It turns out that more technology in cars isn’t necessarily something customers want, and it’s not really improving their driving experience. We know my thoughts on the matter, but I’ll do my best to stay impartial on this latest survey from JD Power that shows most customers don’t appreciate technology in cars unless they can see a clear benefit to them.
JD Power’s 2024 U.S. Tech Experience Index Study evaluated over 81,000 drivers’ experience with “advanced vehicle technologies” in 2024 model year vehicles after 90 days of ownership, It turned out to be a pretty mixed bag when it came to what people liked using. There are a number of tech features that customers like using because they feels that it answers their needs, but at the same time there is a whole lot that don’t get used very often or are continually annoying, according to the survey.
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I was helping my mom shop for a new car, and we discovered she needed the requirement of “physical AC controls”.
Everything is all on the touch screen.
I recently had to drive my parents’ new Volva XC40 and that thing is one of the most overengineered vehicles I’ve ever ridden in.
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The lane assist is kinda great while driving because if you drift a little it helps keep you in your lane. But I found myself literal fighting against the wheel whenever I was genuinely changing lanes, on a lane-ending merge, but more importantly trying to not get sideswiped when a semi drifts into my lane.
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Instead of traditional shifter, or even shift buttons like my '14 MKZ, this thing has a 3-position shifter knob to go between R-N-D, a separate long-press button to simply put it into park (and by long press, I genuinely have to verify on the dash it’s is park because I almost jump a parking block more than once since I didn’t press long/hard enough) and a separate little knob in the center console whose sole purpose is to turn the car on and off.
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The electric child-lock is a nice little button mixed in with the window controls on the driver door arm rest…which both myself and my parents have accidentally engaged on a number of occasions by resting our arms on the arm rest.
Aside from that, even in my car I outright HATE the auto environmental controls where you have to set an internal temperature and when the temp reaches that it changes the air to maintain. So if it’s a blazing GA summer, and i set the thermo at 69 (nice) once the internal temp reaches 69 it starts blasting not-cold air.
While the lane assist and adaptive cruise control can help a little on those long trips, I genuinely dislike them because I believe it actively encourages the driver to not pay attention to driving.
… What kind of car is this? 😂 (Look at the first sentence)
The lane assist is kinda great while driving because if you drift a little it helps keep you in your lane. But I found myself literal fighting against the wheel whenever I was genuinely changing lanes, on a lane-ending merge, but more importantly trying to not get sideswiped when a semi drifts into my lane.
Hmm. Do they have a thumb button or something you can hold down to quickly and easily override it?
It can be turned off, but it defaults back to ON. I don’t know if the default can be changed though.
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As a driver, all I really want is good music, good navigation, and easy access to all my controls.
I don’t want to have to go into submenus to change my temp settings, or open the trunk.
IMO, a vehicle should be a fairly simple tool to operate. All of the nuances with driving should be how you use those controls to get to where you’re going. Even with the (frankly, impressive) self driving tech we currently have, I still don’t think it’s ready to replace a driver at the wheel; bluntly, that’s the only tech I really want in a car.
Automatic options for fairly standard functions, such as turning on your headlights at night, shutting off the highbeams when there’s oncoming vehicles, and even automatic windshield wipers, can make things easier. Which I appreciate. I can override all of these systems, which is good. The advent of climate controls rather than “how hot” and “how cold” you want your blower to be and at what speed, is also nice. Even driving assist, like automatic lane keeping and adaptive cruise control is a nice-to-have. But these are all augmentations of systems and they’re pretty transparent to the driver. If you don’t want to use them, you can easily ignore or override the systems and do it yourself.
What I don’t appreciate is all the infotainment garbage. I can literally play games on the touch screen of my partners 2019 accord. I tried it out and bluntly, it’s not comfortable, it only works when the car isn’t moving, and I’m not going to sit in my car to play games. That’s dumb. I kind of get it for EVs for when they’re charging, but honestly, I can have a better experience on my phone/tablet.
I don’t need weather, I don’t need a touch screen, and I don’t need whatever garbage GPS system you were paid to sell with the car.
Give me Android auto/some carplay, with maybe FM as a backup in case of emergency, and I’m good. My phone already has data, my car doesn’t need LTE. Give me buttons to press for all climate and driving functions and I’m a happy person.
I don’t want to navigate some menu to try to turn on my defogger. Fuck off.
Driving tech should be transparent to anyone who doesn’t give a shit, and just wants to drive down the road.
My phone already has data, my car doesn’t need LTE.
Actually that’s one arena of technology that should have taken a different course. Auto manufacturers should have an upgradable modem module that you can swap out with the latest “G” (as the modules are already self-contained) and the car should have antennae that cover as wide swath of the RF spectrum as possible. Cars are Faraday Cages. Cellular reception on a tiny little rectangle phone in your center console won’t ever be as good as a dedicated modem and antenna. Also, the car’s dedicated modem can transmit at higher power levels (up to 3 watts, vs a couple hundred milliwatts) so you’ll get cellular reception in places your phone will just say no service. It also moves the higher-powered RF outside the car with the Faraday Cage shielding the human, for those that are concerned about such things. (Also, also, phones have to limit their total RF output to the sum of the current transmission rate of the radios, so when you’re doing Bluetooth + cellular, the cellular modem won’t be allowed to transmit at its maximum power level, further reducing range.)
Bonus points, there has literally been a Bluetooth SIM profile in existence for decades, although very few car modem have ever been designed to support it. This means, if this was implemented as standard, when the phone pairs with the car, the car inherits the cellular account of the phone while the car is turned on. So you’re not paying for two cell bills, you get better reception, same phone number, better data speeds, better voice calling, etc. The phone also has supremely better battery life because it doesn’t have to be constantly screaming at cell towers.
Of course, automakers and cell carriers would never implement these things that already exist because they’d eat into their precious profit margins.
At most, they’re very bad Faraday cages.
The vast majority of LTE bands are below 2600mhz, around 10 cm wavelength, which usually doesn’t have any issue penetrating glass, and suffers very little degradation from the metal in the body of the car.
Aluminum materials, which are not uncommon for body panels, and other automotive components due to its light weight and relatively low cost, is non-ferrous and won’t impact signal strength any more than glass will…
The Iron/steel in the vehicle, usually in the frame/engine, are the primary issues with regards to signal blocking. That’s what microwaves make their Faraday cage from for good reason.
Many wireless providers also have sub 1ghz channels which are harder to block, they’re generally slower for bandwidth, but that’s another matter entirely.
Most of the dashboard is made of plastics and other non-ferrous materials, but it’s littered with devices, supports, and wires that can impact signal integrity. These are usually fairly sparce and don’t generate a lot of interference. Since the dashboard is directly adjacent to the windshield and driver/passenger windows, signal is more or less unimpeded in the desirable directions (horizontal, mainly). Unless you’re putting your phone on the floor of your vehicle, you’re generally okay for signal, as it passes through the majority of the dashboard, around components in the dashboard, and through the glass relatively unimpeded.
The exception to this is that some manufacturers seem to think it’s a good idea to put materials in their safety glass that impede RF. God knows why. It might be a biproduct of a coating that is there for a different reason, but it’s not great. That’s when you need a fairly simple LTE repeater.
Which brings me to my point. You can forego the complex and unsupported LTE SIM over Bluetooth stuff by simply putting a relatively low power LTE repeater from a good signal location, such as the roof of the vehicle, to a bad signal location, such as the middle of the cabin it can literally be built into the overhead cabin light. Resolving the issues you’ve stated, without providing any data access to the vehicle itself. Such an add-on would be a small increase in cost, as such units can retail anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars, but as that cost would replace the built in modem most people never wanted to begin with, the addition may actually make the whole car cheaper… With little more than Apple carplay/Android auto, to replace all the functionality they’ll lose by removing the cars data connection.
It’s a very silly and pointless argument overall, because vehicle manufacturers will not be removing the LTE modems from their vehicles, since that allows them to remotely gather your data, which they can sell. That increases profits and that’s what they care about. So they’re never going to listen to us regardless… As long as someone is buying their wiretap vehicles and basically handing them free money in the form of your personal data, they’re going to keep doing it.
Personally, I don’t want my car to have any connectivity options because car makers have already proven they are just going to abuse it to sell your data.
I was surprised that I pretty quickly started to like the UX simplicity of Tesla. I thought I would’ve hated it, but they did a really good job there.
So fucking true. After 5 years in a model 3, anything else is just too cluttered and full of junk.
I will say though I wish there was a console selection wheel that you can spin or push or click to supplement the touch screen. It’s too ridiculous to have to try to touch while driving for both the danger aspect and also the aggravation of the bumpy road making it difficult.
The climate controls are great and the selector wheels in the steering wheel are a master work. It’s too bad Elon is a piece of shit and the car itself is not exactly the pinnacle of quality construction.
I have a feeling almost everyone has set that Push wheel set to windshield wipers. Solved my biggest touch screen gripe. None of the rest while driving really bother me as it’s very infrequent that I need to adjust anything else while driving.
Setting climate to auto and I can mostly forget about it.
I need music control and that’s about it. I sometimes like to set “minimal lane changes”, but that’s mostly for long haul and I can do it before I leave. My wipers are by and large well behaved.
Ah, I barely ever touch the music once it’s going other than skip song on the wheel, and I otherwise use voice.
My auto wipers are bonkers though and are almost unusable so it was a HUGE quality of life improvement.
I like the tech in my car, it has knobs and buttons. But then again it is from '91.
I drove a 2020 pickup while taking turns on a family trip. I jumped on the chance to get a 87 Chevy C10. Nothing I want, that I can’t get with a cellphone mount. The 2020 truck feels like I’m driving a lifeguard’s chair around.
Yeah huge trucks can just fuck off
Yeah I use a little FM transmitter tor audio, kinda tempted to use an old retro sterio kit I got at auction so that I can use a tape deck.
I may try to solder an AUX into the stock radio and hook a BT receiver into it. I do like a clean appearance and I don’t listen to the radio anyway.
Never have tried that, but now youve made me curious if mine already has an aux, it was a government car and was last used by IT before I got it at auction earlier this year.
I’m planning on having a “headless head unit” built for my next car so I can basically live off an AUX port wired to speakers throughout the car, I hate wireless that much.
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I want fucking buttons!
ITT: lemmy designing a car, like Homer Simpson.
Meh. Big screens don’t make cars better. It’s still a car, and basic functionality is more important than a big screen that lags or hides functions.
I don’t know, I love having a big screen in my car. Navigation is bigger, so it’s much easier to glance down and find navigation references.
I still have all of the critical functions, too.
Big screens that are crap don’t make cars better. Maybe. Often you don’t realize it until you’ve paid for it, at that point the manufacturer is laughing to the bank.
And a lot of models are actually better, especially post 2020, when a screen is not a novelty and the early failures are (mostly) over.
And a separate dome for the kids!
There’s this thing called a smartphone. You might have heard of it.
I like having Siri in my car when she works. Like when my phone properly wirelessly connects. But when it doesn’t, I hate it, and would be better without it.
Also why the hell can’t CarPlay use the radio, when the car has a radio. Why can’t those two things talk to each other. Fucking dumb.
And only automakers are surprised by this. This last time I bought a car, i avoided all the new ones and just got a reliable one from 2013. Fuuuuck all the tattletale noises, fuck all the touch screen interface bullshit, and fuck their ridiculous asking prices.
I don’t hate tech in my car.
I hate unnecessary, poorly designed tech in my car.
Current tech design unnecessarily complicates and obscures what should be simple and easily accessible functions. That’s more than just irritating, it’s dangerous.
BRING BACK THE FUCKING BUTTONS HOLY SHIT
I guess I’ll be alone in saying I don’t want a bmw cockpit with a button for every feature of the vehicle.
I like the rocking, turning console selection wheel Audi does, and I like the two wheels that also click forward and back on the steering wheel that Tesla does (and also gear stalks with buttons on the end). The only other thing that should maybe be a knob or button is climate temp or blower speed, but that is nicer when it’s adaptive like a thermostat.
Minimal interface for me please, just don’t force me to touch navigate the touch screen while I’m driving.
Yeah, let me keep my eyes on the road. I’m not a huge fan of mini coops, but the dash setup of the ones I’ve driven are my favorite. They’ve got unique toggles and knobs, made it easy for me to memorize functions without having to give it any thought
I would pay an extra 3k for “lack of touchscreen”
First thing I do to my next car, circumsize all the antennas at the root.
I drive an Audi Q7 and every time I turn my headlights on, I get warnings about how my “Side Marker Lights” are malfunctioning.
First, no, they’re working fine.
Second, this seems to be super common on the Q7.
Third, the only “fix” is a $4,000 headlight assembly replacement.
Or, you know, connect an ODB-II device and disable the side marker lights.
