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Comment by amatecha | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I've rented latest-model Renault and Peugeot cars in Europe and I cannot believe this stuff. It's probably same in new North American vehicles, but I haven't driven those.

This Peugeot 308 was trying to kill me with its "lane assist" in a construction zone, forcefully steering the car towards the concrete barrier because the painted lines on the road were tapering towards the concrete barrier (due to the construction). I finally found out how to turn that off _after_ nearly being killed.

Make my car less like a desktop computer, please.

My favorite is _waiting for the car to boot up_ so I can turn on the air conditioning in the sweltering heat :)

There's also the joy of fumbling through terribly-designed touch screen menus so you can turn off the radio that for some reason auto-tuned to some nearby station. Since my FM transmitter wasn't broadcasting audio I guess the car just decides it needs to get something pumping through the speakers ASAP.

The other hilarious thing is the cruise control pretty much slamming on the brakes because someone merged into my lane 300m+ ahead (not even slightly at risk of driving into them because they are about the same speed as me). I guess the system that detects an obstruction ahead cannot tell that it's moving at the same speed as me. Not surprising, but regardless, can I please be the driver of the vehicle?

Oh yeah and how about those software-driven dash gauges that feel like they have a full second of latency? The ability to customize the UI skin is something I want for WinAmp, not my car's tachometer and speedometer.

View on HN

Lane assists and emergency braking assists are going to be mandatory safety features in the EU from 2022. I sure hope they are not required to be always on, because my experience with Opel's collision detection has been that it's more likely to cause accidents than avert them. Like you described, suddenly losing power at highway speeds is really confusing, especially when you're driving an Ampera with the regen braking in the more aggressive mode. It will lose speed fast, and the first time it happens, you will spend several seconds figuring out that the cruise control has been turned off because the system got confused by a truck in the other lane, somehow.

> I sure hope they are not required to be always on, because my experience with Opel's collision detection has been that it's more likely to cause accidents than avert them.

A couple of years ago I rented some Toyota which had collision warning. I got on the exit from the highway, it was a big round swing with high, thin marker poles by the sides. The car suddenly started to emit a maddening high-pitch beeping tone that scared the shit out of me. I hit the brakes to slow down to snail speed (fortunately, there was nobody behind me) and then I figured out on the display that it was collision warning. The next thing I did is to read the user manual and disabled the shit.

> Lane assists and emergency braking assists are going to be mandatory safety features in the EU from 2022.

WTF?! We should make a website collecting all stories of almost-accidents due to these features.

And for the sake of it, make a website collecting all the lives saved thanks to it (I'm thinking of the Netherlands schoolboy who'd had been crushed by the truck without it)

When those features are mandatory their performance will be just another thing talked about in car magazines or when talking with friends about the experience with your car. A particularly good or bad implementation might significantly impact sales, so I expect lots of improvements in teh coming years.

> Lane assists and emergency braking assists are going to be mandatory safety features in the EU from 2022.

I can see the use of emergency braking, but not lane assist. As someone with a 2003 Golf, I have never found it difficult to stay in my lane.

What is the "logic" behind mandating this? What problem are they trying to solve?

When you have adaptive cruise-control which keeps constant distance with the vehicle in front of you by adjusting speed, you start to pay less attention to the road in general. You basically can't hit the car in front of you, so you subconsciously start to care less. So there are small curves of the road that fall under your consciousness' "radar" and lane assist actually helps in those cases.

But boy, how afraid I am when it triggers in the construction zones!

The reason for lane departure assist ( that’s the one that will be mandatory, not lane keeping on CC) is something else: inadvertent drifting off the lane when tired and driving without CC/autopilot/whatever (when you arguably shouldn’t be driving bad should have stopped, but sometimes you can’t, or don’t evaluate your tiredness correctly).

Conversely, I recently did some driving in a recent Volvo with all the assist features and was pleasantly surprised to find it quite unobtrusive and actually helpful. There's hope!

>Lane assists and emergency braking assists are going to be mandatory safety features in the EU from 2022.

I am never, ever, buying a brand-new car.

Most drivers are probably not as competent as you. Think of women who text while driving. The car stopping by itself instead of running a child over is going to save lives.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN, and cut the flamebait and slurs right out?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I see plenty of men texting too.

Let's not bring gender into this, but idiots who text while driving deserve to have their asses handed to them for dangerous driving.

I recently overheard someone talking about how the lane assist in their new car tried to stop them from safely passing a cyclist. It tried to force them to stay in the lane.

As a cyclist it made me wonder how many of the close-passes I experience, where drivers just full on don't change course and blast past me with inches to spare, are actually due to the car not wanting the driver to move out of the lane.

> It tried to force them to stay in the lane.

I think this is because the driver was being a bit lazy and didn't bother turning on the signal. If you indicate intent, then the system won't think you're messing up.

But a lot of folks simply half-change lanes when passing cyclists and then go back.

As a motorcyclist the half-change is annoying since (a) you're blocking both lanes, and (b) if they did a full lane change I could zip past since I can fit quite comfortably next to the bicyclist.

Am I misunderstanding something here? You want a car driver to pull into the outer lane so that you can undertake him between the cycle and car? I'm a biker and that sounds suicidal to me. The drivers next move would be to move back into the inner lane, right into you.

I've got no problem with your complaint about them half-changing and blocking both lanes, it's the concept of nipping between them, knowing full-well their next move will be back in.

I thought this too. As a cyclist I'd be absolutely terrified if a motorcyclist did this and I've never experienced such a maneuver. Bikers are generally the best behaved around cyclists.

Yes, I can see that. It depends on the circumstances if I consider it: if there's a bit of a caravan/peloton/group of bicyclists, then it's more useful. If it's just a lone pedaler then the car will move back and zip forward since it will not have an unobstructed lane, so there's not point in trying to get a head.

> I think this is because the driver was being a bit lazy and didn't bother turning on the signal. If you indicate intent, then the system won't think you're messing up.

(UK) My instructor taught me to judge each situation. An indicator might cause more confusion. There is definitely no rule in the Highway Code that states you must always indicate. A system which relies on such an assumption is defective.

> (UK) My instructor taught me to judge each situation. An indicator might cause more confusion.

If you're intending to cross a lane marking you should signal. Under what circumstances would this not be true?

> Rule 103: Signals warn and inform other road users, including pedestrians (see ‘Signals to other road users), of your intended actions. You should always: use them to advise other road users before changing course or direction, stopping or moving off

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/general-rules-t...

Isn't going into another lane, even partially, a change in course or direction?

You only partiality quoted 103. Quoted fully, it shows it's not at odds with my instructor's advice. Especially points 1 and 2

However I do stand corrected as code does say that you must always indicate if you are changing course or direction.

"Signals warn and inform other road users, including pedestrians (see ‘Signals to other road users), of your intended actions. You should always

- give clear signals in plenty of time, having checked it is not misleading to signal at that time

- use them to advise other road users before changing course or direction, stopping or moving off

- cancel them after use

- make sure your signals will not confuse others. If, for instance, you want to stop after a side road, do not signal until you are passing the road. If you signal earlier it may give the impression that you intend to turn into the road. Your brake lights will warn traffic behind you that you are slowing down

- use an arm signal to emphasise or reinforce your signal if necessary. Remember that signalling does not give you priority."

The lane assist in my car (Skoda/VAG) has that behaviour, but only if you're not indicating.

That'll be what it is. In my experience as a cyclist it's unusual for drivers to indicate to overtake a cyclist even when do do move fully over into the other lane.

I'm not sure how much the UI is indeed at play here, rather than the User's state. The keyword here is 'rental'. This seems to just amplify grumpiness.

Picking a rented car, I normally don't spend much effort trying to figure out all features. Just basics - adjust the seat, the mirrors, reset the trip, rarely link up the phone. Touch-n-go.

It always gets irritating later, as I would try to figure some needed feature while already on the go. Climate, radio, what's that beeping, which side is the fuel port (while already pulling to the pump), the curiously long-lasting parfum on the seat-belt from the previous renter at times triggering unexpected memories...

I guess, it's just a mild form of self-inflicted road rage. RTFM would be an easy answer, but we all know how that works out.

That reinforces the article's point. Having a car as a rental allows you to see its UI foibles without the blinders that inevitably come down when people are forced to adapt to some problem over a long period of time. And like the OP says, the UI of most modern cars is horrendously bad. For example, my personal car is a 2019 Subaru Legacy. I rather like it. But there's no way to make it start with the stereo off. If the car is on, the stereo is on. The only way to turn the audio off is to twist the volume knob all the way down to zero before you turn off the car.

When I first had the car, I found this to be totally ridiculous. Whoever heard of a car that automatically turns on the radio when it starts? But, after having had the car for a month, the problem is already fading, as I've developed a habit of turning the volume down before I turn off the car. At this rate, six months from now, like you, I'll be defending this anti-feature. (Hey, you're going to turn the radio on anyway when you drive, so why not have the car do it for you on startup?)

I agree that the key word is rental, but my conclusion is exactly the opposite of yours. The fact that this is an unfamiliar rental is what is allowing the OP to see the issues with the car's UX clearly. If the car were his daily driver, he'd have adapted to it, and he wouldn't notice himself getting distracted.

[1]: https://www.subaruxvforum.com/forum/interior-audio-hvac/1460...

I must say, I'm a little confused re the radio- hasn't that been the default UX for car audio for as long as cars have had radios? Even old AM only radios would come on when the ignition was turned on, and would retain the volume & station from the last time the car was used. I don't think I have ever driven a vehicle that defaulted the radio off when starting, they all retain the setting that was last used.

If the radio was on, then it would come on the next time the car was started. If the radio was off, it would remain off until you turned it on. In the Subaru, the radio comes on regardless of its state when the car was shut off.

In every other car I've owned, if I press the volume knob to turn off the radio, the radio stays off. The next time I start the car, I have to press the volume knob again to turn the radio back on. In the Subaru, the radio turns on and starts playing when I start the car, even if I specifically pressed the volume knob to turn it off before turning off the car last time.

I encourage you to go try this in your (presumably non-Subaru) car. Start the car. Turn on the radio. Turn off the radio. Shut off the car. Start the car again. Is the radio playing audio or not?

Oh wow, so it is always on... what would possess someone to think that was in any way a useful feature? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the volume defaults to 50%, which if the FM station is playing an advert with the gain maxed would be loud enough to be painful.

This might be a safety feature that needs to be turned off.

Oh, I feel for you, radio behavior is such a long standing feature that has been ingrained in minds of more than one generation of drivers. Strange choice from Subaru. I looked it up, it seems that the problem was also present on Outbacks, fixed in update for 2018 model.

As for the freshness of a renter's UX observations, personally, I'd find it less reliable due to different objective vs. a future owner. I would dismiss a lot of seeming inefficiencies of design just due to my unfamiliarity with vendor 'concept' and would kludge it for the short duration of the rental.

On the other hand, if shopping for a new car, test-driving one, my mindset would be a lot more critical.

I remember, at one time having to pull over the highway just to figure out, where was the headlights switch on the fine Dodge Charger. Used to Japanese cars, I would not expect it to be off the steering wheel stalks, but as a knob near the door. Turns out, it's another 'concept'.

Another example is the hand-brake pedal (!). Makes sense in a way. That one entered my memory bank via a nice Toyota Prius, at 4 in the morning, starting my the way to the airport from the darkness of parking lot. Previous share driver left it engaged, manifested itself with a dash warning and very squeeeeky and slow drive.... Luckily, there was a user manual in the car.

After seeing your comment, I dug into my Subaru Legacy's menus and found the option to force-check for a software update. Alas, there was none to be had. I think the next step is to e-mail the dealership and get them to lobby Subaru of America to port the fix to my model.

Same "feature" with the radio in my Peugeot. How can anyone design something like that?

> But there's no way to make it start with the stereo off. If the car is on, the stereo is on. The only way to turn the audio off is to twist the volume knob all the way down to zero before you turn off the car.

I have a 2016 Hyundai Tucson with a similar, but slightly different feature.

Turning the volume all the way down before switching off the engine does not effect the startup volume. When the engine starts, the radio comes back on at a preset, but reasonable, volume.

However, if I turn the entire screen off, by pushing the volume knob in until it clicks, before stopping the engine, then on start-up the radio will be off, but so will the entire screen, which also controls navigation, bluetooth connectivity and the reversing camera.

My first action after starting my car is 90% of the time to turn the volume down on the radio.

However, I must say that's really the only niggle I have with the Tucson. Everything else I'm pretty pleased with. While it does have a touch screen, I hardly use it, as everything can be controlled with tactile knobs and buttons. The touchscreen is used most when stationary and inputting a new destination address for navigation.

My Subaru has the same behavior, minus the backup camera remaining off. In reverse, the screen turns on and displays the image from the backup camera. It turns off again once you switch into drive. It's certainly a solution to the problem I described, but it's obviously not ideal for all the reasons you've enumerated. Turning off Bluetooth, navigation, and (in my case) Android Auto is certainly a drastic way of dealing with this radio behavior.

By outsourcing to the lowest bidder and then putting the thumbscrews on to push the price down even more. Everything in these cheap mass market cars is made as cheaply (and thus half-assedly) as humanly possible.

I mean, the real issue is that it starts at some preset volume that's almost invariably too high. if turned on at something more reasonable I'd get less annoyed by it

Does the Subaru have any beeping misfeatures other than the radio thing? Our Civic FK/FH is quite considerate about beeping, it only beeps twice like a bell if you don't have your seatbelt on and then shows a red pictogram on the dashboard, unlike Toyotas and Peugeot which are very annoying, or VW which beeps like a bomb is about to go off for virtually any dashboard notification deemed important by the manufacturer, like when your windscreen wiping fluid is low.

The Subaru beeps insistently if you don't have your seatbelt on. Other than that, it only beeps if you have the adaptive cruise control system enabled and you start to drift out of your lane.

You're really ignoring the main point that the tech in these machines makes them more difficult to use and less intuitive.

I'm wondering how many cars you drove that did not have any screens. Having grown up during a time when the most sophisticated display was the LCD for the radio station, I can assure you car interfaces are getting worse.

Japanese cars used to be my favorite because they had consistent manual interfaces across models. Perhaps Renault and Peugeot have always had bad design but the digitization of the interfaces and the software that's now controlling some aspects of the actual driving makes them more dangerous.

And I wonder if the car manufacturers are even listening (to us).

In some ways the current state of car interior design reminds the 1990s and 2000s of computers and mobile phones. Everything was so ugly and unusable that when proper industrial design finally came into the industry, the guy responsible for it got knighthood and worldwide recognition of a genius.

(To be fair a few companies did try to make their devices look well-designed and luxury, such as Sony, but then Sony never understood software. Industrial design without software is nothing.)

Whereas all it takes for any electronics or car manufacturer is to have someone C-level with a good taste to approve or disapprove designs. Which got me thinking, maybe at this point the humanity needs to come up with some measure of good taste similar to IQ...

The real problem is… who are "us" in this sentence?

For a fairly intuitive UI, check out the Tesla, particularly in its latest incarnations. In my estimation it is at least as usable as most tablets, and very discoverable.

However, look online and you will discover a litany of people who decry the lack of physical buttons to control everything.

Car UI is hard, not just because it is hard, but because there are many different groups of "us", and we have all grown used to different forms of car UI, BMW vs Ford for example.

I'm convinced that Tesla UI is only good because they're not afraid to continuously iterate on the design.

The best way to improve a complex human interaction task like a vehicle is with experimentation and incremental improvements—and the touch screen allows the pace of that feedback loop to be an order of magnitude faster than a physical interface.

All they need is a few more buttons for the most common tasks on the steering wheel and the Model 3 design would be greatly improved.

> Tesla UI is only good because they're not afraid to continuously iterate on the design

I'm not sure this is a good thing. Poorly designed physical things will stick for a long time and might damage the reputation of your company. Tesla's reputation is not great precisely for that reason. I remember people were saying that Tesla would be "the Apple for cars" before their first cars left the factory. Nobody says that anymore.

> The best way to improve a complex human interaction task like a vehicle is with experimentation and incremental improvements.

You have to be careful to differentiate between improvements vs. change. You need to know when to stop (or at least slow down the rate of change) otherwise it's just a random walk.

> litany of people who decry the lack of physical buttons to control everything

So how about you as a car manufacturer make these people happy but with an even better design than they expected?

Car usability is not subjective, it can easily be measured. For example, how often do drivers adjust the audio volume while driving? If they are doing it less often it means the volume function is less usable (the driver feels it would be unsafe to try and use the function). And so on.

> Industrial design without software is nothing.

It saved Apple (iMac)

iMac and OS X in a bundle is what saved Apple (along with the iPod of course)

> which side is the fuel port

Note that most cars have a little arrow on the dashboard next to the fuel gauge showing which side the fuel tank is on.

Not most cars I've seen so far, but most filling stations also have hoses long enough to reach around the car, so unless you drive a battleship or a tank, it doesn't really matter.

There's a station near me that just opened. Pay at pump, pumps only on one side. 'Surely' I thought, as I pulled up, 'the hoses will reach the other side'.

They didn't. So I got out to move my hatchback car closer and angled so they would reach. I unhooked the pump and put it in my car.

But first it asked me to pay my bill of £0.

You just didn’t see the indicator (it’s an icon somewhere on the fuel gauge, typically in its center).

I was driving for ten years unaware of this, before somebody told me. It’s easy to miss that the icon telling you “this is fuel gauge” also shows you which side to fill the tank from.

> Not most cars I've seen so far

Do you have an example? Every rental car I have tried in the past decade had this. At least 10–15 different models from a variety of different manufacturers.

I estimate that I've rented 15 different vehicles in the last 24 months, if I cant figure out how to use the infotainment system within five minutes of getting in the car its an instant fail. Similarly, if I cant figure out the wipers, cruise control within 30 seconds of wanting them, or if the car takes evasive action against my wishes, its also an instant fail. I also shouldn't need to look to anywhere but the gas gauge to figure out what side to fuel it, if I do, also a fail.

We've been building cars for 100 years or more - you don't get to make a car that operates in a fundamentally different manner.

If anyone was curious, the best infotainment system was FCA's uConnect, with the Ford and GM systems tying for second, the worst by far was the one on the Volvo I rented, it took me 10 min to figure out the radio, even longer to turn the AC on.

I spent an entire summer bumbling around the UK in a little rented Fiat 500, with the family all crammed in and complaining because we'd rented one that came without AC.

At least, according to the rental company that was the case. On the last day as we were driving it back to drop off, I discovered that you could press the temperature dial inwards to turn on AC.

There was a significant number of choice words from the folks in the back seat. But aside from that the rest of the drive was pleasantly cool.

Reminds me of trying to figure out how to make the power seats go down in a rental car at 3am. Seat was up so far my head was pressed against the headliner. To control the seat there were three switches under the seat on the left. That was easy enough to find though not obvious. But flipping each switch up and down and the seat would move some direction. Except up and down.

Found one page in the back of the owners manual that showed 'one' of the switches in addition to up and down moved right and left.

I drove these various rentals for tens of thousands of kilometers, not just short weekend trips :)

Never been in such a car, but just reading this drives me mad. How can things go that wrong in pretty much every regard?

Sorry for this ranty attitude right now but how do so many things that we technically figured out perfectly get shittier and shittier? We fortunately slowly come to realize how important automated testing, integration tests etc. are to make software development better and faster in the long run, but do we in turn just stop thinking about if what we're currently doing actually makes sense? Take a step back for a second?

I don't want to be the crazy guy shouting more regulation every time something goes wrong, but I really wonder if we're in need for some up to date rules about what makes a car safe for traffic and what doesn't that specifically has UX in mind. Entirely ban touch screens or buttons with no tactile feedback from cars for example. Today you have dash gauges that lag behind by a second. If the trend continues, by tomorrow we have software driven AI cloud based brakes that are delayed by a second or two.

I suspect it's a case of the "designers" being addicted to the "new and fresh" paradigm and not caring about anything but trying to redesign everything they can.

I'm not a fan of regulation either, but I have a feeling that if the operation of the steering wheel or pedals weren't standardised, we'd have even crazier car UIs with their own self-consistent-but-globally-inconsistent designs. ("Turn the steering wheel clockwise to make a left turn --- because you're changing the view in the windscreen, not the content behind it!")

The regulation that required the shift quadrant to be in the PRNDL order many decades ago seems almost quaint in comparison:

https://jalopnik.com/why-prndl-5870701

(...and as the mentions about the horrible Jeep shifter in the other comments here allude to, maybe that regulation has laxed over the years.)

How about social decay? Would Renault's management in the sixties have accepted this level of incompetence?

Maybe a case of making your mark as a designer by hunting for seemingly low hanging fruits. So every newly hired designer will try to get some of his ideas squeezed into a new model. Instead of a conservative approach less "revolutionary" approach. At least that's my theory for why UX of almost anything nowadays seems to decline with every iteration.

It's all about layers of management where such things aren't possibly taken into account. The mechanical gauges don't have delay by their nature, so everyone expects the software ones also to not have any. But when the work is signed off, no one explicitly has power or resources to stop the production because of that.

If, like a desktop computer, it was mostly consistent across the board, it wouldn't be so bad.

I have to learn how to use three operating systems to be able to use very nearly all computers in the world. Car UIs can be wildly inconsistent even for the same brand.

"cruise control", "can I please be the driver of the vehicle?"

Aren't these 2 things mutually exclusive? If you want to drive, turn off the cruise control? Or is this an always on 'feature'?

On long trips in the motorway (doing constant 120 km/h), cruise control is a bless for your right foot and leg.

Cruise control is not autopilot. Cruise control is just "please maintain the current speed with no further throttle input from me, until I do decide to provide throttle or braking input".

The driver is still absolutely in control of the vehicle with cruise control enabled.

So you would say that braking to maintain distance to the car in front isnt part of cruise control? Because that's what we are talking about.

I don't think cruise control has to include active braking, if the feature is included, and from what the GP is suggesting, is activated with the cruise control, isnt it part of cruise control.

braking to maintain distance to the car in front isnt part of cruise control?

Yes, that isn't part of regular cruise control. It's called "cruising", not "driving in traffic". These systems have been around since the 60s, far longer than automotive sensors have existed.

The part where the car actually responds to the movement of cars around them is a new thing (only available for ten years or so), and is called adaptive cruise control.

To me adaptive cruise control is cruise control.

As I said cruise control doesn't have to have active braking because as you point out cruise control predates active braking. To me its analogous to a graphics card in a computer, a computer doesn't have to contain a graphics card, after all the computer predates the graphics card. Nevertheless you wouldn't argue that a graphics card in a computer isnt part of the computer.

I want to drive 120 until I tell the car not to any more. If I have to set the thing every two minutes, it's not that huge of an improvement over having to keep my foot at an awkward angle, unless I'm driving far enough for that to cause real pain.

The C3 Aircross we have rented last year was okay besides the 1.2L 85 HP engine being absolute crap. Economic yes, but with the acceleration pedal bottomed the car was struggling to overtake a truck or climb a hill. I don't have this problem with my Suzuki which has a weaker 65 HP engine.

A 1.2L is meant for city driving rather than country driving, and it's just fine for that. There are much better engines available for the C3 aircross, so you just didn't get one that was appropriate I'm afraid.

For some reason rental companies always seem to try to give you underpowered cars no matter where, I'm not sure why since they do have better ones which are also more expensive so they're not losing money renting them.

Not the case with VW or Seat 1L or 1.2L TSI engines at 115 and 110 HP. They have six speed gearboxes and supercharged 3 or 4 piston engines on entry level Polo, Golf and Leon models. With two people in the vehicle it climbs well, it runs okay on the highway although with high fuel consumption, it overtakes okay and runs economically in the city. The 1.5 TSI runs faster and burns even less fuel on the highway but it's considerably more expensive.

Agreed. I'm driving a 1.2L TSI Polo, although with 90 HP. It's a fine, well-rounded, affordable car that feels snappy enough. Plus, I think the UX is quite alright - it uses a touch screen, but primary functions are covered by physical buttons and controls.

I'm also hearing nothing but good things about Ford's 1.0L EcoBoost engines. So it's certainly not a question of volume/size alone.

I have a 1l ecoboost and it is quite snappy when you get up to speed. There just isn't enough volume to get off the line quickly but with 4 people cramped up they still work pretty well even at autobahn speeds (at least if you have the 125hp model). Quite fuel efficient as well if you stay below 120kph.

Well there are also 110 and 130 HP versions of the C3 Aircross' 1.2L gasoline engine but the parent was talking about the 85 HP version.

Admittedly I should have said that "85 HP" was for city driving rather than "1.2L".

Minor nit; turbocharged, not supercharged.

It's both, actually. The TSI engine is named after its main novel feature: Twincharged Stratified Injection. The supercharger is connected to the crank via a clutch and gets disconnected at high RPM.

TSI standards for turbocharged stratified injection, not twin.

Neither the 1.0 EA211 or the 1.2 EA111 are twin-charged. The 2005 1.4 EA111 was however twin-charged and was replaced in 2012 with the newer 1.4 EA211 turbocharged engine. This has now become the 1.5 EA211.

I recently rented a new VW Polo. Its collision avoidance system beeped at me constantly with false positives in situations when I couldn’t even figure out what on Earth triggered it. Like on a wide and deserted road in the middle of nowhere. And when once I missed that a car in front of us suddenly slowed down to make a turn and nearly hit it, it was my passenger who yelled at me to swerve. The CAS didn’t even notice the one situation it was designed for. It took just a day of driving to learn to ignore that sound. It is utter crap.

My regular driver is a Tesla. Say what you will about it, but the CAS in it is freaking reliable, to the point that when I hear the warning I reflexively brake, before assessing the situation - which is the point, saving milliseconds. It has false positives too, but rarely and in situations where I can immediately see why (like going zig-zag between parallel parked cars on both sides of a narrow road).

These assists will become mandatory in EU, in a complete legislative disconnect from the reality of state of the art of European manufacturers.

I hate Peugeots with a passion (only rented them). Even the smallest of their cars sound like a tractor. Build quality is hilarious, huge gaps between panels both in- and outside. Huge deadzone on the steering wheel and pedals, and no feel for the road. The clutch pedal is nice and roomy but the gas pedal is a slippery and the size of a penny.

They are probably cheap and are all driven by seniors who wouldn't notice the difference with a proper car anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TnGjq9mWSI > very accurate.

Have you driven one of their current model lineup? It seems to me that they really improved things recently (and judging from what I see on the roads, especially the new 3008 seems to really resonate with buyers).

Most of my experiences described are actually based of the 2008 I drove last year (that one I drove for 2 weeks)...

I do not mean to sound pedantic, but a lot of shitty products "resonate with buyers". Squeaky laptops with stamp-sized trackpads come to mind. I think the resonating is mainly related to price. Like those laptops, Peugeots are probably good value for many. That does not however negate, that they are also shitty cars...

(For reference, my own car is a 2010 Honda Jazz (Honda Fitt in the US), so I'm not comparing a Peugeot to a luxury Mercedes sedan or something...it's just that the Honda seems to be a car people actually though about before they started building it)

Haha, yes the 2008 is really bad. Looks ok from the outside, but that is about it.

The 3008 is not cheap, I think people buy it for the expressive style and the great comfort. So "resonate" is not meant as "resonate because of low price". Also, the new 508 and the upcoming 208 seem to be amazing cars. Give them a chance in a year :)

I drove a new rental Peugeot (207 or something?) last year, wasn't actually bad at all. The interior no longer feels like they got the plastic from biscuit packets, at least.

I had a Peugeot 205 and have now a 206 since 2004, they are amazing cars. They are non non-sense cars, easy and inexpensive to maintain, you can actually do a lot of mechanic yourself.

Talking about the play in the steering wheel, I have none but once scared myself driving the Ford of a friend because of this issue.

And this, right here, is the reason why people buy expensive german cars.

Teslas also do that, but I don't know about other lane assist systems.

The cruise control on our Subaru seems to behave like you’d expect here. If someone cuts in front of you going roughly the same speed, it backs off a bit to open up some space, but doesn’t slam on the brakes because someone is close.

On the Toyota Prius (2016-) you can have the lane departure warning on, while turning off the steering assist.

The steering assist was one of the first things I turned off on it, otherwise it might activate literally every time I drive home. There's also construction all over the place, so... yeah.

I pity someone stepping into one of these cars for the first time with this feature enabled.

Lane(Lane assist does fell like it's trying to kill you! There are times where I don't want to be in the middle of the lane, like when passing a truck on a windy day

What do you mean? Lane assist software is so good&safe, that Boeing put it in one of it's planes!

This can be disabled in Ford’a S-MAX as well. (Unsurprising because these systems all we provided by Bosch and co.). I turned it off when it almost ran into the car next to me at the toll booth because of the lines on the roads before the toll booth that nobody follows.

That's not very encouraging for their "fully self driving" hopes and dreams.

Google's Chaffeur would be the only car I would let self drive in the near future, for two reasons:

1. It would only drive at speeds where a head on would not hurt passengers.

2. In case of any certainty loss it would pull over.

Unfortunately, it got the axe (in favour of partnerships). Fully self driving sports car, without a bazillion miles of proper learning data (where the ai was continuously in charge at speeds similar to the discussed ones) sounds way outside my comfort limits.

>Fully self driving sports car, without a bazillion miles of proper learning data (where the ai was continuously in charge at speeds similar to the discussed ones) sounds way outside my comfort limits.

I feel the same.

If Tesla gets their way, they could be on the roads posing a risk to us more cautious types regardless.

Talk of corruption aside, if Boeing can't get it right with a gazillion dollars and no bad roads or unpredictable traffic, I don't trust Tesla to be able to do it safely.

[x] More expensive, [x] less usable, they sure hit all the right check boxes.

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