My last car (VW electric) had Too Much Computer and it was a right pain the arse having to tap a screen three times to turn the rear window demister on. Just give me a button!!
A couple of weeks ago I was headed to the hospital when Google Maps decided that it needed to update before I could get directions to there. And then Android Auto decided that it also needed to update first.
I bet he almost said "everything is magic", but improv is not his forte.
Also,
"Why were you late?"
"The car wanted me to solve captchas, and agree to new EULA, but the OK button didn't work. Then it rebooted and installed new firmware for 45 minutes. It failed, and I had to call a tow truck."
Whichever car manufacturer pulls up the plans from car models of the late 70s (40-50 MPG gas shortage days) and starts production will make a killing. People want a crank to roll up windows, a key that unlocks doors and starts the engine. I want to open my hood and know how to check oil, etc.
"Do you know how fast you were downloading? This is a low bandwidth area. I'm thinking this person wouldn't be surfing like this in THEIR town..."
"Sorry officer, it won't happen again..."
I read somewhere that new models as of (I forget the date) would have fewer screens & more "knobs and dials." Because you can fiddle with a dial w/o taking your eyes off the road. They did not supply any numbers as to how screens have had an impact on safety, but you know there must have been one.
I understand the worry about updates at the wrong time, but modern cars have a lot of redundancy built in. Critical systems usually have backups, and updates are often staggered or can be scheduled. It's not like the car will just brick itself mid-drive.
a. it was a joke, b. plenty of Teslas have bricked themselves, even if not mid-drive, still not something that should even be possible. ownership should mean total sovereignty over software and hardware changes.
a. I didn't interpret it as such, and honestly, I don't think car safety is something to joke about. b. bricking is unacceptable, but many safety features save lives daily across all manufacturers, not just Tesla. And Tesla's hardware and software issues are a separate, but valid, concern.
While Trump and Musk may be idiots, as a happy Tesla Owner since 2018, I can say that the cars are very nice to drive / own. Please stop shitting on all the hardworking Tesla employees and owners because one person associated with the brand and a giant douche. Go shit on X.
As an over 60 husband and wife, we both find the controls easy to use. You do know you can just say out loud, 'fan on' or other climate control commands, right? You don't even need to take your hands from the wheel. True, you do need to learn a bit to use things, but it isn't *hard*.
Too late, drive-by-wire has been a thing for many years now.
Every modern car contains electronic parts communicating with each other via a bus/computer.
Maybe you mean you don't want these things being constantly connected to internet and controlled/spied by companies without your consent.
My dad had a Mercedes C320 way back. After a stuffed up service it flashed every warning light it had for a second and then automatically applied full brakes at 120kph on the freeway. Thankfully veered into the yellow immediately and *just* avoided being mulched by the idiot too close behind.
The reality is that computer is tracking wayyyy more data than people realize and sharing the heck out of it. You think the license agreements are brutal for a phone app. Check out Tesla's. And that includes cameras.
And sell info “about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes" to others for targeted marketing purposes” 😳
Get yourself an old Land Rover. The most sophisticated thing in it is the interior light, which occasionally works, and you will find yourself enjoying its pure mechanical, analogue goodness as it distributes parts of itself (along with generous helpings of motor oil) all across the countryside.
Mine's got an absolutely ridiculous custom job from the previous owner I already had to completely redo once, plus my own hack additions, to the point I now have something mysteriously draining the battery at all times and cant track it down
At some point I’m going to put a separate relay box and a much better fuse system in mine. I’ve got two sets of headlights and some real oddities like heated front screens on mine. Going to do it all properly, but it’s got to be safer than the cloth covered loom with bullet terminals 😂
Yeah my second highbeams stopped working after I nearly burned the thing to the ground by miswiring the seocnd battery. I dunno if the boat bars, solar panel, disco lights, and train air horn were such a hot idea. I should not be allowed near cars. #landieproblems
All sounds very familiar. I burnt a loom out with a dead short to earth because of a very wet fusebox. Still managed to get it going somehow and drive it home 😂
i love that you said this. when i bought a car recently it was 1996 impala ss. it is such a pleasure to operate a machine with 'effectively' no computers.
besides, i have my phone so i can access GPS / Media
Never would I have thought 10 years ago or so that I would be glad to driving a 15 year old car. my dad got a brand new Nissan Altima for work and some of the smart features seem pretty annoying, whereas my car Just Drives™. smartest thing it even has really is its radio that has iPod support… oldie
my mom’s 2012 chevy cruze is also one of those cars that Just Drives™, and the smartest thing it had was the OnStar service… it’s a bit fancier than my car though, and since I don’t drive it regularly I’m not used to the layout of things or how the car handles in general.
my 99 Toyota’s days are numbered so now I want to find the most reliable, best condition vehicle made in the year before car became computer and drive it for the rest of my life
Seriously. I don’t need my car hitting me with a Restart required notification at 70 mph. Just let me drive, not debug a software update mid-traffic. 😂
Interestingly, everything's been a computer in cars since 2000. Embedded electronics are still fully featured computers. That's as far as it should have gone, since the ability to program instructions is all we need and further complexity obviously puts it at risk of putting the user in danger.
That and most cars right now are loaded down with spyware measuring things as granular as "sudden stops." The manufacturers sell that data to data brokers who find a lucrative audience with car insurance companies.
My old stereo had an input button. You pressed it once, it changed from fm to am. You pressed it again, it changed to tape. You press again, back to fm.
I miss that level of consistency. Now there’s additional inputs that may or may not be connected.
There’s plenty of reason to hate the computerization of everything, but I’ve never heard of a computer installing updates while you’re driving it. They install updates at night usually when the vehicle isn’t in use.
You can pry my early 00s stick shift from my cold dead hands.
It’s got power steering, seat warmers, electric windows, and a sickass 6CD changer that’s IN the center console (none of this trunk nonsense). Everything has a button, a knob, or a switch.
No kidding. My cars are from 2006 and 2012. I got in my buddies truck a few weeks ago and I thought I was in a spaceship. Bigger display on the dash than any tablet I have at home.😜
I don't want computer-dependence for my rent but the geniuses of my government tied 2FA, cell phones, WIFI and OSes of laptops all together to web portals and passwords and banks just for me to have housing.
I find that the wrong things are on my steering wheel. Not the things I really need to have there but things the engineer THINKS I should have. Would like less computer myself.
sounds like a personal problem, that's all I'm sayin lol. It just goes to show that some people will do what they want and not care if it becomes normalized later bcuz you'll "be gone" by that point. gives the same feel with our current congress with wanting to make climate change still happen.
Take a wild guess at what controls your motor.
That's the ECU, which happens to be a pretty damn powerful computer. You would need to buy a car with carburators to go back to analog.
ECUs don’t spy on you or need updates before you can drive, or decide to apply the brakes suddenly with great force and then not let you open the doors when it catches on fire. ECUs are ok.
Sure, but you know that you don't have to get a lot of that tech, right?
Lane departure, adaptive cruise control, etc are options and most of the other tech can be disabled temporarily or permanently. OTA updates are optional and you can decline them. The sportier the car, the more analog as well.
Now if you lived in the EU you’d be thrilled to hear that consumer protection here forces car makers that want to sell in Europe to use buttons and dials for all vital functions again
This is so SANE!!! I love the Europeans for that. Most auto-driving system vendors don’t have any experience of making CARS. The lack of experience can be deadly.
You’re still applying all your inputs to a computer but, and pilots have that in their cockpits for a reason, you can blindly change anything you need to if you have haptic feedback and ‚sole-purpose-controls‘
When a woman makes a little joke about anything, a special alarm goes off for the most annoying uncles in the world. When the joke's about cards and/or computers, the alarm comes with a flashing red light
Buy something prior 2016... Not to mention that people who connect they're phone to the car, basically send their contact list and sms messeges to the car manufacturer...
Typically, for a joke to be funny, it should base its premise on reality. That’s why you don’t hear jokes like, “kids, so weird, right? The way their heads just pop off and you have to screw them back on all the time!”
100% - I hate it. I never want ‘buttons’ in a car either. Or weird motions I.e press *very lightly* on some tiny plastic panel to take handbrake off. No. All wrong. Just levers and keys etc.
Get this, soon to come to those screens in your car, commercials. Heard it on NPR’s wait wait don’t tell me. I believe they said ford had a patent pending. Camera to watch you so it could deliver personalized adds right to your car.
A good example of why computer control is problematic is a feature of the Toyota Prius. If it detects a problem with it's battery, a message "Stop your car, pull over, and call your dealer". In reality, the car is still operational, gas power only. It's a hybrid.
Yes. Or even more boring refusing to leave home before waiting until your power it on, then… downloading installing and checking and spinning wheel of death updates…
🛞💀
Absolutely! Knobs are tactile and intuitive. You can adjust things like volume without even looking. Touch screens require you to take your eyes off the road.
100%. Knowing that car needs a software update and there’s a time when the car company will stop updates because it’s “too old” isn’t for me. It just needs a good stereo and be reliable. I can do the rest.
Comments
The motorway is computer.
Everything is computer.
Also,
"Why were you late?"
"The car wanted me to solve captchas, and agree to new EULA, but the OK button didn't work. Then it rebooted and installed new firmware for 45 minutes. It failed, and I had to call a tow truck."
"Sorry officer, it won't happen again..."
Every modern car contains electronic parts communicating with each other via a bus/computer.
Maybe you mean you don't want these things being constantly connected to internet and controlled/spied by companies without your consent.
Mozilla Foundation does fantastic data security audits, this one can be found here:
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/nissan/
Sold!
Mine's got an absolutely ridiculous custom job from the previous owner I already had to completely redo once, plus my own hack additions, to the point I now have something mysteriously draining the battery at all times and cant track it down
besides, i have my phone so i can access GPS / Media
I miss that level of consistency. Now there’s additional inputs that may or may not be connected.
It’s got power steering, seat warmers, electric windows, and a sickass 6CD changer that’s IN the center console (none of this trunk nonsense). Everything has a button, a knob, or a switch.
Yes Please !
Linux car FTW! ;-)
That's the ECU, which happens to be a pretty damn powerful computer. You would need to buy a car with carburators to go back to analog.
Lane departure, adaptive cruise control, etc are options and most of the other tech can be disabled temporarily or permanently. OTA updates are optional and you can decline them. The sportier the car, the more analog as well.
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
I thought it was funny 😁.
Except data mining! So it goes.
Hell to the no.
“Your breaking system subscription has expired. Press continue for options”
…
“Internet connection failed. Please enter your 48 digit key to restore”
🛞💀