I got started thinking about this because my new car has a "lock your car without the key" function.

Lock the doors without touching the key. Yeah, there are lockout prevention measures, but I wantto have the key IN MY HAND when I lock the doors.

Lane departure warning. I drive in an area with lots of older, errant lane markings and the false alarms piss me off.

Adaptive cruise control following distance. I rented a car last week with this feature, found myself letting the cruise control back off the gas and even brake for me. Cool tech, but it seems to me it encourages bad habits.

High Beam assist. Seems nice, but this flatly doesn't work for me. It mostly drops the high beams too often/too early for my taste, and when on a curve with an oncoming car part way around the bend doesn't drop them early enough. For rural driving at night I'm not using the "auto" headlight setting anymore.

Are there any functions on your car that you want to stay away from?

I'm also a K.I.S.S fan, as in "keep it simple, stupid") when it comes to technological idiot proofing features in my car. Heck, I'd like to go back to non-synchro manual transmissions, that requires actual double clutching to downshift. (waiting for a millennial to chime in "but my car has a "dual clutch"..." ). That said, I understand the necessity for idiot proofing technology as the average 'murican driver is untrained and inattentive. One feature that I think is cool but could do with out are the programmable key fobs that set every thing up based on the fob. It;s okay if you're the only driver, but It can be annoying if you're not that "fob's" setting. For example my wife is much shorter than me, and her Acura has that feature. if I use her "fob" to use her car it acts like Christine and feels like it's trying to crush me by moving the seat into the steering wheel as it adjusts for her height. Yes, I make it sound far worse than it actually is, but it's something that's not necessary. Good topic!

Agree with both of you.
I suspect we are not the only ones.. Thats why the simplest Nissans. The Frontier, The Altima and the Versa keep selling well.

The self dimming high beam isn't new. It was the "Autotronic Eye" on GM cars in the 50s.

I am fan of electronic conveniences, but I don't fancy a car that will do what I call 'driving'. I'd fancy a car that can 'assist' me, but I want complete control when my car begins to move. Example: Lane keep assist is great in the event I am distracted and look away from the road momentarily. Some peeps might use this feature as an excuse to drive the motorway with hands in their lap until a giant pothole goes under the right front wheel and the car jumps lanes before the system can react, or until the lane markings become worn or funky from construction work.
Self parking systems is where car tech began to undermine driving skills. If you need your car to park itself, you need to go back to driving school. I'm a huge fan of the latest tech to assist me whilst driving - side and back up cameras, cruise control, auto dimming mirrors, seat belt tensioners, head up displays, lane keeping, collision avoidance, hands free cellular, etc. These are all great features to have at the ready whilst driving. But when you allow the car to make it's own decisions and judgements, you stop being a driver and that's when things go straight to hell in a runaway buggy.

I dislike "automation" but I do like things that make tedious repetitive tasks simpler. However, they should ALWAYS require some kind of signal of intent.

For example:
Face unlock for phones is awful. It makes lots of assumptions, has tons of cases where it works when it shouldn't or doesn't when you might want it to, but most importantly: it doesn't require any action or input. It sees you, it unlocks. It ASSumes.
Fingerprint unlock requires an action. You tap the fingerprint reader. That tells the phone you want to unlock.
Same is true of laptops. Why the @#$% does my Surface Book 2 have a Windows Hello camera built in, but no fingerprint reader? Especially when the cheaper Surface Pro offers both? Nobody knows. But I prefer the latter. My thinkpad has both. I switch between them based on the situation (something Windows handles fairly gracefully, unlike phones).

I DO NOT EVER want my doors to lock due to speed, gear selection, proximity, or any other non-intent.
Likewise, I DO NOT EVER want my doors to unlock due to speed, gear selection, proximity, or anything at all aside from me pressing an unlock button.
There are SO MANY cases where both of these behaviors are bad, but they're already prevalent. Unlocking because I put the car in park? Who told the car it was safe? Who told the car I was getting out? Who told the car ANYTHING about door locks? I sure didn't. My passengers didn't.
Likewise, when auto-locks were becoming common on Toyota and GM cars (two brands famous for awful "convenience features" that make things worse, not better--like reverse lights that come on when you're not in reverse) I recall lots of situations where passengers would be pretty uncomfortable when the doors started locking.

Hell, I don't even like automatic headlights much. Their tuning is crude and they don't account well for things like tunnels, bridges, clouds, or dusk.

I sure as Hell don't like automatic transmissions, which seem some perverse Shrodinger's box of Hell which is always, at any given time, in a superposition of all possible undesired outcomes.

EVERY device, I don't care if it's a car, a computer, a phone, a snowblower, my microwave, whatever...
EVERY device should do what it is TOLD, and nothing else.

So by all means, simplify the process of telling it what to do. But don't substitute ASSumptions for instruction. That's when you get the undesired results.

From my perspective, car manufacturers can include all the latest tech and driver aids they can think of, with one condition: that the driver has the ability and choice to be able to turn off or disable whatever he/she doesn't want or like.
I rented a Chevy Cruze two months ago in Vegas that had start/stop technology. I hated it, but couldn't turn it off.

My 2017 Mazda 6 GT came loaded with the tech package, so it has a lot of the stuff you guys mentioned above.
Some of it I like, and fortunately, I can disable a lot of stuff I don't like.
A few examples: Adaptive cruise is great, but you can also set it to operate like normal cruise if you don't like the car slowing down or speeding up on it's own.
Lane keep assist is intrusive, but I can turn it off, which I do.
The blind spot monitoring is too sensitive, but again, I can turn off the warnings.
The headlights have auto setting options, but it can be bypassed. I just turn them on manually like days of old.
The key fobs are programmable for the memory seats etc, but you don't have to do that if you don't want.
Walk away self locking is a feature as well, but I don't use it. You can disable it.
Door locks can be set to lock when starting to drive, and unlock when putting it in park.....but can be disabled (I lock my car manually).
Rain sensing wipers: garbage. disabled.
It has a HUD. Love it. Any new car I buy has to have it.
Back up camera: Will be mandatory in every car this year anyway, so get used to it.
Back up proximity warning: Great feature. I have not disabled that one.
There's probably more, but I'll stop there.
My main comment bears repeating, if any car designers are reading this: High tech your vehicles all you want, but give us a choice to be able to pick and choose which ones we want enabled.
Cheers.

Buzzman wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 20, 2020 1:31 pm

From my perspective, car manufacturers can include all the latest tech and driver aids they can think of, with one condition: that the driver has the ability and choice to be able to turn off or disable whatever he/she doesn't want or like.

OMG thank you!!!
So much stuff now is crude and/or limited in its function. Auto-dimming dashes and stuff when it thinks it should be auto dimming, not when you turn your lights on. It also doesn't have any type of sensitivity adjustment or just how dim/how bright you can make it.

PapaSmurf2k3 wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 21, 2020 5:57 pm

Auto-dimming dashes and stuff when it thinks it should be auto dimming, not when you turn your lights on. It also doesn't have any type of sensitivity adjustment or just how dim/how bright you can make it.

Ah yes, remember the good old days when your car had a little thumb wheel somewhere on the dash to dim the instrument panel lights?
My 2002 Pathy has one of those. My Mazda? Not a chance.

Talking about the latest tech trends and stuff, a friend of mine just bought a 2020 Subaru Outback with all the tech goodies.
Picked it up last week.
I sat in it with him today for over an hour, trying to figure out how everything works.
This thing is an absolute mess. Huge screen taking up most of the centre console, with only TWO physical buttons on the dash.
A volume button and a tuning button for the radio. That's it.
Everything else has to be accessed through the touch screen info system.
Want to change the temperature or turn on the A/C, or adjust the fan speed?
Scroll to the proper screen and then fumble with the touch screen to find the right icon to adjust it, all the while you're going down the freeway in heavy traffic, not looking where you're going because you can't find the right icon.
Want to turn on the heated seats? Same story. No physical button. Find the right screen and then the right icon, which of course is tiny.
Hit the wrong icon, and you've changed the screen or adjusted something else you didn't mean to change instead of turning on your seats.
It is complex, confusing, poorly laid out and poorly executed, and slow.
Whoever thought this setup was even remotely a good idea should be lined up on a wall and whipped.
This setup is dangerous, and gives new meaning to the word distracted driving.

I don't mean to promote the Mazda, but my interior setup has real buttons for all the important stuff, like the HVAC controls, seat switches, radio, traction control, sport mode, lane assist (on or off) etc.
It also locks out the touch screen when moving, which some people don't like, but I don't have a problem with it.
It also has physical buttons to get you to the important screens, like the Nav, phone, and settings screens, as well as a physical "home" button.
In the middle of all these buttons is a scroll wheel, similar to BMW's, plus a back button, all within reach on the centre console.
Best thing ever.
I can do everything on the infotainment system without having to touch the screen.
It also has a button on the steering wheel that allows you to scroll through the different instrument cluster display screens.
You never have to look down to do this stuff.
The Subaru had none of this stuff.
After an hour of messing with his car, I was no further ahead in understanding where stuff was or how to change things.
He doesn't understand half of it either. He already doesn't like the fact that he doesn't have physical buttons for the HVAC system.
I wished him luck.

You are not supposed to be adjusting all those features while driving. Adjust before putting into gear and driving off. My 411 has the right number of adjustable features. Gear select and headlight dim switch. Not even instrument panel brightness.

MikeRL411 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 8:19 am

You are not supposed to be adjusting all those features while driving. Adjust before putting into gear and driving off.

Seriously?
That is not how the real world works, and I think you know it.
Anybody driving a car for more than a ten minute trip will want to make adjustments to fan speed, temperatures, heated seat settings, blue tooth, Nav settings, etc.
I mean, I live in a cold climate and turn on the heated seats and steering wheel to warm me up.
Once I've been on the road for a while, I want to turn them down, or off.
I also don't need the fan running at full blast or the rear defogger on once the car is warmed up and the windows are clear.
There will always be a need or a want to make adjustments to the vehicles settings while driving.
Expecting people to preset everything before taking off, and never adjusting any of those features, is totally unrealistic, and you know it.
The Subaru forces you to do everything via the touch screen, and you have to take your eyes off the road to make any inputs/adjustments.
Like I said, it's poorly thought out and implemented, and bloody dangerous.

Yeah, I'm gonna be changing the radio station and such while driving...

I really do miss the option that literally turns off the infotainment system (head unit, our 2005 Honda Odyssey had this option), because its literally the most bright thing in the vehicle for some odd reason. The speedo and tach and all the dash lights can be turned off but not the infotainment light. Really counter-intuitive IMO, as the speedo is important to avoid getting the blue lights behind you and a nice hefty ticket. This really does bother me alot as most of my driving is done during the night time (daytime, well there are many Florida drivers that loose common sense), and it brightens up the car at night for no reason. I don't even use the navigation system with it constantly crashing or freezing.

Another issue is that the system locks out while driving, as I understand for safety reasons, but when there is a passenger in the front, it should allow them to make inputs. Another counterintuitive thing.

datechboss101 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 23, 2020 1:59 am

Another issue is that the system locks out while driving, as I understand for safety reasons, but when there is a passenger in the front, it should allow them to make inputs. Another counterintuitive thing.

That's what the scroll wheel is for (in my Mazda), similar to the wheel found in BMW's.
Sort of like a round joy stick that allows you to do pretty much everything you need to do in the system, without using the touch screen.
The passenger (or driver) can operate it while moving if need be.
The beauty of it is that it is a tactile device. You don't have to look at it to use it.
I use it all the time, even when sitting still and the touch screen is not locked out.
I prefer that over using the screen to be honest. It is very intuitive.
Every car should have one.

I disagree a little bit. Although a passenger probably can operate it, passengers are not always there, making it ultimately the drivers problem. With the Bimmah I-drive knob (at least the older versions) it takes like 23 movements just to change a radio station as compared to twisting a simple knob or pushing a preset button either on the dash or on the steering wheel in some cases in an old Corolla. Its seems more a convenience in the manufacturing process than any consumer convenience. I also don't consider those joy stick or knobs as a device that can be used without looking at it as I believe you still have to follow a series of screens to get to the right system and chore. One of the few technological gimmicks I do like is heated seats (not exactly new as Saab offered it in the 70's): not only does it make my wife happier having a warm tush on a cold morning in the car, I no longer feel the need to help by farting to generate cabin heat before the heater does.

To be honest, to compare the commander knob feature and infotainment system in the Mazda to that of the BMW is probably not fair.
The similarity begins and ends with the commander knob. They both have them, but that's about it.
I have no personal experience with the BMW system, but from all I've seen written over the years, the Xdrive system, especially the first gen, was a nightmare.
I agree that having to go through layers and layers of menus to get to where you need to be is aggravating.
At least the system in my Mazda is not heavily layered, and is fairly easy to master.
The commander knob is something I don't have to look at, but yes, if you're going to make changes in the system, you have to look at the screen regardless of what it is you are doing, or how you are doing it.
My biggest beef with the Subaru system (and others, like Honda) that was in my friends vehicle, was the complete lack of tactile buttons, switches and knobs, other than the radio volume control.
Info systems are fine for vehicle settings, but for the basics (that we've had in cars for the last 100 years), like heat and A/C control, radio control, seat buttons and the like, give me the bloody physical controls/buttons/switches/knobs, whatever.
We could also talk about using voice commands, but we should save that can-of-worms discussion for another day....lol
Cheers.

Just bring back a clutch pedal option in every vehicle and I'll be happier.