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Comment by cpursley | Hacker News Reader

The touchscreens are really a dealbreaker on new cars.

They’re not just prone to quick obsolescence, they’re dangerous.

I hate them so much. Otherwise great cars are completely ruined by touchscreens. What was wrong with tactile knobs you could operate one handed without looking? You’re driving for fuck’s sake.

It’s why things like the GR Corolla are nearly miraculous in 2023, it even comes stick shift only.

I assume it's a cost thing.

Slapping a tablet everywhere and letting the code monkeys figure it out is probably cheaper than making various knobs and buttons.

I dread the day I have to get a new car. Even Subaru, who are usually behind the curve, have gone all touch screen.

The feds have mandated a screen (for backup cameras).

Then the makers try to minimize costs by having the screen do everything.

I’d like to say I’d pay more for real buttons, but I’d never buy a new car.

It's probably true that once you (more or less) need a screen for a decent backup camera and most people like a screen for at least GPS, it must be pretty tempting to at least think about what physical buttons can reasonably be eliminated given that the touchscreen is a given. And I do think a lot of designs go too far.

>and most people like a screen for at least GPS

personal anecdotes, but the vast majority of me being a passenger to someone else's driving, they all used their mobile device for GPS. even the couple of cars i owned that had a nav system, the GPS came from the mobile device. it required their app to be installed to input the destination, making the internal unit just a second screen for your mobile.

I use CarPlay if I'm actually navigating, not the built-in Garmin. But it's an improvement over looking at the phone awkwardly clamped to an air vent.

I suspect most people don't use most of the native manufacturer apps even if they sort of need to provide them. Aside from rarely changing some settings, my touchscreen is mostly just a screen.

My dad, who's a fairly recently retired techy, is the only exception I know. I'm assuming it's based on perceived safety and less need to take his eyes off the road.

Granted, he took a long time getting a smart phone because they weren't allowed in his secured office, while dumb phones with no camera where allowed longer. On the other hand, he's also automated his home (a few times with updates), so it's really the one weird outlier.

That's because in car GPS tech has historically been absolutely atrocious. An example: 2008-2012ish Toyota Camrys had a GPS system that used a DVD for map data. Not only was it out of date immediately (and cost $150 per new DVD from the dealer), it was insanely slow.

Nowadays, there's a few companies that actually seem to do a decent job of GPS in the car itself: Mercedes has a good tech in their new EVs that seems smooth. Android automotive (not auto) cars have built in Google maps such as Polestar, the new Cadillac EVs, and some other Chevy products do well. Although it's not much different than just having an android phone with android auto. And, of course, Teslas own system which is all inhouse.

There's little reason to use a phone in the traditional phone holders if you own one of those cars.

From my experience with two cars with factory nav, it's nice because it will show the next instructions in the the dash area, so when you're looking down to check speed you also get that. And, one of my cars has an option to show the next several instructions (Ford Sync2, which everybody hates because the UI is really slow, and kind of ugly). On the other hand, pay to play for data updates sucks. And most importantly, safety requirements mean you either have to yell at the car and deal with dated voice recognition or stop to adjust things; even if you have a responsible passenger who could use the touch screen.

Mostly, I just use my phone. It's simpler and faster. My cars are too old for carplay/android auto, and my experience with android auto was that it was worse than the phone in a clip or a cupholder, but carplay seems nice. For longer drives to unfamiliar places, I'll put the address in the car too, sometimes the phone gets tired of listening to GPS.

>sometimes the phone gets tired of listening to GPS.

I'm sorry, what?

I was recently driving to visit a friend near Mt Baker, WA. and about 10 miles out, in a not particularly wooded area, the phone said 'lost GPS signal' and just assumed I had stopped moving, and wasn't able to pick up GPS again for the rest of the drive. Not a huge deal, because I was just following the road and only had one last turn to make, and I had directions from the car's nav anyway.

GPS seemed to work ok on the return trip. And I was getting an LTE signal for most of the drive too (gets pretty spotty at my friend's house, but I was streaming music when the GPS stopped, and that kept working)

Sorry, I don't have a debugging tale here; almost all of my excursions into figuring out why an Android device is doing something wrong leave me wondering if the device is doing anything right, and usually without any more insight into the original problem. Not going to try to do it, unless it's important, and probably not on a vacation.

so you're one of those that likes to make cute and endearing backstories to give sympathy to an inanimate object rather than getting irate at a mechanical something that you pay a monthly service not working correctly because the thing to get mad at is out of your realm of control and that anger serve no purpose.

i wish i could be more like you

The backup camera screen compliance was solved early on by just putting a 2-3 inch screen in the regular rear view mirror. There's no legal requirement to make it a big screen in the dash, that is 100% a design choice by the manufacturers unrelated to the backup camera.

> I assume it's a cost thing.

Is it though? It's not like they have to reinvent the button each time. Buttons that last a decade or three have already been designed.

Auto margins are ridiculously thin, and if a manufacturer can trim 17 cents off a car’s manufacturing cost by removing a button, they usually will.

You have a source for that?

I wish dealership margins were that thin.

Cars are much more expensive post pandemic than pre-pandemic.

https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_Profitability_Ratios... has some good data, as you see we’re talking mid to low single digits net, low teens gross. To your point, this is an increase that happened during the pandemic, interestingly.

Dealership margins, as I recall, are 10-20%, also not great.

Mfg margins have come up during the pandemic, interestingly, but historically have been very low[1]:

> While estimated aggregate industry operating profit margins are 6 to 7 percent (Exhibit 1), large variations in profitability exists across companies. For instance, some European niche, luxury companies make double-digit margins more akin to those of high-tech players, while mass-market (or value-focused) OEMs make 4 to 5 percent.

[1]: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Automot...

Your post under says margins of 6%? 17 cents over a 6% margin on a $30,000+ purchase would be like McDonalds charging for extra salt on their fries.

I’d guess it’s an ease of design and manufacturing decision when you can eliminate so many buttons so easily.

> would be like McDonalds charging for extra salt on their fries.

Aren't they? I had a vague impression it happened. And of course, some McDonalds' locations charge you something absurd for an extra ketchup packet.

Pretty much any McDonalds I’ve been to in Central Europe has a charge on each condiment pack.

In Poland I've experienced both ones that charge you per packet, and ones where asking for a packet will have the cashier grab a bunch of them without even counting, give them to you for free, and move on to handle another customer.

That applies only to ketchup packs, though - they always charge for sauces. The only place I ever got sauce containers by handful for free was in a KFC in Shenzhen, China.

In my experience in the USA, most fast food restaurants in the suburbs give away sauces for free, but the ones in cities charge for everything. Seems to also be correlated with whether or not the fast food restaurant has self serve soda fountains versus soda poured behind the counter.

Their margins being thin is a matter of perspective. Most farms are running 1% profit margins on average and have massive variations in yield that auto production lacks.

Most farmers (who have been farming for years) are extremely land rich. Everything goes to pay for land that continues to appreciate.

source: came from a farming family. All income goes back into the farm and we continually buy new circles.

Definitely. That's why so many cheap electronics come with touch sensors instead of buttons these days.

Buttons are not just design, it’s more parts and assembly. On the high end it’s also a “less clean” look, unless you’re high enough for truly luxurious buttons and knobs’ designs and materials to be justifiable.

Absolutely.

Automotive grade controls are pretty expensive (it's not unreasonable to expect them to be operative from -40 to 140f, UV resistant, dust and vibration resistant, etc.), and as with all hardware, BOM cost is king. Even if the button can be stolen from an existing design, it still costs real money, and adds manufacturing labor costs.

The button then has to be tested, and kept in stock for service purposes. What if the button has silkscreen printing on it? It might be the same hardware button for the traction control and the trunk open button, but now they are different SKUs because the label is different.

So let's say I can eliminate 10 $1 buttons (that is an extraordinarily cheap button) by moving functionality to a touchscreen that is going to be in the car no matter what. I reduce the BOM cost by $10 per unit. That's a bunch of buttons that also aren't going to have warranty issues either. The wiring can all go straight to the head unit in a single bundle as well, and there are ten less connections for the assembly line to make. If I do that on a popular platform like the Corolla selling 750k units per year, I have just reduced expenses directly by 7.5 million, plus the cost of install, and simplified the supply chain.

I don't have the source but I read that in the process of designing a car there are different teams that design outer look, inner look, the actual functionality and at the time of designing interiors it isn't known where or how many buttons you need.

By having a huge touch-screen instead of knobs there is much less need to synchronize between the teams because the inheritor design team just needs to place the screen somewhere. And it's easy to imagine that it can significantly shorten the time to delivery and the costs.

I learned that very thing setting up my home automation. I was originally planning on designing and printing some sort of button arrangement. But I ended up buying a bunch of cheap Walmart tablets.

Easy to set up and keep updated. But... I'm not driving 70mph when I'm trying to dim the living room lights.

I took advantage of the used car market to upgrade my 2021 Subaru to a 2024 (same car, better trim), there's actually MORE physical controls in the 2024 - hope isn't entirely lost!

How did you find a 2024 model car on the used car market?

I think they mean that the used car market gave them a good sale price on their 2021.

ah, after re-reading, i can see that as well

Volvo, the vehicle company that started out making bearings, used to make a big selling point in the 80's about their knobs, switches and buttons were good enough for people wearing gloves in the middle of the Scandinavian winters and intuitively placed for drivers to use without taking their eyes off the road. Saab were the same, but fast forward to today and the lunatics are calling the shots.

Even the flappy paddle gearboxes still have a weakness, namely they dont have a clutch peddle to dip when the traction control/esp decides to have a nightmare and ends up trying to cause accidents, where oil, ice or snow removes the grip and temporarily freewheeling is the fastest way to get the vehicle back under control before reengaging the drive system.

And these tablets like displays ruin the night vision, I actually liked the old Saab displays where you could press a button and it switched the lights off to loads of buttons and gauges for night driving.

Cars have got noticeably worse with these tablet displays.

In every single car I've been in, the touchscreens are optional and you have some sort of knob you can use. This requires memorizing where things are in the software, however.

Touch-screens can be updated later, meaning you can release the broken version first, then get it working after the money starts rolling in. Knobs would require they get it right the first time. The horror!

I will never buy a car that forces me to navigate a menu to turn on my windshield wipers...

I'm "looking forward" to having manufacturers change the location of virtual buttons every few updates.

Android Auto has already changed its home row buttons three times since 2019..

Problem is, they don’t actually upgrade the touchscreens. At least not after the first couple years. And most consumers don’t/won’t know how to upgrade them.

As an European, where we drive mostly stick, it's funny to observe the newfound US love for stick shifts. It's funny because it happened almost exactly when automatics became good!

Good dual clutch gearboxes are amazing, but even "classic" ones like BMW's ZF6 or ZF8 are really close. ZF8 is so good BMW uses it in the M3, instead of a dual clutch.

With these options, I'd never go back to stick shift. This after having half a million km driven on manual transmissions.

I assume a lot of it is a retro thing like film and vinyl.

I donated my 20 year old Honda Del Sol two-seater stick shortly before the pandemic. It had a lot of miles on it and, with no commute, I just wasn't getting the use out of it to make it worth keeping. It was fun but there's no way I'd buy a stick today even if I were to have a "fun" car.

Manuals suck in traffic. Americans sit in a lot of traffic.

And I say this as somebody who loves manuals (I’m an amateur race car driver).

this was always a key point from people who drove automatics but claimed to like manuals. i daily drove a manual in some of the worst traffic the US has to offer. but so what, guess what else sucks in traffic? Automatics!! when you're stuck in traffic, everything sucks, so you might as well drive something thats enjoyable the rest of the time.

Automatics suck less. Why am I constantly trying to change gears of the transmission system?

I've never really seen the issue with "manual in traffic" -- there's almost always a gear or two that allow you to go a the speed of traffic without tons of shifting. Stop and go? 2nd probably goes from "creep" to "moderate speed"

Anyhow, electric cars are better all around -- at least those with "one pedal driving" where the speed pedal goes all the way to zero or nearly zero.

My dislike of automatics is the indeterminate lag between request for a particular speed and when the car decides to shift to the appropriate gear to get to that speed as quickly as I've indicated I want to get there. Plus with ICE cars there's all sorts of other tedious inertia to contend with around engine RPM and turbo spool state and such. At least a manual provides better determinism around throttle behavior.

"Semi-automatic" cars (aka an automatic transmission with a manual gear override available) are a nice compromise for those of us who want the simple convenience most of the time, with the ability to take control when we want to. Plus once the order comes in, those servo motors can shift the gear way faster than I can depress a clutch.

Yeah I quite like those.

Ahh sweet summer child. Traffic that has a speed isn't really traffic in my book. It isn't really traffic until you spend more time stopped than moving.

Joking aside, the worst traffic is when you stop every 4 seconds and then creep forward ten feet before stopping again. If I wasn't planning to go car-less I think I would buy an electric car for that nonsense.

Oh, I live in metro boston and before that lived in the slurm of southern california, and have not at any time owned a car with an automatic transmission... The workload from gear shifting is more than zero, but not (for me) oppressively so.

Even "stop and go" traffic eventually has some average speed and sometimes it is low enough that you've got to clutch in to come to a full stop and clutch out to go faster; modern engine management's pretty good at keeping the motor from stalling. Probably I annoy people by letting the lead in front of me get to be a couple car lengths before I decide to go, but that's on them... we'll all get there eventually.

Electric cars are the best in that you're basically always in first gear, the redline is basically infinite, and the car doesn't stall when the engine's not moving, so you don't need a clutch.

I swear my left foot got a little bit more muscular than the right foot when I had to go through such traffics everyday in a manual.

I completely agree with you regarding the power lag on automatics. Currently I'm driving a Jeep Renegade with a 9 speed automatic transmission, and I live in a really hilly area. The transmission needs to downshift CONSTANTLY because it's tuned to try to cruise the highway at 1500 RPM to maximize fuel efficiency.

If I'm running the air conditioner, it steals enough power that it has to downshift an extra time. It's bad enough that the constant shifting makes my son carsick. Luckily, it has a manual mode I can use to just drop it into 5th gear and it has the torque to smoothly climb the hills on cruise control that way, eliminating my son's carsickness.

That’s odd because I like the control a clutch pedal gives me in heavy traffic. And I drive a 15 year old diesel!

When I still drove I hated the way I had to keep my foot on the clutch in traffic jams. Or constantly switch to neutral. The clutch on my car was heavy. That's why I got an automatic.

But now I live in a city where I can take the metro to work and I don't own a car anymore. I hope I'll never need to drive again, I hate driving so much.

15 years is almost kinda young for many diesel engines

If I showed you a photo of my car, “new” is not a word you’d use to describe it.

I'm only 30, but at this point a 15 year old car still feels kinda "new" to me. Up until a few months ago, I drove a 2008 Lexus, felt perfectly modern.

But in regards to driving a manual in traffic, does a diesel not make it easier? An engine suited to lower RPMs, but with more torque, seems perfectly suited to clutching in/out to shuffle along.

The clutch is heavier in a diesel.

This is the exact reason I bought an automatic. I had a 1994 BMW 318is that I loved, but I spent probably a couple thousand hours on the 91 freeway in southern California pushing the clutch in and out. The BMW "sporty" clutch was a leg workout and a half. The return spring was super stiff. Sometimes I would play a game to see if I could stay in first and just let my lead distance increase enough to not have to stop at all, but it pissed people off so bad.

This is actually how you're supposed to drive in traffic.

Give more space to the car in front of you and try to stay at a constant speed. You will see truckers do this a lot.

It also is much better for your car and mental health. You don't need to accelerate to a complete stop over and over.

I do this every time I'm in very bad traffic (Think inching along and coming to a complete stop multiple times).

However about 10% of the time I get some idiot behind me that thinks that I'm going to slow so they speed around me just to come to a complete stop 2 seconds later.

I love crawling in traffic in 1st. Totally agree.

I tried it once or twice. It was great for the first minute or so, until the lady in the car behind me started honking, screaming, revving her engine, and pretending like she was going to ram my bumper. People HATE when I try to reach average traffic speeds instead of just cramming my car as close to the one in front of me as I dare.

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't knock those who love driving manual. Part of why I like riding my motorcycle is that it's a manual.

But in LA traffic, I'd rather drive an automatic so I can put my brain into "autopilot" while playing an audiobook rather than have to constantly be shifting by hand. It irks me how so many manual-lovers have this superiority complex over people who just want a car that will get them from A to B. Have fun with your manuals, but don't speak as if I'm an imbecile because I don't think driving manual is fun in heavy traffic.

I had been riding in SoCal for a few years and I'd say doing the autopilot thing when split laning is not very safe. Too many folks trying to suddenly merge into HOV lane solid lines be damned

I’ve driven manual my whole car life and in heavy US traffic. When you get accustomed, your brain goes into “auto-pilot” and does the shifting too anyway.

Yep, likewise. It’s not the burden that people like to describe.

> As an European, where we drive mostly stick

Enjoy it while it lasts. As of a couple years ago, more than half of all new cars sold in Europe are automatics. That doesn't seem too surprising, I imagine the same logic that made manuals appealing in the past is why automatics are appealing today.

I'm on the side fostering that change. Ever since I got a Mini Countryman with a ZF6. I was forced into an automatic because the car was a hybrid, and now I wouldn't go back to manual.

The car was a little janky from a dead stop, when running solely on gas. I probably would miss the precision for maneuvering you get with a clutch. I didn't, actually, because of the electric motor doing these operations perfectly.

It is possible to combin a hybrid drive line with manual transmission, as Toyota is developing:

https://www.topspeed.com/toyota-manual-for-hybrids-game-chan...

Automatics are more fuel efficient, and govenment keeps raising the efficiency requirements. Automatics do this by having a lot of gears and changing up very aggressively. It would suck to drive a 7 or 9 speed manual (maybe truck drivers feel differently; I think 5 is optimal for a car) but automatics can manage it and squeeeze out another tenth of an MPG.

I love manual transmissions and will never buy an automatic unless forced to. I'd rather buy a used car with a manual than anything new.

Noooo. Manuals are on average much more efficient. I drive a 1st generation Honda Insight, and the manual version gets ~10 mpg more than the automatic.

> Manuals are

> I drive a 1st generation Honda Insight

1st gen Honda insight is "1999–2006" (1) so this anecdote is dated. Manuals were more efficient, but currently no, they are not so any more.

Apparently that only changed recently, shortly after this time period (2)

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1127-marc...

https://www.greencarguide.co.uk/blog/automatic-vs-manual-car...

https://www.car.co.uk/media/blogs/fuel-alternative-fuels/do-...

https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/9kye2h/comment/e72qx6...

Modern pickups have 8-10 speed transmissions. They do a better job of keeping you in the power band.

In addtion, no heavy duty pickup comes with a manual anymore, but the ones that did years ago, de-tuned the engines in the manuals, so people didn't burn up the clutch. Modern Diesel Heavy Duty pickups only put their full 1000 ft/lbs to the wheels in 3rd gear or higher, something they can't enforce in a manual. Also, in most manuals (granted, its been a few years since I drove one) with turbos, pushing the clutch stats unspooling the turbo, where in most automatics, it does not. (since its knows your shifting, and not just coasting)

Yes, these are all related to driver skill, and a skilled driver will not cause problems. But I wouldn't want to warranty the systems on an 'average' driver..

> Modern pickups have 8-10 speed transmissions. They do a better job of keeping you in the power band.

This is so true. As someone who owns a fairly modern truck (2019 F250) that missed the good transmission by a single year. My truck would dearly love to have at least one more gear between 2nd and 3rd when I'm going up the mountain. I end up having to choose between trying to keep my inertia high (tough with corners) or give up and let it drop down to 35-40 so that 2nd gear isn't trying to tear the engine off the mounts.

I may end up putting in shorter differential gears to work around that. Don't really want to fork out for a new truck.

Automatics have been more efficient (given their additional mass) than manuals, for all but the most skilled drivers (top 1% of manual drivers) for several decades already.

I assume the efficiency requirements are why my car doesn't provide a way to permanently turn off the auto idle start/stop. The button's to temporarily disable it is convenient enough to make it something of a reflex. But it's a feature I really don't like when I'm making an unprotected left hand turn for example.

My wife's car has that; I find that if I stop and keep my foot very lightly on the brake, just enough to stop the car rolling, it doesn't shut the engine off. If I step more firmly on the brake while I'm stopped, it shuts the engine off.

Also some of the diagnostic scanners will have a way to disable the auto stop/start, or so I've heard. I have a scanner but haven't tried it on her car.

lol, we've always bitched about automatics in the US too

drivers that enjoy manuals have always been around. We’re just louder now because they almost don't make cars with manuals anymore, so when one does come along we rejoice.

Genuine question: What exactly do you enjoy? Twenty years go, you could do a mountain road engine braking with downshifts, getting then the perfect gear for the turn apex and coming out perfectly balanced. But cars have changed. Engine braking is a lot less effective today (different compression ratios, better mechanics). Automatics now have more gears and allow you to manually select the gear, so you can control available torque in the turn.

It seems the advantages of manual transmissions no longer exist.

I dislike indeterminate lag between input and action.

With an automatic, there's a threshold where the car decides to downshift when asking for a particular increase in forward velocity; that set point will wander depending on current RPM state and velocity and drive gear ratio.

Modern cars are bad enough with turbos and fancy valve timing and throttle by wire stuff where the behavior of the thing is a big stack of jitter, but adding a transmission to the mix makes the response times even more random.

At least with a manual transmission, the behavior of the throttle pedal is far more predictable and direct -- down the engine will go faster (modulo the current drive gear) and up the engine will slow down and slow the car down. Often you're in the incorrect gear for a particular desired acceleration but there's a feedback loop that you participate in to recognize / avoid the issue (mash pedal, not much happens because you're in the wrong gear, you get feedback and decide to change gears). With an automatic, you're just yelling down to the engine room asking the hamster to get on a different wheel.

That is true, but only in automatic mode. In semi-automatic, everything is quite predictable, no?

Predictable, usually. Lag free? Not in my experience. Most of the time there’s a good quarter to half second between requesting the shift and the transmission acting.

For me at least, that lag is very effective at disconnecting me from the experience of driving.

Oh, try a DSG from VW. It's freaking instantaneous. 150ms for the complete operation is about the worst case scenario. I can't shift that fast.

I challenge you to dual clutch a shift change in 135ms like an RS 5 does in semi auto.

Oh, I don't dispute that maybe very modern cars have addressed this. I don't swap cars too often and have been pretty happy with my "one transmission, a planetary reduction gearbox" car (maybe there are 2 transmissions, one on the front motor and another on the rear motor? Regardless, there's a static gear ratio that's always engaged).

The lag is only part of the issue -- it's the determinism of the lag -- the 125ms lag between "more power please" and getting more power is actually more lag than the instant ka-chugachug of asking for more power and getting feedback of "you're in the wrong gear, bubba" if you're in a manual transmission car.

As far as "I won't change gears for you unless you ask" transmissions -- I've never driven such a car, I'm sure they're quite nice. I somewhat dislike the gear changers with no affordance to indicate what gear you're in (this applies to wingding manumatic cars, motorcycles, and modern bicycles with thumb / finger triggers) -- I don't use them often enough to have the muscle memory of "up for lower gear ratio" or whatever, I have to think about it and look at an indicator and fiddle with it to get the right ratio for what I want.

I'm sure with practice it would eventually be fine; but in actuality I've found that the electric car is actually exactly what I want.

> it's funny to observe the newfound US love for stick shifts

Nobody in the US loves or drives stick shifts. There's been a steady drop in manual transmissions here from about 12% of the market in 2000 to 2% of the market today. The noise around them is just a very small vocal minority of enthusiasts who pine for the "old days". I'm definitely one of those enthusiasts, but I have to face reality that they're effectively gone. I haven't had a stick for a daily driver since about 2010. I do still have older manual sports cars that I can drive and enjoy when I wish.

A few years ago I got a 53 Chevrolet pickup with a 3 speed (and a nice BW overdrive attachment). Learned how to drive a manual in that truck and will never buy an automatic again as long as I can choose. Actually operating the vehicle is extremely satisfying and fun. I’m swapping out the C-4 in my 65 mustang for a T-5 as soon as I can spare the cash/time. For me it’s definitely not a matter of practicality but a “vinyl” type of thing. My DD has a CVT but at least emulates shifting with paddles

> newfound US love for stick shifts

That is something that exists entirely in the minds of auto journalists. The number of manually-shifted cars has been in steady decline for decades. These last several years, it went from something like 3.7 % of new cars to 2.4% to 0.7% to 1.9%. You can see how a deceptive headline could be manufactured around the last two years of data.

DSG are wonderful but an added complexity for the sake of what? Shaving 0.5sec 0-60mph? Saving the hassle of slow traffic driving? Both can be fixed by learning to drive.

The difference between being forced to use one vs choosing to use one.

I’ve driven some real nice autos, but when it comes to a car I enjoy driving, give me a nice sloppy GM T-56 or the crisp shifts of a BMW ZF stick. They’re just more fun. It’s the reason why I don’t have a C8 corvette.

But when it comes to day to day puttering around, auto all the way, and give me as many convenience features as you have. Radar cruise control? Yes please. Nothing worse than riding your clutch for an hour straight every day.

I would loooooove if a Cadillac Ciel convertible from Pebble Beach 2011 came out, with the suicide doors, no touchscreens, etc. Who’s with me?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ciel

The brands don’t often listen to their customers, all of whom clamored for this car ever since it was shown. It only appeared in the “Entourage” movie and it’s a beaut. Nary a single bad review on the entire Internet, but tons of people begging Chrysler to release it and sites devoted to pretending it came out.

Car guys — what is the closest car one can get to this today, in all of human history? Go to Cuba and get some gas-guzzling illegal convertible with tailfins?

And please — no recordings of our conversations and sex in the car so they can send it off to others!

>Car guys — what is the closest car one can get to this today, in all of human history? Go to Cuba and get some gas-guzzling illegal convertible with tailfins?

Maybe not Cuba, but there's a new car restoration series on whichever streaming platform, I can't keep up, that's located in El Paso, TX. They go across the border and buy older cars, then import into the US.

Just now, I have found the closest I could find: https://megaevluxury.com/rolls-royce-ghost-convertible/

Anything like this but cheaper?

I think a lot of people miss the obvious reason: it's cheaper. People seem to think it's some misguided attempt to make things better but really it's just that they've identified a way to cut costs.

They are humorously cheaper.

A friend's kia ev6 parked up, I had an instant flashback to the electric taxi car Johnny Cab from Shwarznegger's Total Recall.

The movie car has this really weak sounding electric motor whirr/whine, just like the EVs.

Fwiw, teslas support pretty much everything via voice. You just press the right button on the wheel and say what you want it to do. I’m not disagreeing with your dislike for touch screens, but Tesla can do literally almost everything hands free using voice if that’s an option.

I'm mostly fine with the Tesla approach. The few tactile controls are basically enough for me, especially with the last few updates effectively adding more.

However, the voice controls have been basically useless for me. I wouldn't want to depend on them.

Fair. I’ve had a really good experience with the voice controls since I read a “cheat sheet” someone posted with common control commands.

We just bought a 2023 Mazda CX-5 Select for $29k. No touchscreens in the whole car! And no dealer markup - we paid slightly under MSRP.

But... it is certainly satellite connected (you can manage locks, windows, etc. from your phone, as well as remote start). Wish it was included in this privacy investigation. I'd love to know more about what they do with what they know about our car and how we use it.

I think Mazda is one of the exceptions. Plus, they have great driving dynamics in general.

Only thing stopping me from getting a new Miata is all the dangerous bro-dozers on the road.

Meh - with a Miata you just zip out of their way. Miata owner since 1998 and I even survived commuting for 22 years in Northern VA. Life is too short - get and enjoy a Miata!

I was also a Miata owner: An NB Madzaspeed. A lot of fun to drive, and it's nimbleness saved me from a couple of crazy accidents. Unfortunately the car has one major weakness: It doesn't matter if the car is very agile if you are surrounded by vehicles with far worse characteristics. The car was rammed 3 times in 12 years, either on the side or the back, by people in brodozers that either couldn't see it on the side, or had crappy braking performance. The person in front of me does an emergency-level stop, and with the Miata I stop too, 3 feet before I hit them. 3 seconds later The brodozer behind me, however, has failed to brake, and launches the Miata forward. I walk out fine, the car in front of me gets very minor damage, as I was stopped and with my foot on the brake pedal, but the Miata's frame is bent, and the repair estimate is over 5k.

So yeah, hell is other cars

Exactly this. And worse - I'm worried the lifted brodozer would come up onto the Miata and crush me. It's too bad, they are wonderful cars. At least we can still track 'em.

It's the times where I can't zip out of the way that I'm worried about. The these mall-crawler truck-bros really are obnoxious and intentionally aggressive towards small cars. I'll stick to my track only race car with full cage and fire suppression system.

I wonder how the car would respond to having the sat antenna run through with a 1/2 inch drill bit? Would that solve the problem?

Just unplug the cellular modem. I have three "dumb" cars and I'm going to continue to baby the crap out of them. I have zero interest in anything new. Maybe a Mazda if push came to shove.

Easier said than done. Where is that located? Is there a service manual that explains where that part is?

There's a good chance the modem is on its own fuse. There's also a good chance the modem is 4g only, so whenever that gets shutdown, the car will be trackerless, as happened to cars with 2g or 3g modems. :D

I have some information on that I ran accross:

https://www.reddit.com/r/askcarsales/comments/15nkbh3/new_ca...

https://old.reddit.com/r/CX50/comments/126aepa/mazda_connect...

There’s a few threads linked in the top discussion (you may need to expand the massively downvoted responses, and some are deleted), but Mazda is known to use tracking data to deny warranty claims and share that data with insurers.

I was also stunned to learn salespeople’s commission is denied if they don’t get you on the app! Absolutely wild.

I had a close in-law that had a total braking failure with their ~2017 Mazda Cx-9, which was one thing, but then the dealer was pretty horrible about acknowledging or even diagnosing it. In the end, they sold it off early instead of continuing to own it with the unknowns on the brakes. So it's an anecdote, but one that makes me look pretty seriously against Mazda - though maybe it was more the dealer than the company.

It's hard to say. Of course the OEM should care what their dealers do and how they treat customers, but ultimately the dealers decide how they are going to handle things.

I haven't had any failures on any of our Mazdas so far (2013 CX-5, though only had it for 2 years. I change cars like clothes, 2014 CX-5 - spouse had for ~70k / 6 years, 2015 Mazda 3 - had for 27k / 6 years). Only issue I had was a battery that died during the pandemic, and it didn't really die - I was able to nurse it back to health and then it kept working through when I sold the car 3 years later. All that to say, I haven't been able to test our dealership with a major failure. But the buying experience did exceed what we experienced at the other dealerships we visited (Hyundai, Chevrolet - lots of unwanted sales contact and in person pressure.)

Honestly it could have been something as simple as a a missed bleed of an air bubble in the brake lines. But this was on a less than 3 yr old car, and its been a while since we last discussed it, & I don't recall if they had any sort of brake service where that would be a possibility - either way after a scare like that, one expects your car maintainer (in this case the dealer) to be open to a bit of diagnostic work - even if only to maintain good relations for future purchases.

You can disable the connected services from the settings. It still has an annoying pop-up every time you start the car to enable them.

More details here, see page 77. PDF warning.

https://www.mazdausa.com/siteassets/pdf/owners-optimized/opt...

Is this a US thing? I recently bought a reasonably high end Skoda (which I think would be made in the same factory as VW, SEAT etc). It has a big touch screen in the centre console, but that's really only used for the radio / media / phone calls etc. This is all non essential stuff and so I can deal with it being on a screen. Everything relating to driving is an old skool analogue control.

A couple of things I don't like is the pull switch for parking brake, it's the first car I've had without an old skool handbreak, it feels unnecessary, but ergonomically it's fine. Also it's a key less ignition with a button to start. Again I don't see why this benefits me, but I can deal with it. I do worry about having a smart key though as I'm often on the water kayaking/surfing but it's been ok in a waterproof case so far.

No, it's the same. You can control hidden things from the touch screen (like light length when opening the door for example) but most cars still have tactile nobs for everything outside of radio/bluetooth/media.

There are some cars that have touchscreen for essential things like climate control, but those are absolutely in the minority.

Thing is, those cars with touch screen climate controls will let you set a temperature target much like your home thermostat. Once you figure out the right temperature, you don't really ever have to change it. I haven't changed the temperature in my car for months. I'll probably adjust it as summer turns to fall but it will be a one or two degree change one time and then I won't touch it again unless my kid drove the car and messed with it.

Putting things like windshield wipers or headlights on a touch screen would be a nightmare though.

My newish car does have buttons to control the temperature and fan. But, yeah, I don't really change it. I do use defroster settings in the winter.

My current car (like all of the cars I've had since 2008) allows you to set a temperature target with physical controls. I don't change it as often as I changed the older direct controls, but I do change it often enough that I would hate to use a touchscreen for it.

For me controlling the radio using a touch screen is an issue - i cant take my eyes off the road, and using driving wheel buttons that require fiddling is not great either. I need buttons and dials that leverage muscle memory.

Volume should absolutely be a knob or, less ideally, a pair of buttons. But does anyone have a physical radio dial any longer? (Even my 1998 Toyota with no touchscreen I sold last year didn't.) I think at least one manufacturer was considering eliminating FM radio all together.

>I think at least one manufacturer was considering eliminating FM radio all together.

Are you sure it wasn't the elimination of AM radio? I have not heard of anyone suggesting to kill the FM radio, but I'm not that dialed in

Actually I guess it's both. https://musictech.com/news/industry/ford-tesla-bmw-am-fm-rad... AM radio is sometimes used for information updates on roads etc. but I'm sure very few people use it.

interesting. maybe i blocked the FM part out, but i was distinctly remember AM. removing radio entirely makes sense, as i didn't really think that an FM only radio would be any cheaper than AM/FM would be.

>but I'm sure very few people use it.

The conservative side of the spectrum loves the AM band

I guess Ford at least is going to keep AM radio after all https://www.npr.org/2023/05/24/1177847361/ford-changes-direc... with the justification being it's an emergency alert system. I assume AM and FM antenna requirements are different and that's probably where the cost is.

I remember as a kid being fascinated with the first car that I saw that had the radio antenna embedded into the windscreen glass. All antennas I had seen were on top of houses, rabbit ears, or the long annoying things attached to cars/trucks. This tiny thin line that wasn't even exposed to air was the antenna? That opened up a rabbit hole.

Every car I've driven that was made in the past decade has volume control as two buttons on the steering wheel. There may or may not be a knob but the knob is less convenient than using the buttons right next to your hands. My current cars will also let you cycle through the radio presets using the >> and << buttons.

You’re old. Almost no one has that muscle memory anymore. Hell almost no one listens to the radio anymore, people listen to Spotify or podcasts.

I exclusively use streaming, and I still find that I want to control the volume, or skip to the next song, etc. Thankfully my car has a scroll wheel on the steering wheel to do that, or I'd be pretty irritated.

Most cars still have the steering wheel controls from what I’ve seen regardless of screens. I think even teslas have some steering wheel buttons

It’s the same in the US, you just correctly identified that it’s not an issue for the vast majority of people outside of the data collection concerns (which most people also don’t care about)

Handbrakes were mostly necessary for stickshifts starting on a hill but were kept around on a fair number of automatics even after they were unnecessary. (Though my emergency/parking brake has been a left foot pedal on my automatics for decades.)

I recently rented a cheap sedan and was shocked: there was a small screen for carplay that didn't interfere with the dashboard and all the other controls (volume, climate, etc) had hard buttons. After a couple of days of driving I could do everything without looking away from the road.

Meanwhile the expensive cars are frightening to drive as you need to look away from the road to do anything.

My understanding is that expensive cars have relatively good voice recognition that allows the driver to easily access functions that might be otherwise buried deep in a menu. This doesn't solve the discoverability issue, but it's good from an eyes-on-the-road perspective. I think it's also used as an excuse for why you need to pay a monthly fee for internet access.

I have cars with these services and in my experience they don't work. Even siri to carplay doesn't work very well. The cars are too noisy to even use the car's mic and speakers to make a call, much less talk to a robot.

My experience: Mercedes, Acura and various random rental cars. With a rental I always try to make a call to see if it's gotten any better.

I think they put in the touchscreens because it makes internationalization easier. No physical labels and OTA updates. Personally, I don’t think digital internationalization is good for the driver since it appeals to the lowest common denominator of interface while adding another expensive component to replace in case of damage.

I wouldn't even go that far: It's less wires to run.

Yea; my cars interface has had 3 radical redesigns since I got it (which I mostly appreciate), but think of how much easier to build a Model 3 is when it foregoes 95% of a cars normal physical buttons for a single screen.

It shouldn't be expensive to make an I2C smart-switch that allows you to place as many buttons as you want on a single set of 3 wires (or 4 if you want a simpler circuit).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus

Modern cars do it with two wires.

LIN bus also https://www.csselectronics.com/pages/lin-bus-protocol-intro-...

Hum, it's terminated with resistors on both sides, so the boxes need power. That makes it 4 wires.

I imagine there's very little difference on cost between 3 or 4 wires. But the number of nodes described is not really compatible with making each button its own node.

I drive a Prius and while the actual implementation of the touchscreen leaves a lot to be desired (dodgy software and usual issues with obsolescence), I do like the way it splits between touchscreen and buttons.

Buttons: all car controls, audio volume and selection, temperature.

Touchscreen: GPS, setting radio presets, changing climate mode.

Now, it's not perfect -- there are some climate options I'd like on buttons. But in general that's pretty good.

The big flaw is the lack of upgradeability. It felt a decade old, stylistically, when it was new, and it will never get newer. You can't even pop in a new car stereo to replace the whole thing anymore - and it's a massive chunk of the dash. And has no support for Android Auto.

Do you ever use your mobile phone while driving?

Call, talk, text, maps, etc.

How is it any more dangerous than how a typical person uses their phone today while driving?

For safety: all common systems are accessible on most steering wheels (e.g. radio, etc) so that your hands never have to leave the steering wheel.

No, where I live it is illegal to use a phone for most of those (without hands-free methods). When occasionally I need a map with directions, I load it up and set the phone in place before leaving, so I never need to touch it. Sometimes I ask my phone ("Hey Google") to read my texts if I am on a long drive. But other than that, I never use it. This is the ideal (and again, the law in many places).

I take your point in that the built-in touchscreen is no worse for people who already text and drive, but we absolutely should be aiming for better. I certainly don't want to be forced to use a touchscreen for changing the AC settings, defogging the windshield, etc...

In the UK it’s illegal to touch your phone while driving (with some exceptions around hands free kits and payments). Even for things that are legal, the Highway Code is clear that you do not touch your radio while driving. I’d presume it would take a dim view of playing with other non-critical functions.

So no, just because it’s on your wheel, that doesn’t make it “safe.”

It’s illegal to hold not touch. It is specifically legal to use your phone (in a safe manner) in say a wind screen mount [0].

[0] https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law

That’s why I mentioned hands free.

My clarification was in regards to the word touch, as it has very different implications to hold.

Not more dangerous than clearly dangerous is a low bar.

Who in their right mind uses a phone when driving ?

No. Using a phone while you're driving is peak stupid. I keep both hands on the wheel unless I'm operating the shifter or touching a knob, then both hands go back. This is how you are supposed to drive. If you need to take a call or change where you are navigating, you pull off in a gas station or parking lot for the couple of minutes needed before going back on the road.

The world will not end if you are not accessible via internet-based communications for an hour or less. You can wait to answer that text message.

I'm part of the market segment that demands them. I didn't have an opinion, but then I lived with one for a year. I don't think I could go back.

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