Please make a dumb car

Brilliant!

The author clearly isn't a Luddite. No calls for carburetion, straight pipes, draft tubes or any of that stone age stuff. In fact he calls for the inclusion of modern safety & emissions gear.

Just a sensible reduction of the gratuitous spackling of technology across every part of the car. An honest de-contenting, in automaker's parlance.

 

Gen2 Prius base model is a great balance between both extremes...

 

...and yet base model XW20s are lacking in some "smart" features that would make the car illegal to be sold in the US if it were listed as a new car.
AND.....thanks to my beloved government's quixotic attempt to avoid the beneficial effects of Darwinism......MORE are on the way!

Such as....

• Intelligent speed assistance. (governor)
• Alcohol interlock installation facilitation.
• Driver drowsiness and attention warning systems. (wonder HOW it does THAT??? )
• Advanced driver distraction warning systems.
• Emergency stop signals.
• Reversing detection systems.
• Event data recorders. (data logger/tracker)
• Accurate tire pressure monitoring.

Dumb cars aren't always smart.
Remember - some of those safety features ARE smart and CAN save lives......

 

Given the “chip shortage” GM could easily flood the market if it was allowed to build what op described as being a mostly 90’s era 5mt car with a few bolt ons, think Saturn, they have all the plans and even in some cases dies to make those cars and a car from that era was vertically integrated within GM so they can make everything themselves within the supply base.

Surprized none of the auto makers has asked for EPA hardship exceptions due to be incapable of following the law and producing cars.

 

I put a like on the original post before I even read the link.

Read it now, love it. Like this comment:

Chrontius Lameth
1 day ago
Let us not forget that in aviation, tactile controls are required by law. Perhaps on the road a similar standardization should take place as well.

Total agreement. Driving a twisty highway, night before last, windows starting to fog up with the system on auto, so I'm attempting to override the mode, switch it to heat/defog. After just about departing my lane I gave up and had my wife do it.

This is an example, 2019 Honda Fit. The lower levels have this tactile/intuitive/ergonomic interface:



The higher levels "upgrade" you to a maddening touchscreen.

 

It's all about the money and relieving the individual consumer of it and placing it into their coffers.

Tech like chips, software and hardware are cheap it replicate is large quantities with high profit margins.

It is quickly obsolete, if one is an early adopter.

The $10+K added to the price of a new car fulfills the commercial financial, and repair market including governmental taxing authorities. Each sector gains financially from more complicated and more expensive high tech cars.

One example would be the expensive equipment, training and skill needed to repair camera and automated safety systems. One small bump on a bumper mounted camera could require a repair that cost over $1,000 dollars.

I'll keep my 2012 Prius v level 2 as long as I can. The technology has always been more than I need, I could have easily lived without the sometimes temperamental Smart Key sustem.

 

There are a lot of small, cheap Chinese EVs which would pretty much fit the author's requirements.

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I like having a screen: for things like GPS and music playback, it's bigger, clearer and therefore safer than a phone, however that phone might be mounted. And new features like, for example, Hyundai's blind-spot cameras showing a picture in the instrument binnacle, are great.

I hired a Dacia Logan MCV in Düsseldorf a few years back - again, the sort of car the author seems to be asking for, with an old-style DIN-slot stereo and absolutely nothing clever. For navigation, I used my phone, affixed to the windscreen with a phone holder, and it was horrible: it's too small, and the sound through the speaker isn't clear (especially in a cheap, noisy car).

(Also, European journalists love to sing the praises of Dacia's low-cost simplicity, but on a German Autobahn, this car was dangerously slow. I was a traffic hazard. Flat out, I could do 140km/h (just under 90mph), and I was in the way of everyone else.)

I don't think I have ever hated a rental car as much as I hated that Dacia.

But when I say I like having a screen, I like having a screen for the things that should be on the screen. Not for things that shouldn't be on a screen. When you have things like ventilation controls and windscreen wipers buried in sub-menus, it's extremely dangerous and stupid. Apart from build quality, it was the thing that put me off a Model 3 when I test-drove one.

Autotrader's Rory Reid has declared himself leader of the "knob gang". Partly this is because it sounds funny to English people. But he is quite serious in his intent - it's all about having knobs and buttons for the things that need knobs and buttons. It's easier, it's safer, and it's just better.

 

my 2012 has no touch screen except for radio presets, and i only listen to usb music. a huge improvement over gen 2.
my only complaint is that the switches are too small for gloves, and some in the wrong place.
when i test drove the first prime, neither i nor the sales person could figure out much on the touch screen.

 

I treasure our 2020 Mazda 6 for this: it's got a screen big enough to be useful for navigation. Supposedly a part-time touchscreen, but it was built to be mainly controlled by an indexed rotary knob with a clicker function. You can do everything by counting clicks, no eyes needed if you really learn it. This specifically includes CarPlay and Android Auto. Both of those interfaces were cracked open to this clickwheel gadget.

I read somewhere that the touchscreen only works with the shifter in Park, but to be honest I've never tried touching it. The main knob interface is that good.

Dacias are barely good enough for their home market, Romania. I've had a ride or two in the back of a Logan, and I think they may be a notch dumber than the author was hoping for- but on the right track anyway.

 

That's pretty common with most interfaces. I occasionally give the neighbor a ride to the train station in his Mazda CX5. He does not want to pay the parking fees. I find the 5 year old interface to be semi familiar but I'm never sure what will happen when I do anything.

I had a similar reaction to the Prime Advanced interface at first. Some hardware buttons. Some software buttons. Three displays if you include the HUD. It seemed overwhelming the first day. After a couple days I became accustomed to the way they designed it, and (thankfully) the design was pretty consistent. Once I learned how to manipulate it for each subsystem it remained consistent enough that I don't have to think about it. I found it to be learn-able.

My mom is at the other end of the spectrum. She wants all the advantages of a car that tells her how many miles to an empty tank and does not want to hassle with frequent maintenance but does not want a single screen anywhere near the dashboard. The radio on her 2010 Cadillac is as much visible tech that she can handle. Even so, I had to program the stations for her.

 

I am a knob guy. I appreciate manufacturers who give us a choice. What I would mean by this is the driver has a choice to use the provided knobs and buttons for the temperature control system (my favorite way) or provides on the touchscreens the option to control there or even on the steering stalk if that is your fancy.

I have an old flip phone (believe it or not it works with 5g systems) I use but our vehicles have voice recognition where if I want to get fancy I can control some items by my voice or in the case of my wife and kids they can hook up their smartphones to interact with the vehicle through car play and apple car play.

A good example of how old simplification and technology can coexist is how the Lane Keep Assist is configured. A simple dedicated button push performs an on/off for this system. It remembers the button push and an orange light appears letting you know it is disabled. When you enable the system, you have three choices-1. an audible alarm you are crossing the lane marker, 2.or no audible alarm but an indicator light will appear to let you know you are out of your lane,3. or active lane assist to warn you and pull you gently back into your lane. The other systems like blind spot monitoring have similar dedicated on/off buttons and options.

Some manufactures take into consideration that we all may be a little different and have different preferences. Both the Hyundai and KIA vehicles we own have this type setup. I am familiar with Toyota's setup as we traded in a Prius and Sienna for the vehicles we own now

I do have to admit it gives me comfort to know when the kids are out the vehicles are equipped with so many safety features. At times I do miss driving a 1968 VW bug but that feeling passes quickly on these cold winter mornings

 

Drove a Jeep Wrangler rental car several years back, no power or smart anything. Way better then the New Ford Ranger pickup I rented, that kept interrupting what otherwise was a peaceful drive on back roads, with beeps, warnings, and suggestions for a quicker rout. I did however appreciate the car telling me about low pressure in one of the tires.

 

i wonder what the average age of prius chatters is, and how younger folks feel about the subject.

 

That is a wonderful question.

If I may add to the thought, in a family there is a possibility a vehicle may be driven by an older individual, maybe a middle-aged individual and then even by a teenager all with different feelings on technology. If an automaker wants that same vehicle to be appealing across those generations, they need to possibly incorporate different options to interact with that vehicle.

 

Gen Z hates forums especially the F side of the gender

Most young PRII enthusiasts likely are camping on an anonymous Discord server where none of their conversations have evidence and thus no tribal knowledge can be built

The metrics are all in the database @Danny our fearless overlord could run them based solely on membership numbers, my guess is he is enjoying a trip somewhere tropical right now

I had a young girl friend once that thought car ownership was stupid and wasteful, you could literally “go anywhere you needed on a bike”, under a certain age likely has an uncomfortable majority who hates cars for a variety of reasons and likely become unwilling participants at some point, god knows what crazy contraptions they will want.
Considering the amount of virtue signally you would think they would want better but most just don’t want to be bothered with the hassle and want to drive a tank for all the same wrong reasons their parents did.

 

For most Millenials and everyone in Gen Z, screens are ubiquitous and second nature. When they see a dark flat piece of glass or plastic, they assume touching it will make something happen. So touchscreens on cars seem obvious to them. Whereas for older Silent Gen or Baby Boomers, dials and knobs are known and comfortable. I’m in Gen X, where there’s some cross migration between knobs and screens. But how cars are controlled is mainly about comfort and intuition. It’s good to drive a car that allows you to be comfortable driving it and which feels like you can intuitively control it.

 

what they may not realize is how much they are taking their eyes off the road to use it, because the rest of the time, they're looking at their phones.

we need voice commands, and the sooner the better.

 

Forums are for olds. Representing gen X I reckon there won't be many younger here. This forum is beat and mostly dead, but I really do appreciate it for the 40-odd trolls and experts in orbit around it.