers, adjustable brake bias, disk brakes at the front - you name it. Currently planning the build of a 1275GT motor (SW1 cam etc) and planning to use a Motogadget blue unit to solve many of the electrical gremlins. I don't know if it will be a daily or even if I will keep it long (I love building stuff so when its done I start looking for the next thing), but I've always meant to do some mini club cruises.
Being risk averse will probably at least result in you driving it like your life is on the line (which it is...).
Keep an eye on the dogbone mount where it goes into the firewall as well as the linkage arms (they're flimsy) and steering housing. Any failure there can cause instantaneous trajectory changes that you can't correct any more.
Clubs are a good way to get to know other people that have done a lot of work on Minis, they're a hoot to drive. If you ride a bike then you're probably already taking the same kind of risk that driving a Mini holds, the bigger problem is other vehicles not seeing you.
Best of luck! And if you ever run into any weird issues hit me up, email in profile.
If an Aygo hit a classic Mini I suspect you wouldn't be able to tell that there were two vehicles involved in the collision, the Aygo would probably drive right through the other vehicle, especially if the Aygo hit the Mini from the side.
I've looked at strengthening the Mini chassis but gave up on account of the kind of weight that would add.
> At every turn, rude-ass automotive software you didn't ask for clamors for your attention.
I love that sentence because it explains exactly how I feel. It's a miracle if I can start my car without at least one message popping up. I've been driving since the mid-80s, just a few years after I started programming/coding, and as much as I love software, and I think there's a lot of benefit to software-enabled cars, I also see so much distraction. It's like the web in the late-90s, littered with pop-up windows, except it's my car, and I'm trying to drive.
For anyone who wonders why people like Teslas, despite all the bad press and public failings - it's because a lot of this "small stuff", the subtle UX touches, is done very well in Teslas.
Yeah. It's not that Tesla never shipped issues like this, either. The difference is in the over-the-air updates. They have consistently fixed these kinds of annoyances. Annoyances that on any other car you'd just have to live with for the next 10 years.
Mine is a completely different car than when I got it in 2019, with far more features and fewer annoyances. Really the only annoyances left are the ones where software can't fix hardware design issues, mainly the awkward door handles and the lack of a sensor for the automatic wipers.
You can adjust volume from the left scroll button on the wheel.
I was driving around last week in a rented Kia very similar to the target of the article's rant, down to all the listed warts (DING! DING! DING!). After getting used to Tesla's set-and-forget approach, I found having to fluff around with the temperature controls manually quite annoying.
This is why I can't imagine buying a newer car than, say, 2014. I have mid 2010s Toyota which is cheap enough to not have any consumer hostile or fragile features, and a mid 2000s Honda with much the same. Aside from sheer destruction, there's not much damage or failure that will be worth it to me to buy a replacement vehicle for either. Like most Americans, I used to think cars are cool, but if either dies I'm going to replace them with the oldest piece of shit I can.
If you are allergic to Tesla, I think BMW can offer a descent user experience. If you ignore the silly feature such as the possibility to draw letters on the navigation pad like it’s a palm pilot from the 90s. The system feels a bit dated but it’s a good dated system.
I also think Tesla is ahead, even after they removed the stalks. But they could do better. Maybe the UX engineers need a trip to Europe and expect having to use the blinkers in roundabouts.
Lexus has CarPlay and Android Auto. The infotainment is a pipe of the OS from your phone to the vehicle screen. There are still buttons that take time to work into muscle memory and light customization, but that vaires for every user.
The amount of distraction in a modern car is staggering. You can be driving down the freeway and receive urgent sounding dings with no apparent cause. I can’t wait for the lawsuits.
You should consider a bike with dynamo lights. It’s more purely mechanical than any car made in the last century, and you can do all the maintenance yourself.
Damn the author hit the experience on my head. I was (forced) into an electric car rental by Hertz and it was one of the most awful experiences I had. Brand escapes me now, but it did everything the author was ranting about. I'm glad it was only a rental.
The nice thing I love about my bmw is the coding apps that exist for it. The first thing I did was code the car to not chime at me for a seat belt and more importantly, not throw up a warning message on the infotainment system.
I've edited more things using that coding app too but having the ability to do that is important to me.
I hired a Kia Sorrento SUV on a recent trip to Florida. Quite a lot of bing-bings when you did anything, but it wasn't too bad. What surprised me was that it had various high-tech doodads (collision warning, would put the brakes on if it thought you were going to hit something etc) but no high-vis/fog lights on the front or back. This is a serious ommission when you are in a Florida rain storm. Also I find it odd that US cars often have the same colour indicators as brake lights.
> Also I find it odd that US cars often have the same colour indicators as brake lights.
I have lived in the US my whole life and I hate this. In a world where you have to disassemble the trunk interior to change a bulb, burned out one’s often go unfixed. It’s a constant game of, “is that a left blinker or someone who’s right brake light is out and they are just pumping their breaks?”
This is an advertisement for the GMT800 platform - the greatest vehicles ever made.
Not only do they not do this, they have 0 capability to do this. You can buy a "new" bed for $400, same with doors. Bought 2 headlight assemblies for $25 recently. That set of repairs on a Rivian is $14,000.
> Edit: for the record, this is about a Kia Ceed SW, but it's not that important because I'm sure 90% of all 2023 cars run on the CAN bus equivalent of a 10.000 line, 100 cell Jupyter Notebook that was last restarted in the fall of 2018.
For what it's worth, my fairly recently new car (bought new two years ago) has none of these problems. Not that it's perfect, but all these user hostile features might be more of a Kia issue than a new car issue.
My kia ceed has most of the described features, they work fine 97 percent of the time. Those 3 percent can be a bit annoying but it is not so bad as described and you get used to it quickly. You quickly learn the first step is to close doors and fasten seatbelt to avoid some blings. The steering aid is subtle enough that you can easily turn against it and is very easy to turn on and off using a physical button on... the steering wheel.
It also has a very good rear camera and NO distance beeps, just the way I like it.
Recently started using a bakfiets style cargo bike and it is a game changer in terms of being able to not use/depend on a car. It's so nice being able to optionally carry another human or a ton of groceries and other stuff on my bike without messing around with panniers and racks.
I really love how it makes doing regular stuff more fun, sort of similar to my enjoyment of driving the small Smart cars, except I can park it pretty much wherever.
To everyone in this thread complaining about electronics in cars... consider buying a motorcycle.
No entertainment system. Low-tech. Individual styling that has persisted since long after every car turned into a variant of the aerobubble. Put in the key, turn it on, and go.
Leave the car for rainy days, grocery trips, and ferrying your kids, and ride a motorcycle the rest of the time (i.e. commuting to work).
Motorcycles and cars are both capable of highway speeds, so they're easier to envision as a replacement when the benefit of cars (weather protection, passenger/cargo space) are irrelevant. Ebikes make great sense for shorter distance travel (i.e. in cities) when sufficient bicycle infrastructure is available (bike lanes and secure parking), but if neither of those are true in the circumstances, it's difficult to convince people to "give up" their cars.
Yeah, that's a much more eloquent and detailed version of what I was trying to say. Sucks that so many cities are designed around the car. There's a good Youtube channel called "More Than Bikes" about this.
This is vehicle specific. Not all 2023 vehicles behave this way. I have a current generation vehicle (same generation and tech as 2023).
- Doors stay unlocked. Eventually the engine won't start without pressing unlock on the key fob again, but the doors remain physically unlocked forever.
- Trunk is manually operated.
- It doesn't ding when starting the engine if my seatbelt it on. And I have a programmer that lets me disable the dings when my seatbelt it off. There are no dings when turning the engine off.
- Blind spot warning is configurable: Off, lights, lights + chime. The chime warning doesn't seem annoying.
- No lane keeping assistant.
- Tire pressure monitors work well. They are accurate (same pressure as multiple physical gauges I've tried). Tire pressure increases slightly when driving due to heat. They have never triggered a warning.
- I don't recall ever having to accept terms of service. It certainly hasn't happened multiple times.
I have physical knobs for volume, fan speed, and tuner. Physical buttons for everything else. No controls use resistive touch buttons. No controls are via touch screen (touchscreen has information and setting like blind spot, but not actual controls that don't have physical buttons).
I also have a 1990s vehicle, with an aftermarket touchscreen installed to support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The current generation vehicle is no more annoying than the 1990s one.
My wife has a 2023 model year vehicle. Many of the complaints in the post are enabled by default (auto re-lock, blind spot chime that gets confused by multiple lanes). But many of the annoying things are also configurable, including auto re-lock and blind spot.
So it is possible to pick a vehicle that isn't annoying. And I suspect most of the annoying things can be disabled.
Settings you can't access from the UI of your car can often be changed by purchasing an OBD2 cable and using the config software for your car brand.
One of the first things I do with a new Toyota is pop open Techstream. Just don't break your engine by fiddling with things other than cabin light delays, car alarms, etc.
Rented a VW in Europe. It had the feature where it turned off the engine every time you stopped which I hate; so I read the owners manual and turned that feature off. At the end of the trip, I turned the car off and it would never start again. Rental company had to come with a flatbed and tow it away.
My new Honda is actually not that bad. Auto relock is more like 30 seconds and possibly can be disabled (haven't gone carefully through the menus) and most of the other nonsense in that article is absent.
About the only major annoyance - and that's optional since the keyfob still has lock/unlock buttons - is that walk away autolock works about 9 times out of 10 - so you always always have to listen for the click of the locks - and that the touch sensors on the front door handles, which are supposed to toggle between locked and not, often decide that you want to lock your already locked car 3-4x in a row before finally unlocking. You could, of course, use the keyfob, but everything about the car trains you to just keep that in a zipped pocket.
When I plug in my phone into the USB port on my newer vehicle, it asks me if I want to allow or deny the car to see the files on my phone. Nice. However before I make a choice, the default is already to allow file transfers. Not nice. I think Android is ultimately the one who could and should change this behavior but I'm sure my car is hoovering up any changes visible through the filesystem since the last time I plugged it in.
The section titled "Using your turn signals" also matches my experience and pisses me off to no end. Have car designers never driven one of their own cars?
> Six obnoxiously loud gong-like sounds reverberate through the interior of your car upon pressing the 'start/stop engine' button.
I stopped reading at this point because I knew he was driving a Kia.
I rented one over the summer and those inexplicable dings on startup made me want to scream. And also that the steering wheel obscured the speedometer. I will never own one.
My own Toyota beeps once to let me know it’s in “Ready” mode and that’s it. It’s got a clear dash, nice controls and I am going to drive it until it is unserviceable.
Some manufacturers don’t allow this. My partner got a 22 Subaru forester and the audible alerts cannot be turned off without disabling the system altogether. although to be fair they are relative unobtrusive most of the time unless they are critical
This is a disturbing trend though. The car has in cabin cameras to identify the driver. So if I drive it I’m recognized and the seat is adjusted automatically. Handy, right? However, they also have “features” like gestures to adjust the climate control where you make a fist in the air to adjust the temperature up. This is remarkably easy to false trigger. There is no way to turn it off except via the dealer who assured us at delivery that it could be turned off (I was certain this feature would be stupid and annoying during test drive and was right). However, it’s still on a year later because none of their stupid techs can figure out how to turn it off. We almost want to return the car over this. It’s very frustrating to be driving down the highway and having a discussion and suddenly the heat is set to 80F because you talk with your hands. Absolutely moronic design
I get a lack of ability to disable alerts and controls for the stuff related to autonomous driving/lane assist/acc/etc; I’m sure that’s rife with legal liability and allowing the system to work without alerts has some lawyer on their team all freaked out. But hvac control schemes?? Seriously??
Sadly, in this case, the DINGs when starting the engine are hardcoded. The blind spot and lane departure system can be turned off, but forcefully turns back on when you restart the engine.
It seemed unimportant during the writing of that admittedly hyperbolic post because I think I'm having the perfect median 2023 new car experience; other than that no reason, it's a Kia Ceed. I'm probably getting a beat up 2003 volkswagen next.
Go for the ‘03 VW. Other than the auto trans, the Mark 4 Golf/Jetta (97-‘06) is arguably the best car ever made, and the TDIs are as efficient as a prius. A reliable, fun to drive car that only costs a few grand!
Not exactly. Real MPG figures put the best TDI at ~60MPG or 200g CO2/mile. Prius is 65MPG or ~165g CO2/mile, ignoring CO2 from extraction, refining etc. You can't directly compare diesel and petrol by mpg.
Renewable diesel is widely available in the USA, especially in California (where it's over half of diesel sold), which has about 1/3rd the CO2 footprint of petroleum diesel.
Yes, the newer Prius models are indeed slightly more fuel efficient than a 20 year old TDI, but the TDI has a much lower cost of ownership, lower carbon footprint, and most importantly- is much more fun to drive.
Both of those numbers are basically rural highway hypermiling numbers, not realistic long term averages. Actual TDI hypermilers can even get over 80mpg, of course driving really unusually (https://www.kbb.com/car-news/vw-golf-tdi-sets-fuel-economy-r...). I think Prius hypermilers do get even more than that. Realistically you're only going to get around 40-50mpg in either of them in regular use. One thing I really like about the TDI, is the economy doesn't drop as much if you drive aggressively, which I like to do.
To be honest though, an old TDI is a hobbyist car, to get it to be reliable you need to learn all about tuning and maintaining one.
I own a 2001 Corolla in a country I don't even live in any more. I put it into storage just to be able to use it when I visit, because it's more reliable, more practical, and infinitely less infuriating than literally anything sold in the past 15 years. Car cost me under $3k, 310,000kms on the original manual transmission and no issues. Meanwhile, 3 year old Subaru's are requiring $10,000 transmission replacements because manufacturers still can't build CVTs that last more than 80,000kms, and won't sell you a manual any more.
I think the reason is that you come to rely on the safety features, and if somebody else drives your car and turns it off, you're more likely to get in an accident now that it doesn't DING you.
Just upgraded from a 2012 civic to 2020 civic and a lot of the experience is the same - although it seems worse for you. Been driving it for ~3 months and experience a lot of the same (especially the TPS system that I'm going to have to get looked at).
I wonder how much of the aggravation is compounded by having a "busy" car (read: kids. I drive alone) that takes the annoyance and knocks it up more?
Some things haven't happened to me (system updates) but other things are normal now (lane assist being finiky).
I'm driving a dumb car. It's getting old, showing its age, opens by putting a physical key into the door. It has like zero annoyances (except f'ng over the climate I guess). It has buttons. It has a radio with buttons I can control without having to take my eyes fo the road. The radio is probably the most sophisticated piece of electronics in it, gladly connecting with everything sensible because it has a line-in jack. tldr; the car plainly and simply just works and is a tool with an awesome utility value for me (especially nice is that given the age we don't care at all anymore about scratches, so I can literally throw my bike in and not care).
Now, the sad thing is: this should be normal. And 20 years or so ago, this would have been just a normal car amongst most others. Today, compared with cars like the one in OP's rant, it's as if my dumb cheap ugly car is a feature for behaving the way it does. The other sad thing being that a lot of people don't seem to realize this. Like, waiting for your trunk to close is somehow a good thing. I'll probably won't get a car anymore when this one breaks down (yes, I know I'm lucky I can get away with that, stil..). I don't want to feel getting annoyed and dumbed down by something which should be my tool, not the other way around.
I'd love to be car free again, I spent 5-ish years exclusively riding my bike and I miss it like crazy.
I had a 95 Camry that I loved to death until it died spectacularly on I70 outside of Vail. Then I had an Audi RS3 that was fun to floor from time to time but otherwise annoyed the hell out me. The tech was absolute crap, everything was overly complicated, just annoying. I now has a Model 3 and despite having the most tech of them all, it does it astonishingly well. I have all the climate controls set to auto and I have not touched them in three years. The car preheats/cools at a set time every morning so when I get in with the kids it's comfy. I never think about gas or maintenance. I don't even need to remember to grab a key. You literally get in with your phone in your pocket, put it in drive and go, using only one pedal to drive. In the weirdest way it's the best dumb car I've driven (and I was a freelance automotive reviewer reviewing 2-3 cars a week for almost 10 years).
New cars with minimal electronics do exist on the US market, but they are on the low end. Still, saving a lot of money and having no annoying features might make them worth considering.
We have a 2004 Toyota Tacoma that blows the minds of "kids" (anyone under 30) that get in it. Everything is manual (Except the transmission) as it was a base model. They are amused by rolling the windows up and down, manually locking and unlocking, and the simplicity of the radio.
Years ago when we got it (and a Toyota Matrix that we since sold) we had a friend that was a calibration engineer for various automotive companies, and told him we just wanted something that works and moves us around safely. He told us, "Toyota; they are basically automotive appliances". He was 100% correct.
I do love some of the new features of our newer cars, like the backup camera with radar alerts, the ability to see the the current speed limit on the speedometer, the HUD that displays some basic info, and bluetooth. But most of it I hate, like all the beeping and alerting and the stupid, dreadful tablet interfaces. I was pleased to see my sister's new car had a touchscreen, but in the center console you could completely control it using a spinner and set of buttons. So I'm hopeful car companies are swinging the other way on UX.
Many features can be disabled, and most allow you to do things the old way (e.g., closing the trunk manually), but some features either block you from doing things any other way or making it extremely difficult to do the old way, for example minivans with power doors make make it very difficult to open a door manually and refuse to open when the vehicle is not in park.
Old cars have their own drawbacks, but at least they're not bossy.
At least the software in your car did what it was supposed to do. Although it’s very annoying.
I had a much worse problem with the software in my new expensive vw.
The problem was that after a few minutes of driving, the whole entertainment system including navigation shuts down to reboot. That’s bad but if it only happens once in a while one can live with that. After a few weeks it got worse. Not only did it reboot once, now it shut down again one minute after the last reboot and got stuck in that loop of rebooting every minute forever. It was so bad, that we started to bring a Bluetooth box to our trips so that the kids could be entertained while driving.
Navigation was not useable at all, because you could bet on it shutting down in the moment you really needed the instructions.
The worst case was that during reboot also the parking assistant was not available. Which is also something that raises the stress level when it happens in the wrong situation.
Finally after 2 years coping with this problem we received a software update that fixed the problem. Now the experience of using the on board navigation system feels luxury!
I recently bought a 2017 Ford Focus RS, partly because it has few annoyances. I couldn't really find anything else with nice specs for actually driving but without a million features I don't want. No dings except for seatbelt and obstacles behind you when reversing. It only came with a 6 speed manual, has physical buttons for climate control, and most settings related to driving have a button. Some basic info screens and a few rarely-used settings are accessed using a small display and steering wheel buttons. No driver assist aside from non-adaptive cruise control, traction/stability control, backup camera and backup sensors.
It has a touch screen but it's strictly used for navigation and audio settings, but there are physical buttons for controlling audio and a knob for volume. It has carplay. I virtually never touch the screen because I set up music and maps on my phone before I get in the car. I would probably never buy a car without carplay/android auto.
While reading I thought: It has to be a Kia! It’s has to be a Kia. And this brings me to the issue of auto testers on magazines or YouTube/TV. They tend to list all the features a car has to compare that to other cars to determine where you get more bang for your buck. But they never actually how well all these systems are integrated together. And if they do then the comparison is missing so one one wonders what other manufacturers do this better. I drove a Kia Sportage from 2014 and this was one of the last models without all them assistant features The car was very good but I could still feel that most things where hacked together and not well integrated.
My current car has a lot of these new features and works actually great. I drive a Skoda Enyaq (for US people think VW ID.4 but nicer)
The software also has its moments but they refrained from adding too many dings and dongs and messages. All mentioned features from the article work definitely better.
I was so distraught when my spouse traded away her 1999 Honda Civic Hatchback without asking... (for $250!) when getting a new car. I'd be driving that car to this day if I could. It was light, fast, and small... didn't have air conditioning, but I could live with that.
The only thing that ever went wrong with it was the exhaust system had to be replaced.
I had a 1999 Honda Civic Hatchback! Best car I ever owned. The only issue I ever had was a little component which regulates the amount of water from the radiator getting stuck, which I've since heard a few other people had the same problem.
I miss that car. The fanciest features it had was fuel injection and power steering.
I recently drove around the UK for a couple of weeks in late model VW Golf. It was by far the most infuriating car I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. The highlights: adaptive cruise control that sometimes follows not only the car in front of you but the car(s) to either side (preventing you from passing); cruise control automatically changing when you enter a reduced speed area (really fun when you're doing 70 on the motorway and the car decides it's now a 30); crash detection that freaks out whenever you get too close to the guy in front of you who's turning; lane assist that turns itself back on every time you start the car; parking assist that loudly complains whenever it's not working (every other time or so); auto-speed windshield wipers that attempt to enter warp when the weather starts lightly misting.
If this is what all modern cars are like I absolutely refuse to buy one ever.
Thanks :) I'm taking that as encouragement to rant more in the future.
Anyway I'm glad you got a laugh out if this. I stream-of-consciousness vomited this into a text file to test drive the mataroa blogging platform (highly recommended) -- I tried static blog generators (hugo, jekyll) but they were too clunky and took the joy out of writing. I discovered this solution through that person who posts all the spicy rants about the tech industry who's been pretty trendy on HN lately.
There seems to be a lot of people turning off what should be considered basic safety features, or arguing against seatbelt alarms.
Most of these features do come with nags and messages, modern cars have those to encourage your behaviour towards being safe by default. That they annoy incessantly could reflect a lack of change towards that safe behaviour.
I'm no fan of internet connected software in cars, bitrot of software in cars (and the fact that computing in them will likely only be good in the 5y range whilst the car might survive in the 20y range), there is a lot to legitimately dislike... but so many messages in this thread seem very vitriolic against the safety features that, to me, seem entirely reasonable.
Pointing out how the author wants "a means to transport kids and their associated heaps of stuff around in a safe and relaxed manner" and yet cries when devices designed to prevent more guts and blood from spilling sound in alarm.
So interesting to come to hacker news and see so many comments about how people prefer analog features over digital. Clearly, something has gone badly wrong with IT in the automotive field. Of course, it is often about cost savings. But I suppose not the least reason is also management decisions to have more IT in the car because that's what the competition does.
It just needs to look impressive when a potential buyers first checks out the car with cash in their pocket. Whether it makes sense in the long term everyday usage is of secondary concern.
The part that I felt the most was the car locking the doors automatically. My older Camry does this at times but I still haven’t figured out when exactly. But it has made me paranoid. Getting out of the car for a second but leaving the key in, well now I will roll down a window even when it’s raining because my ghost car might lock me out. Apparently the only way to change this behaviour is to pay Toyota to change some parameters in the computer and which I would have to pay for. I just don’t want help locking my doors ever. I can handle it.
I have a CD player, a volume knob, and can close the rear door myself in my decade old Toyota Sienna. I refuse to accept a car without these things. Why would I want to downgrade?
tesla sound systems will play 192/24 FLAC from usb.
Not sure if all systems, not sure if they downsample.
on the other hand, everything else about the car is a rude-ass awakening...
Hunt touchscreen menu to find defrost. Newer cars use touchpads in center of steering wheel for turn signals. They guess or use touchscreen because no gearshift lever. and on and on...
As someone who doesn’t drive, I’ve been wondering why people driving modern cars don’t use their turn signals in the city. This article finally made me understand - drivers don’t want to be annoyed by the warning sound of the blind spot sensors. The designers of this feature certainly had the best intentions, but made city streets a lot less safe. I often barely avoid getting swiped by an unexpectedly turning car when I’m on my bicycle.
People neglecting their blinkers has been a problem for as long as I've been driving. These alerts probably aren't making things any better, but they're not responsible for most of the lazy turn signaling, especially given that I doubt most modern cars are as bad as OP's.
Been dailying a 1991 VW Passat for a bit now and it is so exciting to feel that your car actually belongs to you, no silly electronics, data collection or alike, I'll be putting it into a garage over the winter to preserve it, and it gets really icy here, so getting something with stability assists would be wise.
So I got a 2001 VW Golf to drive over the winter, and same story, but less charm.
Sounds like shit. I have a Subaru Forester 2018 and everything is configurable:
1. Auto-lock is a feature to configure. I've never used it.
2. You can use the trunk button to slow-close or you can just close it by hand.
3. Starting the car does chime. Same as his.
4. You can turn off the blind spot detection if it's over-sensitive.
5. The lane-keeper stays on in traffic, but the auto-cruise will turn off.
6. Tyre pressure works fine.
7. If I open the door with engine running, it will chime. I want this. It also won't lock with the keys inside and will chime for that too. I want that too.
> 7. If I open the door with engine running, it will chime. I want this. It also won't lock with the keys inside and will chime for that too. I want that too.
I need this. I got used to my hybrid just turning off if I open the door while parked.
Ha, even my Model 3 doesn't do any of this (or at least it can all be disabled so you don't see or hear it). I'd be irritated if there weren't ways to disable all that misbehavior.
Fortunately there are still plenty of cars you can buy brand new today that don't have this level of suck. No need to suffer with a 20 year old unsafe heap of a car.
The people who have to drive these cars have absolutely no power to change the design. The people with actual power to change the design don't drive Kias, they ride either expensive carbon-fibre bicycles or a German-made luxury car
Pretty much describes my 2022 Outback. I’m working on the wife to sell it for two 10k older vehicles and 10k worth of parts budget. Mostly because the cameras and electronics will expensively fail and the warranty will be a pita.
Maybe this is all a subtle push to get a cargo bike to move your kids and possessions around. I saw someone get a Christmas tree on one and then take their kids to get ride-thru hot chocolate. It's the new future!
I recently switched cars from a recent model Ford (basically a nervous beeper on wheels) to an ancient Jeep that does nothing but drive. It's 1000x better.
All those behaviours are software-driven. Where is our right to repair for software? It should be mandatory to release all source code for physical devices like cars under the GNU GPLv3.
> THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
Sure, but the lack of warranty provided under the GPL doesn't preclude manufacturers from providing an additional warranty and doesn't preempt the laws that require warranties from physical product manufacturers.
I've seen some people that had an old car drive an a modern car and complain about all the different beeps... But if you're with them you quickly realize the car is effectively playing airplane and saying
"WHOOP WHOOP pull up"
Yea, the car this throwing a fit because you're changing lanes without signaling. Your feeling the persons butthole via their bumper in front of you. You're flinging it backwards at 40MPH in the parking lot.
So many people have been conditioned to drive like such shit for years that it's surprising them that they should stay 40 feet back from the car in front of them when they are driving 70.
I'm pretty sure that point was about 5 years ago. I was recently in an Uber with a driver that ardently ignored every ding or alert from the car. Although, that's nothing new, it is basically standard fare to ride in Ubers with maintenance lights and check-engine lights on, at least in the US.
And "I'm sure 90% of all 2023 cars run on the CAN bus equivalent of a 10.000 line, 100 cell Jupyter Notebook that was last restarted in the fall of 2018." is spot on.
Every day I have to fight against my Tesla trying to kill me, with the "emergency" steering assist believing it's about to be attacked by some static object sitting to the right of the road, and coming up to the conclusion that before that tree might start running towards me to try steer me into the opposing traffic. And doing emergency braking because I have "left the road" due to having the guts to drive out of my garage. Or to believe the plants in front of my house are a traffic light. Or to believe that the "end of kid play road" inside the city means "all speed limits are ending" (I live in Germany, where, as you surely know, a "drive as fast as you want" road sign indeed exists. But no, not inside cities. No, it's not reasonable to accelerate to 200km/h / 125mph inside a city, dear "adaptive" cruise control). Or giving me phantom braking because the car 50 meters/yards in front of me is coming to a slow stop at an intersection, and I did not yet see the urge to hit the brakes for that.)
And because the "10.000 line, 100 cell Jupyter Notebook" "programmers" have a very high self-esteem and believe they actually are good at their job of course they reject the idea of giving the customer the option to TURN OFF their broken shit permanently.
All I want is an electric car that charges fast, has a reasonable range and build quality, and a good audio. I'd be so happy with my Tesla if they would just allow me to disable all of their features that are simply broken and unwanted. And the author is also spot on when it comes to doors: To open a Tesla model 3 door is a complex matter that takes most people to use two hands, which for the previous 120 years was done by everyone with a single hand in half the time.
[Side note in case I get replies from any "but in my Tesla everything works fine, Autopilot really works, and vision only, too": fan boys: How comes that everybody is able to upload videos to YouTube of Tesla cars doing insanely stupid things all the time, but none of the fan boys that claim Teslas software actually works is able to upload a video of stuff working? Is it really that hard to catch "the moment everything works fine" on video if you claim that this moment is "always"? I would love to see some videos of Tesla Model 3 automatic wipers actually doing something logical like "wipe if it's raining, but don't if it's not raining ) ]
) Videos of your Tesla correctly identifying and showing each and every garbage bin in your city at the exact correct position does not count. Everybody knows that Tesla has the best detection of sidewalk garbage bins on this planet. I understand that there is a programmer at Tesla who really is in deep love with garbage bins, but (rightfully) hates kids, which therefore are only detected in 30% of the cases of them appearing on the road.
An auto is complex and it's very hard, if not impossible, to figure out how nice or annoying it's going to be until you've really spent some serious time with it.
So automakers make these infuriating cars, and people buy them because it's hard to tell how infuriating they are, but by then it's too late for the customer, and so the automaker is never properly incentivized to make their things suck less.
Not quite as pragmatic as a Micra, but my 2004 Nissan Stagea is also a delightful and dignified experience. I do in fact know how to operate a vehicle.
I feel like instead of paternalizing cars to the point that a hamburger left on the front seat is enough sentience to get from point A to B, we should tighten up our licensing requirements to reflect the significance of the task of operating a vehicle in public.
Am I the only one nodding along with the author's rant to stop needless attention complexity in modern cars, that then had to do a double take when we came to the casual mention of the car still having a 'clutch' in 2023?
I have no problems with new cars but I don’t like most of them.
Most modern cars are objectively better than older cars — we’ll see about the current crop of high pressure turbo powered eco-focused gas engines that are hitting the market now though.
Generally they are more efficient, provide more comfort inside and they're safer in a crash. Of course, all of these things have come at the cost of aesthetics and driver enjoyment (all of that safety and tech adds weight and of course complexity as it all has to be managed). Touchscreens had to be implemented because with so many functions in a modern car, you'd have 300 little buttons in the console if you didn't have a touchscreen. They tried this with some Ford products (little bubble buttons, oceans of little bubble buttons) and it’s was not great.
Their design has gone to utter shit because car designers seem to concentrate on 'futuristic' product features to compete with one another and then their companies tend to focus on pushing these changes as wanted features via advertising instead of just focusing on creating beautiful and usable vehicles.
Car designers are also pretty limited by the plethora of safety and tech that “has” to be installed in the car.
The root issue is the poor design languages present today, since it's not like there aren't any beautiful modern cars with very usable interfaces. They exist. The problem is they aren’t very sexy and they can’t compete on features or give the marketing department the photogenic interior car buyers are trained to expect in modern cars.
But most of them do a bad job integrating all these things. They chime with every traffic update, they close their doors automatically, they won’t let you put the car in drive when the door is open so you can’t adjust without hitting rocks at the camping spot, they freak out when hitting merge lines and slam on the brakes, their iconography looks like it was designed by Dale Earnheart’s newly minted graphic design firm, they have endlessly bright lights that blind oncoming users and destroy astrological observations in nearby mountains, and they have menu after menu of options that you can’t select when driving and have to pull into some sketchy parking spot to adjust them… it’s endless shit. And it makes me not love them.
I can’t believe how hard this was to wrap my head around:
“ If you're at a traffic light, in the rightmost lane with two lanes turning left, of course the demented tamagotchi on wheels thinks you are about to sideswipe the car to your left.”
