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Comment by joshribakoff | Hacker News Reader

I recovered ~$250,000 under beverly song act (California lemon law). (My principal and interest back for multiple vehicles)

I repeatedly complained it was activating “emergency lane departure” while driving manually, even after disabling the setting. This had the effect of the vehicles swerving towards cross walks or walls.

Clearly a software issue but they played dumb and forced me to book service visits and refused to provide loaners.

Each time they returned the vehicle(s) with a short resolution of “expected characteristic”.

I read my purchase agreement, emailed them, and simply stated they are obliged to buy back my fleet given its a hazard to public safety. They obliged without discussion.

There were also other persistent issues with the vehicle beyond the software but i suspect the software put them into a double bind where if they “fix” it they create more liability via accidental disengagements.

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I’ve had this type of issue on multiple European car brands. Software issues with driver assistance features, which they keep ignoring. Things like sudden unexplained braking, not showing down due to cars stopped ahead, swerving randomly... I accepted it because getting them to cover anything, even physical things, even under warranty. They just come up with self serving guidelines and excuses.

Glad you had success. Did it require lawyers?

I (also in CA) lemon returned a Mercedes EV. Same kind of thing, they could not fix repeated software issues w/ the collision avoidance features.

I called them up, gave a short explanation, and they sent me to their vendor who handles the returns, no issues. Full price (including tax etc) back.

AIUI, they know not to fight, since in CA when they loose, they pay your legal fees.

I'm having a similar issue with Volvo. It occasionally sees a gate track on the ground as a 'hazard' and will hard-brake when slowly backing over it. It's inconsistent but happens regularly.

On the one hand, my 50 year old car (1976 BMW 2002) has very few safety measures, but on the other hand there’s no bullshit like this…

Your car also has a safety feature that the others upstream lack: a curb weight of only 2400 lbs. Which is already an order of magnitude more mass than necessary to move a few human beings around.

Also, by having some skin in the game, my guess is you're a lot more likely to drive it responsibly, which is probably the most effective safety feature of all.

Back in the early 1980's, a high school friend from a semi-wealthy family received a money from his parents to buy his first car to drive to school. They were expecting him to buy a new Honda or Toyota, but he proudly showed up at home with an old used 2002. They were not happy, but we had a great time with that car. :-)

I just got repeated run arounds from the euro brands - like they can’t reproduce it or that it was determined to be a non issue. The dealers would just eventually give me the phone number for the corporate line if I wanted to push more. But it wasn’t even some kind of support phone number - literally just a generic corporate number. So basically they were telling me to go away. Oh and top of that they charged me for diagnostic time.

That sucks. For me, it was clear the dealer did not really care, and was happy to call each visit a valid warranty repair attempt (and later agree it was not fixed).

Once it had been in N times, the game was over.

At this point I want basically no driver assistance features except maybe an automatic cruise control speed adjustment to vehicle directly in the lane ahead based on forward facing radar data. Many of them seem to be much more troublesome or buggy than they're worth.

I don't have a "modern" vehicle but automated following distance is the only thing I feel like I'm missing out on. Everything else feels like I'm dodging bullets.

Unfortunately not upgrading means missing out on improvements to physical safety in the event of a crash.

You might be able to add that feature yourself. Comma/open pilot looks really cool

https://comma.ai

Auto headlights switching is nice as well. We have it on the Lexus.

Is it really that onerous to turn headlights on manually? That's not a feature that I envy.

It switches automatically from low beam to high beam. Very useful as I don't have to continously fiddle with the switch. The auto lights and daylight running lights are standard on all new cars. I love it. I never forget to turn on the lights. Even if the illumination from streetlights is sufficient to see, we also have to be seen by ohers.

I'll be honest, that braking assist has saved me from a couple parking lot dings. That's worth something.

The problem is I drive in a city with really narrow roads and it triggers the collision warning all over the place. I've also had it slam the brakes in a situation where that was not a good idea at all.

The forward attention warning ("you should take a break") is another one I'd love to be able to tune. I have a lot of late nights at work, falling asleep or becoming distracted while driving is a very real hazard that I appreciate, but it's absurdly sensitive.

I've been quite happy with my "first generation" tesla with the mobileye system. It has only tried to kill me a couple times in 6 years of driving it; it is not terribly smart but within the system's limits it is very stable. I certainly don't trust it to drive unattended, but it does offload 5-30% of the toil of driving on highways, which is pretty nice. Offloading 50-80% but constantly wondering "is it going to try to kill me?" I don't think would be as relaxing, though I understand lots of people have chosen to just not worry, which I guess is fine...

At the time I got the car I wasn't sure if I wanted the old "totally obsolete" AP1 or the "probably going to get way better (cough)" AP2; I'm glad I got the obsolete version....

I wonder if there are modern cars with systems comparable to the mobileye system from the original tesla setup.

It has only tried to kill me a couple times in 6 years of driving

I understand your pragmatism, but it still boggles my mind how this metric could be considered satisfactory.

Well, with a car without lane keeping or cruise control, it'll try to kill you pretty quickly if you stop actively controlling the car....

With an AP1 car, you can scan ahead 5-10 seconds (in about 1 second) and pretty quickly assess if the car's going to have a hard time with anything coming up (mostly it is an issue of lane lines vanishing in highway curves or lanes splitting ambiguously).

It is in the happy medium of predictably stupid such that it isn't ever really trusted. Something smarter may lull you into trusting it more, which leads to situations where it can trick you... I imagine there are people who think it's safe enough to scan the road every 1-2 minutes when in a more automated vehicle, and obviously the ultimate goal is "people in car ignore the driving aspect of the trip" -- both of those seem pretty ambitious goals but people are spending gigatons of money to solve these, so maybe it'll be solved?

I've also had animals jump in front of me (just in general, not related to teslas); driving is just dangerous but is a lot more convenient than walking everywhere.

Mobileye still sells to a large fraction of manufacturers (I think a plurality if not majority). You will still get variation in implementation, as Mobileye only does the sensing side, and the integration is done by the OEM.

The speed limit sign reading tech that displays the most recently posted limit on the nav is pretty nifty. (I'd consider that "driver assistance" even if it doesn't physically control the vehicle.)

I have that on my Navigator, and it's mostly decent. The one on my Audi is better, it recognizes school zones and even recognizes active school zones (if there's a flashing light, the 'school' will flash, too). Also very nice (but is dependent on the signals) is the "green light countdown" where the signal is broadcasting how long until a given direction is turning green.

Oh god, the speed limit sign reading. I was in a rented car (a Ford) and it basically spent the entire trip beeping. I didn’t spend time investigating, as it wasn’t my car, but I hope that can be disabled…

Oh, I actually own a Ford - not sure if that's configurable or different depending on models, but I've never heard a beep related to the sign reads. (Or many beeps in general... the only place I regularly get it to beep is when I'm backing up very close to things.)

I've heard new Toyota's sensors cause it to constantly beep and you can't turn it off. Probably due to a regulation somewhere.

Yes, it does beep a lot but you can adjust the volume to low. Source: we had a 2025 replacement Yaris. It's annoying but the older ones' seat belt alarm is even more annoying, although I use the seatbelt at all times. It also turned me off, not wanting to get a new post-2025 Toyota. Now they all have mandatory alcohol testers and speed alarms. Use hand sanitizer and you have to Uber to work. No thanx. I'll keep my old car.

Sorry new Toyotas have mandatory alcohol testers? Which locale are you in? I’ve heard of mandatory breathalysers for work vehicles or DUI drivers but all new cars?

Not only Toyotas, all new cars sold in the EU need to have an interface for alcohol testers. They already have beepers and other detterents for exceeding speed limits since june 2025.

https://www.ietl.net/news-details/no-more-drunk-driving.html

One reason I love my mid-00s Lexus SUV. All the luxury features you want, but clean instrument cluster with no driving assistance tech to break or get in the way. Great visual clarity on the road, 300K miles on original drivetrain without issues, and a beast in the snow/inclement weather. Only downside is mileage, but I legit wouldn't trade it for a new car.

Which model is it? Didn't they make quite a few? :)

The GX and LX models specifically! Built off the LC platform.

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