Jeremy Clarkson Says All Modern Cars 'Are Shit' | Hacker News Reader

Jeremy Clarkson Says All Modern Cars 'Are Shit'

jalopnik.com

29 pointsrntn36 comments

he said basically the same thing in the episode - he was specifically talking about EVs but it applies to most cars, and his criticism wasn't that they're bad at anything, but that they're boring.

Clarkson's ideal car blows up sometimes, becuase that makes it more fun and interesting. his idea of a good car isn't a useful benchmark for a commuter.

Good. We need more boring cars. No maintenance, same max speed, same acceleration, not allowed to put stupid mods.

Tesla learned this more than a decade ago, yet legacy auto marketers manage to fool you need to express individuality by spending tens of thousands of dollars.

We need all food to be replaced with a standard ration of homogeneous nutrient slop, that way all of the dietary-related conditions that kill far more people than cars do will no longer be an issue.

What you eat doesn’t kill others

Sure it does. The death rate for farm accidents is not zero and it is not equal across all fields so your dietary choices directly influence farm death rate. that something may kill someone is not a useful metric by itself and it is foolish to expect it to be the same.

That's quite a reach there

Its not a reach at all. Its doing exactly what is needed and pointing out that deaths are irrelevant outside of the context of what we have to give up to avoid them. It is an extremely common error we all make which meeds to be aggressively corrected Because it underlies a lot of what is ruining everything. Pointing out that something kills some number of people is the modern policy version of comparing an idea to hitler to stifle further discussion and it needs to stop.

Godwin's law strikes again

thats a very meta interpretation, interpreting calling out a new version of godwins law as invoking godwins law.

Addendum - limp mode once you are behind your yearly mechanical inspection.

Modern cars are heavier, but that's not why I'd think they're shit. I use them to go from point A to point B, not to race.

1. Modern cars are shit because in the pursuit of profit growth, cars have tacked on a bunch of shitty, unreliable, privacy ruining computer systems.

I already have a great computer system in my pocket, it's called a smartphone. It handles positioning, media and communication much better than underpaid, third tier software engineers at auto manufacturers could dream to make.

I just want a dumb, reliable car like I want a dumb TV.

2. Modern cars are aesthetically boring because they all optimize for wind tunnel tests. I'd rather have a slightly suboptimal car on aero that I find a joy to look at

> because they all optimize for wind tunnel tests

I kinda doubt that wind tunnel tests favor high roofs, tiny windows and "muscular" wheel wells. Modern cars look like shit because they look like gaming PCs circa 2010 and that's a shit aesthetic that shouldn't please anyone who was born after 1998 because they fucking grew up.

For a given size, they are aero optimized. While a Honda Fit is more efficient than an Suburban for almost all people in almost all driving situations, few people want to buy a Fit relative to bigger SUVs. The car companies can only sell what people will buy, while also having meet the CAFE (or similar regs in other countries). While some people love to bag on car companies for building trucks and SUVs, they only do that because a huge segment of the culture has decided those are the desirable vehicles to have. If that wasn't true, the F150 would be as popular as a Blackberry. Given that market constraint, the car companies have to optimize the fuel mileage on the oversized vehicles.

Car companies build big trucks and SUVs because the fuel economy rules are more lax. Rather than try to squeeze more efficiency out of what they had, they simply built bigger vehicles and turned on their marketing engines to convince everyone that’s what they needed to be safe and happy.

People should really be pointing a finger at the government. Their regulations backfired and they haven’t done anything about it.

That's not entirely true. The most common 1500 or 150 sized "half-ton" trucks are included in CAFE and do affect the fleet fuel economy rules. It is the heavier 3500 or 350 and up "1 ton" trucks that are considered commercial and not included in the CAFE fleet fuel economy requirements. If you can take 1 MPG off the fuel economy rating of a half-ton truck, the auto manufacturers are all ears and ready to buy if you can prove it on the drive cycle. They are motivated to optimize the trucks where they can, while still having a salable product.

But the desire for larger, taller vehicles in North America wasn't all about fuel economy relaxation either. The minivan replaced the sedan and station wagons as family cars in the 80's, and cross over SUVs replaced minivans in the 00's. Even small cars of the 90's like Camarys and Civics ended up bigger and taller in the 00's.

> The car companies can only sell what people will buy, while also having meet the CAFE (or similar regs in other countries).

I’ve met actual contractors with overgrown SUVs/trucks who prefer a Prius. The big trucks are macho, but they suck for loading and unloading. A couple weeks ago, I helped load some furniture into an Escalade. It’s truly remarkable how little interior volume the Escalade has compared to how large it is. And have you ever looked under a modern overgrown vehicle? They are high off the ground, and they may rock the approach, breakover and departure angles, but check out all the suspension components, the axles, and the differentials hanging down below the wheel axis! All that height buys very little usable clearance if you’re driving over crap.

I think Telo is on to something (although they seem to be nowhere near having a vehicle to sell). The automakers are largely not selling high-capacity, efficient, easy to load vehicles. They’re all over Asia, though.

Real big SUVs like Escalades are certainly for "status" and vanity for the most part. I'm no fan of driving pickup trucks personally. I'd rather drive a car. But that isn't where the market is. The best selling vehicles for personal use in USA and Canada are big.

That is still orthogonal to the earlier claim that aerodynamics are irrelevant if you're just going to have any oversized vehicle anyway and style should be promoted. Particularly on the luxury end of the spectrum aerodynamics are even more important as they directly go to road noise and handling. If you have poor airflow, you get turbulence, and turbulence is loud. If there is a bunch of lift generated at speed, the steering can get twitchy, and feel unconfident on the highway. It takes the luxury out of the ride if you sacrifice aerodynamics for style.

Ahem, *"before 2008" is what I had in mind, i.e. too old for the teen gamer look.

My frustration with modern cars is that they are under powered, over reliant on digital buttons, and confusing dashboards. Bring back physical buttons!

Edit: rereading this, it comes off slightly accusatory or hostile. That's not my intention, I'm genuinely curious why there's this perception that modern cars are underpowered.

Under-powdered? I'll definitely agree with you on hating everything being pushed to a crappy iPad mounted in the dash, but what period of cars are you comparing to where today's cars are underpowered? If anything, I think it's the opposite, even a basic econobox has HP numbers that are above what an older performance vehicle used to have.

KA24E (1990 240SX), 134HP [0] FA24D (current Toyota GR86 & Subaru Brz), 228–234 hp [1] The corolla has a ton of different engine options, the base US model (that car and driver complains about being sleepy) has 169HP [2]

So a older 240, which was a performance car and is still a ton of fun to drive, is 35HP down from the base-spec current gen corolla. The corolla just doesn't feel like it has any power, but it has no issues getting up to speed on a freeway entrance ramp. Whereas an economy car of the same vintage as that 240 will definitely struggle to do so.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_KA_engine#KA24E [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_FA_engine#FA24D [2] https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/corolla/specs/2024/toyot...

and the econobox does that while having 4 doors, air conditioning, emissions controls, crumple zones and a stereo system, and being reliable as all hell, vs an old oil burner from back in the day

I guess? I mean the econobox I was thinking of was an early 90s accord, my last one I retired 3 years ago since it was starting to get to the point of too much rust. Still had 4 doors, AC, crumple zones, and a stereo that was perfectly acceptable, just needed to add a $25 Bluetooth reciever. A modern corolla is safer than a 91 accord, but the accord isn't exactly a 1960s deathtrap. Definitely better airbags though, the accord just had a driver and I think that was an option.

However, I replaced the accord with a SUV since that's basically all that's available anymore, so I don't feel that much safer in my 2023 Ford since the if I end up in a ditch I'm way more likely to roll and being heavier there's way more energy to disperse in that crash.

That old Honda lasted >30 years and wasn't a great example when I bought it 10 years ago. I only did maintenance and some suspension work, I never had to touch the engine or transmission. That seems plenty reliable enough for me, even paying a shop it probably would have cost 3k for the 10 years I drove that car.

He has driven the finest masterpieces ever made where man and machine become one. Today it's hard to find that, if that is what you are looking for or are about.

I recently wanted to buy a "fun" car, partly because my wife loans her car to her parents while they are in town, leaving me without wheels.

I opted for a 23 year old Toyota MR2 Spyder (5 speed manual, naturally). Yes, multiple things have broken since I bought it. Being a Toyota, I could pretty much DIY the repairs, and parts were cheap and available at Autozone.

It has been am absolute hoot to own, and I have not even tried to boost power output yet. (Although a bolt-on turbo kit is DIY-able for about 6k USD. Tuning it properly is a matter of a lot of learning though...)

To be fair, a base Mazda Miata is probably a much better purchase at ~30k. The Miata is probably the outlier here among new cars.

Oh no!

Anyway.

this

The editorial asides in this style of writing don't work for me. I know exactly what "drive a ballet dancer" means and don't find it at all clumsy. While I disagree with him, I also understand exactly why Jeremy Clarkson doesn't care about emissions and safety standards.

> I also understand exactly why Jeremy Clarkson doesn't care about emissions and safety standards.

And yet in Clarkson's Farm, he bemoans about how impossible it is to be a farmer due to the weather changing and being more unpredictable then it used to be. It seems like he should care more then he appears to outside of that single show.

And yet you also understand exactly why Jeremy Clarkson doesn't care about emissions and safety standards, do you not?

He is not factually wrong because it is not a factual question. He cares about different things to me, and in most modern cars those things have gotten worse. I dislike the style of writing where the author confidently states "Clarkson is wrong" about an entirely subjective experience. "Clarkson is happy to destroy the world as long as he's allowed to tear off in a 1980s Jag with a cloud of blue smoke in his wake" is a better description, is more critical of him, and would have worked a lot better for me.

Modern cars are shit because CVT transmissions (which are better for emissions standards) mean cars feel sluggish and unresponsive.

Electric cars are WAY more fun to drive.

CVTs are not very common, although they have certainly become more popular lately. Regular automatic transmissions feel very sluggish compared to manuals.

The best selling new SUVs in the country - the Toyota Rav4 and Honda CRV - have CVTs, so your assertion they're "not very common" isn't true.

CVTs are fine.

Takes shit to know shit.

...as is every version of Jeremy Clarkson

It's hilarious being downvoted for finding a bigoted, crass, imbecile...himself.

Must be a prereq for his 'fans'

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