Mastodawn

I start my modern car (2023) that's been sitting for about ten days. The very first thing it does is demand a software update, which fails because the battery is "too low". After driving it to charge, it finally starts the update (locking me out of the car for 30 minutes, completely unusable). Once it's done, the dashboard becomes "more modern" - which basically means it's worse and cluttered with useless information.

Then, I start the old car (2007) that's been parked for MONTHS. It spits out some smelly exhaust, makes a weird noise for a few seconds, and goes: "Let's go, I need to stretch my 'legs'."

I take it to the car wash. A guy there with a brand-new Chinese car takes a look and asks me about it. I tell him it's from 2007.
He peers inside the cabin and asks about the "infotainment" setup, since he "can't see the screen".
I calmly explain that it has a CD player, it even reads MP3s, and it has an Aux-in: I just plug my phone in with a cable and that's it.

He looked at me like I was an alien. Or an ancient Roman. How on earth do I survive without a screen always available, and having to actually plug in a physical cable every time? Crazy!

#cars #tech #ux #enshittification #software

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Root Moose 11h ago

@stefano As a fairly "hard core" car dork I am finally prepared to buy an electric car as the next daily driver appliance.

But I don't know if I'll be able to bring myself to do it.

Modern cars are rage inducing due to the terrible infotainment systems and dangerous active safety supports.

If every time I get in the car the first step is to turn off all the nanny systems then I'm not sure I'll be able to do it.

The newest car we currently own is 2016 GTI (wife's toy summer daily and autocross car) and that car has a dangerous accident avoidance system that can be turned off and stays off between restarts. Thankfully, our 2016 Touareg is of the older generation and doesn't have any of that nonsense on it. All my 'fun' cars are much older but I don't drive them in the winter time since we are in the rust belt. Getting into my MR2 is like a breath of fresh air. At the moment doesn't even have a radio in the dashboard. Ha.

ABS and traction control were great additions to every day cars. Beyond that the systems are intrusive and sometimes dangerous if they actively affect a car's velocity IMO.

Looking at the number of responses in your thread I think you struck a nerve. Ha!

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Tall Simon

@RootMoose @stefano Extra rage: we are babysitting a 2018 Leaf for a bit. Darn thing wants us to watch movies on some obscure (and defunct?) Nissan streaming service.

Uh huh.

I should scan the damn thing for security problems. Probably hasn't had a software update since 2021, if it's anything like a phone from that era.

(We've noticed, though, with gas at $1.85/l here, the Leaf emits more smug pollution than usual.)🤔😆