* GM is laying off more than 1,000 salaried employees globally in its software and services division following a review to streamline the unit’s operations.
* The layoffs include roughly 600 jobs at General Motors’ tech campus near Detroit.
* The job cuts represent about 1.3% of the company’s global salaried workforce of 76,000 as of the end of last year.
Sounds like they hired the Bobs.
I wonder if GM is realizing how bad an idea this is, wants to move on, and thus is doing layoffs.
> New Lincoln Navigator to include spa mode, 48-inch display for videos and gaming
Meanwhile, over on the other side of Detroit, Ford is doing... WTF are they doing? Yeah, yeah, they are following the industry trends and trying to get ahead of them. But what is the point of this trend? I know that some people do have stints in which they live in their car. But that is generally involuntary and done because of financial hardship. IE, they aren't going to buy a $100,000 vehicle and live in it. Spa mode? Videos and gaming? Did they forget that these things are intended for driving?
We want physical buttons and dials, not touchscreens. We don't want our location and driving data recorded and sent over the internet to their servers. We want reliable engine starting, battery life and locks, not "smart" features which can fail due to software updates or being away from cellular reception for too long.
I'm not sure there's a single car being manufactured today that can compete with a car from 10+ years ago for a use case like "Will my key unlock the door and start the engine, after my car has been parked at a forest trailhead for a week".
It’s funny because most people say they have the same opinion as you, but their shopping habits prove themselves wrong. Tech availability in cars has absolutely driven sales, despite everyone’s claims for desiring the alternative.
> Will my key unlock the door and start the engine, after my car has been parked at a forest trailhead for a week
Most car owners in America will never encounter this situation, and absolutely don’t care about it. Those car owners just don’t hang out in hacker news threads about cars.
Car reviews and ratings drive sales, and the creators of such things are 100% beholden to automakers for access to the vehicles they need to do reviews. Thus they hype anything the automakers tell them to hype.
Customers don't get the option to have all the manual controls they would have had in the 2000s plus maps and phone integration.
1. There is a strong correlation between built-in carplay and failing the requirements of marcuskane2's comment.
2. My mom would prefer a car that fails the requirements of marcuskane2's comment and had built-in carplay over the reverse.
What is the significance of this? There is an even greater correlation between built-in wheels and failing the requirements of marcuskane2’s comment.
Whatever negative effects of connectivity have nothing to do with CarPlay/Android Auto. They have to do with the availability of mobile broadband and software advances in 2024 that allow for more rent seeking.
If anything CarPlay/Android Auto are the only thing preventing more rent seeking, by giving people the option to use modern navigation and audio entertainment without going through a car manufacturer.