Re: OT: Mini Rant About New Car

On Thu, 1 Aug 2024 12:52:29 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

>
Well our old one is finally on its last legs with what is probably a
dodgy alternator but they aren't quite sure and it's not really worth
possibly fixing it due to the age of the car vs. the cost. Kinda
annoying as although it's almost twenty years old it only has 50,000
miles on the clock. Enter stage left the used but only a year and a half
old one.
>
Feck me it's like sitting behind a computer with all the controls and
displays it has. The navigation, entertainment and communications
owner's manual is eighty pages long. Do the really think I'm going to
read all of that. The amusing part is that the standard owner's manual
spends four pages explaining how to put petrol in it. So someone is
going to understand all the complications of the location services but
doesn't know what that round flap is for.
>
On the plus side it does have some niceties such as displaying the
actual speed limit in case you've missed the sign, not having to take
the key out of your pocket to start it and the top of my list - user
profiles so you can have the wing mirrors and AC adjusted to how you
like them. Now if only we could get a toilet seat that does the same.
>
The less said about warning me that my small rucksack in the passenger
seat isn't wearing a seat belt the better. Oh and there's an app because
of course there is.

Modern cars annoy me with their reliance on flat-panel displays to
control almost everything. I get why this is; not only does it look
'flashy' and 'clean', but it's also a lot cheaper to just use a single
touch-screen display rather than the dozens of buttons we used to
have. It's also easier to embed a lot of extra functions without
needing to rework the dashboard for the new controls.

But it's just so damned inconvenient to use. Everything always seems
to be hidden two or three menus deep, making for slow and cumbersome
navigation. And forget doing it while you're driving; you can't afford
to take your eyes off the road that long! Old-fashioned cars, you'd
just memorize where the button to turn on the radio or the defroster
and muscle memory would take it from there, but with touch-screen
displays you need stare at the stupid screen. It's aggravating and
dangerous.

There is, slowly but finally, some pushback to this design philosophy,
with some cars coming with more dedicated buttons. But it's not
enough.

And don't even get me started on the embedded tracking and
data-collection used by car-manufacturers (and insurance companies,
and law enforcement) to spy on drivers. It's positively dystopian.