There is a tremendously annoying arms race in the automotive industry. Automakers seem to be competing with each other to make your driving experience more connected than ever before, with miles of screens, AI integrations, and even locking vent adjustment behind a screen. Clearly, there’s only one place this can go.
Thomas wrote about Bugatti’s silly television. DialMforMiata:
I never would have thought that Bugatti would be the first manufacturer to eliminate cars from its screens.
Sid Bridge:
Great, this is gonna make things annoying when word spreads around…
Ferrari: Bugatti made a TV? Let’s make the most perfectly function, highest resolution experience in a slim, minimalist package!
Lamborghini: Let’s make a TV that does what the Ferrari one does, but louder and more Italian.
Volvo: Let’s make a TV that won’t hurt anyone if it falls on them!
Saab: Let’s make a faucet!
Cadillac: Let’s make a TV that is covered in leather and automatically adjusts to the distance of your eyes and looks like a huge polygon!
Chrysler: Let’s make a TV that plays Fast & Furious movies as loud as possible and has a built-in beer cooler and shoot fireworks and shit.
Chevrolet: Let’s make a TV that will last a really long time but always have a shitty picture.
Toyota: The TVs are ready. They are perfect in every way. Our customers have already bought them and will use them forever.
Tesla: Our TV is the best TV because it can also power your house and we launched one into the moon and it knows what you’re thinking already and ignore that story about it killing that dude because he was using it wrong.
Citroen: The cool thing about our TVs is that the screen faces the floor and you lay under it to watch.
Jeep: Our TV has a shelf for your ducks!
DialMforMiata:
Morgan: Wot’s a TV?
Twobox Designgineer (multiple comments combined):
Rivian: Our TV is operated by voice commands only, and uses AI to figure out what you want to watch, rather than what you ask it to play.
Chevy Truck Division: Our TV can be configured in six different shapes, but the bottom is still too far from the floor.
Mercedes-Benz: Our TV blends perfectly with your décor by being disguised as a Billy Bass.
Slate: Our TV is a plain flat panel with a 3’ power cord and one HDMI jack. Stand extra. Coax input extra. RGB input extra. 6’ or 9’ power cords extra. Remote extra. Costs the same as an LG.
BMW: Our TV is high performance and flashy but don’t call it ugly! Remote control access requires a monthly subscription.
Lamborghini: Our TV sometimes and without warning will become a fireplace. Fire extinguisher not included.
Matt wrote about Volvo’s European delivery program. Canopysaurus has a great story:
Forty years ago this week I took possession of a brand new Saab 900 Turbo through a very similar program. I was stationed in Germany and had the choice of picking the car up at the factory in Sweden, including a hotel stay and tour, or having it delivered to the dealer in Frankfurt. Timing didn’t allow me to take the tour option, so mine came to Frankfurt, no extra charge. The car was full US spec with only the catalytic converter left off, wrapped in plastic in the spare tire well. I drove that Saab everywhere for two years and at the end of my tour, I took the car and paperwork to the Frankfurt airport and dropped it off. There, the catalytic converter was installed and it was delivered to port for shipment to the US. No extra charge. I picked it up in Baltimore a month later. All of this for $15,300, thousands less than the car would have cost buying it in the US ($18k-22k depending on model and options). Drove that baby for another 28 years and over 500,000 miles. I’d say European delivery is a great deal.
Finally, we stop at the Morning Dump, where Matt mentioned electrified vehicles coming off-lease. Dan Roth wrote an excellent comment that was probably longer than the story itself. Click here to read it.
Have a great evening, everyone!
I missed Canopysaurus’ comment about taking European delivery of a Saab 900 and am deeply jealous of his (or maybe her, to be fair) experience. 🙂 Especially as a two-door turbo hatch Saab is on my realistic ‘to own’ bucket list and I’ve been binging Saab videos on Youtube for the past few days. 🙂
Thanks Mercedes for these COTD reviews. Always a fun read.
I seem to often miss out on reading the best comments, akin to my luck choosing the slowest line in grocery checkouts.
Apologies to my legions of fans for my lengthy COTD draught. My muse has returned. I hope. I better see a bunch of you at Lime Rock.
Hey – always honored to earn COTD. If anyone likes the comment, I am happy to write like that for money!
Chip tha Ripper predicted it over a decade ago
“Interior crocodile alligator
I drive a Chevrolet movie theater”
So drive in movies are back? Except that you’re driving a TV?
One of my best life decisions was when my previous projector started making weird noises I ordered a new high refresh one (for gaming) that was also a significant upgrade in picture quality. As soon as it showed up I took apart the old one, found all 4 fans in it oddly enough on new egg marketplace, replaced them, and mounted it to the back of my headboard. Nothing beats falling asleep to some semi-interesting documentary directly above you.
Would you recommend that brand? I’ve been looking for one but wadigg through the AI slop internet is hard.
My use case is very unlikely to be similar to yours, but I really like BenQ, Viewsonic, and Optoma DLP projectors that use a real bulb instead of lasers / LCD backlights. My projector is my primary PC display and also my home theater so 8K hours per year is pretty average. (Yes, I often work from home on my recliner on a 4K 100″ screen) The one that started making noises was a BenQ that had about 30K hours on it and was on its 3rd bulb, about $75 to replace every 10K hours, and I absolutely got my money’s worth out of it. AFAIK both BenQ and Viewsonic are made by the same manufacturer, but the BenQ firmware is very refined, however the Viewsonic firmware gives you several more features at the cost of being buggy. Optoma is basically equivalent to BenQ.
IMO, it’s not worth spending less than about $800 or more than $2000 depending on what / how much you value things. I’m not a fan of LCD backlights because they’re a lot dimmer and have a 20K hour lifespan, and while a laser projector is objectively better it also has a 20K hour lifespan and your only recourse is to replace the entire thing instead of just a cheap bulb.
I have a pair of Optoma DLP projectors that I used for TV for many years (albeit 720p), probably about 10-15 years old now. No idea what to do with them now, but they work great, I feel like its a solid “got my moneys worth” these days which is harder and harder to come by. FWIW I ordered one off Amazon ages ago, they sent me 2 and told me to keep it. Movies on the deck is an easy one, and wii/switch is awesome on a big screen
If nothing else I have narrowed down that I don’t need a laser system.
Based on your and Rockchops comments I’ll look into Optoma, maybe someone will be selling a used example or one with a burnt bulb I can replace on the cheap.
That annoying song about doing it like on animal planet just popped into my head.
Sigh
Metal machine music on headphones to eradicate that.
I believe that’s “let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel”.
“Bad Touch” by The Bloodhound Gang.
Not to be confused with the 3-2-1 Contact Bloodhound Gang where the musical act cabbaged their name from. This is a very Gen X reference.