Technology! What can’t it do? With such modern marvels as smartphones and AI and egg sushi making our lives easier every day, we truly owe a massive debt to the wonders of tech. Except, of course, when technology is making things awful, which is what we’re Autopian-Asking you about today.
To be fair, it’s the people implementing technology who are making things awful, not technology itself. Tech doesn’t care. In cars, technology delivers our favorite features (“The seat and steering wheel automatically move from ‘tiny wife’ configuration to my preferred ‘sedentary fatass’ positions, bravo!”) just as easily as it delivers such stinkers as screen controls for the glovebox – only screen controls, no latch, as in the case of the Tesla Model 3.
Here, allow Doug Demuro to demonstrate:
Yuck, amirite? Why are we bringing microchips and high-res LED screens into this? A latch is fine! Better, even!
Here’s another tech-gone-awry example, the infuriating dipstick delete, as we’ve covered before. Most recently, Edd China vented on Twitter/X about it as “the dumbest thing on modern cars.” And while there’s nothing wrong with alerting drivers of oil level via an electronic warning – screen, idiot light, or otherwise – completely deleting the ability to dip a stick directly into the engine just sucks.
Please, just let me see how much oil is on the stick with my own eyes – and not just the oil’s level, but its color and smell as well. It’s important! And just think of what dipstick-deletion does to Sheriff Rosco Coltrane’s signature insult. “You know what you are, Cletus? You’re a graphic representation of a dipstick!” just doesn’t sing, you know what I mean?
Your turn: What Are The Best (As In Worst) Examples Of High-Tech Improvements No One Asked For?
Top graphic image via Doug DeMuro/YouTube
GM turning on the reverse lights when you get out of the car, they blind you when you try to open the trunk
That and if you’re coming down a parking lot lane waiting for the Malibu to exit a spot, only to realize moments later that there’s nobody in the car.
ALL THE TIME! I grumbled in a parking lot about not being able to tell whether a car was planning to back out or just a Chevy doing Chevy things. My wife – who owned a Chevy at the time – said she’d never noticed that her car did that.
So it’s annoying AF in parking lots and apparently isn’t actually useful for lighting the area around the car.
The worst “feature” I can think of that I didn’t see below is automatic high beams. They dim when they reflect off a road sign, but they stay on and blind oncoming drivers. As with all the technology, if it can’t do it better than I can, what’s the point?
Marketing arsehole: “so what new features can we sell?”
Lighting engineer: “well we’ve got these auto-dipping lights, but they don’t work right yet, and conceptually they rely on the driver not paying attention and not being bothered to move a fingertip, so it’s basically garbage”
Marketing arsehole: “perfect, we’ll make it mandatory in the upper trim levels and not let anyone test drive at night!”
Screens instead of gagues, bad enough we have to have touch screens in the center of the dash for the radio display and HVAC functions, but LCDs have totally replaced the instrument cluster on every current car. Gagues are far more pleasing to the eye than any computer graphics will ever be, especially when those graphics disappear completely whenever the car is turned off
As much as I thought an electronic glove box is dumb, it makes it a much safer place to put anything of value without have to worry about it getting stolen if your car gets broken into.
The handle became obsolete when physical keys went away as an option to lock it.
Rear view mirror/cameras are great when you drive an SUV and you’ve got it filled to the roof with stuff. It’s great not to lose your rearward visibility.
Gonna have to disagree on the glovebox. ThrottleHouse did an intro that gets it pretty well: let’s say you have allergies and typically keep an EpiPen in there just in case you have a problem in the car. Now you suddenly have menus to navigate to find it in an emergency. Or if your car somehow ends up in the water and you need one of those window breakers to get out. Or a less serious example, keeping tissues there and now your nice work clothes are disgusting on the way into the office because you had to sneeze and the only place to store the tissues was behind a menu.
If the glovebox is the only storage in the car, those things then have to live in a bag you may have to rummage through that may or may not be within easy reach depending on the car or situation. I can understand the security angle but I wouldn’t trade accessibility for security there.
It’s still a flimsy piece of plastic, if someone wants in and doesn’t care about damaging the car in the process, they’re getting in
Touch-only volume sliders. Honda tried them in the Civic in 2011 and it was panned. VW tried them again in 2021 and… they were still bad.
Additionally, record players in cars. What I really want in my car is a sound system that physically damages the media I’m playing whenever I go over a bump.
The record player was for when you were stopped like on a picnic, or shooting hoops in the driveway
No, the Highway Hi-Fi was absolutely meant to be listened to while driving, that was the whole point. It’s why the casing was shockproof, the tone arm had enhanced tracking force to prevent skipping, and why it could only play proprietary 16 2/3 rpm records made of a heavier than usual vinyl in an effort to resist wear
I didn’t know about that. I’ve only seen the 45 RPM players.
That was the next evolution, when the OEMs dropped it as a factory option, it started to be sold as an aftermarket product, and those versions were modified to play normal 45s, but the other details were left alone. Which meant that the normal 45s wore down even faster than the proprietary records did
My sti had hid healights that turned all lines off if it rained at night. No conventional foglamps to fix this either, enjoy your ditch.
That’s as much the fault of your state’s DOT for using a bad mix as it is the headlights.
The most serious is the stupid door handles. The most stupid is the serious compulsion to put anything on a screen.
Clever
My whole infotainment screen re-booted itself on the motorway in my BYD company car the other day. It took about 4-5 mins to come back to life. Which on either of my personal cars wouldn’t really be an issue. But in the BYD almost EVERYTHING is controlled by the touch screen. So that. I would say that. I genuinely don’t want a new new car where there aren’t physical buttons. Don’t get me wrong, I like tech in cars but just give me a friggin button for my heated seats and temperature controls. I don’t need a sub-menu to defrost the rear windscreen!
IMO things that should be automatic go in the screen, things that should be manual go on buttons.
Defrosters? Should be automatic, they go in the screen. Same with headlights, fan speed, door locks, and driver-profile switching.
Volume? Temperature adjustments? Drive/Reverse/Park? Physical controls.
So to defrost the rear window. I have tap the screen, press home or the “fan” button – leave CarPlay press defrost. Then press home and press CarPlay to get back to where I was. In literally every other car I’ve had, there is a button on the dash. Weirdly though there is a physical button for the front window defrost…
Ford Mustang Mach E door handles don’t have a physical connection on the outside and you’re locked out if your 12v battery dies. There is no physical backup.
This is made an extra big deal because the early ones have issues with 12v batteries dying prematurely. Its pretty common for people to get stranded.
Just do a normal door handle!
Normal handles but areo in subaru xt. Enjoy they worked w a dead battery, also enjoy they loved to despense spiders so they can bite you.
So many electronic geegaws introduce new, strange ways for your car to fail. In the pictured example not only can the glovebox lock fail, the glovebox lock actuator can fail, the software can fail, the touchscreen can fail. There are so many more opportunities for you to be frustrated by your glovebox. And none of that addresses the silly level of menus you might have to go through to get to the glovebox control, when the damned glovebox is right there. Reach a little farther than the touchscreen and you can touch the glovebox!
At least when it’s just the lock, you can stab it in the eye with a screwdriver, grab the screwddriver with a Vise-Grip and wrench the bastard open. And then you get a new glovebox lock for, what, fifty bucks?
As cathartic as it might be to stab your touchscreen in the eye with a screwdriver, that’s going to cost WAY more than fifty bucks. And then your glovebox will still be stuck!
And so I wrap up my little rant: the advent of electronic convenience that is potentially far less convenient than ever before has robbed us not only of convenience but also catharsis, and we are left to sit, neutered and fuming with cold hands, unable to get to the instruction manual that might help us sort out what is wrong with the touchscreen because it is locked in the glovebox.
I’d prefer to stab Eldolf in the eye for foisting this trend on us. I’m voting with real wallet and not buying anything with an over complicated user experience.
I agree on your points on glove box latch complexity, however it can also be overly complex with a physical latch. BMW e38 7 series use possibly the most complex glove box ever implemented into a car with a handle that pulls a cable that is attached to the latch above the glove box door. The door itself floats down on a 4 bar linkage that includes two steel bars, a nylon strap and a cute little gas strut. Needless to say, misalignment causes the latch to drag and then parts break, particularly the handle as the cost of over $350 when they were still available.
I’m all honesty, after owning three e38s a remote actuator controlled by a screen would have worked better.
BTW the whole glove box latch and even the lock can be bypassed on an e38, just reach under the dash and pull on the cable sheath.
One of the fundamental issues with feature creep is that it makes it harder and harder to do the user testing needed to know whether a feature is really wanted.
When a system has only a few options, it’s fairly straightforward to test a single possible change and see if customers like it. But in complex systems with a ton of interconnected functions, trying to test user satisfaction can yield a ton of plausible but unprovable results.
What’s the right level of complexity on a touch screen? How adjustable should a climate system be? It may well be the case that each incremental change gets a small amount of positive user testing feedback, but in the aggregate people vastly prefer a simpler solution.
But how much simpler? And if you’re going to whittle 25 options down to five, how do you get the optimal solution? It takes a really smart person in charge to override the organizational tendency to just greenlight every feature with positive feedback, and force designers to keep thinking from a more holistic perspective.
Bless you for this sane, reasoned perspective in an insane world.
I have lost count of the instances of the failure of the first presumption that the thing is required, never questioning if bloating the thing was really necessary – it was implicit, it was vital. What do you mean users hate it? We didn’t think of that, ergo it’s impossible!
Ugh.
-signed, someone that worked as a software product owner for three years
The loss of a physical key to get into your car of the battery dies. And it will. Dangerous and unacceptable.
Mine have a physical key inside the fob, and I confirmed they’re there. According to Youtube videos there’s a way to pop off a piece of the handle to access the keyholes.
I haven’t practiced this, but I should. I’m sure if it happens it will be dark and freezing.
The brake warning in my 2024 CR-V that seems to have a randomizer attached to its alert algorithm. Sometimes it goes off when I’m 10 feet away and sometimes when I’m 100 feet away. And there’s no way to turn it off.
All of these “modern” conveniences should be elective; I’ve been driving cars for 35 years without all of this crap and I should be able to turn it off when I want.
Oh boy, where do I begin?
Truth
What’s wrong with tire pressure sensors on all trim levels?
The proprietary tools needed to make the BCU recognize them. If it was just “plug it in and it works” that would be one thing. But I don’t want a $5,000 car to be another $400 just because I have to pay someone with a specific niche-use tool to make the light on my dash go away after I replace the part myself for $70. Even if you don’t you can’t use the damn thing for what it’s intended for because the readout will just be blank until you “calibrate” it.
I see! Thanks for the info.
More gears in transmissions.
We found the peak of vehicle transmissions long ago, and it was perfected with the Jatco Xtronic CVT. Why are we not using perfection if it exists?
All hail the Jatco!
Your solution to “more gears in transmissions” is infinite ratios?
Replacing rear-view mirrors with a camera and a screen. This is on our Ioniq 5, and it’s probably the only thing I hate about it. The ‘screen’ is still glossy, so you still see some things in the reflection. But the depth perception with the video is just off and isn’t an automatically intuitive interaction like in every other car I’ve been in. When you go into reverse, it weirdly zooms in too, which further confuses me. But worst of all, there isn’t even a built-in dash cam to take advantage of a camera!
Additionally, some of us get mention sickness using those things. I had it on a couple of GM vehicles and hated it. But at least on those it wasn’t mandatory, like it is on things like the new ‘vet or the Cybertruck.
Torch, I think, did a piece on this a while back. It has to do with your eyes, focusing on a mirror, versus focusing on a photograph. It was really interesting.
On Hyundai vehicles at least it’s optional. Just flip the tab at the bottom to turn it off.
They’re nice to have in a Palisade that’s stuffed to the gills with stuff where you can’t see out the rear window, but I don’t think they should replace the mirror when available.
I agree these are strange. My wife loves the camera-based rearview mirror in our RAV4. But in this case there’s still a normal mirror, so I just turn off the screen when I drive.
If the car is packed to the gills it might be nice to have the camera so you can still “see” out the back. Personally I’ve driven enough trucks that I’m fine with just the side mirrors.
Trunks that can only be opened by their solenoid – particularly aggravating when the battery is located in the trunk, and an electrical issue is rendering the jump posts under the hood useless.
And you can’t get to the jack handle to pry the trunk open, oh right, that was an extra cost option.
The everything old is new again reinventions of the shifter- push button, rotary knob, etc. Coming up on 2 years with my Grand Cherokee and I still can’t remember which way to turn the rotary knob when doing a 3 point turn. With a good old fashioned T handle I don’t need to look.
It’s not so much that I dislike T-handles as wishing center consoles weren’t a thing, or were at least smaller.
To me, rotary or push-button is the smallest you can make them while still being reasonably visible and intuitive.
Glorious column shift has entered the chat 🙂
I miss my old van with a Three on the Tree!
How about Ford bragging about a way to create more space in the center console for storage or a work surface – by designing an automatic shifter that drops down into the console with an electric motor. Instead of the many simplier, more intuitive, and less failure prone methods of not having a console shifter that have existed for decades.
That’s for road head.
Stay classy.
Classy as shit
Electric Latches, whether they be for doors, frunks, hoods, trunks, fuel doors, etc.
Push to start.
Touchscreens.
Electric Parking Brake, it doesn’t function as an emergency brake anymore, manual ones do.
IMHO, any set it and forget it thing that moves unnecessarily and or needs constant adjustment. For me this includes electric mirrors, electric seats, etc. on many cars because they have to move for some stupid reason without my input. On my manual mirror and manual seat cars the mirror position and seat position say the same unless someone moves them.
DRLs. During the day, I have no problem seeing cars. During the night, cars that only have their DRLs on thinking that their headlights are on will definitely have vision issues and that just makes us all less safe.
E-“Lockers” As in traction control that half asses what a diff lock is supposed to do with sudden brake applications that I’m sure are great for the drivetrain components /s. Put a proper locker in there, Limited Slip Diff, some shit in there. You don’t use software to fix a hardware problem, I think the Boeing 737 Max 8 shitshow taught all that by now.
Automatic 4WD: ie You’re too damn cheap to put in a lockable center differential. Worked great for Toyota with a 4WD system that turns into a permanent 2WD system when engaged because the Automatic Differential Disconnect necessary for the automatic 4WD to function grenades under light load in a brand new stock Toyota Tacoma for example.
Basically all of this is due to cost cutting, bad laws, and or the “good” idea fairy.
Do you have beef with all touchscreens, or just when too many functions are put there? I think there’s a lot of vehicle settings best handled on the touchscreen (headlight delay after turning off, whether it locks on shifting from park, remote chirp volume, to name a few basic examples), and navigation and infotainment are too complex in my opinion to do on a non-touchscreen. How would you add buttons to zoom in or out, rotate, etc.?
What’s wrong with push to start? I love not having to take my keys out of my pockets, which means that if I check for my keys in my pockets while I’m driving, they’re still there.
Plus, if the remote battery dies, I can take a physical key out of it to open the door that way, and using the remote itself to push the button allows the car to verify you and still turn on. I’ve done that multiple times.
I will defend electric seat and mirror movement, especially for memory settings for multi-driver vehicles (such as married couples of notably different stature).
I definitely understand why DRLs exist–grey cars can definitely be camouflaged with the road in certain conditions. Yeah, I might see them as-is, but depending on the circumstance, the fraction of a second longer it takes to recognize them without lights might make all the difference in the world. (But yes, DRLs only at night is a problem that needs a solution.)
The 737 Max 8 was just as much a lack of training as a software and hardware issue. Treating it as all one category wouldn’t be representative.
Literally every example you mentioned for the first paragraph is unnecessary. I think the best touchscreen you can have in a car is your smartphone. Give it a quality mount and a means to charge it while driving, and it’ll beat any touchscreen in any car, now and as far into the future as smartphones are made.
Push to start solves a problem that never really existed. It’s not hard to put a key in the ignition and turn, to carry a car key, etc. However the battery dying in a key fob that otherwise wouldn’t die (like the one for my 24 Jeep Wrangler Sport that has manual locks). A battery dying in a key fob used to only be a problem for the people who got cars that had electric key fobs, now all of them are electric key fobs, even if you don’t get any extra functionality out of them.
Great, you want that feature. As someone who is the ONLY one who drives my car outside of the occasional mechanic I want things to stay where they are, yet on some cars with electric doors and or electric seats it feels the need to tilt the side mirrors down when backing up, and or the seat automatically moves back when I open the door, which introduces two new unsafe failure states. 1.) The Driver’s seat is too far back when it breaks. 2.) the side mirrors are pointed down when one or both breaks, resulting in said broken mirror(s) being useless while driving. So perhaps this is more arguing for options than being forced into a
‘one-size-fits-all’ solution.
I understand why they exist, but they create more problems than they solve.
The 737 Max 8 exists because of bad law. Boeing made a passenger aircraft that was aerodynamically unstable because it was cheaper to modify a very old aircraft design under current regs, they put engines too powerful for the aircraft creating nose up tendencies, they used software to compensate for an inherent design issue with the aircraft. Sure there were hardware issues with the sensors necessary for the software meant to compensate for the inherent design issue brought to us by too big of engines.
Plenty of problems solved:
Never have to dig around for keys in my pocket.
My wife never has to look through her massive purse for her keys.
I never have to take off gloves to hit the lock or unlock button on a small remote. My car locks when I walk away from it and unlocks when I approach. Couldn’t be easier.
I can leave the car running with heat or AC on and doors locked while I run quick errands. Kids can sleep in car, or dog can stay comfy regardless of the temp outside.
The key fobs can be paired to the memory seats, so my wife and I automatically have the correct seat position when we get in, rather than having to adjust it back.
I drove keyed ignitions for 20+ years. They were fine, but push to start is unequivocally better. Changing a fob battery once every couple years (with plenty of warning too, the car starts telling me the battery is low well before it stops working) is a miniscule price to pay.
I never have to dig around for keys in my pocket. Why? Because they’re on a carabiner that I hook to my beltloop, and I’ve yet to tear a beltloop.
Throwing shit into a sack called a purse with no rhyme or reason and then having problems finding specific shit in the sack you randomly tossed your shit into is by definition a you problem, or in this case a her problem. Purses with pockets exist, she should buy them and use them.
I don’t either, because I have mechanical locks. I lock them when I want them locked, and leave them unlocked when I want them unlocked, just like my front door, and likely your front door as well.
Such a thing can be and has been built into existing cars with keys, cop cars have had it for an obscenely long time, I don’t personally need it or want it (Carbon Monoxide concerns), but if people want it and want to risk it we’ve had the solution for years without push button start.
My cars automatically have the correct seat position because I leave my manual seats where I want them positioned.
For every one of your points its a personal problem or a problem that already has an existing solution.
I can and do say the same about your original post.
Agreed, but more the later than the former.
Mechanical latches are better than electric latches.
Keys are better than push to start fobs.
Physical buttons/switches/etc. are better than touchscreens (in cars)
Mechanical parking brakes function as an emergency brake whereas electric parking brakes have no such function.
E-“Lockers” are software shittily compensating for the lack of locking and or limited slip diffs.
And Automatic 4WD is shit software and shit hardware shittily compensating for the lack of lockable center differentials.
It doesn’t seem like further arguing the point makes any sense, so I’ll just say I’m glad keyless ignition is so prevalent nowadays.
> I never have to dig around for keys in my pocket. Why? Because they’re on a carabiner that I hook to my beltloop, and I’ve yet to tear a beltloop
And you have to unhook them from your pants. We don’t have to do *anything*. And we can also drive to slightly dressier events without keychains hanging off our slacks/dresses. Or to the beach in our swim trunks/suits.
I dislike many modern amenities in cars (my newest is from 2013 with no touch screen or internet). But push ignition and remote/hands free lock/unlock is just better in every conceivable way except the inconvenience of changing batteries once a year. It’s a truly quixotic opinion.
Physical keys are not “quixotic”, you almost certainly have physical keys for your home, yet that’s not a problem.
I’m confused what you mean about my first paragraph. Some cars I know (including mine) by default unlock the doors when shifting to park. I disabled that feature. And I want my car’s headlights to turn off the moment I turn the engine off, but I wouldn’t want to stop someone else if they want theirs to stay on for a minute afterward. Are you really going to ask it to have separate buttons for each of those features?
I don’t think it’s feasible to create a really solid one-size-fits-all solution for phone mounting. Is someone’s phone with one of those thin wallets/card holders or grippers on the back supposed to fit in the same bracket or grip as mine with an enormous Otterbox Defender Pro case? Never mind the many large and small size phones.
Not to mention, you want the screen icons to be large to allow a margin of error. 9″ was the largest I could get for my car and it’s a hell of a lot nicer than the ~6.5″ of my phone.
I do use Android Auto and it’s fantastic, but it can’t cover everything specific to the car’s hardware. Just infotainment.
I mean, I’m still “carrying a car key”. That hasn’t changed. But it comes with the extra assurance that I haven’t misplaced my keys because they never leave my pocket under normal circumstances. It’s faster than putting it in the ignition too.
I concede I’ve never had a vehicle that adjusts the seats every time you get in or out. But when’s the last time you had the power mirrors break sans external damage? I’ve never even heard of that being a problem, even if it’s conceptually possible over the long-term.
And I guess my point with the 737 Max 8 was just that painting as solely one kind of issue wasn’t representative or analogous to what you were trying to say (even if I kind of get your point…but I’m also not sure of a better example).
Headlight delay, car chirp volume, etc. are unnecessary. IMHO I want ALL electrics to stop running in my car as soon as the engine is turned off. I’ve dealt with too many goddamn dead batteries due to parasitic draw, the minor inconvenience of having the electrics stopping as soon as the engine stops spinning the alternator is worth it compared to having tons of parasitic draw while the alternator is no longer generating electricity.
Fine, go with tablet mounting all I care, I’ve never found myself wanting a larger screen when using my smartphone for navigation and or when playing music.
I all of twice locked my keys in the car, the push to start key fobs if close enough to their car can create parasitic draw, which as you probably can tell I dislike.
My argument was that the seats that automatically move back when you open the door and the electric side mirrors that automatically tilt down when you put the car into reverse are things noone asked for with major safety concerns when they eventually fail, if they fail during those times. I personally don’t like electric mirrors and electric seats, but they’re normally not a safety concern.
Things are rarely one issue, they’re multifaceted, for the 737 Max 8 it was all born of using software to fix a hardware problem.
You want your car to behave one way and @VanGuy wants it to behave another way. You can either have:
What I want my car to do is not a matter of being solved via a touch screen.
All vital controls should have a physical interface.
He wants his car chime to sound less quiet, and his lights to stay on longer, whoopty fucking do. I could give a shit if those options are behind a touchscreen, I don’t need them, nor will I ever use them.
Oh! So you’re saying, they’re there for people like me, but you don’t want them. So you need a way to disable them.
Or, you need them to be something so specific as to be optional when ordering the vehicle in the first place, but that’s incredibly specific and I already know from some projects with my Prius v how many of the top-trim wiring is already done in my car despite it not having the top trim. (for example, a light in the footwell is standard for the top trim. The wire was there for me; I just had to buy the light fixture and plug it in, and it worked fine.)
Cheaper to have the wiring there for everybody than to completely remove it for lower trims.
I don’t want it enabled in the first place. I understand it’s a matter of cost, are features like having the headlights stay on a bit longer and the volume of the lock chime that big of a feature that you would buy a new car that has them at a premium over one that does not?
What you’re missing is that other people do want those features. So you’re back to:
I am sure we can find someone who wants even fewer features than you do, who would insist that, say, air conditioning is a needless complexity that should never be an option on cars because it adds weight even if you do not select it.
1.) No. There was a time where people just lived with cars and automakers built cars to not be shit. For the most part my 94 Toyota Pickup is one of those cars.
2.) Cars should have a physical interface for the actuation of important bits (lights, blinkers, ignition, emergency brake, wipers, windows, etc.)
3.) Not for the important bits.
We have lots of statistics showing that modern cars are more reliable than ever, require less maintenance, and have far fewer defects at delivery.
The fact that there are cars around from the 94 model year is survivorship bias.
> I’ve dealt with too many goddamn dead batteries due to parasitic draw
There’s an easy low-tech solution: fix it, voila, problem solved.
With the amount of electrics in your average car good luck, it’s all temporary till the next electrical gremlin takes over. Mechanical bits tend to work.
So you are arguing for options? How are you going to toggle those options? more switches that you only need once and add to the cost of the car?
Cars should absolutely have touch screens, there just shouldn’t be anything you need while driving on the screen
Options as in manual mirrors and manual seats, not exactly rocket surgery.
Manual mirrors is a weird hill to die on. My cars have electric mirrors, and it’s a lot handier than having to reach across the seat or someone else to adjust, sit back up and do it again because it’s not quite right, etc.
Many (most?) cars don’t have mirrors that retract automatically.
I adjust my mirrors once. Slight inconvenience one time, then unless I hook up a trailer I never have to adjust them again.
Not talking about mirrors that retract, talking about the electric side mirrors that tilt down when you put them in reverse.
Ever heard of a dimensionally different spouse using your car?
Yes, not an issue for me. Any partner of mine will have their own car or I won’t have a partner. My cars are mine.
Why don’t you just get a horse then, comes the same way it always has
“Dangerous at both ends and shifty in the middle”
My understanding of the issue with the 737 Max is that in order to accommodate the larger diameter engines, they had to move them forward on the wings, which changed how the aircraft handled relative to its predecessors. The aircraft is not aerodynamically unstable. Since the big selling point of the 737 Max was that minimal retraining would be required for pilots, Boeing decided to use software (MCAS) to make the 737 Max handle the same as its predecessors. Where they really screwed up is by having MCAS only use data from a single angle of attack sensor, even though there are two of them on every aircraft. They also chose not to inform pilots of the existence of MCAS, making it much more difficult for them to figure out what was wrong when the aircraft behaved abnormally due to MCAS reacting to an erroneous angle of attack reading from a faulty sensor.
It’s aerodynamically unstable enough to necessitate a software control system that has enough control over the physical controls to push the thing into an irrecoverable dive and IF you tried to fight it you’d only die tired slightly later.
Is it as aerodynamically unstable as an F-16? No. Did Boeing compromise handling because it was easier and cheaper to do that than make a new aircraft? Yes.
It doesn’t necessitate the software, the software is only there to minimize the amount of simulator time required of pilots moving from the 737NG to the 737 Max by making the Max perfectly replicate the exact same flying characteristics of the NG, that’s it. You could junk MCAS completely and it would be a perfectly normal airliner, pilots would just have to do more training before being rated for it
MCAS is not there to correct instability; it’s there to make the plane behave the same as its predecessors at relatively high angles of attack. It is true that once MCAS activated, the pilots of the accident aircraft had a short window of time to take corrective measures (i.e. disable automatic stabilizer trim) before the aircraft became unrecoverable. I agree that Boeing should have developed a completely new aircraft to replace the 737 NG, but that was never going to happen with all the resources being poured into the 787.
From what I recall, there is a flight stability issue at high angles of attack. The new bigger and farther forward engine nacelles generate a lot of lift in a nose up position, pulling the center of lift forward. Having the center of lift ahead of the center of gravity makes the aircraft inherently unstable. MCAS was intended to counter the resulting “tail heavy” effect this caused.
The “honest”, no tech way to handle it would have been some additional pilot training, but poor choices on the sales and management side prevented that from being an option.
Tech/hardware inevitably fails. Like a dead battery keeping you locked out of the trunk (where said battery lives), some design choices are just monumentally bad.
It sounds like you might have aviation knowledge that goes beyond that of an “aviation enthusiast” like me. Would you characterize the 737 Max as unstable relative to typical commercial passenger aircraft, or is unstable relative to previous versions of the 737?
No, I’m just an “aviation enthusiast” as well. Had life gone differently, I’d have probably ended up working in aerospace, but that’s just not how things turned out.
I can’t really comment on the stability of the 737 Max relative to other modern airliners, but I do know a thing or two about flight dynamics. And I read a lot, especially about things that pique my interest, and the whole Max debacle was one of them, both from the technical and leadership failure sides.
Based on of all that, I would hazard a guess that the Max is less stable at high angles of attack than the previous generations of 737. The caveats being a) I’m not an aerodynamicist, b) I can’t point you to the long lost article I read that laid out the stability issues, and c) I don’t know a whole lot about the flight characteristics of the earlier generations.
And I wouldn’t go so far as to claim it’s unstable – just less stable.
The Max can be flown perfectly fine without MCAS, it isn’t aerodynamically unstable. The system is intended to make it seem as though the plane handles exactly the same as older 737 variants to minimize the amount of retraining required for pilots, it could have been built without it, but perfect backwards compatibility with the Next Generation and Classic was a hugely crucial selling point that Boeing couldn’t afford to give up
Also, even without MCAS, the Max still performs and handles a lot closer to the 737NG than the 757 does to the 767, and the FAA accepted a common type rating for the latter two. Boeing considered trying to make that argument during development, but opted not to pursue it
Base on this thread, I’m not surprised there’s no one else interested in driving your cars.
I don’t want them to, so if they don’t want to either I don’t have to argue the point which saves me time and effort.
You sound like a rally friendly, warm, and generous fellow.
My friends think so, but I have my boundaries and they have their own.
> I think the best touchscreen you can have in a car is your smartphone.
Too small. Why would I use a 6″ screen when I can use a 12-15″ screen? Especially while driving? What happens if your phone breaks or is stolen or malfunctions/bootloops/crashes etc?
> Push to start solves a problem that never really existed. It’s not hard to put a key in the ignition and turn, to carry a car key, etc.
Unless you have arthritis like billions of people.
> However the battery dying in a key fob that otherwise wouldn’t die (like the one for my 24 Jeep Wrangler Sport that has manual locks). A battery dying in a key fob used to only be a problem for the people who got cars that had electric key fobs, now all of them are electric key fobs, even if you don’t get any extra functionality out of them.
Many double as physical keys.
Why use the most reliable 6″ touchscreen computer ever made over some shit that was outdated when it was new and hardly works? You’re asking that?
Arthritis… K den.
They’re not doubling as anything in applications where they do no have added functionality. For example in my 24 Wrangler it can sense that I am near the car before I’m in it, but to get in the car and start it I have to use the physical key to unlock the doors first, so the key is already out and in my hand. Why does my 24 Wrangler NEED push button start? How much time and or effort would it save me?
If the Wrangler is your reference then it may be Stockholm Syndrome :p
It’s a legitimate question. For some cars push button start may be more convenient, but the reason it is is because they have electric locks, I prefer manual ones, and luckily Jeep offered such an option till the 2025 Model Year.
DRLs should absolutely be compulsory and not able to be turned off. Manufacturers should make it obvious to the driver that full headlamps aren’t on at night.
How would you implement that in a manner that would force the driver to put their lights on all the way at night instead of just relying on the DRLs?
Mandatory automatic headlights. Canada solved the problem years ago.
The headlights need to be auto- on by default. Turning them off needs to be the option. Too many people don’t realize they’re essentially blacked out at night because they “see headlights” on the back of the car in front. I don’t mind DRLs, and generally agree with you that the dumber the systems the better, but if there are going to be DRLs, they need to be accompanied by mandatory auto- on lighting. Or, make the DRLs NOT the same light and housing as the low beams.
Part of the problem is various edge cases (drive-in movies, observatories, some other locations) where headlights explicitly need to be turned off. There’s always exceptions. I don’t know what the right answer is.
Fair point. With that in mind my idea to have the auto-on default would work if the “off” setting also included the DRLs. It’s one thing to take an extra step in those edge cases to totally black out the lighting. It’s another when it’s so easy to be blacked out from the rear in every day(night) driving.
Oh yeah. My vision is that DRLs shouldn’t exist independently at all. I don’t see the point when the taillights should be such a minimal extra power draw.
A simple solution which would help in some cases would be not illuminating the dashboard until the lights are turned on. Not being able to see your speedo reminds you to turn on your lights.
I’m still not sure what problem DRLs solve though.
Not a shabby idea.
By having the dash go into a dark state in low ambient light conditions. Not being able to see the dash was always the cue that your lights were off. Modern dashes that are always lit has created the issue we see today.
It’s super common to see modern Nissans (because of course) running around Atlanta at night with just the DRLs on. You can try flashing them but they generally have no clue what you’re on about, since they see their lights on in front. DRLs need to come with default auto headlights, turning the feature off should be the option.
I agree with a lot of these. However, electric seats are awesome if (and only if) there’s a memory function so you can save presets. We have a car that my wife and I both regularly drive, and we are very different shapes. It is great to be able to open the driver door, push the “2” button, and have the seat move to where I like it.
I understand. My argument is that electric seats that automatically move as far rearward as possible without your adjustment when the car has been parked have the possibility of failing in that position, which would be unsafe as you’d most likely be too far from the pedals and steering wheel for safe driving.
Oh yeah, I agree that is silly and unnecessary.
electronic parking brake
I also agree with the stupid touchscreens and weird door handles, but everyone else said that already
Came here to say this
I’d nominate the weight sensor that lives in the front seat of my Mazda6 which bings a scary warning chime when you put something there which weighs enough for the seat to think that someone small may be sitting in it. It took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on when this happened at first because I got the chime and there’s no obvious display or readout for it. Also, it doesn’t really happen when you start the car, it just sorta decides it somewhere along the journey. The offending backpack must have somehow gained weight along the way (?). After a few seconds of bewilderment, I saw that the seatbelt light was illuminated and figured it out, but…
I had the same issue with my 6,the other thing is if I put my phone on the passenger seat the warning also goes off.
My dog was very sad when I declared him too big to chill in the front seat next to me because he’d reached the weight that set off the passenger seatbelt warning system.
I’m in the minority on this, but keyless push-start is annoying. For the brief time I had it, my key fob ate batteries at an astonishing rate, and I had constant anxiety that I didn’t have my key on me, but was able to leave when it was close enough by. Nothing seemed like a benefit to me.
I think it can work well, but it requires a few systems to work in the car without being…..shit.
Not having to pull your key out to start the car is cool as long as you don’t have to pull your key out to get into your car. Too many cars still have shitty keyless entry. My parents Camry works 100% of the time. My current work vehicle (an Equinox) works fine because there’s a button on the handle to lock/unlock, no complaints there. My previous work vehicle (a Cherokee) worked about 65% of the time. Which is enough of the time that you just end up taking the fob out of your pocket and unlocking the car with the fob every time rather than trying the handle that doesn’t work today. So yeah, if the fob is in your hand, who cares that you don’t need to insert a key to start it?
What do you mean, no one asked for automatic transmissions? I sure as hell do. I wouldn’t want a manual transmission. And I don’t understand your issue with them shifting to park with the door open.
Sometimes i want to open the door while I’m slowly moving to line up with something, and I can’t.
And automatic transmissions was kind of a joke
Fair enough
I remember getting really annoyed by this once trying to get a parking gate to open when I had a Chrysler Pacifica as a rental. Had to open the door to get the card to swipe and the car freaked out, refused to move until i had the door closed and my seatbelt back on.
I have a Voyager (fleet spec Pacifica) as a work vehicle and can confirm this is infuriating. I end up in a lot of small parking garages for work and am often cracking my door to check the parking stall lines.
It’s my main beef with rotary shifters – I don’t mind the ergonomics, but come on, I know I opened my door, and I know I’m in gear. I don’t need ever more decisions made for me in the name of “safety.”
want to hear a really funny one? Not a rotary shifter, but the Jeep Wrangler 4XE will shift itself to park if you open the door. Thats right. A wrangler. That you can drive with the doors off. Removing the door connector apparently disables that feature, but come on.
I was driving an unfamiliar car and parked it in a fairly tight lot. I get in the parking space and – while holding the brake – open the driver’s door to look down and confirm where the wheels are relative to the lines. The car then freaks out, shifts to park, turns off the engine, and beeps madly.
Automatically-dimming mirrors. The rear-view doesn’t dim enough to help when a bro-douche is behind you with Xenons. And the side-views lose their LCD goop, it smears across the inside of the mirror and you can’t see shit.
I preferred the lever for the rear-view and simply turning out the side-views.
The auto dimming mirror on my 350z seems to only work when there’s a ton of cars behind me. It doesn’t work super well when I need it to during stop and go traffic on a one lane road I take, where I have no option but be blinded by the monster truck behind me during my early morning commute.
In contrast, my dad’s Lexus CT has a manual dimming mirror. Flip the lever and it works perfectly fine all the time. Maybe one day I’ll look for a manual dimming mirror for my Z.
I would swap out that caveman option in a second.
Like most of the things commented on here, I wonder who exactly it was that decided all of this stuff needed fixing, ‘cuz it worked fine before. Solutions in search of problems.
I dunno. Whenever I try to dim the mirror, there is a moderate chance I bump the mirror and need to re-aim it a bit.
Not saying auto-dimming is the solution, but I think treating the manual method of the lever on the mirror as be-all end-all is also wrong.
I put one of those little laptop PC webcam sliding window dodads on the light sensor on the rearview mirrior on my Miata. Now I can slide the webcam thing closed, the electronics think it’s night time, and the rear view is dimmed any time I want, like when some bozo with horribly bright headlights blows up my eyes.
It’s a workaround for stupid useless technology when the old mechanical flip up/down worked perfectly fine.
“old mechanical flip up/down worked perfectly fine.”
THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I might have to try something like that…
I had my Z4 for over a year before I realised it had dimming mirrors. They worked perfectly.
Bad implementation of a technology is massively frustrating. Great implementation is quite hard to notice.
I’m probably going to repeat something someone else has said, but I think my biggest modern peeve is non-standard gear selectors. What’s wrong with PRND? Everyone knows it, and you don’t have to think about “how do I put this car in park, drive, etc”
I remember the first time I got into my husband’s Audi, and it took me several minutes to find the “park” button on the gear shift.
I drove a Polestar Electric Car on vacation, and to put in Reverse, you needed to push the selector Forward. Damn near drove forward into a wall the first time I picked it up.
Agree with this. I submit as evidence the several occasions I’ve witnessed people unable to put their cars in ‘neutral’ for the automated car wash. I honestly feel bad for them, I’m sure it’s embarrassing. That’s a pretty big user design fail.
That is more of a design flaw in the operator than a design flaw in the vehicle.
It isn’t that hard to take the time to learn how your vehicle works. I can’t imagine spending $50,000 or more on a piece of equipment and not taking the time to learn how to use it.
While designing something intuitive is difficult, I really think push-button or rotary is the way to go. Center consoles need to die, and unnecessarily large shifters are part of that problem. Push-button or rotary keeps them compact on the dashboard.
I legitimately think, had I not had my own conversion van for 7 years, I wouldn’t know how to work a column shifter. Sure, I could probably figure it out, but not under pressure. Even if the PRNDL lights are visible, it might not be immediately clear to pull the lever toward me.