I just hope "dumb" EV's become a thing soon. I cannot and will not own a smart car any more I want to own a smart TV or smart fridge or smart toaster.
And with the way we are moving to centralized one system architectures, the device that does video processing can be the same soc that does smart infotainment.
Smart connectivity essentially comes "for free" if the manufacturer wants to hit 5 safety stars, so its not going away, and will come to ICE cars as they modernize the vehicle architectures.
Yes, there are some security threats, but solving them is more valuable than trying to design a car around true firewalls.
[1] https://www.reinsurancene.ws/waymo-shows-90-fewer-claims-tha...
[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11305169/
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39485678/
[4] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-Swiss-Re-h...
I hear people on this site complain about these things all the time.
The computerization of formerly mechanical features making it harder to DIY repair is a separate but also valid concern, though I'm not sure how it applies to EVs.
Added: see https://x.com/IntCyberDigest/status/2011758140510142890 for exactly the kind of thing that nobody wants.
It's important to realize the reason for that.
Crashes by human drivers are hugely disproportionately by people who are driving drunk or with insufficient sleep or significant distractions etc. In other words, it's not a difference in the cars, it's a difference in the drivers. Waymo can beat a drunk driver, and therefore can beat the human driver arithmetic mean which has the drunk drivers averaged in.
That doesn't mean it's any safer than driving an ordinary car when you're not drunk.
What business case is there for a "dumb" EV?
By using touchscreens and software for most functionality, you dramatically reduce your supply chain overhead and better enhance margins (instead of managing the supply chain for dozens of extruded buttons, now you manage the supply chain of a single LCD touchscreen).
This was a major optimization that Chinese automotive manufacturers (ICE and EV) found and took advantage of all the way back in 2019 [0] - treat cars as consumer electronics instead of as "cars".
Edit: Any answer that does not take COGS or Magins into account is moot.
[0] - https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/automot...
I agree that was an idiotic trend.
But if someone wants a car without connectivity, it’s too late. The market is not strong enough to get rid of that. Most people either like it or don’t care enough to avoid it.
Just like most people liked or didn’t care enough to avoid smart TVs.
So that’s all you can buy.
I suppose they could still remote kill the car though, and have no idea what would happen if I hit the emergency button.
Sell and product with enough margin to make money. Don’t sell it at or below cost, then spy on your users and sell them to the real customers, the advertisers.
“Dumb” stuff has a very simple and honest business model. Market the cars by exposing what every other car brand is actually doing.
Auto quality touch screes are not cheap. A high quality switch/button assembly is still cheaper for a give lifetime (100k, 200k, whatever), which is why it's what the 3rd world compact cars all use. The switches start losing when you start having a ton of different sets of features the car needs to support.
I was under the impression most EVs cut off the connection to the high voltage battery almost all the time they’re not in use.
They rely on a 12 V battery or a 48 V battery like a normal car.
The only thing I’m aware of that special is that if that low voltage battery gets low enough the car will detect it and recharge it from the high voltage battery, temporarily connecting it for that purpose.
That really enables them to have a continuous state of power supply for a long long time. This cannot be achieved by ICE cars and not even hybrids for that matter.
This puts a cap on how much the "smart" systems can do because it dramatically increases cycle count and thus the risk of the 12v battery losing the ability to produce enough voltage to start the car, leaving the driver marooned somewhere.
It could also result in a noticeable "vampire" drain on the high voltage battery which looks bad and could put you at a disadvantage vs. competitors.
So extra drain would be an extra big problem.
Which leads to "fun" situations when that battery runs out, like not being able to get into your car or start it. However not much power is needed, so a tiny portable jump pack is enough to get things going.
Both me and my sister has experienced this, me a Nissan Leaf and her a VW ID.4, good times.
The latter can be an issue as my sister got stranded in the mountains during winter. Battery ran flat while they were on a long ski trip, and they couldn't get it fired up when they got back. Took a few hours before rescue vehicle arrived and gave them a boost.
Win.
Though it means connected charging via API stuff doesn’t work. Not that it’s mattered to me!
Doesn't even have automatic windows.
All it's connected features appear to come from Android Auto or Apple Car Play. AKA from a connection to your phone.
I like the looks of it because it appears to be a serious EV unlike too many which are just some company getting their toes wet.
(Battery heating is inexplicably an extra $300 option, and not available on the base trim AFAICS?)
Even a carbureted motorcycle I owned from the early 2000s had "analog" gauges with values given to it from a computer!
For sure, and even earlier -- I had a 1995 Mustang with faux analog gauges, it has definitely been a Thing for decades now.
Sure, however....
> Plus touchscreens are much cheaper than buttons and knobs.
And how much LESS safe is using a touchscreen while operating a motor vehicle? Its literally no different from using an iPad.
There's a reason Euro NCAP requires physical climate controls for ca models to get a five star safety rating starting in 2026.
You know that a backup camera can be added to practically any car right? My ~2002 Toyota has a Pioneer deck from around 2007 (I guess?) that supports reversing camera input. My wifes 2012 Toyota hybrid has a reversing camera using some POS cheap Chinese deck that's so shit it doesn't even support Bluetooth audio.
No part of reversing cameras are dependent on any of the "modern" trends in cars that are being discussed here.
Have you never seen a newer model car?
You don't need them to have a reversing camera. Literally millions of cars over the past 2 decades have perfectly fine reversing cameras using the screen of a regular double-DIN deck (or fold out single-DIN deck).
I don't see a meaningful distinction between a screen on a DIN unit and an integrated screen.
With Android Auto or the ios equivalent -- a hard requirement for most car buyers today -- a touchscreen is basically required.
Other "smart" features aren't required but I'm not surprised car companies want to try and extract value from in-car tech. It's got nothing to do with providing value to consumers.
Someone questioned why a car needs two 12" touch screens.
To which you replied
> Backup cameras are an enormous safety improvement.
My entire point is, that there's zero relationship between having a backup camera, and needing a 12" touchscreen, or a touch screen of any kind.
If your backup camera needs a touch screen, you've already failed. The entire point is that it activates automatically and deactivates automatically.
They've been available for literally decades - Toyota had a production model with a reversing camera in the fucking 80s.
Nothing else you've said since is related to your claim "Backup cameras are an enormous safety improvement" and that claim is completely unrelated to OP's question about why a car needs not one but two 12" touch screens.
How on earth did we survive as a species before our cars could make automated phone calls?
That's extreme of course but there are probably a lot of accidents that happen in low-density rural country areas or late at night when there aren't many people around. The automatic e-call from the car gives exact GPS coordinates and severity of the accident, even if you are unconscious or if your phone that was neatly in the cup holder before the crash was flung somewhere else (potentially even flew out of the car etc) and you're trying to find it while someone might be dying in the seat next to you etc.
People didn't survive before all this. It's a mandatory feature now because it's so effective at saving lives. 2 to 10% reduction in fatalities and serious injuries apparently. Would you also question why we have mandatory airbags and traction control?!
A much more reasonable ask would be for your car's systems to use your phone to place a call to emergency services. I absolutely do not want yet another internet connected device in my life, especially one like a car, where examples exist of hackers being able to disable the electronics remotely.
I reluctantly bought an LG with webOS (least bad option available) a couple of years ago. For some reason they weren't content to let the TV menu/remote work with up/down/left/right buttons.
That's too fucking predictable, and anyone who's used a tv in the last 2 decades could use it....
Let's give it a fucking nipple, just like those horrific fucking IBM/Lenovo laptops.
Then of course it also tries to "help" by detecting HDR content and change view mode... while something is playing.... which makes the screen go black for several seconds.
You only want „dumb” bc the other car companies fk’d it all up.
when was the last time you saw a Tesla and went “oh cool car!”? been awhile, right? Now ask the same question for BMW, Benz…