High-Tech Cars Might Be More Trouble Than They’re Worth

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-tech-cars-might-be-more-trouble-than-theyre-worth/

by LinuxBender • 3 years ago

55 89 3 years ago

q1w22• 3 years ago

My 1993 Jeep Wrangler is so simple that I myself can do almost all repairs myself.

The only work it ever needed was a new transmission after living in SF for too long.

I see my friends taking their new modern cars into the shop regularly. My Jeep has been running smoothly for literally more than 30 YEARS!

All the high-tech features like music/podcasts, gps navigation, etc... that's my phone stuck to the dash.

It is a simple robust vehicle. KISS

gumby• 3 years ago

C'mon, get real. How can you drive a vehicle without a huge screen blocking your view? That you have to take your eyes off the road to actually read, or to change the volume?

dragonwriter2• 3 years ago

How can you drive a vehicle without a huge screen blocking your view?

Not all modern cars are designed like Teslas. Physical controls and touchscreens that don't block your view (and even having indicators that are in a simple set of heads-up indicators achieved by leveraging reflection and the windshield angle) are not unheard of on new cars.

forgetfreeman4• 3 years ago

I've got a 62 fairlane that's easier to work on than my lawnmower so I hear what you're saying. Some of the complexity under a modern hood is necessary to hit fuel efficiency and emissions requirements, but the rest of it is unnecessary bullshit. I've kept up with new car developments mostly due to annual trips that involve renting a car for a week. On my last trip I got handed a new forrester and between the center console display, blinky shit on the dash and rearviews, and the lane assist feature consistently freaking out whenever it encountered a seam in the pavement I've never had a harder time keeping focus and control over the vehicle I was driving. First thing I did the morning after I picked the car up was spend 45 minutes grovelling through every settings menu the car had looking for shit I could turn off.

q1w22• 3 years ago

Don't be so quick to turn off those lane and hazard alerts - they are a major contributor to reduced accident frequency.

You get used to the buzz, and they also warn you when someone else is making a mistake - not only you.

SketchySeaBeast• 3 years ago

The only real caveat is that if you and your friend get in a head-on collision on the highway one of you is probably going to come out of it a lot better.

throw12346512343• 3 years ago

This is a critical aspect most mechanically-inclined people choose to ignore. They also like to pretend that a generator, water pump, belt tensioner, etc (just picked accessory belt items for an example) are as reliable as they were 200k ago. And they fail to consider the cost of time lost due to the car stopping at the side of the road or not starting. When your car loses power and consequently loses power steering in the middle of the road, it's not very fun. Yes, new car owners probably do overpay for maintenance, but it's likely not that key maintenance and could be avoided. Yes, new engine bays are more cramped and there is more automation.

I am against connected cars, but I hate when people go way overboard on the "used cars are the best by far" argument just because they know the order of the flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, throwout bearing and fork.

JohnFen3• 3 years ago

True, but I personally don't find this a compelling enough reason to give up all the other things I'd have to give up to have a modern car.

JohnFen3• 3 years ago

Yep. For my part, I simply cannot imagine buying a relatively modern car for a whole bunch of reasons, including this. I don't want a smartphone on wheels. I want a car.

tfandango• 3 years ago

That's awesome! I just lost my old 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee when it decided to blow its engine at 107K miles. I'm told it had something to do with the variable valve timing system they put in, then I found out that this is not an uncommon problem such that some people pay 1000s of dollars to remove this feature from their engine. Replacing the engine would have cost me 14k. I had no idea, but I long for a car that isn't essentially disposable after 10 years. I really wish they made a car like that these days.

mdp20217• 3 years ago

Europe is in an effort to forbid those vehicles circulation.

New cars are unwantable, old cars are progressively banned.

dragonwriter2• 3 years ago

That was my general opinion on 1990s cars in the 1990s when my car was a 1972 VW beetle. I had the shop manual, and most things that didn't need a lift for I could do myself.

Now I’ve got a full-time job, own a house, and have a spouse and children and even if I could have something as simple to work on as a ’72 Beetle, I wouldn't want to spend my time doing the work on it. And I like modern features like lane assist and radar cruise control and blindspot sensors that you can't get via a phone (and I prefer integrating a phone via Android Auto rather than using the actual phone for the UI rather than just the brains of the functions it does power.)

Yeah, modern cars or more expensive than an old car, and, yes, it costs more cash to pay someone to maintain it than to maintain an older car yourself, but cash costs aren't the only costs, opportunity costs are a thing.

saiya-jin• 3 years ago

And then there is security aspect. Crash safety was not a priority back then, crumple zones, airbags etc. were often simply not there yet or in very basic form.

Yeah all looks fine when looking just at the financial numbers but once you are in serious crash and will see yourself crippled or kids dying, that penny saving may not look that good idea.

There is vast ocean of cars between hyper modern mess of interconnected unmaintainability and these unsafe old metal bricks. They may not be the best solution in 20 years, but right now they are great.

beej71• 3 years ago

The main issue occurs when nobody can fix the car themselves. Then you are forced to go to the stealership for repairs and you pay over a barrel. It won't just cost more; it'll cost bank.

So even if you don't want to repair the car, you most definitely want a car that you could repair.

nullwarp• 3 years ago

I have a 1995 F-350 Power Stroke that I will probably be buried in. There is very little in that truck I can't fix or change.

Slightly newer but also have a basic 2012 F-150 5.0 that is probably the easiest thing I've ever owned to work on that i daily drive.

Having worked on some of the newer Ecoboost's so many damn tubes and wiring everywhere.

yowlingcat• 3 years ago

Are there any new cars that buck this trend? I've been buying used 00s vehicles for a while but a day will come when I won't be able to use that approach to buy simplicity with reliability and cost effectiveness.

karaterobot• 3 years ago

I actually had the following (mental) debate about a decade ago:

Given that we can see that cars are going to send more and more data about me to manufacturers, and that this will get worse with every new generation of car that comes out, I should only buy used cars from the 90s that don't do this. On the other hand, eventually cars from this era will become too old to be practical, even with maintenance and repair. This may be in twenty years, or fifty years, but eventually I'll no longer be able to keep a 1996 Toyota pickup on the road. At that point, I will have to buy a newer vehicle. At that point, I'll either buy a brand new vehicle, and I will probably freak out and panic at the amount of garbage they've packed into it by then. Or, I could buy a succession of newer used vehicles, each more packed with electronic garbage than the last one, and I will have merely delayed the encroachment on my privacy and driving experience by a couple decades, not prevented it. So, really, it's going to happen one way or the other, and maybe it's better to just be the frog who is slowly boiled rather than have it happen all at once. I guess I'll just buy newer cars as needed, like everybody else, and just be slightly less happy about it each time.

This is not a commentary on your decision, this is just a glimpse into my (tortured, possibly idiotic) thought process.

forgetfreeman4• 3 years ago

I'm in a similar position but considering a different exit strategy: EV conversion. Still cheaper than a new car and since it isn't OEM there's no digital surveillance suite.

pengaru• 3 years ago

The 90s were the inflection point where "tech" and necessity intersected for many brands. We finally got mature and minimalist EFI+emissions controls, cars with vacuum lines numbering in the single digits, delivering relatively great all-round performance.

Once you start seeing drive-by-wire / brake-by-wire / "on-star" systems appearing it's pretty much all downhill. They just couldn't leave well enough alone.

What we needed was automation for carburetors mostly to run the catalytic convertors without self-destructing. Once we got that it's mostly solutions looking for problems (and revenue streams).

What I want from EVs is an electrified version of that 90s-era simplicity with the modicum of necessary automation (in EVs that's probably all thermal/(dis)charge rate management and battery balancing). Just replace the ICE/ECU/tank with a motor+ESC+battery and leave out the touchscreens and driver deprecation+surveillance trash.

I feel like there must be a business opportunity to produce EVs in this vein. What's the affordable Driver's Car EV brand? Are we all just waiting for Mazda to deliver an EV Miata? I can't be alone here.

bryanlarsen• 3 years ago

It's straightforward to do all the regular maintenance on an EV yourself, mostly because there is so much less of it to do. And the core drivetrain is extremely simple and robust.

But like every other vehicle we've had in our pothole ridden city, the weakness is the suspension.

ilamont• 3 years ago

The researchers assessed 25 popular brands’ privacy policies and found that 21 of these allow car companies to share or sell customer data with external service providers, data brokers and other businesses. Privacy policies from two brands—Kia and Nissan—even include a clause that notes that each company may collect and disclose data on users’ sexual orientation or sexual behavior.

Failing regulatory actions or lawsuits, the only way these companies will change such policies is through very public airing, which includes criticism and ridicule.

JumpCrisscross2• 3 years ago

Which were the four good brands? Also, could this be regulated at the state level?

lambdasquirrel3• 3 years ago

When I looked through Mozilla’s findings, it looked like Mercedes and Subaru had opt-outs.

BMW sounded good in theory but didn’t respond to requests for clarifying information.

orwin• 3 years ago

"All but two of the 25 car brands we reviewed earned our “ding” for data control, meaning only two car brands, Renault and Dacia (which are owned by the same parent company) say that all drivers have the right to have their personal data deleted."

Incidentally, while their SUV are as disgusting to drive as other SUVs, according to a mechanic i went to school with, Dacia is a really good brand if you want to be able to repair your car for cheap. easy to get parts, almost no electronics. I don't think they have backup camera though, so they might be illegal in the US.

jamal-kumar• 3 years ago

How does a car figure out your sexual behaviour? Does it ask you?

hkt• 3 years ago

One assumes the car can see or hear the passengers and infer that from how often you use it together.

Otherwise they'd have to have literally invented a gaydar and that just seems like a weird thing for car manufacturers to be investing in.

mdp20217• 3 years ago

Microphones and cameras in the car; geolocation...

haltist2• 3 years ago

Statistical algorithms can be used to segment drivers and if it is possible to figure out that someone in some segment is of a specific orientation then the probability that others in that segments are of the same orientation goes up as well.

People are extremely predictable, if they weren't then Google and Facebook would not be making billions from selling ads using user segmentation. Amazon and Netlfix operate similarly, buyers and viewers are shown content based on their previous browsing habits and what others with similar patterns have bought and viewed in the past. If you can recommend content and ads better than a coin toss then you can make a lot of money.

I'm not sure why car companies want to sell driving patterns but if it can be used in some ad model to improve click through rates then I'm sure that Facebook and Google will be more than happy to buy the data to help their bottom line.

We all live in digital panopticons designed to sell us consumer products but most people are either unaware or don't care about what such a state of affairs entails. It's better to just assume that eventually all data feeds will be integrated into some ad model because that is where things are headed. Further dystopian extrapolations of constant and ubiquitous surveillance are left as exercises for the reader.

greggsy2• 3 years ago

An online service could ask m/f/other during signup, then collect other information through tracking. I’m not aware of a specific in-car use case today, but I could imagine some personalisation feature asking you in the future.

fragmede• 3 years ago

It doesn't have to be 100% accurate, it only needs to get it right, across the whole market, just enough for advertising preferences, so they can make money off of it. In this case, if you are a woman, and you drive a Subaru, your sexual orientation is towards other women.

nitwit005• 3 years ago

The article includes an inquiry about this:

It’s unclear if or how these automakers might be doing such things. “Kia does not and has never collected ‘sex life or sexual orientation’ information from vehicles or consumers in the context of providing the Kia Connect Services,” says Kia spokesperson James Bell. He adds that the brand includes the category in its privacy policy to define “sensitive personal information” under the California Consumer Privacy Act. Nissan spokesperson Brian Brockman similarly says, “Nissan does not knowingly collect or disclose consumer information on sexual activity or sexual orientation,” and adds that state laws such as California’s require the company to disclose inadvertent information that might be inferred from other data such as location tracking.

It sounds like they list everything, because anything might be inferable somehow.

outlace• 3 years ago

The following paragraph clarifies: " “Kia does not and has never collected ‘sex life or sexual orientation’ information from vehicles or consumers in the context of providing the Kia Connect Services,” says Kia spokesperson James Bell. He adds that the brand includes the category in its privacy policy to define “sensitive personal information” under the California Consumer Privacy Act. "

It's not as bad as it sounds. It seems just like legalese making things sound more dire than they are.

mdp20217• 3 years ago

as bad as it sounds

They put microphones, cameras and location trackers in your car, and reserve the rights to use what they collected about the owner and (potentially very unaware) passengers¹. There seem to be no alternatives for what new cars are concerned.

It is as bad as it sounds, and more.

(¹passengers are considered subject to a "they shall be informed by the owner of the vehicle that by entering it they accept privacy loss" clause.)

HeyLaughingBoy3• 3 years ago

I'd be more interested in learning how they would've collected that data.

JohnFen3• 3 years ago

Any time someone tells you that some term in a contract doesn't mean what it plainly says that it means, or that it's just some kind of boilerplate that is never actually invoked, run away as fast as you can.

rudyfink• 3 years ago

If it isn't already a "law," one should be that the more complex a software system gets the more it tends towards control over user actions. There is probably a network-related corollary that in a networked software systems, over time, as they get more complex they tend towards more user monitoring and reporting.

quacked• 3 years ago

This is one of the many technological trends that are driving every part of American life to dependence on the government-business matrix. It would be less painful if the agents of the matrix weren't growing so incompetent.

0xdeadbeefbabe• 3 years ago

Maybe incompetence and thinking these trends are good go together.

oooyay• 3 years ago

I drive a 2023 Tacoma and I love the physical configuration of the truck combined with technology. The most disappointing fact about Toyota, and by proxy Toyota Connected, is that things like remote start are now sold on a subscription basis that includes a clause for them sending loads of telemetry and other data.

lambdasquirrel3• 3 years ago

I’d rather pay them, as long as they keep the data secured and aren’t selling it.

swader9992• 3 years ago

The worst thing about these displays is the glare when driving at night. I know you can dim them and use dark mode but it still is not great. I'm color blind and think that makes it worse.

myshpa• 3 years ago

I'm waiting for a 'stupid' electric car, without all that high-tech spyware bullshit

- a steering wheel, few pedals, and a gear shifter, without touch-sensitive features or needless complexities

- dashboard / user-friendly interface, favoring tactile buttons and dials over large touch displays

- basic climate control, with traditional knobs for temperature and fan settings

- a basic radio system, no need for expansive touchscreens or intricate systems

- ABS/ASR, side assist, and parking assist

In essence, I want the eco-friendly benefits of an electric car, combined with the straightforward design and functionality of traditional vehicles.

r053bud• 3 years ago

I don't think we are ever going back...Manufacturers have seen what they can get away with

greggsy2• 3 years ago

My other daily driver is one of the last models of <brand> that doesn’t include any consumer computers. There’s a generic computer under the hood for engine management, but the UX is all beautiful vacuum fluorescent numbers that can de dialled down all at once.

I recently test drove a car with four displays that seems to be sourced from different manufacturers - there was no consistency of UX. I told the salesman that I wasn’t interested in purchasing a 2 ton appliance that was unlikely to receive patching beyond 5 years.

VoodooJuJu• 3 years ago

I fear we'll never get these, not even for ICE cars.

wombat-man• 3 years ago

Yeah, the least bad EV as far as I can tell is a Bolt EUV. But I think what I really want is an EV that looks like a regular car. I don't want something that looks like a space ship and has big screens inside it.

ManuelKiessling• 3 years ago

While not spot on, have a look at the smart fortwo or smart forfour, IF you don’t need a lot of range.

It’s the perfect electric city car, and it’s basically “analog” from a UX perspective.

r00fus• 3 years ago

I have a 2017 Ford Focus without a 4G cell connection (came with 3G, which is no longer supported) - no tracking.

It works fine - has physical dials/switches for most things, it does have a screen for backup camera and CarPlay and the like. It doesn't have parking assist or any sort of lane keeping or autopilot. Seats 5, but not a lot of trunk space.

Only issue is it has a 110mi range which is fine for my commute or going short distances out of town.

If you want something like this find an older EV, and disconnect the cell modem.

Lio• 3 years ago

You’ll be waiting a long time.

The manufacturers are acting as a surveillance cartel. If they all spy on you there’s no way to opt out without a change in privacy legislation.

xyst• 3 years ago

I was going to opt for a new EV. But ultimately decided against it. Cited “range anxiety,” poor build quality (specifically Tesla), too many unknowns, locked down cars, changes or advanced in battery tech (solid state batteries?).

Glad I ultimately kept my 30/38 mpg (city/highway) car. Honestly if this car becomes not financially feasible to repair (no repairs yet, only maintenance). I might stick with ICE, specifically a manual and as low tech as possible.

Only need a decent audio system, safety systems (backup camera), and connectivity via android auto/Apple Car Play (if not supported from manufacturer then rip out existing unit and replace with third party unit).

No “in car wifi”. No “self driving.” No tracking. A car should not be complicated or locked in by subscriptions.

jackmott42• 3 years ago

None of this has anything to do with EVs in particular. All of this stuff is on ICE cars too.

SR2Z• 3 years ago

Yeah, but good luck buying an EV without that bullshit!

tshaddox2• 3 years ago

I'm most curious about range anxiety, because I really feel like we're at the point where the vast majority of people's driving habits will fall into one of three categories:

1. Your driving habits make most/all EVs so clearly nonviable that you would never even consider an EV. If you're driving 400 miles a day in freezing temperatures far from any charging infrastructure, of course you're not getting an EV any time soon. 2. You don't drive that much every day, but you can't regularly charge at home or work, so you're not going to consider an EV. 3. Your driving habits are much closer to the average person, and with an EV you'd just charge at home or work a few times per week and never think about range.

The situations where you'd ever experience range anxiety seem pretty narrow to me. It would basically only happen if you were in category 3 but needed to do a rare long road trip in an area without charging infrastructure.

rokkitmensch3• 3 years ago

My wife has raging ADHD, and even though medicated, I would expect to have to deal with empty battery family logistics pages continually were I to put her in an EV.

I'm none too fond of adding cognitive overhead to my life on top of that. I throw my bike/skis on the truck and drive out for fun times on a whim at least twice a week, and don't fancy adding a "charge the car" loop to my already burdensome family maintenance loops.

EVs and range are like someone sticking their nose into a well tuned software/laundry/dishes process, inventing a problem, and complicating things inordinately for everyone who has to deal with it.

I'll keep my 5-minute fillup for as long as I humanly can.

mdp20217• 3 years ago

category 3 but needed to do a rare long road trip

In fact, we know people with an EV for commuting and chores, plus an ICV for long travel.

(Of course this is exactly a slice of that "cat.3" for which such arrangement makes sense - it may possibly count many, but those "cat.1" and "cat.2" do exist. To be fair, there will also exist "cat.4" people who live in environments where cars are not a daily need.)

HeyLaughingBoy3• 3 years ago

Or 4) You could charge at home but you have a long commute and forget to charge enough that range can become a problem.

boatsie• 3 years ago

Things are worse when you get to the details. The cars try to stay at 20-80% charge, so off the bat you somewhat “lose” 40% of the actual full stated range. And charging takes hours, not minutes, and charging stations don’t want you to leave the car there for a long time so you then have charge anxiety that forces you to unplug and move the car after exactly say 3 or 4 hours. The whole process is a bit anxiety producing.

gustavus• 3 years ago

If I could find a 1980's Ford pickup truck I'd buy it in a heart beat, cars used to be simple enough anyone could fix it, the parts were all just large pieces of metal and they ran fine.

Toutouxc• 3 years ago

Maybe they ran fine, but they also spewed pollution everywhere and guzzled fuel like crazy. My reasonably modern family car does 55 US MPG. Cars 50 years ago weren’t just “simple”, they were in many ways PRIMITIVE.

RecycledEle• 3 years ago

A million voices suddenly cried out "I told you so" all at once, then there was silence.

--an old curmudgeon who drives a 23-year-old pickup truck

Design the vehicle to last 100 years. Use standard interfaces from for the very few electronics that are necessary. Almost nothing should be more complicated that turning on an LED with a coin cell.

nightshift1• 3 years ago

Is it possible to jailbreak those privacy invading cars?

Is it possible to :

- not subscribe to "on Star" and its equivalents

- unplug the modem in the car

- use the infotainment without sharing data.

What happen if I block the cameras and disconnect the modem antenna ?

giardini• 3 years ago

How much could car price be reduced by eliminating non-required technology?

High-Tech Cars Might Be More Trouble Than They’re Worth

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