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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars — For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, wit...::People are dissatisfied with the technology in their cars, according to a new survey from JD Power. They especially don’t like the native infotainment systems.

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[-] fubo@lemmy.world 207 points 1 year ago

Some proposed design principles:

  1. It's a car.
  2. It's not a goddamn TV.
  3. It's not your goddamn ads platform or subscription service.
  4. It is, however, a piece of life-safety-critical equipment.
  5. Because it's a car, the driver wants to deal with car stuff like driving, navigating, fuel, roads, obstacles, and not killing people.
  6. They also want to make it passably comfortable by messing with the heat or AC, the fans, the windows, and the fucking moon roof.
  7. Messing with your phone while driving is Actually Illegal these days in civilized parts of the planet. This is for good reason: people get killed that way.
  8. If the car requires messing with your phone, or messing with something that is basically your phone, then you have failed.
  9. There should be a big knob with a fan icon on it. Turning this knob all the way to the left causes the fan to turn off all the way. Turning the knob all the way to the right causes the fan to turn on all the way.
  10. If I ever have to use a touchscreen to control the side mirrors, I will become an extremely unhappy ape.
[-] zxo@sopuli.xyz 39 points 1 year ago

I would pay more to get a car with more buttons than you can comprehend and a small little infotainment system that allows you to play music than a super futuristic car with a iPad in the center and nothing else in the center console area.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

physical buttons for the important stuff; stuff like setting interior RBG lighting color and intensity? that can go on soft buttons.

[-] crossover@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Mazda. They’ve brought back physical buttons and have support for CarPlay if you want it.

[-] zxo@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

I've also heard they are decent cars, at this point I'll just keep driving what I've got and hope that in a couple years, more manufacturers will return to making most things controllable by physical buttons.

[-] nbailey@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Get a 2004-2009 car, yank the stereo out and throw an aftermarket headunit with android/carplay in. Best of both worlds!

[-] Calcium5332@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

2010-2012 will work as well if no tech package. My 2010 Lexus RX350 has no touchscreen, but still has knobs and a backup camera on the back mirror. It's wonderful.

[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Ugh one of our cars needs a new head unit, as its mid-2000s aftermarket unit has gone bad. But I can only get the dang thing halfway out. I can’t even get to seeing the wires in the back. No idea how it was put in, but it seems the wires are too short, maybe I have to remove the whole dashboard front thing?

[-] Kalkaline@lemmy.one 25 points 1 year ago
[-] fubo@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Your kink is not my kink, but your kink is okay.

[-] archomrade@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

Gotta get the cussy.

[-] b34k@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Agree… but I live in America… so there’s basically no reasonable alternative

Bitch I biked across this fucking continent. You have choices. Your fucking lazy.

[-] evranch@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 year ago

Oh, for those carefree days. But someday if you have a house and a family to support, you'll quickly find the difference between being lazy and being exhausted by your responsibilities.

I would love to take a month off and bike across the continent. That sounds incredibly lazy to me.

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

No shit, I barely have time to ride my bike around the neighborhood after work before making dinner, let alone for a month at a time.

That's not the point, high-speed. You have options. Your legs work fine.

yeah no one ever bikes anywhere ever and its all just grown men in spandex out for a joy ride.

Yes, a month to bike across the county was awesome! I'm sure you're just the fittest little tiger ever and doing 80 miles a day is easy-peasy!

[-] Zron@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Bitch I work in the trades.

You want me strap a condenser, furnace, A coil, 50 feet of line set, and 100 pounds of tools and supplies to a bicycle, and then tell my customers I can only see 2 of them a day because I’m gonna bike from each house and back to the shop for each call?

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[-] AnAngryAlpaca@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Sometimes people don't want to bike 2h each day to get to work and back, especially if you live in the desert...

[-] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Here's an idea: don't live in a desert.

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[-] FireWire400@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

No. 9 but for media volume, touch controls are garbage and gestures are even more garbage.

Looking at you, VAG.

[-] mawp@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

A special place in hell is reserved for whoever the hell keeps putting capacitive buttons on cars, ESPECIALLY when they put them on the steering wheel!

[-] abcd@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Oh yeah those shitty VAG touch controls. Went to a customer with my employee in summer. When returning home we opened the sunroof to cool the car down quickly. Couldn’t close that mf for 10kms on the autobahn until everything cooled down. Absolutely horrible.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

When returning home we opened the sunroof to cool the car down quickly

Wouldn't AC cool it down quicker? And more efficiently at autobahn speeds anyway, drag is worse than running AC at speed.

I don't disagree with you on the horribleness of the controls though. Worst part is, MB has gone the same route. I've got the last generation with physical HVAC buttons. I have no idea what my next car will be, but apparently Mercedes doesn't want me to buy their cars anymore. Mazda has come out as anti-touchscreen, which I admire, but it's going to be a hell of an adjustment in terms of suspension and drivetrain comfort.

[-] abcd@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

The plan was to let the heat out for a couple of seconds until the ac was cooled down 😉

Had a Mazda in the past and driving a Honda now. The Japanese cars are often conservative and not as fancy as the European ones but usually they just work in my experience. They are often cheaper and maintenance is also cheaper. My 320HP Civic Type-R has the same maintenance costs then our Fiat Tipo with 120HP. Performance wise it was comparable to a A45 AMG which cost twice as much with maintenance costs about 2-3x of the Honda.

Mazda may be a smaller car brand but their combustion engines are often very innovative.

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[-] derpysmilingcat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

...who tf...which car maker has gestures? If you're gonna gesture how about you gesture your damn hand over to the button?

[-] FireWire400@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think mostly VAG (VW-owned brands) and BMW, maybe Mercedes as well. VAG uses them to sense your hand approaching the touchscreen to hide additional items "when you don't need them", BMW uses full-on hand waving to navigate menus.

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[-] Proweruser@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Why 10? It's not like you do that while driving.

Thing is every knob saved saves time and money during manufacturing. So the companies want to put as much as they can on the touch screen. I don't mind if they do that with things I do before driving, I mind a lot if it's something I have to do during the drive.

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah they do it to save money, and then charge you out the ass for "oOh LoOk ItS tHe FuTuRe"

[-] Proweruser@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Well prices should come down once competition from the Chinese manufacturers picks up. Hopefully at least.

In China you can get a VW ID.3 for 15000€ and a Tesla model 3 for 30.000€.

[-] riskable@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

In China, you can get a VW ID.3 manufactured by a state-owned and subsidized company in China. The same is true for the Tesla Model 3.

Basically, the Chinese government is subsidizing electric car (and battery) production (and enforcing domestic protectionist policies) so of course the same version of the car is cheaper in China. The US goes with a different approach, by providing tax write-offs to people who purchase electric cars which is vastly less efficient (and more expensive to US taxpayers).

[-] Proweruser@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

China hasn't subsidized the EV industry in years. Don't believe everything you hear from your 60 year old neighbour.

The fact is batteries have come down in price so much that that price of the car is absolutely economically viable. They are just milking us for all we are worth in the west.

[-] Nioxic@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Dont worry.

They will make it all voice controlled in the future!

[-] TrenchcoatFullofBats@belfry.rip 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Alexa, take me Starbucks and play latest episode of "Ow, My Balls".

[-] Proweruser@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Why 10? It's not like you do that while driving.

Thing is every knob saved saves time and money during manufacturing. So the companies want to put as much as they can on the touch screen. I don't mind if they do that with things I do before driving, I mind a lot if it's something I have to do during the drive.

this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
945 points (100.0% liked)

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