Quality of new vehicles in US declining on more tech use: study | Hacker News Reader

Quality of new vehicles in US declining on more tech use: study

reuters.com

238 pointslxm452 comments

They also have too much stuff in them.

I want a "dumb" but well-built electric car... No side mirror lights, no motorized trunks, no suite of cabin sensors trying to figure out what I want, no air conditioned seats, and definitely no elaborate, janky, hilariously expensive infotainment system. Just put that engineering into the suspension and steering, please.

I want a tablet mount and good A/C. Maybe power windows and nice speakers. And I will take the 900lbs and $10k+ that shaves off, thank you.

You can buy a 2011 Nissan Leaf that has had a 2018 Nissan Leaf battery pack installed, giving it 200+ miles of range, for like $15k. I want something like that!

Every Nissan I've driven in the last ten years had had terrible UI as well - more buttons switches and hat controls than my simulator flight stick

But isn't that what the grand parent is asking for?

They were physical controls but there was SO many of them and they all felt very cheap that it was its own sense of crappy cheap and likely to break UI.

Where do you find one?

I did a quick search, here is one such company. https://evridesllc.com/

Or better yet, shoehorn a Kawasaki Ninja engine into the back:

https://youtu.be/PVlMxQaAf-k

I think it’s part of a wider trend in tech towards shipping features without due regard to the efficacy / performance of the product.

Everyone can make a good car now, they are a commodity now. So to differentiate in the market you turn to nonsense (pointless features you can talk about) and obfuscation (confusing pricing and options and fees, ala airlines)

I'd say warranty is the feature I'm most interested in.

I'd much rather have a reliably car than a solid warranty. If fewer creature comforts get me there then count me in.

That's right... commodity fetishism manufacturing consent:

https://www.alexanderrea.com/project/mcdonalds-happy-world/

Because what could be more fun than praying for autonomy at speed in a self-driving car while ordering a happy meal?

I'm happy they stopped at the concept.

Given the lack of regulation, I'm surprised we don't have drones dropping happy meals through moon-roofs in traffic like turkeys-via-chopper on WKRP in Cincinnati.

Does the word 'good' have a different meaning in the US? Your car manufacturers barely manage to compete in the segment protected by the chicken tax tariff... Some do a decent job in luxury EVs.

It also points out the fallacy and lie of electric car companies caring about the environment. They don't. It's just the new thing to sell. Just like every company known to man is parroting sustainability now.

Sure, but it doesn't matter whether they actually "care" about the environment, or just about selling cars, an electric car is still better for the environment.

Now, if you keep buying new cars to keep up with the latest features, that's a problem.

> Now, if you keep buying new cars to keep up with the latest features, that's a problem.

It depends on what happens to your old cars (and they're mileage ratings). Many people are driving more inefficient cars and would upgrade if affordable used cars were available. The market can absorb more than a few yearly upgraders, though of course after a point it is a waste.

ugh. their instead of they're.

This is becoming so widespread, it’s no longer just a byproduct of how a project or a product is managed. It’s an explicit guidance that is explicitly stated in the form of “No feature should take more than 1-2 months. 3 months feature work is the longest term we should plan and consider. Everything we work on from planning to design to implementation to deployment needs to be in the hand of a customer at most in 2-3 months max” I even had this hilarious conversation with my manager once.

I asked: “You know how broken this feature is, right? Like if you even deviate from the simple announcement example in any way, you’ll probably be broken in a completely unknown way. We’re providing an ‘alternative’ that only implements a 1/10 of the scenarios but nonetheless exposes the same interface to users”

He said: “yeah, that’s fine. The most important thing is to deliver something for users to use. To even know if anyone wants this at all or if no one will use it”

I perplexedly asked: “but how would you know if people are not using it because they don’t want it, or if they are using it because they try and it’s hopelessly broken?”

He said: “We’ll fix it. If they are not using it because it rough or broken, then we’ll fix it. We will wait for feedback about what’s broken and fix the problem they run into. If people want to use something and they find issues, they’ll just report it.”

I said: “… do you do that? You try a feature in a new product or a tool or a feature, and when it doesn’t work at all, do you start file feedback items and work with that company to make sure their feature work? I know i don’t. I just move on until they fix it or find a competitor who has a better alternative”

He said: “no, most people will report problems and we can fix them as they come. Also we should tell from telemetry what people are trying and what’s not working and what we should fix vs not”

I said: “yeah, that makes sense.“, knowing that our telemetry is also generally broken because it’s implemented in the same way and generally we do the work when business folks come back asking for some data or complaining how the data we provide doesn’t add up.

Oh fun times.

this sounds like a conversation wherein someone learns about lean startup / agile methodologies for the first time (build an MVP and get it in front of people ASAP to get feedback, don't perfect it first)

Shipping obviously broken stuff is a good way to discourage users from giving any feedback at all.

"obviously broken" isn't the only option besides perfect, so we'll just use the term "not perfect" here, and believe me, some of them will let you know what isn't perfect about it when you ask.

then you focus on that.

“Not perfect” is a straw man because obviously nothing ever is perfect or 100% complete. When shipping something becomes the priority, then “obviously broken” stuff just gets re-dubbed “not perfect” which is exactly the problem.

If your users are forced to use your platform because you mainly sell to CTOs who only need a list of checkboxes checked, and they strike a deal with you, then yeah. It’s a great business model to check as many boxes as possible, get that contract, then figure out what those boxes actually mean later.

"obviously broken" is a straw man because we're just discussing anything that doesn't satisfy everything you want (which you listed).

indeed, the concept of an "obviously broken" MVP is an oxymoron, since V stands for "viable"

when giving everybody everything they want becomes the priority, then "not perfect" stuff just gets re-dubbed "obviously broken" by 1 random person, which is actually the problem: it's better to ship something and get feedback and iterate on it than to ship nothing or to ship the wrong thing after a long development time or to ship at the end of however long it takes to satisfy everybody's desires

Power windows are cheaper to manufacture now, oddly. So that is what we will get!

I remember old crank windows breaking all the time. I'd take a modern, convenient and more reliable electric window any day.

We can do all that except the $10k off. This is very niche vehicle, enthusiast driven. So extra $10k.

Honestly, at this point, if that were all it would cost extra, I'd pay it.

My 2020 leaf is this.

And then there's a shortage because of all the chips that are needed to enable these garbage features.

> And I will take the 900lbs and $10k+ that shaves off, thank you.

Going from digital to analog control is more likely to add weight and cost, so you aren't going to save in that regard. Specifically going back from the infotainment system to an old fashioned analog control panel would likely add more cost and weight than it saves.

I think OP is referring not to going digital to analog but going from feature rich to feature lite.

That's fine, but it isn't going to happen by going back in time, rather they take a modern all digital design and just take features away. So your dash is going to still be digital, not because it is fancy, but because it is economical. You would wind up with something like: https://carnewschina.com/2017/08/08/meet-gms-cheapest-electr...

If the concern is lifetime ownership cost, repairs need to factor in as well. More analog parts, fewer features, and individual parts rather than monolithic control systems all can make a big difference in repairability.

You have to run more wires, more points of failure, more things to wear out. It is heavier, more expensive to produce, but ya, you can repair individual parts maybe without replacing the entire head unit.

All that cheap garbage does not weigh 900lbs or cost $10k, and they'd probably call it race trim and charge you more for it.

You can save almost 1/3 to 1/2 of the 900 lbs going to manual seats from electric in some cars. It is amazing how much some of the convenience features weigh. Power tailgates? Power seats? Power sunroof? Sunroof at all? Glass and motors are the enemy.

Ya, any feature that requires moving parts can be eliminated to save money and weight. But none of those are new (even if they are more common now).

Yeah as others said I didn't mean going analog. The dash should be super minimal, in fact, but simple digital controls are fine.

I just meant going with cheaper and lighter.

Did you check out the Baojun E100? The Chinese have made (and sold) plenty if minimal EVs, just not much market for them in the states (well, our safety standards are different also).

Can I get a normal looking car that doesn’t look like a toe? Thank you!

This made me laugh. I've also compared the recent styling to a suppository on wheels. I suppose it must be government regulations about MPG that drives an aerodynamic shape where all sedans now have the same weird shape.

Also the reality that we finally have proper clue how aerodynamics actually are. Previously it was quite a lot of guess work and something that looked about right to designers.

It's the sheep effect. Carmakers don't want their cars to be too different than what everyone else is selling.

That ship has sailed. Tight emissions regulations (at least in Europe) plus EV range anxiety mean that cars have to be water droplet shaped.

Exactly. It’s just simple laws of aerodynamics unfortunately. People might demand non-droplet shaped cars, and some might even buy some. But the majority will look at the significant drop in mileage, or regulators might look at pedestrian safety or range and penalize it in general. Then some of those same people would say something like “beautiful car, love the looks, but not willing to take the range difference. Fix that and we can talk” as if it’s a menu you can pick and choose from.

Also pedestrian and cyclist safety on top of crash saftey requirements.

There still are some designs that are different. They just don't sell as well as the mainstream stuff.

Are the aerodynamics of a Model 3 that much better than something like a Toyota Camry?

Modern cars are universally the opposite of the optimum subsonic shape, which is a hemispherical leading section tapering into a cone.

The 1914 Alfa Aerodinamica by Castagna was closer to the optimum than anything from 2023.

Even engineless EVs persist with a long bonnet.

I'm actually waiting for the bonnet to be reduced to the minimum length for the crumple zone. It would make driving and parking much easier.

This is why I salivate over Icon4x4 vintage car rebuilds. Check any video the owner posts on YouTube. All of the tech is state of the art analog stuff. It's the definition of "dumb and absolutely perfectly crafted."

Make sure you really want to drive and live with an old design before dropping tons of money on a restoration. Driving a leaf spring suspension all solid axles and body on frame truck is wayyyy different than modern independent suspension unibody frame trucks.

You might not remember it but back in the heyday of those old trucks people were flipping and rolling them on the freeway all the time--there are conditions and speeds that they just plain are not safe to drive, and a lot of that comes from their inherent design which Icon can't fix.

As far as I know all modern full-size pickup trucks are still frame-on-body, and most have solid rear axles.

(In the mid/small size there's some unibody options like the Honda Ridgeline but that's nothing new. It's just a different type of vehicle, not something that's obsoleted a traditional truck.)

Electronic limited slip diffs, ABS and wheelspin sensors with traction control, etc. go a loooong way to making modern stuff more drivable. There's no comparison to an old 80s truck with none of that stuff (and way less crash safety).

My 2014 truck has solid axels and body on frame, but the suspension is a million times better than the 70's International truck I was in when I hit my head on the ceiling as it went over a speed bump at a reasonable speed.

Coils on all four corners and I'm sure some better engineering helps quite a bit.

> And I will take the 900lbs and $10k+ that shaves off, thank you.

You are way off

Yeah just mirror the screen and audio directly from my phone.

A surprising amount of junk is mandated by law.

Things mandated by law in the US: horns, engine hoods, windshield wipers, mirrors, airbags, tire pressure monitors, backup cameras, seat belts, bumpers, anti-lock brakes, automatic emergency braking, electronic stability control, LATCH systems, mufflers/emission control systems, headlights, tail lights, stop lights, and turn signals.

Additionally air intakes may not be more than 4 inches in height, steering wheels must be circular and at least 13 inches in diameter, and tires must not discharge materials towards the rear of the vehicle.

That covers most of it.

Junk I tell yea. I live in Death Valley, CA why are you mandating me to have windshield wipers? Also I’m a very good driver why do I need ABS or automatic emergency breaking? I only text and drive when there is no one on the road.

Some of the junk is from lessons learned the hard way. For example, backup cameras dramatically reduce the chance of you running over your own children in your driveway.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence

An infotainment is practically a legal requirement, since backup cameras are mandated by law in the USA. Since you already need a screen and a computer, you might as well add some more functionality.

That's cool, but can you power it with something larger than a TI-83 please?

Manufacturers are dependent on automotive qualified parts to be available. For reference, a moderate to high end solution might use the Arm a53 cores from 2012, with an A72 if you're lucky. Usually even that gets pushback from beancounters and the fallback will be some chip from TI that makes the z80 in their calculators look almost modern. Couple this with software that has had 0 time allocated to optimization and you can see the issue.

A lot of manufacturers are exploring custom silicon instead, because that's a great way to avoid spending money.

My '07 Prius has a backup can, but there's no entertainment in its "infotainment" screen unless you count radio preset buttons.

I don't need to be entertained while I drive. I need to drive while I drive.

you think they are using screens with the same capabilities in modern cars as they did 16 years ago?

I think the point was to push back on the notion that a backup cam "requires" a huge tablet screen or an infotainment center.

I used to drive an old Prius - I believe they also had fuel economy tracking, a CD player, and some models had Bluetooth audio too.

You don't? Driving is boring as shit. If you're in city traffic that's one thing but if you're on the freeway with no one around that's another.

It's only boring because all the fun was removed for convenience. Just the third pedal makes it pretty much fun even at low speeds.

Third pedal's fun for the racetrack. In stop and go traffic it's extra work. Still, I'm a member of TMGPS for a reason.

then you are atypical. Most people listen to music, news, podcasts, etc while they drive. that doesn't add much complexity to the system. particularly if the car allows phone projection like CarPlay or Android Automotive.

I have a $15 device that plugs into the 12v socket and broadcasts on a radio frequency. My phone can connect to that by Bluetooth. My radio can be controlled by physical buttons. The only thing the screen displays about the radio is the presets, which I can totally live without.

I do not need an infotainment system. Heck, I don't even need as much as I have.

I feel the same way. My car is 18 years old, also a Toyota, and besides the fact that I could rebuild it as long as anywhere it crashed was in dragging distance of a junk yard, the main reason I've kept it is because it doesn't have anything I don't need, and that somehow means I can trust it.

I see these integrated remote phone-home TV systems that help you parallel park but shrink your windows so it feels like you're in a submarine, and it gives me the willies. We couldn't adjust the AC in my partner's Honda when her screen failed one summer and I thought, "Why are those things connected?!"

I don't have Bluetooth in my car. I don't even have an aux jack. I do have an MP3 CD player, a Garmin, and an unbeatable stereo, and I can operate all of the buttons and dials blindfolded, and they respond with no latency!

I'd take a Yaris over a Tesla, and I wouldn't be caught dead in a Yaris.

My biggest bugbear here is the overly tight integration. A great many of the problems, from my perspective, are that the days of swapping out a head unit that you hate for one that you like has become largely impractical.

Yep, I’d lose the backup sensor functionality in my Volvo if I replaced mine.

That's the issue - might as well not add that functionality. I had a 2014 Ford with a small but adequate screen for the backup cam, and the radio/bluetooth were based on physical buttons and knobs. Perfectly adequate, and preferable to a touchscreen interface.

Personally I'd really like to use that screen with google maps.

That’s what’s great about CarPlay. I put a $200 wireless CarPlay (and AndroidAuto) head unit in my wife’s 2005 CR-V. Her nav is 20x better than my much newer Nissan's factory navigation head unit.

Can't you also use CarPlay in that Nissan? Oh wait, it's Nissan, they probably don't offer it in your trim or model.

It's the top trim of the LEAF. No CarPlay in 2015.

Well I could tell you that in 2017 Infiniti wasn't offering even Bluetooth on someone of their trim. No Bluetooth in 2017 on their "luxury" line? Of course Infiniti didn't offer Carplay long after the competition had it. It's no wonder the other Japanese automakers ate Nissan's lunch.

Wait... what? WHY?!

Because dogs and children get backed over with regularity. That's why. No other reason.

The manufacturers did not want to have to build these into every car, they wanted to keep charging a premium for it.

> Because dogs and children get backed over with regularity.

8,000 people in the US die every day -- that's as regular as you can get.

Children dying from a vehicle backing over them is _rare_. Obviously, any death or injury is awful, but we're never going to get the number to zero.

The fear of backovers is much greater than the reality.

> The manufacturers did not want to have to build these into every car, they wanted to keep charging a premium for it.

I think it's quite the reverse: now they can pocket that money from every car.

Why would they not want to make yesterday's premium option into today's standard non-option?

> The fear of backovers is much greater than the reality.

You know, the reason so few children die from backover is maybe due to people fearing it?

If safety was a reason half of modern cars would be straight up banned

> Because dogs and children get backed over with regularity. That's why. No other reason.

In general or in those stupid, oversized trucks/SUVs with utterly poor visibility?

Which popularity is due to Corporate Average Fuel Economy?

It's one piece of tech that makes life universally easier. Especially on car dependent continents.

That being said, I'd take large European mirrors that know to go down when car is put in reverse and basic sensor over this any day.

I'm from Europe, so probably that's my surprise. Most of the cars around here are still (I hope we will never reach what's in the US) mostly city-compact cars (VW golf size) so visibility is quite OK and rear mirror + sensor is more than enough.

(though, I'm now in Chile and amount of huge cars/SUVs/trucks/pick-ups on the street is simply mind-boggling... whhhhyyyy on earth one would drive this monstrosity in the city?!)

My Volvo back up camera now lags because of all of the software updates... I'm pretty sure it's not compliant any more with standards... The updates also reduced original functionality like the 360 degree camera view as a default, which took away a major feature I bought the car for.

I also worry that there may be a point where android auto updates stop completely and the feature goes away altogether due to incompatibility overall... Likely even before the car is 6 years old. These cars aren't made to last anymore... I that case, they should cost a lot less than previous generations, or there should be a solid buyback program in place.

I don't want chat GPT, it is pretty much guaranteed to be obsolete in 4 years.... Just install a hot swappable PC in the car instead perhaps.

Adding functionality there makes the parts more costly and the extra complexity increases the chance that it fails. You really don't have to add the complexity there, and the bare minimum hardware needed to display a simple camera feed wouldn't be powerful enough to function as an infotainment system anyway.

My backup camera screen is actually in the rear view mirror. There is nothing but a small, monochrome display in the dash, and that just shows the radio station, time and AC temp setting.

and that is a much poorer backup camera than the large display in my dash that adjusts for dim lighting and shows a wider angle than I can see by twisting around to look out the back. The backup camera is safer than a back window in this scenario.

I think what they meant is that the backup camera screen is embedded in the review mirror. I’ve seen those that it’s kinda like a first surface mirror and you can see the screen only when it is turned on. Otherwise it’s mostly invisible.

Bingo. The display is invisible until I pop in reverse, then it lights up through the mirror and takes up they left half. Not as big as an infotainment version, but sufficient.

Sorry for the Amazon link, but I haven't had enough coffee to Google better: https://www.amazon.com/AUTO-VOX-T2-Monitor-Waterproof-Revers...

The videos in the reviews do a better job than the actual product videos of showing what is going on.

I meant that, in my experience, the backup camera screens in the rearview mirror have been too small and with poor tightness and contrast compared to those in the larger infotainment screens.

I feel that a good backup camera system gives you a better view of a wider area than just using the standard rearview mirror or than turning around and looking out the back of the car.

My Volkswagen e-Up has a reverse camera even though it doesn't have what I'd call "infotainment" - just a hyper basic screen for radio, it just happens to also display the camera feed when needed.

Some photos here: https://www.parkers.co.uk/volkswagen/e-up/review/interior/

> backup cameras are mandated by law in the USA

I used to think that was a good idea. But now I have a car with both backup camera and sensors, and I find myself relying much more on the sensors than the camera. It helps that the implementation is intuitive -- slow beeps at 1 meter, then increasing frequency, then continuous beep, then automatic brake.

I love the backup camera, especially since I moved to a city with tiny parking space, which always trigers the beeping sounds left and right (literally). It's so annoying I wish I could disable them.

Most cars there is a button or option to disable. I have this option on my fords. It’s there for example if you add a towing hitch there has to be a disable option somewhere in the menu stack.

It’s how I feel about my TV too - god I hate smart tvs. All I want is a dumb display I can hook a media pc up to. I can make that setup do literally anything I want.

Any TV with HDMI CEC should work, no? Just like how I connect an Apple TV and never deal with the TV interface.

HDMI CEC is too complex. SCART all the way

The original Nissan leaf but with a 300 mile range would be perfect.

The problem is you end up paying More for what you want because what you want doesn't align with everyone else. These cars are massed produced, so anything deviating from the popular norm ends up becoming custom and costing more, even if the custom design is less complex then the popular design.

Given that everyone else wants those bells and whistles, ironically you get more by paying less which means logically more bells and whistles is the better deal.

A logical person would in turn want the cars with "too much stuff". That is unless you're willing to pay more for less stuff.

> Given that everyone else wants those bells and whistles

I'd argue that almost nobody else wants all those bells and whistles, but most people want a couple of them. So you wind up with all of them, because people will walk away from a vehicle that doesn't have what they want more than walk away from a vehicle that has too many things they don't.

I like/use all of the features that the parent listed. There are _some_ dumb features, on my car, but most of them I quite like and are a large part of why I bought my car and not a cheaper model/trim.

Almost nobody wants power windows?

Or Bluetooth. Or not having to deal with a clutch. Or a window defroster. Or a rear-window wiper. Or cruise control...

I could go on. :)

My 2000 Ranger has just about all of those. Those clearly aren't the features that are causing QC issues in 2023 models.

No, but I'm sure they were causing QC issues in earlier models, before auto manufacturers figured them out.

Mirrors the justification for big software: most people use 20% of the features, but that 20% is different for different people.

Yeah, the analogy to something like Microsoft Office or whatever is pretty straightforwards.

And manufacturers have gotten really good at spreading the most popular features among multiple upgrade packages. You want heated seats and blind-spot monitoring? That's going to be two separate packages that include tons of features you don't really want.

There might be an option to only add the two specific features but that means a custom order that will take months to arrive and probably won't end up saving you much money anyway.

Does everyone else want those bells and whistles or have we come into that impression through some misinterpretation? I don't know anybody that wants all that shit. For those who do, upon the misadventure whereupon they are informed of the costs of overcomplicating I suspect there is a large proportion of people who won't want it in short order. I also suspect a large contingent of people who buy into the marketing and upon facing reality, are silently disappointed. And finally people who are somehow insensitive to cost, and disappointment.

most people want a significant portion of those features but not everyone wants the same set of features. As a result all features as wanted by a significant portion of the customers.

Nah... it's like with dumb SUVs - do you think that everyone wants them? Or the demad was created because it was better for the makers to make them (with relatively lower increase in cost they can charge more for the end product)? Tied with and thanks to Corporate Average Fuel Economy…

In my circle I don't know anyone wanting "infotainmant" - just a regular car to which I can connect my mobile hassle-free without dumb TV screen smack in the middle of the car...

Same goes for mobile phones - most of the people I know want to have regular sized phones (~5-5,5") but now... it's easier to smack ~7" screen to the roof-tile (that they call "phone") and sell at a premium...

> do you think that everyone wants them?

SUV's are very popular among women - 43% of buyers. The industry research says that women feel safer driving them - the size makes them feel more protected, and the ride height lets them see the road much better. (Lest it go unsaid, women are on average less tall than men)

These are the reasons my wife cites preferring her Honda Pilot to her previous cars.

I'm sure nothing I have to say is news, but it bears repeating that the common excuses for driving an SUV are either selfish or irrational.

The only advantage SUVs offer in safety is that they're likely to flatten the other car in a crash. Aside from size, the characteristics of an SUV make safety worse—they handle badly, tend to roll, and their design is unsafe to pedestrians and cyclists—so buying an SUV makes the roads as a whole less safe. People buy SUVs to avoid being killed by SUVs. It's a negative-sum arms race.

SUVs have atrocious visibility, and this has its cost in blood. They are so high off the ground that it's impossible to see what is near to the vehicle. Thousands of children are injured every year from drivers not seeing them over the hood. Hundreds are killed. This kind of incident has a name: the frontover.

SUVs are a major cause of poor visibility. The need to see over other cars mainly exists because cars are so stupidly tall. Buying an SUV to see over other SUVs is another negative-sum arms race.

When I'm driving on the road, I'm totally cool with being selfish.

Driving is statistically one of the most dangerous things we do in life, and someone else being drunk/high/distracted/overly tired can end your life, or the life of a loved one, in an instant.

I don't feel bad driving a larger vehicle than other people. I will prioritize my safety.

I understand being afraid of a car crash. I can understand doing the wrong thing out of fear. Driving an SUV is wrong, but hardly an unforgivable sin.

But I don't think you can be let off that easy. You seem to have come up with some way to technically admit you are in the wrong without really confronting it. What is "totally cool" supposed to mean? Does being "totally cool" with something mean it is moral, or does it just mean you don't feel angry about it? Why would you defend a decision based on whether or not it makes you "feel bad"? These words are weaselly. They dismiss the moral element of your actions without really addressing it.

If you're in the right, prove it. If you're in the wrong, admit it.

That's not how it works. You can't prove morality the way you can prove math. Not unless everyone involved accepts an infallible point of reference, like a book or a pope--and even then there are differences in interpretation.

All moral questions, like, "is it moral to drive an SUV?", are variants of the Trolley Problem. Whichever choice you make ends up hurting some people and helping some others. But different people have different moral axioms about how to calculate the balance of that equation.

For example, I could probably save 5 people right now by sacrificing myself and giving away my organs. The fact that I don't means that I value my own life more than those of 5 strangers.

In the same way, driving an SUV to reduce one's own risk is not surprising.

Your own morality may lead you to different choices. That's OK. My whole point is that there is no "correct" morality.

You can try to convince others to adopt your morality (which we call "proselytizing"); you can say that some beliefs are unpopular in this society (and thus demonized); you can even look down on people who don't share your morality (we all know people like that). But you can't say that they are objectively wrong. That's not how morality works.

it makes me happy that every time i get into my truck, someone like you gets upset.

Don’t fall off your high horse

The problem is that a good chunk of those drunk/high/distracted/overly tired are in the same type of vehicle, and cause disproportionate damage to those who do not or cannot afford a similar sized tank. Your point is a valid one, and I think it is more of a reflection of failure on the end of car companies and legislation...

Wouldn't the failure there be with the drunk/high/dusts/tired driver? Car companies are in the business of selling whatever makes shareholders the most money, and you can't legislature away bad decisions.

> Car companies are in the business of selling whatever makes shareholders the most money, and you can't legislature away bad decisions.

You can ”legislature away” socially bad decisions, at least at scale, by sufficiently shifting incentives. You can also “legislature them in” the same way.

E.g., you can create a light truck loophole in safety and economy regulations nominally intended, but not carefully bounded, to exempt vehicles with commercial use, and thereby incentivize manufacturers to expend enormous resources on propaganda to create demand for a new class of personal vehicles that fit into that loophole, shifting the market so that even after the loopholes don’t work the same way, the demand remains.

My point wasn't that legislation has no impact, of course it can move the needle. Many people will follow the rules simply because they prefer to, and others will because the legal punishment is enough of a deterant.

My point was that jumping from some people have wrecks because they drive drunk/high/distracted/tired to we need more legislation doesn't make any sense. If we want to inform the public of the risks of driving impaired we absolutely can do that, it doesn't require laws and punishment to help educate people.

Assuming we can legislate away bad decisions is effectively agreeing that we'd prefer the state is powerful enough to take away any decision we may want to make but that they disagree with. Why not just expect the government to help research the risks and inform us, trusting us to make the best decision for ourselves?

I don't think the assumption is that government is legislating away anything. The decisions are still up to the people, but the reward or consequence will be the byproduct of the legislation. Get a DUI, lose your license for 10 years. Have an incredibly good driving record, get great benefits(not the 5% off your insurance premium).

> and you can't legislature away bad decisions.

Of course you can. Seatbelts and airbags don't sell cars nor make shareholders money, they're only there because they were forced by legislation.

At best that legislatures away the car makers' bad decision of selling cars without seat belts and airbags.

My point was that you can't legislate away drivers' bad decisions. At best you can leverage the fact that many people would rather follow the rules, and that punishment will compel more to comply.

Yes, we are all helpless and changing anything is just too hard to actually do. 100 people die every day in car accidents, but literally nothing can be done about this without changing something so that means literally nothing can be done.

I'm kinda really fucking sick of this particular American mindset towards cars, school shootings, gerrymandering, corporate greed, and basically everything else that sucks about our society.

I never said nothing can be done. I'm raising the view that solutions, and even government intervention, doesn't have to mean legislation.

Research and education is a huge help, for example. What I can't get behind is the idea that we're all such helpless children than only government punishment can keep us from ruining everything. What happens when the authority given to that government lands in the hands of a person or pay with whom you fundamentally disagree?

Of course the ultimate accountability would be with the driver, but a) there is little to no accountability left on the road anymore and b) changing widespread behavior patterns is usually a top down thing. You can certainly legislate in a way that either rewards or punishes types of behavior(good/bad driving), or nudges car makers to scale down models/increase safety. Higher gas prices were enough to get me out of a big truck.

Similar to a separate thread here, I just can't get behind the idea that we as a society are helpless without governments "nudging" us in what they see as the right direction.

First and foremost we need to educate or population better, but from there the government should rarely need to go beyond good faith research and trusting it's people to generally make the best decision for themselves.

As I recall, the car driven by the highest percentage of drunk drivers caught is the RAM 1500.

That attitude is the exact reason roads in the U.S. are much less safe. Cars are oversized, heavy and completely lethal for any pedestrians or cyclists. It's just a very dangerous trend that will cause more people to die.

Idk why you're being downvoted. It's well documented and obvious fact that SUVs and tracks are lethal to pedestrians and cyclists because of their hostile low visibility design.

By choosing to drive those in populated areas you're signalling a total disregard for lives of others.

Personally I rather die than kill a child, and SUVs are far worse in that regard. Despite making up 15% of accidents in this[1] study, they represent 25% of fatal accidents. A child is 8 times more likely to die if struck by an SUV according to the same study. Empirically, SUV front blind spots are crazy and if you have a young child ask them to stand in front of your car with measuring tape while you’re in it. Very easy to imagine pulling out without seeing them and crushing them to death. The problem is even worse if you have a short partner. I felt blind when I drove my dad’s.

Even if we go for the selfish perspective, rollover rates for SUVs are intrinsically higher, and it looks like the Hilux in particular hasn’t bothered fixing this design flaw in 9 years[2]. And that additional braking distance can be the difference between a massive headache from rear ending, or worse.

Driving defensively will increase your odds of survival per mile far more than any additional metal will.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...

[2] https://youtu.be/xoHbn8-ROiQ

And also, only 5% of all accidents are two rolling cars collisions, and a not small part of that are parking collision.

The average number of death per km was decreasing until covid in Europe and countries that did not buy into the SUV trends, but started increasing in the US in the early 2010s and correlate with the percentage of SUVs.

That's we need regulation. We are slowly approaching "let's drive a tank" territory. SUVs make the world dangerous and scary for people outside of cars: pedestrians, cyclists, other small personal vehicles users.

It's very sad to see people being cool with that but I understand it's rational. You will likely not go to jail if you kill someone because of low visibility. The victim blaming culture will even try to convince you it's not your fault that you haven't seen a pedestrian or cyclist from the vehicle you have chosen to drive.

The Sherman tank is shorter front to back than the current F-150.

> SUVs make the world dangerous and scary for people outside of cars: pedestrians, cyclists, other small personal vehicles users.

Unfortunately the way a lot of American culture works means that this is actually the desired outcome. Cars today are basically advertised on their pedestrian killing prowess and, unsurprisingly, have even been used as weapons of terror quite frequently recently.

My annoyance with it is that this mentality is exported outside. I'm "totaly cool" with Americans driving tanks on the roads and killing each other, I'm not fine having to deal with this shaite outside of the USA...

>the common excuses for driving an SUV are either selfish or irrational.

I don’t know if you’d call my Subaru an SUV or not, but daily I’m transporting multiple kids, a cello, football gear, groceries, various things for work - there are lots of reasons why people need larger vehicles.

Most SUVs don't have extra space inside though. You could transport the same in your average station wagon as in your average SUV, often even more.

A station wagon solves the same problems. People just think they're lame.

I have a VW CC. Four door sedan with huge trunk space. I've driven cross country multiple times, hauled lumber in it, 30 bags of mulch, you name it. The idea that you need an SUV to carry a lot of stuff just doesn't match reality.

The other major safety advantage of the SUV is in the single-car crash (hitting a tree, pole, etc). SUV weight provides a significant safety margin here. The single car crash is nearly 1/2 of all crashes and responsible for the majority of auto crash deaths!

So your statement about SUVs making the roads less safe is demonstrably false. SUVs are the safest class of vehicles on the road, and if everyone drove an SUV, there would be fewer auto crash deaths overall.

Also, the newest SUVs have lower rollover death rates than the newest cars.

In terms of pedestrians, we should implement policy changes like more sidewalks and elevated crossings, lower speed limits and traffic calming features in pedestrian areas, tougher distracted driving laws and enforcement, and pedestrian air bags on all vehicles.

How are you going to implement elevated crossings in a suburban neighborhood, where the soccer moms in their monster SUVs can't see squat, and routinely speed? Kids are crossing multiple places; we can barely get ADA type curb cuts at the crossings.

Oh, and "pedestrian airbags" only help you avoid hitting the windshield. On most trucks and SUVs you don't even make it that far. You're just squashed like roadkill on their grills.

I think the elevated crossing is the type where the crosswalk is raised and forms an effective speed bump requiring drivers to slow regardless of whether a pedestrian is present or not.

Something like this: https://goo.gl/maps/dmivYV7AzrDVmtBN6

> SUV's are very popular among women

Heavy marketing was done to make them popular, and once they reached a certain threshold, their size created an arms race, since they blocked visibility for everyone not also in an SUV.

Disagree on the take. Was a small car fan until family. Now SUV fan because it makes loading the kids in and hauling their stuff that much easier.

Could survive with a Toyota Corolla? Definitely. Does the Highlander make life better? Yes.

Weird that heavy marketing would finally penetrate my brain the same year we had our first kid.

> Weird that heavy marketing would finally penetrate my brain the same year we had our first kid.

Nah, but that marketing, and the financial incentives which motivated it, and the arms race from a critical mass of larger vehicles affecting visibility because of it are why minivans and SUVs (the former popular first and then the latter later because of when each worked as a regulatory dodge) bevame the choice for those needs, which were once filled by station wagons.

I’m an SUV owner myself for very similar immediate reasons to the ones you cite. Nothing about that interferes with my ability to understand that the market context within which those preferences call for that result is a product of specific, well-documented interplay between regulation and profit-seeking business behavior over several decades.

You sound like you know what you are talking about but I am not following. As a consumer I had a choice of vehicle (I could have bought a sedan or a station wagon or a minivan) and I picked what I wanted.

You are not following because you are looking only at your decision at the moment of buying, and not everyone else's decisions over the past 35-ish years that have shaped, (even if we assume for a minute that the massive marketing investment has had no direct impact on your personal preferences):

1. The set of vehicles on the road and thus what your experience in different vehicles will be like, e.g., in terms of road visibility, and

2. The mix of specific vehicle models and features of each that are actually manufactured and available at the time you made thaf decision.

> Now SUV fan because it makes loading the kids in

You know what is even easier for loading kids in a vehicle? Sliding doors.

As uncool as they are, as a former minivan owner they are the most practical thing ever. From hauling kids to hitting home Depot for some DIY (with the rear seats removed), having two sliding doors and being able to swallow 4x8 sheets or a washing machine -they are hard to beat.

(person you are replying to)

I agree. I was "indifferent" between the Highlander and the Sienna which is its minivan counterpart.

The funny thing is for all the hate the SUVs get for being big and heavy, the Sienna is slightly bigger and heavier.

It is ironic because SUVs have much worse visibility, especially right in front / back of the car.

All modern cars have terrible visibility due to improved crash standards (wider A and C pillars).

Honest question: do you actually drive a car on a regular basis?

I have only seen this claim made by people who don't.

I use my suv as a cheap truck. I’ve hauled a lot of furniture and other stuff with the back seats down.

I do the same with my Honda Fit. Desks, doors, 2×4s, bicycle, 44U rack… It's true I can't fit a whole sheet of plywood, but most SUVs have the same skinny-door problem.

I've done the same with Hyundai i30cw (wagon/combi)... SUVs don't have more spece, it's mostly just an impression...

> and the ride height lets them see the road much better.

Ah... and then everyone will get a SUV with similar mentality and then we will get SUV-extra even higher and "sturdier" to feel even safer?

FFS... world is not hostile, riding in compact city-car is not harmful. At best it's the mentality that "everything outside wants to kill me" o_O Get a tank maybe?

> most of the people I know want to have regular sized phones (~5-5,5") but now... it's easier to smack ~7" screen to the roof-tile (that they call "phone") and sell at a premium...

This has to do with the power they're trying to cram into the phones. We've pretty much gotten transistors as small as we can, but manufacturers still need to sell new phones and the way they've done that for years is increase compute and camera power.

AFAIR the CPU/APU size is quite small. What takes quite a lot of space is battery. And because things are less and less optimize we need more computing power which needs more juice. What's more - bigger screens require more power as well.

Why those big phones popular? Because CPU efficiency doesn't sell well but number do, so we have a race: more storage, more ram, more MP camera... and bigger screen. Those are the most visible and easiest to adjust things. And many people associate size with being "better"...

Not completely. Adaptive cruise control is becoming more common. Some Toyota's have it in all versions for some models. Mercedes A class you have to pay additionally for the basic models.

This is why there are so many white cars being made and delivered to dealerships in the US. With production still extremely constrained, manufacturers are just limiting what colorways they ship. They know anything new will sell since the lots are so empty, and buyers will just take whatever comes in the latest shipment. Having been new car shopping (and ended up buying used), I'm amazed at how much the car buying process has changed for new cars. You used to be able to order a color and trimline, with factory options without any issues. Now dealers laugh at you and say "Here's what the factory MIGHT send us in the next 6 months. Want to put down a deposit?"

The only thing I like about this change is that there seems to be far less high pressure sales going on.

The car you want exists basically, it's called a Mazda3.

> I want a "dumb" but well-built electric car

Mazda 3 is great, but it's ICE.

Woops read past that part. I'd love an electric Mazda3 too.

The Tesla Model 3 is surprisingly barebones. The display/infotainment has unnecessary extras, but the car has wheels, seats, a stereo, and AC, sitting on a battery.

Pair your phone with BT and you'll never touch the infotainment again.

It's not cheap, but it's not overcomplicated in daily use if you ignore the infotainment.

Genuinely curious: do they have crank windows? Manual seat adjustment?

No.

I guess you could aftermarket install that if you like

I think that gets to the original point that even cars described as "barebones" have a lot of electronics in them.

IIRC the model 3 is lighter than other EVs.

Perhaps that is why. EVs kinda follow the "tyrrany of the rocket equation" because so much weight is their batteries (aka their rocket fuel). Taking a few pounds of features off also saves some battery that is no longer needed.

Unless you want to turn on your wipers or the fog lights. It's better than before witg the latest update but the experience still sucks, especially the fog lights. I don't understand how that got past safety checks.

Cooled seats are just a couple of fans, a switch, and perforations in the leather. In some climates, that’s totally worth the modest expense and minuscule (usually zero) maintenance.

And you can pry my heated seats away from my cold, dead body. Between lower back pain and cold midwest winters, they're my favorite car feature.

> and definitely no elaborate, janky, hilariously expensive infotainment system

I mean, I would want one of those, but just one I'm in complete control over. A lightly De-Googled Android would be just fine.

That would be simple an inexpensive though.

A family jaguar had an absolutely enormous computer unit that had to get replaced, all for... A absolutely horrible infotainment system that literally singlehandedly drags down the consumer reports rating

Same with TVs. I just want a decent dumb TV with HDMI inputs. But it is basically impossible to find a new non-smart TV.

I am theoretically OK with smart TVs because there is a real advantage to fancy upscaling/interpolating/tonemapping ASICs like they ship with now. The HDMI link limits you in some respects, and the downstream devices just dont have that kind of horsepower (or have extreme difficulty displaying legal HDR content, in the case of PCs).

The awful UIs and spam though... Yeah, make it dumber please.

So, like tesla model 3 or y?

Automobiles have matured to a point where the only things manufacturers can compete on are flashy shiny things, kinda like phones nowadays.

This stuff is probably 10 pounds and $500

Just the powered seat option on the Mustang Mach E is a $1500 add-on. Add memory capability is $1500 more. BlueCruise is $2100. I don't know about the weight claim, but the price estimate doesn't seem too far off.

I guess I was thinking materials cost and that it wouldn’t translate to purchase price.

My understanding is that a lot of profit is derived from trim packages, implying the cost to consumer is heavily inflated for those options. The difference with premium packages can approach 50% of the base model cost (although that usually goes beyond electronics)

Motorised seats were the single fixed requirement when we bought our car. That’s because we only have one car, my wife and me drives it similarly often.

When I hear this I’m reminded of surveys asking people how the government should spend its money. A majority will say cut spending, but wouldn’t agree on what to cut spending on.

“I’m ok with spending on defence, social security and education” while another wants spending only on unemployment, health care and policing. That’s the paradox where a supermajority supports cutting spending and “streamlining” government but there isn’t majority support for cutting any one thing.

So it is with cars. You want a “tablet mount and good AC. Maybe power windows and nice speakers”. Some other consumer will say “I can’t get around without GPS so a good maps app on a large screen is non negotiable but get rid of everything else.” And so on. To make a car that appeals to everyone, you have to put most features in. Kinda like an American Congress Omnibus Bill.

I hear your point, but the given example? GPS? Does anyone prefer an auto manufacturers software GUI over the GUI of their phone? CarPlay and the Android equivalent for the win.

I prefer built-in GPS, reason being:

* Location on the map and distance to turns is represented far more accurately

* Knows which way I am pointed and can give accurate directions as soon as I start navigation, while sometimes with my phone I need to move a bit for it to know which way I’m oriented

* Works in tunnels

* Tends to stick to main roads while Apple and Google maps are far too aggressive sending me down side roads or crossing over 2 lanes of traffic.

* Don’t need to pause navigation or mess around with my phone when getting in and out of the car for breaks

* Has detailed information about the services/stores/restaurants available at each rest stop along the highway, and distances to each stop

* Detailed information about lane closures, temporary speed limit reductions due to weather, chain restrictions, etc

* Displays accurate representations of street signs and 3d renderings of off ramps

* Displays landmarks at intersections (e.g. turn right before the ramen shop on the right)

* Shows guidance about which lane to be for two or three upcoming intersections at a time (as opposed to just the next intersection).

* Much more customizable interface. I can choose whether I want it to display gas stations, convenience stores, parking, etc. on the map. How many prompts before a turn. I can enable or disable various features like split-screen turn guidance, etc.

And this is Toyota. Not the prettiest UI in the world but extremely functional. Google Maps is better when searching for businesses and other points of interest, but when it comes to actual navigation I much prefer my car's built-in GPS.

About half of these have nothing to do with being built-in. They are just software implementation details.

Right. The parent asked “GPS? Does anyone prefer an auto manufacturers software GUI over the GUI of their phone?” To which I responded with the reasons above for preferring my car’s built-in navigation over CarPlay.

I’m not saying that Google/Apple couldn’t build these features. Just that they haven’t.

The driving directions on my C-Max (with the much maligned Ford Sync 2 system) are actually really nice to use.

Inputting addresses is a pain, and UI responsivity is terrible (which is part of why people don't like it; it's also not pretty, but like who cares? Does the radio need a lovely background image; flat green is fine), but put in into the show the map on the left and the next three steps on the right, and it's way better than using my phone. It's been a while since I tried it, but Android Auto in a rental was worse than just using the phone, so I've avoided it since.

Also, I'm not willing to pay for maps updates every year, and XM for satellite traffic and compressed to hell music that cuts in and out all the time because I live where trees do.

Upcoming turns in the dash is nice too.

Yeah, the satnav built into my Volvo is actually really nice and I trust it more than I trust Google maps. The interface for Google maps is somewhat nicer, but android auto cannot be made full screen in my Volvo while the built in satnav can. And the built in satnav can be displayed on the driver's dash.

The satnav in my Volvo is better than my phone, except maybe on forest roads BUT the interface to enter an address is a God-awful mess of about 8 lines of input done one character at a time through a wheel setup. It takes forever to input an address and if that address isn't in the system for some reason you won't know until you've wasted 2 or 3 minutes trying to input it.

There used to be an app that greatly simplified this process. Of course, it cost $20/month. It isn't supported anymore because a 2017 model was built with only 3G and my car can no longer connect to a network in the US.

Aside from the infotainment system, I love this car and will probably drive it until the wheels fall off. It is a Geeley product, so the wheels will fall off at some point unlike the battle tanks of old.

So my 2020 XC60 has an app, fortunately it isn't anywhere near that expensive - £29 a year. And yeah I just use it to send the destination to the satnav, then it pops up on the screen literally 10 seconds later.

Tesla’s is pretty good. My only gripe was occasional slow loading of map times (oddly slow enough to suggest they didn’t cache at all?)

My BMW GPS is pretty great, to be honest.

The step-by-step guiding is top-notch and well integrated in the dash infos, the physical knobs & buttons make it easy to use while driving, it can reroute me according to live traffic infos, and it meshes nicely with the rest of the UI.

I don't really see a reason to use CarPlay/Apple Maps in this case.

Yes - I much prefer the nav on my car to using my iPhone even though I do have CarPlay.

I have a Skoda, so mostly VW software, and I only use Apple Maps for navigation. Like it better than the built in software.

The kind of places I like to vacation commonly have no cell service. The built in GPS works pretty good without cell service. Google/Apple maps fail in this scenario.

I don't buy that. I live and recreate in an area where cell service is bad to non-existent.

I navigate with Google maps all the time. The key is downloading offline maps. I've got multiple states on my phone and they take up surprisingly little space.

I still like my nav in the vehicle because of the larger screen, but I never use it to navigate.

I would do this even if I used the on-board GPS. I wouldn't be in the car 100% of the time, so having downloaded maps on the phone is handy.

Fair- I shouldn’t have said that about google maps. I’m not a google maps user, so not as familiar with what features are available.

You need to plan ahead and know about it, but Google maps lets you download regions of map data so it can work offline.

Counterpoint: Dacia Sandero is one of the best selling models in Europe

Because it is so great, or because this is the last decent car which is 10k euro, and people cannot afford for example VW Polo?

Because of killer bang for buck. Dacias are essentially cheapened versions of Renault models. The cars are reliable enough for first two owners not to be bothered, so resale value does not drop too much. Of course the absolute price point is also relevant.

>The cars are reliable enough for first two owners not to be bothered

They're really among the more reliable cars according to ADAC (German AAA): https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/unfall-schaden-panne/a...

Sure, but again. People are buying it because Dacias are the cheapest, and there is nothing cheaper besides some Chinese brands, which have questionable quality, and are not available on very market. My dad has Sandero. He bought it because he cannot afford any other new vehicle. If he could, he would have bought Kia X-ceed, or Toyota Yaris X-Cross or something similar.

Both reasons? If the Dacia Sandero was shit, people would just spend their 10k on a better second hand car instead.

It even has decent crash test ratings, just to avoid getting hit by one if you can. https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/dacia/sandero+stepway/42...

I think I would avoid getting hit by any car if I can

I live in Spain and:

People only buy Dacia because they can't afford anything else. If they could you would see the Dacia market share shrink to almost zero.

Some people cope with "Dacia is just a cheap Renault" the same they cope with "Seat (Spanish brand) is just a cheap Volkswagen", but deep down inside them they know they can't buy the car they really wanted.

> buy Dacia because they can't afford anything else

In much of Eastern Europe most people would just rather buy a beat up BMW or even a relatively decent one for 10-15k.

To be fair I kind of feel the same. Getting a 2-3 old car seems like a better option than a brand new Dacia

2-3 year old BMW for 10-15k? 116d with chains rattling.

Let's be real here, new Dacias are bought by people who care about not visiting service every other month and total cost of ownership.

No, not BMW. You’d have to go 5+ years at very least.

My point was that in a lot of places people who can’t afford a new car other than Dacia would still rather buy an older car from a more prestigious brand due to “reasons”.

Wouldn't old BMW kill you on maintenance and other costs of ownership compared to cheaper cars?

For about 15 years I kept having a hyundai of one sort of another while my friend has Audis. Our regular planned maintenance and our repairs were about 500% different. Anecdata n=1 of course.

So? most people would buy expensive bmw’s, Porsches or ferarri’s if they could, but they can’t afford them, so they settle for opel, Renault, Hyundai , Toyota or other more affordable cars. Nothing wrong with that. What is surprising is that are not more brands focussing on the market targeted by Dacia.

Read the comment I'm replying to. People aren't buying Dacia instead of Volkswagen because Dacia is better, people are buying Dacia because most of Europe is poor.

I dunno about "most people", but I would in no world buy a BMW, Porsche, or Ferrari.

Not everyone wants a status symbol, and not everyone wants a Go Very Fast Very Loud car. Some people genuinely want a car that's comfortable, reliable, and good for the environment.

> most people would buy expensive bmw’s, Porsches or ferarri’s if they could

I am very skeptical that this is true.

Hang on, you mean people only buy things they can afford (or have the ability to get some sort of terrible finance deal on)?

I thought they went and robbed a couple of banks like I do.

At least in Italy, nowadays a Sandero starts around 12,500 Euro for the base-base model, it is more likely that actual sold cars are in most cases more around 14,000 Euro.

It remains the cheapest car avaialble, though the 10,000 price point is a thing of the past.

>It remains the cheapest car avaialble

Really? What about the Fiat Panda?

The Fiat Panda nowadays (I know as we needed a small car and asked for one no more than 1 month ago) is realistically around 17,000 Euro, and (as said recent direct experience) they are going to deliver one no earlier than six-seven months (i.e. in practice it doesn't exist).

A Renault Clio is around 18,000 Euro, three, more likely four, months time to deliver.

The whole market is simply crazy in Italy right now, in the end we settled for a (more expensive, but actually also a little bit higher level) Hyundai I20, managed to get one in 10 days time (the only model they had available, with a few largely unneeded by us optionals) for around 23,000 Euro.

All the mentioned models are so-called "mild-hybrids", so - at least in the case of the Hyundai - you have an useless small battery that prevents from having a spare tire/wheel.

As a current-gen Panda owner I can't believe there's so much demand for such a terrible car. The Sendero is vastly superior in nearly every way.

I only own it because it was dirt cheap second hand and was very satisfied with the previous gen model which was an actually good car. This one is not.

Yep, though currently they are not even very cheap used, right now a used Panda year 2021 with low mileage (10-20,000 km) is around 12,000-13,000 Euro.

A 2019 one with relatively low mileage (50,000 to 60,000 km, maybe 70,000 km) is likely to be in the 9,000-10,000 Euro range.

I wouldn't however attribute the scarcity exclusively to high demand, for all we know it could simply be under-production (for whatever technical reason or as part of a plan to sell higher priced models).

>right now a used Panda year 2021 with low mileage (10-20,000 km) is around 12,000-13,000 Euro

Fuck me, 13,000 Euros is what the original owner of my used Panda paid for it back in 2013, while I got it in 2017 for 6000 Euros with full kit and an extra winter tire + wheel set. I'm guessing it was cheap because it hasn't got much demand for it on the used market so users wanting to get rid of it need to lower the price.

It's definitely not a 13000 car used.

13k today is not like 9k in 2019.

There is almost no overlap between cars that sell well in Europe and cars that sell well in the US (like this article is about). Two entirely different markets.

Luxury/mid-size SUVs seem to be quite popular on both continents.

But yeah, compact cars and hatchbacks are hardly a thing in the US and no sane person in Europe would buy a pickup truck unless they actually needed one for work.

>Luxury/mid-size SUVs seem to be quite popular on both continents.

Not the same ones.

arguably, big trucks in the US are part of that niche; they offer a lot of high-end trims for something that was, a couple generations ago, strictly a work vehicle.

In the Netherlands huge American pickups are very popular. I guess thats a relative good overlap.

You see some American pickups, but I wouldn’t call it very popular. They’re also very impractical, hard to park, very uneconomical. Not a very rational purchase.

The only brand popular in both the us and the Netherlands is probably Tesla.

What about Toyota, Honda, Ford, Subaru, Mazda, Hyundai etc.?

Hondas and Subarus are not popular in the Netherlands. They exist but are very expensive, even for older models. Go spec a new Honda on their NL site; it’s insane.

Toyota is popular with the Yaris being highly rated and reliable as measured by ANWB (Dutch AAA). Anecdotally I see a lot of Hyundais around where I live; the EV6/Ionic is a popular eclectic model.

Yeah, it probably depends on the country. I see quite a bit of Hondas and Subarus where I am but they don’t seem to be that popular in general.

However the Honda Civic for instance seems to have had reasonably good sales figures in Europe between 2000 and ~2018 so there must still be some around.

Those are not American pickups, except for Ford f150, etc. And you don't see a lot of those in the Netherlands, very impractical.

Regarding overlap of non-pickups, usually the models that are popular in the Netherlands are different from the models in the us. E.g., Toyota Camry is very rare in the Netherlands, same for Honda Accord.

I was thinking more about Ford Escape, Explorer or even Mustang rather than the F150. Indeed I don’t see why anyone would buy a pick up like that in Europe for almost any reason.

I thought we were talking about brands rather than specific models? But yeah the Camry is not that popular in Europe, RAV4 and Corolla are on both continents though.

They are very practical. Maybe not if you are living in a city. If you run a company and are depending on carrying goods the f150 for example is a good bang for bucks. Maybe people cant live without. Real workhorses.

Actually, a Windstar/Aerostar/etc with the seats down/removed holds longer material with zero overhang, can hold more material than a pickup bed without the need to cover anything, and can be used to move an 8 man workcrew.

The ford model even has the same engine and transmission as their pickups (last I read).

People skip over the minivan because it's not "cool" or "too soccer mom" but JFC it's the best vehicle I've used.

“Very popular” probably needs to be quantified. In the US pickup trucks are the best selling car type by far. I even see increasing numbers of them in NYC which is ridiculous.

pretty popular, and growing, in big city Canada, too.

ngl, I occasionally ponder one

The way around it is to allow cars to be built the way we build PCs. For electric cars, that kind of modularization should be possible. Naturally, this means some of the more ridiculous requirements like 'automatic breaking' and 'remote turn off switch' need to be removed though.

Cars aren't like governments, though: the Toyota Corolla doesn't hold a monopoly on anything.

Why don't we have more specialized vehicles catering to small, passionate niches?

A modern Jeep or Land Rover looks just like a modern BMW or Audi SUV. The former brands were made by offering minimal rugged off-roaders, the latter by offering luxury vehicles. Now they've been blended into the same bland category.

What about beach buggies, or even the Yaris/Matrix/Fit class of light get-arounds? Gone.

What about the old nimble 6'-bed Ford Rangers, Chevy S-10s, Toyota Pickups? Gone, replaced with monstrous lifted 4'-bed wannabe minivans.

I understand why we can't have a meaningful choice between different types of government in the same area. But why must it be that way with consumer products?

My comment was in response to a person who said “why can’t manufacturers make something that appeals to my specific tastes?”

The answer is, there’s no future in serving tiny niches. Due to economies of scale it makes sense to target larger segments. Kinda like a government trying to please everyone.

Good point.

I, and I suspect many others, would still pay $40K for a specialty base model which would only cost $30K if it sold in mass-market quantities.

Large companies in oligopolic positions won't try to produce those sorts of products, because it's risky and they have no reason to innovate or seek untapped markets.

It feels like it would be possible if we could incentivize competition and disincentive consolidation, though. Not just in the auto market, either.

True. It's just a shame that our economy is unable to produce a car that I would buy.

there was a tv show about this...

"The Homer" -- https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Homer

My guess is that any product/brand that wishes to grow beyond a small niche market has to do so by agglomerating features I.e. trying to swallow multiple niches. The push towards economies of scale (and “growth”) makes it really hard for companies to stick with offerings catering to small niches.

I really miss those little Ford Rangers. Perfect size for hauling stuff around town if you need to, but still small enough to be a grocery getter too.

The newer models seem to be trying to appeal to the “big truck” people, but in a way that those same people won’t want

I really want true compact pickups to make a comeback. Back in high school my girlfriend had a 79 Ford ranger. Put a modern AWD and airbags on that thing and it's my dream car. Great mileage, some towing capacity, and an actually useful bed, without becoming a massive unwieldy thing.

Something that I can use 95% of the time to get groceries and not feel like it's overkill, but toss a couch, dirt bike or beehive in the back when the situation calls for it.

They make a smaller model called the Ford Maverick

Those things are bigger than an old F-250, and they only have a 4.5' bed.

They're also not really pickup trucks, underneath they have the same SUV unibody as the Bronco (yikes) and the Escape.

Thanks, I can’t really get good information online

>They make a smaller model called the Ford Maverick

Unibody vs body-on-frame. Many consider that "not a real truck".

Don’t ignore the maverick. It completely fills that niche with the added bonus of not being a death trap.

> What about the old nimble 6'-bed Ford Rangers, Chevy S-10s, Toyota Pickups? Gone, replaced with monstrous lifted 4'-bed wannabe minivans.

those vehicles had horrendous safety records, and modern trucks are larger so as to allow for crumple zones. plastic shells, Styrofoam, and other improved materials allow them to be much larger but without being excessively heavier.

agree with your 4' bed and minivan comments, tho

> Why don't we have more specialized vehicles catering to small, passionate niches?

because large scale manufacturing, safety, liability, and hell just the plain ole logistics of getting stuff places means it's not cost effective. One-offs like the Rally Fighter go for 75k-100k and won't have support, warranty, or the build quality of brands like Ford or Toyota.

https://www.classic.com/m/local-motors/rally-fighter/

Because cost of entry is proportional to size of market. A narrow niche has a small market by definition, and a car has a large cost of entry, so cars with small niches are rare.

Ironically, in part because government. The industry convergence on SUVs, light trucks, and crossovers is no coincidence, this is being driven by a corrupt EPA (regulatory capture) that places more lenient emissions standards on these types of vehicles.

Thank you government, for producing a regulatory agency strong enough to direct the entire automobile industry, but weak enough to be bribed into near-uselessness by corporate interests.

Better speakers is an easy add on. Power windows are probably uncontroversial. I don’t think there is wide demand for built in gps. I just don’t see the problem you describe. Design a basic dumb car base that can be extended with addons. There may be regulatory and other non-necessary obstacles but the ideal seems widely agreeable.

I am hoping that EV conversions will lead to an "open source" approach to cars, where there will be recycled, old chassis stripped of anything proprietary and installed with standardised control chips. If this means government regulation and a 110km/h baked-in speed limit, I would happily compromise. I'm already noticing something similar occur with bicycles, where there are advocates [1] and [2] of non-proprietary bike parts. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@durianriders [2] https://www.youtube.com/@PathLessPedaledTV

I went a long way down this route a year or so ago, having found an absolutely perfect 1986 porsche 911 "donor car," however the amount of regulation the car needed to comply with, the engineering time and the expense of the motors, batteries and controllers (that would have to be custom made to fit the car) meant that I was going to spend a quarter million all in. I could have saved maybe a third of that taking a used car off a scrapheap, but then it defeats the point of ending up with a car I actually wanted to drive.

How would an entertainment system, a mini-A/C in a set and a trunk motor plus some extremely low weight sensor and lights shave off 900lbs?

I'm with your sentiment, but let's keep it real please.

That exists - it's called a VW e-UP(along with its sisters - Seat Mii Electric and Skoda Citigo EV). Super basic, analogue gauges, it has a phone mount instead of an infotainment system....you hop in, turn the key(!) and drive. 160 miles range, can rapid charge, easily fits 4 adults or in our case 2 adults, baby seat, pram and Costco shopping. I love that car more than I love our 400bhp Volvo - it just works, gets us everywhere in our daily life, and costs absolutely nothing to drive. And yes, it has A/C, electric windows, and even heated seats. I'm keeping this car forever, absolutely not interested in any future replacement with VW's ID.1 and such, I know they will be packed with crappy tech that will drive me mad.

And I will take the 900lbs and $10k+ that shaves off, thank you.

If a manufacturer can save 900lbs they'll just put in a bigger battery instead. People are anxious about range, and manufacturers sell more long range cars.

And if they can knock $10k off the bill of materials they'll just make $10k more profit on the vehicle.

The choices that go into building a car are about driving mass market sales and increasing the bottom line. They aren't about catering to specific user needs.

After working software side in automotive, a lot of the features you stated are completely different areas of the company. This could be part of the problem, since they don't think in terms of one cohesive product and try to jam as many features as they can into a vehicle.

Without getting into the details, automotive acts like a start up with money and no idea what to actually build. Even worse, they have established leadership who in all their hubris thinks they can navigate development in bleeding edge technology they haven't the first idea on how to go about it.

A feature in the infotainment system was my responsibility. I was writing services to consume opt-in data and give user feedback. They pivoted the tech available to me for development six times in a six month span when my deadline was around eight months. I couldn't get anyone to understand that good software takes time. Apparently the automotive veterans around me said that, "this is just how it is" and my resignation followed shortly after. But all this jank shit and half baked design of what you get as a package deal in your vehicle is the result of an industry that is woefully behind in terms of a well operating "tech" company. Those features you claim to want to get rid of are the same features that allow them to claim they are "luxury" and to justify the cost of a vehicle that probably should have taken a fraction of the effort and cost to make with any sort of competency.

This is ultimately why Tesla is a crying shame and I wonder what it would have looked like without Elon's interference.

Exactly, the more bells and whistles the more can go wrong. The basic model is good when it comes to cars

> no air conditioned seats ... and good A/C

Which is it? Directly cooling/heating the body through the seat seems like the fastest and most efficient way.

You just described a Honda Civic.

EV cars are not quite there yet on price and economies of scale, so they have to have all the "luxury" frills to justify the $10-15k higher price tag vs the same ICE car.

Something closer to what you want will come eventually though. We're just still early in the EV market as a % of overall vehicles sold. Prices have already come down a lot and will continue to do so in the future.

I recently bought a Chevy Bolt that pretty much meets these criteria. It’s a fine car, without many frills, and about $10K less than a basic Tesla Model 3.

Toss in "no phoning home" and that's a car that I would absolutely consider buying. I am not aware of any electric cars on the market right now that I would be willing to buy.

>Just put that engineering into the suspension and steering, please.

Don't worry, modern manufacturers have this figured out, too.

But there are tradeoffs: do you want comfort, or performance? You can't have both.

Agree with all of this, however, I remember when an American car making it to 100k miles without major problems was nearly unheard of. Or at least, that's how I seem to remember it. My parents had several Dodge / Chrysler's in the 1990's that had catastrophic failure before reaching 100k miles. The exception was our Ford Escort which lasted to 180k miles before the engine needed a rebuild, which likely had something do with a sibling not changing the oil for 25k miles.

It seems like we have more reliable engines, drive trains, and less reliable $2 chips that turns those things on.

200k+ was common, even in the 80s, if you followed the recommended maintenance schedule.

Lots of people... don't.

On some vehicles.

Yeah, I haven't seen any actual data. But it seems widely accepted that American automakers in the 80s and 90s lost a lot of market share to foreign makers over (real or perceived) reliability issues.

Japanese makes were much more reliable when they hit the market, but US automakers did step up during the late 80s, although never to the level of the Japanese.

Detroit, moreover, built itself a reputation in the 70s and early-to-mid 80s for building overpriced junkbox boat-anchors, which continues to this day.

The reputation may continue but American cars are much more reliable today. They may not match the best of the Japanese but they seem to beat the European makes significantly.

That was not my experience, nor anything I've ever heard.

As a broad and imprecise statement, American cars in the 80s rarely ran past 100k, while Japanese cars commonly did. I read a few stories of American cars reaching 200k, but I saw a lot of Toyotas sailing past 200k.

And considering how awfully I saw those Toyotas treated, I don't think it had anything to do with maintenance.

Depending on the year and trim it could have been one of those escorts with the Mazda ‘b’ engine from the Miata, which unlike the Ford motor in my ‘91 Escort that blew a head gasket at just over 100k miles was a good reliable motor.

Years ago Jeremy Clarkson wrote in a Times column (where he is generally less trollish than his TV shows) that he rejected the idea that Japanese car makers only copy: they were responsible for the great innovation of the idea that a car could be something that you get in, that starts reliably, and that you don't find yourself guessing whether you'll be able to use it on a day-to-day basis.

People who suffered through cars in the 70s and even 80s would be inclined to agree with him; unfortunately, it turns out that Bill Gates was wrong, and when cars are built the way programmers code, it takes us back to that lamentable state of affairs.

It's definitely more common today, but it did happen even back then. I think part of the issue was that back then more of the population was in the north where the cars would rust before they hit that mileage.

Ironically the private car that holds the world record for the most miles is the Volvo p1800 from the 60's. It wasn't American, but was an interesting feat non the less.

> Ford Escort

Interestingly this was a collaboration with the European Ford team as far as I understand (although apparently the end result diverged quite a bit). Maybe they got some hot tips around build quality :)

> Dodge / Chrysler's in the 1990's

Absolute garbage. Made me swear off domestic cars.

> we have more reliable engines

I think one of the best inventions to really come into use in the last 25 years is multi-layered steel (MLS) head gaskets. A lot of cars use to pop head gaskets regularly when they were made of compressed paper and other things. After the switch to MLS, even shitty Dodges could go the life of the car with a blown head gasket. Not blowing a head gasket means a lot less wear on every other part of the engine: no more oil in your coolant, coolant in your oil etc.

https://www.underhoodservice.com/the-evolution-of-mls-gasket...

That and stainless steel exhaust systems are underrated inventions. I remember seeing dropped mufflers on the side of the highway regularly when I was a kid. Then it just kind of... stopped. Didn't find the reason until many years later: the switch to stainless exhausts.

I had the trusty 4.0L I-6 in my '89 Cherokee. 160k miles on it when it was sold to the next owner (local garages didn't want to touch it/wanted to fix way more than needed and I was too far for regular visits to my dad's garage; it now does offroading stuff with the new owner).

My dad has seen these go to 285k before the (original) transmission gave up (which retired the engine too). Over 300k was also reported. Of course, upkeep among mechanics is also likely of higher quality too.

Alas, AMC is no more and Chrysler ruined their engines out of jealousy (at least that's my dad's view on it).

I had a 1984 Cherokee with the four cylinder 2.5L engine. Reliable is the last word I would have ever used with that AMC vehicle.

This is based on the JD Power Initial Quality Survey which can't really be used to measure "quality" because they mix together "things customers get annoyed by" and "actual defects."

For example, if I'm annoyed by having to use the touchscreen in a Tesla Model 3 to open the glove box, that counts as a problem even if it has nothing to do with the actual build quality. So in this case it makes sense that more tech = more things to get annoyed about, whether or not the tech is reliable.

Yes. The JD Power Surveys can be VERY useful, but you have to understand the intent of each one, and you have to understand that it may not be what first comes to mind when you read the title.

And also understand that JD makes all of its money from traditional auto manufacturers and has no legal obligation or accountability for accuracy or lack of bias

Anything that ranks Dodge as #1 in quality is suspect.

Was thinking similarly. People rave about the slant 6 engine and how it lasts forever, same for the diesel engines used in their trucks but those are Cummins built

Small subtle distinction: quality can refer to both “does it do the thing right” and “does it do the right thing”.

Customer (dis)satisfaction can be a measure of the latter even if the products perfectly meets the former.

Sounds like an awesome measure of quality I'm extremely grateful for.

I don't care if it's broken or broken by design. It has the same effect on me.

Failure to meet a requirement, one of which is user satisfaction, is, by definition, a defect.

My requirement is to tow the Space Shuttle up Mt Everest. I found a used Prius and am unsatisfied with its performance.

Cmon, that’s not a defect. That’s being irritated because you didn’t spec out what you need.

I haven't owned a car for multiple years, but I might need one again very soon (moving...) and at this time... I don't even want to buy one. It seems like such a hassle. Researching what car company has not plastered microchips all over their car, which will inevitably break. Figuring out which maker has actually tested their car. Figuring out what model is the least technizised. By this time, even second hand cars are mostly from a period where car makers but aweful stuff into their cars...

Which ones have known issues with phantom emergency braking, which ones leak/share/phone home your personal data and so on.

I recently, after being sans-auto for many years needed a car. 2012 Toyota - no touch-screen, no-saas. Should go another 10 years.

Just bought a 2023 Toyota Corolla. Disable the telemetry (easy to do, prompted during setup) and you've got a 50 MPG sedan with a basic gauge cluster and standard infotainment screen, but nothing else for less than $25k (excl. taxes)

50mpg is for the non-hybrid version? Or is that the hybrid?

I've been expecting my next car will be a Corolla when my Prius gives up the ghost, but I didn't know they'd reached quite that high with the ICE version.

2023 corolla ice is 43 mpg, hybrid is 46, both highway. Ice mpg hasn't changed much in 20yrs, as the cars have gotten heavier.

A 2023 Carolla is 3000lbs, and a 2015 is 2500lbs, which takes 17% more energy to get to speed

While it's true that the hybrid is rated for <50 MPG, I've driven mine over 5,000 miles and it has never averaged below 50 MPG a tank, mostly highway driving.

That's the hybrid, but still <$25k. I averaged 51 MPG on my last road trip (~700 miles round trip). Fully loaded car with 5 adults and cargo. Cruising speed of 73 MPH.

My understanding is software disabling of telemetry doesn't actually stop it. You have to physically disable the hardware: https://old.reddit.com/r/COROLLA/comments/12149sd/video_tuto...

You may not get the chance. Or at least here in Canada as shown on the national news a woman went to a Toyota dealership and said she'd like the RAV4 Prime (a hybrid). She said they laughed at her, as if someone could just walk in and ask to buy a vehicle I guess. They said it would be an eight year wait (the video interview said but not the print version). I find hard to believe it would take nearly a decade to get a car.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/car-market-analysis-1.68737...

That is on specific model of vehicle that is difficult to get. Regular cars like the corolla/civic/jetta/rio are all readily available on the dealer lot.

This is a Toyota EV / plug in hybrid problem; Toyota's production numbers for plug in hybrids and EVs are very low (The RAV4 Prime is a plug in hybrid). Toyota still seems reluctant to commit to EVs/PHEVs, so that appears to play a role (they are still trying to push hydrogen fuel cell cars, for example).

For the RAV4 Prime it's semi believable. The RAV4 Prime is made in Japan and seems to be limited in production numbers. Toyota in general seems to be still having lingering supply chain issues though.

As someone shopping for a PHEV in Ontario right now: yeah it's dire. The Prime I've consistently heard is a 2-3 year wait, with the dealers saying Ontario is getting somewhere around 12 for the province because they're all going to BC and Quebec (higher provincial incentives there) and even there it's years out. Kia is the fastest right now but even that's a 10+ month wait for their most comparable PHEV.

The only one that seems easy to get is the Outlander, but that car is also way too big for my needs among other issues.

There seems to be a bit of push-back happen to "smart" things in general. As now, many Smart things are tied to some shit-ass SaaS.

We see it in TV, Car, Toaster, Lamps, Mower, Fridge, etc.

I think there is room for manufacturer of just dumb things.

Or how can consumers push? Well, they can't really. If all the options are smart what do you do? Forego the purchase? Or spend many hours shopping around?

“Buy nothing” groups.

> what do you do? Forego the purchase?

Blasphemy!

The problem isn't the "smart" things. It's that companies are exploiting that "smart" to have more leverage and control over user and increase revenue. Even worse, even some regulations are supporting that practice rather than against them.

In the future (or maybe it already is), most of our appliances and vehicles will be subscription-based just because companies can push it.

> In the future (or maybe it already is), most of our appliances and vehicles will be subscription-based just because companies can push it.

This makes me angry and sad. But evidence so far shows it to be completely true. Free markets are not properly sorting this out, because markets are not really free. Instead they are mostly oligopoly, and can thus control image and regulation and competition.

I saw a Wi-Fi enabled lightbulb today. I cannot think what the use case is for such a device.

They're super common.

For instance, you can adjust the color instead of the brightness as needed. You can set them to a different color at night - like red - or to match the content you're watching. You can have it turn off automatically when you leave home, and come back on when you return. You can tie it to sensors, like a door ajar sensor to automatically turn on when you open a closet and back off after.

I generally don't turn lights on or off, but do have RunLessWire passive switches to override.

It's great - we're finally getting to the point of ubiquitous computing where the devices around you meet your needs without you having to engage with them at all.

It's all incredibly reliable if you stick to Philips and Lutron.

> You can tie it to sensors, like a door ajar sensor to automatically turn on when you open a closet and back off after.

This is very simple to do without wifi. Refrigerators have been doing it a long time.

Well when I can stack my coats in a refrigerator, I'll be sure to let you know. The nice thing is that as an individual you can do everything with a screwdriver on a weekend.

I just put my closet lights on a motion sensor, it was like $10 to do once. No wifi needed.

Nobody said it was necessary. It's significantly more challenging to get the light to turn on based on time of day, or darkness outside, or to dim by changing color temperature without WiFi/Bluetooth/Zigbee/Thread though. Not to mention fun stuff like getting your bathroom exhaust to turn on when you enter the bathroom then off 10 minutes later.

None of this is strictly necessary, of course. But it is a lot of fun.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Enerlites-Dual-Tech-Humidity-Sensor...

$60, no wifi, it'll do lights and fan, and it'll trigger on humidity as well as person in room.

I'll take that any day over something that needs to rely on MQTT and home assistant.

My 2012 Toyota Tacoma has no screens, no remote door locks, no power windows or seats. After 11 years and 130k miles, everything still works perfectly. I dread the day I have to replace it. Hopefully that will be in at least another 100k miles.

Simple, mechanical cars (and trucks) don’t seem to exist anymore. It’s a shame.

One of the things I love about my VW GTI is I managed to get the "Wolfsburg Edition", which had everything I wanted and nothing I didn't. Including a lot of physical buttons and no screen in the center console.

What model year is your GTI?

2013 - I think.

As long as you don't tire of it, chances are, you will have no problem driving it for another 11 years and 130k miles. In fact, I'm very confident.

I have a 2014 mazda 3 manual hatch. I don't think I'll ever sell this car. ever.

> Simple, mechanical cars (and trucks) don’t seem to exist anymore. It’s a shame.

New ones were made illegal during the Obama administration, and the Bush administration destroyed a bunch of the old ones with "Cash for Clunkers".

130K? Pfft. Those are rookie numbers LOL. My Tacoma recently turned over 300K, and it still runs great. I've never had any problems with it.

People are currently paying $10k+ for 250k mile 2004 Toyota 4Runners. My family has one with 230k and there isn't a single hesitation about using it to tow a trailer across the US.

Plus endless forum support if you do have a problem. Easy to work on. You can retire in that vehicle if you like.

3rd tacoma owner in this thread. Love it. 200k is middle age and they'll send you a sticker once you reach it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Toyota/comments/vt4yax/got_my_20000...

If you get to 1,000,000 miles, they give you a free car.

130k miles? virtually any car can do this without major problems.

They do! You're driving one :D but in all seriousness, they are out there, but the ones still in relatively good condition are a pretty penny.

I test drove a 2021 Subaru Outback a few years ago. The center console was a giant touchscreen with no physical buttons. To turn up or down the climate control, it was two taps and a swipe. Ridiculous UX for a car. I opted for the used 2019 based on this single reason.

The whole point of a touchscreen is to support software with dynamic controls - UIs that can change from situation to situation or app to app. I'm never in a situation where I don't need direct physical access to the volume knob or climate controls. I need to keep my eyes on the road. Subaru ended up adding back the buttons in the 2023 model.

Rented a Ford Edge recently and it had a similar setup. The screen had some lag, which just exacerbated my fumbling around for controlling the AC while driving. Hard pass.

One day we'll all look back and realize how much we miss tactile controls that didn't require you to look away from the road in order to enable/disable something trivial or change the music (radio or whatever it may be).

Where I live, you'll get a hefty fine for looking at your cell phone while driving. But meanwhile in a Tesla you have to occasionally stare at a giant iPad to get anything done.

> One day we'll all look back and realize how much we miss tactile controls

After the US Navy did their accident report on the US John McCain, they went back to physical controls from touchscreens.

https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/navy-reverting-ddgs-back-to...

I have a car with a touchscreen and while I like some of what it can do, I dont want all controls on the touchscreen- only what is best for the screen such as the map, the camera views, etc. I prefer physical controls for most everything else.

I've never understood this "flush door handle" trend. How many miles of EV range does that add ? Is it worth the reduced reliability?

Think of overall energy expenditure as a pie chart. In ICE car a large chunk of that pie chart is heat waste. If you delete that chunk, everything else becomes relatively more important.

In EVs there's very little power loss in the drivetrain itself, so other external factors like rolling resistance and aero drag become the major factors.

Wouldn't the added weight & extra energy use of the actuation mechanism, cables and control system be more than the energy saved from aerodynamic losses?

You could go ask all the engineers if they got it wrong.

Yeah, it could very well be possible because the engineers could have concluded that this consumes more energy than it saves, but marketers insisted it be there because they are selling a luxury car to rich customers.

You seem to imply that the engineers only approve something for technical reasons. Sometimes, they have to incorporate something for purely non-technical / efficiency reasons.

No. The energy use is comparatively miniscule and weight (to a point) doesn't really matter for high speed, highway driving efficiency.

As a teenager I read a story about someone who shaved the door handles on their car[1], then proceeded to shut their keys in with the motor running.

[1]: "Shaved" handles means there is no handle at all on the outside. You install a solenoid to electronically pop the door open instead of using a handle.

It’s not about range. It’s because it looks cool.

and maybe noise

Looks like a can opener to me https://teslassories.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/door_hand...

You know what looks cool? No handle at all

In fact, why even have doors

> In fact, why even have doors

Have you considered a Jeep Wrangler or a Ford Bronco? I see lots of those without doors.

Sometimes the best way to win is to not play, or in this case, not buy products that suck.

In my case, this means driving a 2006 Toyota Corolla with manual windows, manual locks, and mechanical controls. It gets 40 plus miles per gallon it has no wiring under the hood. I can fix just about anything with a wrench and a $40 part.

Just got a 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The UX is awful, full of bugs and quirks. If it was an app I would have already uninstalled it. Unfortunately, I am stuck with an expensive car that is super clunky. I doubt any of the bug reports or usability issues are I've shared with the dealership or Mitsubishi are even going to get fixed.

Hey, cheer up, at least you don’t have to feel bad about buying an EV with CCS1 just as North America is converging towards NACS.

I have the 2019. I needed AWD, as I have 10 miles of muddy roads to get to my house. I now regret not buying a Subaru for the 10k above MSRP or whatever the ransom was back then. The milage on the Outlander PHEV is comically terrible once the battery is empty. Yet somehow, it's a "clean air vehicle" (LOL) It's also crazy to me that "SPORT" utility vehicles don't have a trailer hitch by default. What are people using these things for? Oh yeah, automakers have convinced people living in cities that they need an oversized disgusting SUV to be safe, increase their odds of running over children, pets, and having catastrophic rollovers. The automakers like it because SUV's have much almost no safety standards compared to cars and no gas milage CAFE requirements!

I often hate myself for owning an SUV, but it was most practical vehicle for the rural area I'm in that was available at the time for a reasonable price.

Biggest annoyances with the Outlander 1) 12v system dies even when you have enough energy on board to power a house for a day. 2) It's a cargo ship with no cargo room. The front seats don't go all the way down, so I can't fit anything in this environmental disaster that I couldn't fit in a Ford Fiesta Hatchback. The back seats have things like cup holders and weird design features blocking the ability to use it to move stuff. 3) Why did they reinvent how you shift into gear? I need to explain to people who use my car how to put it into drive and park. 4) No spare tire! Now, I drive around with a spare floating around in the back that I purchased since not having a spare is a disaster waiting to happen in a rural area.

</rant>

Yeah, I will drive this into the ground and never buy an SUV again.

Crappy lead acid 12V batteries are pretty common, Tesla did smart by replacing them with lithium ion.

What kind of mileage do you get? I have around 4,000 miles on the car now and I have 39 MPG average. I just took a longer trip (1,600 miles total) and averaged 27.5 mpg for the trip. A good deal of my other driving is shorter regional trips which are too far for a bike to be practical. I average around 60 MPG, having the 42 miles of range on the battery helps.

Agree with you on the cargo space. My previous car is an Outback and has just as much usable space as this car, which is a larger vehicle. The main reason I got this car is I wanted a plug-in hybrid and it was the one that met my requirements and was available.

A station wagon is a great form factor for me. Plenty of room inside the vehicle and lower to the ground so it's easy to put stuff on the roof rack. Unfortunate that no one is really making them.

just got a 2023 forester; ux is pretty bad too - esp carplay when I connect my iphone and I want navigation and music, the music is at a reasonable volume but the navigation is deafening and the touchscreen isn't multitouch and is overall pretty bad

I ultimately just gave up and put in a car charger as I can't charge without activating carplay and just use bluetooth which works much better and use the much smaller phone screen for navigation

I don't get why the touchscreens on new cars are worse than those of iphones from >10 years ago

My previous car was a nearly 20-year-old Outback. I don't think I ever looked at the owner's manual to figure out how to do something on the dashboard console. From the articles and discussions I've been following, I'd most likely have the same complaints about my new vehicle too.

It really makes me wonder how they test these things, because with the amount of issues I ran into within the first couple of days of owning the vehicle leads me to believe they don't actually have a quality process in place for the software and UI.

I did some modeling of the future auto market in graduate school.

My model came up with a huge demand for low priced, simple ICE vehicles as a response to increased energy costs and lowered disposable income levels for many consumers. EV demand came from the high end of the market as consumers willing to spend a lot of money were more open to switching because they were spending a lot of money anyway and it was another option, and ROI on the EV is based on the consumer's ability to overcome the frontend costs, which wealthy consumers are more capable of.

Low priced ICE don't even really seem to exist and I think it is because they've essentially been regulated out of existence. Crash standards and emission standards require a ton of technology even on the cheapest cars so there isn't much money to even be saved here.

I actually think this is part of the "no one wants to work anymore" narrative. Like it not, America is setup so you need a car to go to work. And simple cars have been removed from the supply line. So it becomes a money losing proposition to work a really low paid job if you need to buy and maintain an expensive car just to get to it.

I'm not even saying that improved emission standards and crash test requirements are a bad thing, just that the cost of them has to be absorbed somewhere.

It's sad the people who need the lower cost vehicles are people of color, and the people who push for these regulations are people of privilege. As I've learned in my courses from work, racism is pervasive and surfaces in manners conscious and unconscious.

I'm done with new cars. I have a 2016 VW Golf GTI, manual transmission, 3G telemetry already dead, minimal infotainment crap but good backup cam. Not for sale!

I have had many VWs in my life. They have all been mechanical dreams and electronic nightmares. My 2007 GTI was probably the best driving and worst electronics I have had, coincidentally, at the same time.

Personally, I love all the features. I drove a Chrysler Pacifica in Hawaii and it was an incredible car. I would want something like that to move a family around in. And my Subaru Forester's lane keeping makes longer drives much more comfortable.

I haven't had any trouble with my Forester, so if that's the level of unreliability people are talking about, I am very comfortable with it and eager to get more features for that cost.

This headline is hopelessly overbroad in its use of “quality” and “tech”. If this trend is real is it about OEMs cheaping out and using crappy UI and ergonomics. Touch panel door handles sound godawful but I haven’t seen those yet. I don’t think the tech used in the various ECUs in a modern car has demonstrably caused a decrease in quality, and it has certainly increased capabilities.

Isn't Tesla touch handle doors? Not sure who else has them. Not sure what benefit they add anyway. I'd imagine there is some sort of manual override for when the 12v system dies and you can't get into the car?

My guess (based on living on a dirt road which gets everything in a vehicle coated in a layer of fine clay dust) is that it reduces the number of water/dirt ingress points so the door lock lasts longer.

I've had to take the door panels off two vehicles now to clean dirt out of the locks to get them working again.

25 year old cars with mechanical keys do fine on dusty roads.

How about my 19 year old car with a mechanical key, which happens to be one of the vehicles I mentioned having to clean?

Sounds like you had a run of bad luck rather than something systemic.

There's a manual override to open it from the inside, the only way to open it from the outside in that situation is to recharge the 12V battery.

There are also terminals accessible from the front to power the electronic hood latch from an external 12V source to access the battery.

Let's hope it doesn't happen in a blizzard. :)

So convenient if your battery dies in the middle of nowhere.

Not all of them. Model Y's and I think 3's you push on the big spot and that pushes the lever out to grab. I think it might only be the higher end S and X models that have the handles pop out electronically.

Our Honda has touch sensors in the door handle and it unlocks when I grab the handle. I find it awesome since the car is keyless.

The entertainment system is absolutely horrible. I just want a simple radio but I have about a dozen different “inputs” to select from just to move between AM and FM. I swear whoever designs these are purposefully making them bad just to fuck with us.

> I swear whoever designs these are purposefully making them bad just to fuck with us.

Nah, just making the data support a desired outcome.

"Our telemetry data shows that customers just aren't using the radio. It should be safe to stop offering it as a standard feature."

Yeah we basically figured out door handles and suddenly we’re reinventing them.

If it ain’t broke.

“I want something in this design that will definitely break… let’s add some servo motors!”

"Put a bird on it" for design --> "Put a servo/wireless in it" for hardware...

“Oh what I REALLY want is a smoke detector that will go permanently and silently offline during a firmware update.”

…said nobody, and yet…

I'm still skeptical of non-crank windows after seeing virtually all motorized windows eventually give out in 90's models.

The 90s were 20+ years ago. We learned how to make reliable electric windows at least 15 years ago.

Your sample is biased to the very first generation electric windows which are definitely crap.

We had electric windows in the fifties and the motors were reliable. The usual problem back then was the window track lining (a fur-like channel) wore out, and then the window cocked and jammed when you moved it.

ICE power trains had so many inherent inefficiencies (in heat and friction), that aerodynamic improvements alone had minor influence on overall fuel efficiency, so it wasn't worth optimizing.

But now that EV power trains are way more efficient, and batteries hold only a fraction of energy of a gas tank, drag became a major problem. Flush handles became a real aero improvement worth making. Digital mirrors are next.

The most aerodynamic car would have no doors, mirrors, or hell - wheels.

Optimization is always about careful balance of objectives in light of a holistic experience. Anybody can “optimize for x” if you just ignore y and z.

Door handles don't have to be electric to be efficient

They don't have to be intuitive and easy-to-use either.

It's a tradeoff. Automatically popping door handles have an obvious affordance and can be grabbed without needing some extra press first. I happen to have a car with non-electric flush handles ("chip shortage" edition), and I have to teach all of my passengers how to use them.

This is a particularly, uh, interesting example with Teslas, given the number of people that have been burnt alive in battery fires, unable to escape (e.g. [0]). However, the Tesla electronic door things are much cooler than mechanical latches, so who is to say whether they are a good idea or a bad idea?

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/23/man-died-...

I'll say. If it's cool and it kills you, it's a bad idea.

> unable to escape

That's a misleading summary. The driver was incapacitated, it was the first responders who couldn't open the door with the flush handles. The Model S in question has a normal, physical interior door handle. Presumably the first responder could have smashed the window and opened from the inside, but may not have had the tool. This outcome is indistinguishable from one where a first responder was presented with an ICE vehicle where the doors were locked.

At this moment, looks like all the comments on a techbro forum are saying they don't want the analogue of techbro design of their cars?!

But these car manufacturers are "innovating"! And "changing the world"!

Sounds like some target customers are "resistant to change" and "unwilling to learn new things"!

I wonder what "stacks" these car innovators are using. And which "move fast and break things" methodology. Obviously some "design systems" with all the merit of the prevailing techbro-favored adtech-driven ones. I bet a lot of "promos" happened.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. (Hopefully not in a touchscreen-involved collision.)

It is almost as if painting people with broad brush strokes is inaccurate, and different people have different preferences. Going even further, it would appear as if the same people might even have different preferences for different products!

Give me a 3000 lbs RWD 6 speed with >300HP with knobs for everything, and I'm in heaven.

Make Cars Elegant Again

A bit over 3k lbs, and rated at just 287hp, but I'm thinking of selling my 2004 350Z. Only 153k miles, I'll make you a deal :-)

10% over MSRP?

That would def be a deal.

All good except for the inevitable 30% ADM on cars like that.

Grab a Camaro while you can! It fits the bill all for under $30k.

I should've said "with a real suspension" haha.

Though I actually owned a Firebird in college LOL

Why would you need a car that heavy and that overpowered?

The industry is finally figuring out that tech is a tool, not a crutch.

Tech is a tool to sell more flashy features in cars. It really needs to last only 3-5 years. If it breaks after your warranty is up, oh well.

That does erode the long-term customer loyalty, which is disastrous in the long run. However, that is of no concern to executives that make these kind of decisions.

Doesn't matter as long as all other brands do the same.

The situation is not better with motorcycles. The heavy use of electronics has made it very difficult to diagnose issues. I have a friend who has a Triumph which suddenly moved the bike into a ride mode so slow it is only used for taking bikes to a service centre for immediate repairs. They have not been able to figure out exactly why the bike chose that mode and they have been replacing sensor after sensor to diagnose the issue for the past 4-5 months with no success.

Oh. I’m in market for high trim truck and per all driver reddits those things are unreliable as hell.

Manufacturers cheapen on everything and hope that more leather and chrome will cover racked up price

Oh. If they're all unreliable why do you want one?

Have you found a good recommendation of what to get?

Diesel ford or dodge from the 80s-90s is my recommendation.

From what I read ram has bad rep, Tacoma is ok albeit quite spartan. Tundra is also ok. F150 is more or less safe choice but sometimes you can get real piece of shit.

Look at misadventures of a guy of “gears and gadgets” YouTube channel with his expensive f150 platinum.

I'd say it entirely depends on what stuff you're looking for. I'd pass on something like a Denali because the electronics and added trim pieces seem to be the most unreliable parts. The powertrain will be fine.

If anything my personal preference would be a mid-trimmed spec that skips things like a HUD, self driving, and leather trimmed door panels. Forward collision detection, a great sound system, and a platform that's mechanically dependable is my go-to.

I don't understand why this keeps happening. Nobody was asking for this trend of expensive unreliable garbage, and yet it keeps going with seemingly unstoppable momentum.

Just a wild guess, but I think executives are trapped in a zero-to-one techie wannabe ideology, where they think stuffing vehicles with crapware "new features" will make them the next FAANG.

maybe because valuations trumped sales. If only they could add AI to their names

It's impossible to find a new car that doesn't have a ton of blinky lights and stupid shit in it. I don't want a touch screen, I don't want a bunch of powered features that just drive up the cost, weight, and repair costs...

I just went and test drove a bunch of cars. In the end I decided to just have the engine in my 2008 Honda S2000 rebuilt. Nothing modern comes close to what I want.

Very hard to find a manual transmission. And the only buttons I want in the car are a start button, some volume up and down toggles on my steering wheel, and a button to make the roof retract.

I don't want all the stupid shit they are bolting into cars. I just want one that's fun to drive, and easy to maintain, and I don't think I'm the only one. Cars all suck now, they all feel the same. Literally we're in the car dark ages.

And I hate how it makes me feel old. Why are things shittier than they used to be? It’s really sad. Where is the 2023 version of the Honda S2000?!

>. In the end I decided to just have the engine in my 2008 Honda S2000 rebuilt.

Just curious how much that is gonna cost. Was looking at S2000s online today.

New top and engine rebuild and a bit of cosmetic body work and a new AC. $13k all told I think. I think the engine is $3500-5000 of that. Ballpark.

But that pretty much gets get car to look like new again.

Biggest expense on the S2K is probably tires. I got through a set every 10-12k miles.

I could get more durable tires maybe. But the car being so crazy grippy is one of the things that makes it fun to drive.

You think the tires $$$ on an S2000, you should try running a mustang with 325s on the rear and 295s on the front, or 305s square. Have a mate running a brz and a set of tires is the price of one of my rears. Consumables is why I'm looking at something smaller and lighter!

It's the dumb executives following industry trends arms race. Like how when the iphone came out in one big piece of glass and no buttons, every other smartphone had to follow suit, even though it's backwards to make your phone both more breakable and harder to type on. Now it's dumb car executives following dumb car gimmicks.

I remember the story of my dad buying a brand new 1982 Buick Century in 1982 with the iron duke 4 cylinder Tech IV engine. This was the 1st year that engine came with electronic fuel injection.

Since they bought the car new they had issues where under certain conditions the car would start to jerk and then stall so you would have to pull off to the side of the road, wait a few minutes then you could start the car agin and continue on. At this point, fuel injection was just starting to become mainstream due to high gas prices, stricter federal emissions standards and was still buggy. The car went back to the dealer multiple times to try to fix the issue to no avail and ironically 3 years later right before the warranty ran out my dad took it to a independent mechanic who was able to determine that the car had the wrong computer installed. You were not dealing with reprogrammable modules in that year. So they replaced it and the problem went away.

These were also the early years of the transition in the US from larger rear wheeled drive cars and lighter, smaller front wheel drive ones. One day my mother was turning to back out of the driveway while the car was fairly new when she heard a bang, one side of the front end dipped and the corresponding tire went flat. What happened is that the mechanism for holding the spring in for the front did not have any kind of a shield, the spring broke and punctured the tire. Had she been driving down the road when that happened it probably would have caused an accident. These days that is common and that is not generally an issue.

I also remember stories of my dad's 1980 Buick Skylark that had a lot of problems with the new electronic controls that were added to the carburetor to aid in fuel efficiency. By the 1990's the quality got better, but it feels like we are in a similar situation with these newer cars. Back during those years my understanding was that they would long for the simpler carbureted engines without all of the crazy emissions controls items that were causing problems and the cars that had frames instead of the newer more efficient unibody cars.

Once it was perfected and things were commoditized it was not an issue, but it feels like we are in a similar situation with the new tech right now.

I'd like a Prius drivetrain in something like the body of a 1990 Toyota small pickup with hand-cranked windows and minimal accessories. It boggles the mind to think how long such a vehicle would last.

People in the future will look back at this era as the time we stupidly threw technology at absolutely everything with zero regard for whether it was a good idea or actually improved the user experience. Shameful.

gadgetry* not technology.

Not to mention that they're riddled with surveillance.

My mom doesn't understand that her car isn't broken, any modern car has to be driven daily or all the extra stuff will leach that battery.

Haha, this is true. What's frustrating is that my PHEV has 12kw of battery, but I can't let it sit for more than a week without needing to jump it because they can't charge the 12v battery off of the drive-train battery system. DOH!

It's broken by design

If you want the simplicity of pressing a button on keyfob or just walking up and opening the door with NFC unlock, then by design something is going to be draining the battery very slowly.

The fact that that can't run off of some auxiliary battery pack that can die without killing your starter battery is just silly.

Much better just to have a backup key system to unlock the door, but still have the car start.

some cars have a long-term sleep mode. you pull the handle to switch the keyless stuff back on. this still drains the battery, but even slower.

of course, that can malfunction also.

My cars both have an app and full cellular connection (2020 and 2023 model years) and they can go two weeks without a risk of not starting. Haven't gone longer though.

Hyundai Ioniq5 had a bad issue with the bluetooth polling some server thousands of times a second. It drained the 12V battery not the main battery but it meant you couldn't start the car. It was a huge problem that took a long time to figure out, so stupid.

> growing use of technology and lower build quality of certain parts are making the models more "problematic"

What do they think technology is?

Software-related audio issues with my Volvo: https://www.swedespeed.com/threads/all-audio-gone-music-phon...

I can live without music, but turn signal audio or collision alerts are a must.

I seek out simpler older cars for this reason, I just don't want a "software" car. I want a dumb, electric, reliable car. Why can't someone just make those at an affordable price? Why should an electric car be a tablet with wheels?

Edit: Self-driving cars with driver facing cameras and microphones, just no, no, I do not want this.

  Quality ratings of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), which is not officially ranked among other brands in the study as it did not meet ranking criteria, increased by 31 PP100 year-over-year to 257 PP100 in 2023.

Seems like a large oversight since they manufacture the best selling car on the road right now.

JD power always reminds me of this parody guy

https://youtube.com/watch?v=I_wdo4ihcd8

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rZKUbzAdb7E

> Dodge ranked the highest overall in terms of initial quality, while Chrysler and Volvo were jointly ranked lowest

This statement had me skeptical at the results as Dodge and Chrysler have the same exact electronics.

It's specifically talking about Ram. Kind of confusing, to be fair as the ram pickup truck got the highest quality award

"Highest-Ranking Brands and Models Dodge is the highest-ranking brand overall in initial quality with a score of 140 PP100. Among mass market brands, Ram (141 PP100) ranks second and Buick (162 PP100) ranks third."[1](https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-init...)

I just want a sedan with primarily analogue controls that’s reliable, comfortable/quiet, and is enjoyable to drive on a nice day. Perhaps I need to look at older Lexuses and Toyotas.

Also it's built in obsolescence. The cost to fix stuff after 8-10 years can cost more than the vehicle itself and almost impossible for a DYI fix.

buying a car has never been easier. look at openpilot cars with good torque and steer to zero. pick one you like, and buy the base trim.

been on forestor 2015, civic 2018, and sonata 2021. each has been better than the last.

hopefully next one will not be ice.

Great, 80s all over again.

Its all on purpose to lock you out of fixing your own car.

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