1y ago

New cars are great...

408 comments

I have zero desire to own an Internet-connected car wherein I can't "own" it without abiding by the rules set forth by the auto manufacturer. BMW recently killed their subscription seat heaters but who knows what Egon Smells is cooking up at Tesla.
- In my defense, my 13 year old car died earlier this year and I needed a new car fast. I was completely unaware these systems had gotten as bad as they have until after I bought it.
  
  I figured we're not going to have much choice in the future. We'll be driving cars under End User License Agreements that already send tons and tons of data about us back to the manufacturers.
  
  Don't you love it when it makes you read a disclaimer and click "accept" literally every time you get into the car if you want to use your infotainment center? Who's the asshole who came up with that brilliant idea? Whoever he is, fuck him!
  
  It depends on the manufacturer. My Hyundai infotainment system is great. The only problem I have is that it likes to randomly connect my wife's phone instead of mine about 5% of the time.
  
  Hey friend, you are not the one who needs a defense, IMO-- You're just the end user caught up in the nonsense. Enjoy your new car as best you can, and just make decisions that make the most sense for you.
  
  There are electric cars built by corporate oligarchs that are not Nazis. More disconcerting you missed that memo.
- Egon Smells
  I dislike the guy as much as everyone else but i really wish this stupidist name bullshit would die.
  
  Shit like that annoys me as much as "tRump".
  I despise him, hope to never see him near DC again, and will be happy to see him found guilty. But when you say things like that it just makes you look stupid.
  "tRump" is just lazy.
  
  I respect your opinion and can see where you are coming from.
  However, fuck him.
  
  stupidist name
  Oh yeah? Felon musk!
  elon smuck!
  Noel Kums!
  
  You sound like fun.
- who knows what Egon Smells is cooking up
  Subscription for brakes is on the table
  
  I once had a car salesman try to talk me out of ABS because the one on the lot didn’t have it. He literally told me “ABS? You only need that in an emergency!”
  I replied with “I only need headlights at night and seatbelts in an accident but I want those, too.”
  I can totally see them charging extra monthly charges or even a charge every time you activate the ABS.
  
  Clippy says, "It appears as if you are trying to stop! Do you want help?"
- Why would anyone buy a Tesla? Fuck that
  
  I have a Tesla. It's great. I've received dozens of new features OTA. There are no subscriptions (except a very reasonable $10 for additional cellular connectivity, that I do not pay for). It's the best car I've ever owned.
  Also Fuck Elon 👍
  
  I can't imagine it's a Tesla or it wouldn't say anything about keeping the engine running.
  Either way, fuck all this bullshit. Every day I grow less and less likely to part with my old beast BUT the near doubled and still rising price of fuel will probably force my hand eventually.
  I just went on a touring holiday and fuel was easily the largest component of my budget.
  
  Come to Norway, and you'll see that overy other car is a Tesla. It's like a status symbol.
  
  Because they're phenomenal vehicles? And if you live in the US they have the only charging network you can actually rely on.
  I'm driving 600 miles today in mine. No problem.
- Unfortunately most modern cars are built this way.
  After extensive 6-months search of new car, I concluded that you have to compromise.
  I went with Nissan pathfinder and the software isn’t mature yet. Engine runs rough with misfires when idle. The car assembled with misaligned parts.
  Nissan knows and wouldn’t fix the issue.
- Yeah I hope Infiniti never updates their tech. They added it right before internet connectivity was easy, so it's still mostly unconnected but it still has the luxuries like phone connectivity.
  I'm going to cry if they get the new Nissan stack
- He is possible today to buy an electric car that is not connected to internet?
  I will have am to buy a new car soon and unfortunately I don't see too many options.

While I like driving. I hate all the shit modern car manufacturers put in modern cars. Sure they're more efficient on fuel than older ones. But we should be able to have that without needing the car to be tracked and data collected, we have in the past.
I feel like all these driver aids are also making people worse at driving. They need to do less, so they pay attention less.
On top of that, can we ban touchscreens in cars? Physical buttons give physical feed back, you can feel for the button you want and press it without taking your eyes off the road. A touchscreen gives you none of that, and means you have to look away. It's somewhat mitigated when they put buttons on the steering wheel, but not all buttons can fit in that spot.
Sure some cars have google assistant, Siri or Alexa. But I actually get so frustrated when trying to tell my phone to navigate somewhere or just simply change the song. And that's just the phone! The amount of times I have to pull over because it glitches out, or just fails to interpret some or all of what I've just said (sure it's better than voice assistants used to be, but it still breaks regularly) is still too high. The amount of times I regularly tell it to do something, only to find it was still processing the activation voice command, and therefore was initialising the VA screen, and not listening to a word I said after the initial activation is infuriating.
I love technology, but the technology has no place in cars if it detracts or distracts from the act and safety of actually driving the car.
/Rant.
- On top of that, can we ban touchscreens in cars? Physical buttons give physical feed back, you can feel for the button you want and press it without taking your eyes off the road. A touchscreen gives you none of that, and means you have to look away. It’s somewhat mitigated when they put buttons on the steering wheel, but not all buttons can fit in that spot.
  That's, a damn good point.
  
  Android Auto has a good interface for integrating its functions into a car touchscreen, but it's not controlling anything "important".
  I agree that all the traditional car controls should be actual knobs and buttons. I rented a car once and they gave me a Tesla, and I couldn't stand how all the controls were behind its touchscreen. I never felt the need to buy a Tesla, but that one experience turned me off from them entirely.
- A touchscreen gives you none of that, and means you have to look away
  That’s the reason why I don’t like listening to music on smart phones. Want to skip a track? Fish the phone out of your pocket, turn the screen back on, find the skip button, tap it, wait a second until the garbage app acknowledges that you’ve pressed it, turn off screen, put it back.
  While on my 2000’s phone it’s just pressing one of the physical buttons.
  
  Want to skip a track? Fish the phone out of your pocket, turn the screen back on, find the skip button, tap it, wait a second until the garbage app acknowledges that you’ve pressed it, turn off screen, put it back.
  I had a HTC Touch Pro smartphone 15 years ago, and it had an optional headphone cable with buttons on it. You could use the buttons for pause/play, next track, and previous track, without having to get the phone out of your pocket.
  I never really saw something like that again for wired headphones. I did sometimes see headphones with buttons on the headphones themselves, but often they just have play/pause.
- Bruh, get a 2019+ Miata MX5. It solves 95% of what you are complaining about and it's fun to drive.
  
  Nah, I don't have the budget for that, and here in Australia even an NB MX5 is over 10K- I'm actually currently looking at a 08' fiesta XR4 (in other parts of the world that's the 2L fiesta ST)
  
  I know what you're saying. My '23 Audi a3 has all the things you would want to buttons instead of touch screen only.
  I have huge gripes with bad infotainment systems, only reason I bought this new car was because I have no issues with it. I'm coming from old American cars. All the benefits of physical buttons with tactile feedback while being way more fun to drive.
- I agree. Let's cut the middle man and force 100% automated driving. People can fuck in the back then with less likely to die than with humans with stupid cars without assistance driver aids. Driving is extremely dangerous and honestly I trust ai over other people (in USA).
  
  Nah, I don't know if AI will ever be 100% perfect, and I don't want to trust it fully. Ai is human built, and it's my personal belief that humans aren't perfect, so AI will therefore never be perfect.
  Also, you will always want a qualified driver to be able to take over should some part of the car sensor systems fail.
  Sensors, unlike humans have a tendency to fail quickly, sometimes instantly, and even AI and autopilot can behave erratically if it gets bad or false inputs from bad sensors.
  It's like in a airliner, autopilot even though at this point is pretty much practically capable of flying a plane completely from takeoff to landing, there will always be at least pilots on duty in the cockpit in order to account for unforseen circumstances and failures, even if they never actually fly the plane normally.

Sometimes the updates aren't even worth it.
Toyota said my prius needed an update so I installed the app for it. All the update did was remove fucking features that were usable in the car. Used to have the option to use Pandora from the console but it got removed randomly by an update.
Then they installed an Alexa search page that glitches my console if I every select it.
Basically I'm saying FUCK TOYOTA
- For bonus anger.
  Amazon pays Toyota about $1 per vehicle that Alexa is installed on.
  So you made Toyota an extra dollar for your pain.
- My 2015 Subaru Impreza has a shitty entertainment system. At least it still connects via BT, but they removed the screen mirroring really early on and the app had ~1 star on Google Play for a long time (probably still does). Thankfully it's not integrated with the features of the car in any meaningful way. I could swap it for any other head unit. No sure how that will work with modern cars where the AC, lane departure, and everything else goes to the stereo.
  The real issue, as you point out, is there is nothing to force them to continue supporting it or maintain its features once us poor suckers have bought it.
  
  If it's anything like my MIL's 17' Forester, you flat can't replace the headunit without disabling a lot of car features. I believe the land departure/EyeSight still works, though.
- Sounds like getting the 2016 model of Prius was a good call on my part. Of course, it was 2019 when I did it and that model wasn't substantially different, but that sounds awful.
  
  Yeah 2017 model here :/
  Entune is the worst Toyota dashboard ever. It'll randomly crash and reload the dashboard while driving sometimes. (once or twice every 3 months)
- Granted not a software update but my dad's Cadillac got recalled once and all they did was make the ceiling buttons harder to read that was the one time he ever obayed a recall
  
  ceiling buttons harder to read
  How?! And also, why?! I don't get it. What was the point of doing this?
- Factory reset help?

I really REALLY hope someone at some point starts a gasoline to electric car conversion company at some point.
I love my car because it has just the right amount of technology: Bluetooth connectivity for calls and music. That's it. That's all I need.
- Yup. Unfortunately, since most people seem to prefer the dystopian futuretech, all auto manufacturers are going to employ it. Just like with cell phones. The last phone I know of with 16:9 aspect ratio and no blighted hole punch or notch was in 2018. There's a market full of us luddites who prefer the old ways, but we're invisible to manufacturers because it's more profitable to make something that more people want to buy, and we're forced to buy that garbage as well anyway.
  
  You forgot about the programmed obsolescence.
  
  There are some positives and negatives to the desire for old form factors. Secondhand phones from 2018 cost much less than new ones but lack some of the new features like… I can’t think of any.
  
  forced to buy
  the real mildlyinfuriating is always in the comments
- There was some discussion on a post about gas to electric cars https://lemmy.world/post/5901284
- There are likely a lot of complexities here.
  Battery tech will need to improve greatly and be minimalized. EV batteries are currently massive, heavy, and generally engineered as long, wide, flat modules to be installed beneath the floor so they keep the center of gravity low and the vehicle balanced. That's not really possible in an ICE vehicle with all the frame molding around existing exhaust and drivetrain components, and you most likely can't just have some sort of modular battery and motor unit that you just drop into the engine bay, as that would put a ton (literally) of additional weight on one end and mess with the balance.
  The draintrain components may need to be replaced or the motor outputs modulated to prevent the torque from ripping it apart.
  Power steering and brakes will need to converted to electric assist. AC and heat would need to converted to electric.
  Older cars (early 00's and older) with cable throttles will need to be retrofitted with drive-by-wire, or use some sort of adapter module that connects the cable and converts it to digital inputs. Same with brakes.
  All of the electronics (lights, wipers, windows, locks, radio, etc.) will need to be rewired since there's no longer an alternator.
  Probably will need upgraded suspension and brakes to handle the extra weight.
  There's probably a lot more I'm not thinking about or not even aware of. Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to happen outside of rich enthusiast circles, which is terribly sad, because I completely agree with you. Basically everything made after around 2010 is total dogshit.
  
  Aaawwww Man. I hate to admit it but you're absolutely right. It's so much work it might not even be worth it.
  
  Spaßbremse!
  /s
- the only tech i need in my car is an aux port. i will forever buy used cars from before 2010 but after around 2004ish?
- At some point, I'm sure they will, at some point.
  
  Nah. It's less profitable.
- I dont know the details, but Ive heard of companies that do this, or kits that can be used for it, existing, though I can only imagine that changing a car that one's business has not manufactured and was never designed for such a conversion must take a lot of manual work, which would be expensive before even considering things like the cost of batteries.
  
  Power train conversion is reasonably simple. Just throw combustion engine and transmission box away, make brackets for electric motors and attach them directly to the wheels (with axles if necessary). Conversion of controls is (I assume) is also somewhat simple since existing brake system and power steering is quite straightforward to run with electric motors since you just need something which can run a belt drive and gas pedal is most likely already electric. For all the electronics you have plenty of space in where the engine used to be.
  But. And there's a pretty big but. Batteries are pretty big and pretty heavy. On any given combustion engine car there's just no room for them (at least if you're after a conversion with similar range/power than a readily built electric car). And even if you cut the floor panel off and modify it to accomodate battery pack (or whatever the route you choose might be) it'll heavily affect weight distribution, frame stability and many other things, suspension included. Model S battery is apparently 540kg, so if you'll do a conversion to your corolla you might save around 150kg of weight by removing old engine+transmission but you'd still have additional 300kg of mass to deal with.
  For a van which is designed to haul heavy loads from the start it might be pretty simple to just raise floor of the cargo space a bit but for a common sedan that's a whole another thing.
  
  Swapping an engine is relatively easy if you know what you're doing.. If these kits can connect the electric motor to the existing drive train it wouldn't be too bad. Messing around with batteries big enough for an electric vehicle can be really dangerous though.
- Depends on what kind of car you have. I know for a fact there is a company doing this with classic mini coopers.
- I don't even use BT in mine and don't use the music system either. I stick to my phone. I just hope by the time I need to switch cars, I'll be able to jailbreak it without bricking.

You can't download a car, but you sure can brick it.

That's not even the tip of the iceberg.
- That was a very scary and dystopian read, but thank you!
- Honestly, I figured that they collected data. But I didn't think the extent of it would be stuff like my sex life and genetic data. How the hell do those work?
  
  They track you and then different kind of tools are trying to profile you based on your data. Similarly how ads work on the internet. Saying your car collect data of your sex life more like means they collect absolutely everything about you and then they run it through different software to profile you then sell all this data for extra profit. If you daily drive to a school they will assume you have a family and kids. If you go to a random apartment complex once a week after your kids went sleep they will assume you have a mistress. Its all based on location data and the stuff you enetered during registration.
  
  I’m guessing if you talk about that stuff in your car, it send that data home.
  
  Mozilla lied.
- Holy cow.
  And nobody can jailbreak and disable these "features"?

I LOVE HAVING CAR DEPENDENCY. I LOVE PAYING FOR LESS EFFICIENT TRANSPORT AND ALL OF MY OWN MAINTENANCE AND FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF HAVING MY DATA SOLD. I SPEND EVERY MOMENT NOT DRIVING WISHING I COULD BE BEHIND THE WHEEL AND DOING NOTHING ELSE BUT FOCUSING ON DRIVING WHILE ON MY WAY TO [CONSUME] AND MAKE DATA FOR [BRAND]. PLEASE, NO PUBLIC TRANSIT, I LIKE MY FREEDOM THANKS.
- Personally, as a non-car owning person, I love how I have to stick to the narrow patch of walkway next to roads where I get to inhale exhaust fumes whether I like it or not, have to stop and yield to oncoming traffic when looking to cross the road, and leave my life and personal safety in the hands of people I don't know and pray they pay attention and don't hit me.
  
  I hate it as a driver. I would love to walk or bike more, but I'm far enough from anywhere I want to go that it doesn't make any practical sense to. I strongly dislike driving everywhere, and I wish our pedestrian and bike infrastructure (and public transit) didn't suck so bad. I wouldn't mind using the bicycle gutter, if I had one, but I'd be very nervous to let my kids use it because I don't trust the magic paint strip.
  
  I drive a hybrid in rural areas, and I try to always flip the car into electric only mode when I see a cyclist coming up so they don't have to inhale my tailpipe. I'm sure it isn't much in the grand scheme, but I hope they at least breathe a little better.
  
  That's a problem of where you live
- Imagine being so braindead that "going for a drive" is a legitimate form of entertainment that you get excited about.
  
  I get the sentiment but have you ever driven a fun car on a beautiful night? Driving a topless Jeep through the twisty highway in the redwoods of Northern California or a Camaro through the wide open Nevada desert? High schoolers driving their bro dozer around town in circles, yeah, I get that.
  
  Other people don't enjoy the same things I do! Harrumph!
  
  Obviously you've never went for a good ole drive before
  
  I (maybe naively) believe a healthy society could find a way to build a robust public transport network and still accommodate the minority of enthusiasts who drive and work on cars for fun.
  Engineers aren't just dry husks of people, robotically creating solutions to meet needs. The drive to create cars, planes, and motorbikes, which have significant technical overlap with trains, buses, and mobility aids, is at least partially borne from the thrill of piloting machines that extend human capabilities.

"Please do not turn off the engine during installation"
Tell that to my empty gas tank.
- That’s the most ridiculous part to me. Why isn’t this able to continue off the car battery? It should be do not disconnect car battery if anything. I hope there’s some sort of fail safe to prevent it from bricking that doesn’t involve a factory reset or dealer visit.
  
  It's because they don't want the car battery running flat during installation. Kind of like how your phone requires a minimum battery charge to update
  
  I’m extremely curious what would happen if I just shut it down and left it as usual while it is updating but I’m not ready to test it out yet. Lol
- Haha now reinstall FordOS
- Well, if it's a new car, it might not use any battery from idling anyway. Still a stupid requirement though.

I'm kind of surprised that car technology is so awful. How the fuck am I paying $35k for a car and they're still like "lets run the UI off a potato via the least responsive touch screen possible"? At some point I'd rather they just gave up on providing a UX themselves and just ran everything through Android Auto.
- I don't mind having a UI for things like navigation or android auto. What gets me is why do things like climate control need to be buried in a UI? If my windscreen starts to steam up mid-jourmey, the last thing I need is to take my attention off the road to change the climate settings in the UI where dials and buttons will do the job much faster without needing to take my attention off the road.
  
  Yes! I hate having everything in the UI. I'd much prefer a physical control set for A/C and even basic volume control at least.
  You can't sense a flat touch screen, but we are really good at sensing knobs and switches. It's much safer for the driver to feel for a control rather than look at it.
  
  If my windscreen starts to steam up mid-jourmey, the last thing I need is to take my attention off the road to change the climate settings in the UI where dials and buttons will do the job much faster without needing to take my attention off the road.
  This is why ill never get rid of my 2009 Tacoma. Three knob AC controls are the pinnacle of UI engineering. One knob for fan speed, one for temp and the third for vent/airflow selection. The backlight on one of my knobs has burned out at this point, but i dont need it....Can adjust the AC without taking my eyes off the road.
  When it was ubiquitous, this meant i could do this in any car. Borrowed my inlaws FORD F-150 once, had to pull over to figure out how to turn off the goddam heat. It had BOTH a touchscreen and series of dash buttons but there were so many it was hard to figure out what did each thing while driving. I also had to update their dang infotainment, it wouldnt work on some random USB device, i had to go get a USB-A 3.0 device to get it to work at all and even then it was idling in my driveway for an hour and a half. Even tried just doing it via WiFi...nope
- This is the way

I'm waiting for the day we have linux cars
- It's not Linux, but there's an open source project available where you can build your own engine ECU with an Arduino https://hackaday.io/project/4413-speeduino
  
  I get it, but I don't feel comfortable putting my car in the hands of an Arduino.
  Nothing against the open source software at all. It's the fact that the Arduino is a consumer experimentation board, not an automotive rated component. I'm concerned for the reliability of the Arduino under the operating conditions of an automobile.
  
  Usually aftermarket ECU means no longer road legal.
- Well, Polestars run Android
  
  Android Automotive, not to be confused with the entirely separate and unrelated Android Auto.
- Pretty much every car is running Linux at this point.
  That doesn't mean it's open and non shitty.
- Tesla cars run on Linux, and have been doing for years https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/what-os-does-tesla-use
  
  Elon can go fuck himself tho
- I'd love to be able to swap the engine. Or better - build it myself 👀
  
  Or better - build it myself
  That's called a kit car.

They gotta get better collection systems of that sweet sweet sex you're having in your car
https://youtu.be/OYcmF9IAJbU?si=gS1v5LQQskrbpIdj
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://youtu.be/OYcmF9IAJbU?si=gS1v5LQQskrbpIdj
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  Fuck yeah good bot

I absolutely cannot stand Subaru's infotainment system. It's actually the primary reason I'll never get another one.
- I'm still driving a 2016 Mazda, so sorry if this is a dumb question, but with these new cars are the infotainment systems integral with the car's functioning?
  I've always thought of the head units as replaceable but seems like they are more integrated nowadays. Especially with EVs
  
  Pretty much yeah since rearview cameras are a legal requirement now
  Most vehicles will have these kind of screens
  
  I've got a 2013 Mazda 3 and it was very easy to replace the radio, but my understanding is that way more stuff goes through it in modern cars, especially if they have touchscreen controls for some things.
- Looking for a new car and have been looking at Subaru. So I'm genuinely interested in what specific thing bother you about the infotainment system.
  
  Got a 2023 Outback in February. The processing power is nowhere near what it needs to run smoothly. Once the car is started it is best to just not touch any buttons for the first several seconds to let it catch up. It is like dropping back two phone generators and watching it struggle to keep up with a newer OS. The transmission must run off a processor two generations further back because the time difference between my big ape foot stomping on the loud pedal and anything meaningful happening is measured in countable seconds.
  
  They are notoriously bad. And they don't get fixed. Got my Subaru and
  The radio defaults to SiriusXM every time I turn on the car, even though I do not pay for it and do not want to.
  Android Auto and Apple Car Play would cut out regularly
  Eventually the entire system would just randomly crash and reboot frequently throughout a trip.
  Found out there was a TSB out on the radio for frequent issues, and had to get it warrantied.
  Even with the new radio, I have occasional issues with Apple Car Play freezing
  I can't have both an android and iPhone connected at the same time, because I won't be able to use Android Auto, I'm forced into Car Play
  And on the new cars Subaru made the screen narrow and tall. This effectively reduced the amount of screen space for Android Auto/car play in comparison with prior years.
  Add to that the entire display is now needed for HVAC, heated seats, etc and do you really want to depend on a glitchy computer that frequently crashes?
  
  Others have already responded to you with many of the same complaints I was going to bring up so I'll just highlight a few things:
  First off, I have a 2019 Subaru Impreza so not the latest generation
  There used to be this issue where, upon turning the car on, you couldn't interact with the infotainment system for a good 10 seconds which includes volume adjustments. Let's say you had the volume set to 20 (max 35) when you last drove, well it's going to be blaring as soon as you start up the car again, but you won't be able to do anything about it for a good 10 seconds. Luckily this issue has gotten better (I believe with a firmware update from the dealership after I complained), but it's still not fixed completely.
  Recently I took my car in for work and they needed to keep it overnight, so they let me borrow a brand new 2024 Outback Touring. This was great cause I got to test a brand new car "for free," and what I learned is that they now put all HVAC stuff (seat warming, climate control, etc.) on this screen that has poor touch sensitivity. It's obnoxious. Also the system itself is only marginally better than my 5 year old car, which is to say it's still incredibly clunky and slow. They've made improvements, no doubt, but it's built from the same trash.

Where the FOSS cars at?
- Exactly. Just slap a few electric motors on those wheels and maybe an inflatable horse for the lulz and you're good to go.

I love my Subaru. But the infotainment system is awful. It's slow and unresponsive, it frequently takes a few minutes to warm up to even be usable, which means usually when you can use it you're already moving. It's absolutely impossible to do anything outside of the touch screen.
The car is great, but that computer is a piece of crap
- My mom has a ‘16 Subaru and the infotainment has been such a hassle. I had to constantly keep repairing her Bluetooth. It was so bad that my daughter, who has wanted a Subaru for years decided against one simply because of the infotainment.
  
  My ‘15 Mitzu (love her so much) also has a full shit infotainment system. It’s super slow, Bluetooth has a 1.5 second delay (try watching anything on your phone while waiting for someone with that delay!) and also constantly drops connection and re-pairs.
  I’ve got a BT-to-3.5mm jack BT adapter that connects INSTANTLY, sounds fantastic, and has NO DELAY.
  …the got dang car doesn’t have A 3.5MM JACK WHY THE FUCK
  
  It has sadly only gotten worse. Still not as bad as the Nissan I had, but it's pushing it
- My Subaru made me drop Android and buy an iPhone. I hate the phone, but the infotainment system works drastically better. Android Auto was hot garbage.
  
  Just out of curiosity, what android phone did you have before switching? I haven't hadany issues with Android Auto the few times I've used it in a rental car. My car is too old for it but it's going to be a variable in my next vehicle purchase which admittedly is very far away.
  
  Hooking your car up to a phone regardless, is for the weak.
- Yeah these infotainment systems are trash. I think the Subaru one is made by Denso. Like, Denso makes spark plugs and shit, stay in your line Denso! Thank fuck for Carplay/Android Auto.
  
  Yeah spark plug divisions and companies should be making spark plugs and M3 submachine gun aka the Grease gun.
- I cam confirm that the Subarus my inlaws have had over the last 5 years have the worst infotainment systems I have ever interacted with. Their current one keeps killing the battery. Not just draining, but actually damaging it. They have had a loaner from the dealer for the last 3 months.
  Love how it drives, but the electronics are annoying to use, slow, and way too distracting.

Why a car have to be connected to internet?
- so the manufacturer can connect to your personal info
- Featurrs
  
  Features make car go brrrrrrrrm
- At least on the Gen 5 Outbacks the only way to do updates are offline via usb. Gen 6 might let you do it over wifi, not sure for those.
  
  I have a Gen ?? Outback. It's a nice 2002 and I just replaced the stock stereo with a new Bluetooth one so it's dope. Running this thing until it dies.

Which car manufacturer ? So that I can avoid it.
- This looks like a Subaru. That being said, from what I've parsed, their privacy policy looks better than most. My 2021 hasn't had any obnoxious OTA updates. The worst it does is push easily dismissed service notifications. No secret codes on how to reset a light.
  
  How does this update even happen? Are owners connecting their car to internet?
  
  It is a Subaru. I know it has a radio in it but I don’t pay for the service. I actually don’t know if it’s using its own radio or the connection on my phone. I’ve had the car for most of the year and this is the first update I’ve seen. It took about 10-12 minutes. As I have no patience, sitting in my driveway waiting for it to finish drove me nuts, but for the most part it was painless. It’s definitely something I don’t want to have to get used to.
  
  We've had the ascent since 2019 and I have never seen it update. I figured it was doing it in the background swapping boot banks or something.
- All of them, soon enough. Light bulb companies realized a long time ago that selling quality products is a self-defeating game, you want either planned obsolescence, or sell a "service" through a permanent subscription model.
  
  We seriously need strict regulations to reign in this bullshit.
  Subscription anything needs be illegal unless it's an active service being provided.
  Screens should be flat out banned in cars. Fuck your infotainment and sale features, I don't care. If we agree that phones too dangerous to use while driving (and they are), then a having a fucking tablet glued to the dash is literally no different. Plus, we're still in a global chip shortage, we should be conserving them for more important things.
  Self driving features can fuck right off. It's absolutely mind-boggling how these systems are allowed on public roads with zero regulatory oversight.
  Most active safety features are bullshit workarounds for shitty design and engineering that create massive blindspots. They also create lazy, complacent drivers who become dependent on tech that subject to equipment and logic failures. Good visibility can't just suddenly stop working.
  Anything bigger than a sedan or station wagon should require a special license for industrial and ag use only. Fuck your compensation-mobiles, they're literally killing us in more ways than one.
  None of this will ever happen because we know who really owns our governments.
  Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
  
  Light bulb companies realized a long time ago that selling quality products is a self-defeating game
  Not really...

People keep saying new cars are shit but nobody wants to trade me their new car for my 2004 Toyota 😄
- That depends on what Toyota you're talking about lol.
- Wanna trade with my 1989 Toyota? 😄
- People keep trying to buy my 2002 Tacoma, I get notes on my windshield constantly. Often offers for like 80% of what I originally paid for it. It's insane for a 20 year old car with 300k miles on it.
- Well yeah... they love buying new stuff every few years and that Toyota will probably bury you and your offspring before it needs an oil change.

Sometimes you can just tell something sucks without even using it... All you need to know comes from looking at the fonts and button designs. What car is this?
- 2023 Subaru Legacy
  
  Know what I'm not getting for my next car 😂

~~New~~ cars are ~~great~~ a cancer on society
There, FTFY
- While the need for cars is cancerous I wouldnt blame it on the tech, cars are fun. The problem is lots of companies realized they could make lots of money and fucked us over starting about a hundred years ago, atleast here in the US.

And this is why the end user should be able to jaikbreak cars. Has anyone made an open source software for cars anyways?
- Yes, absolutely. I do not, however, like the idea of "Pay us $1M or we disable your brakes on the highway" kind of ransomware attacks.
  
  Is your point that you're more likely to experience security vulnerabilities when using FOSS? Cause past a certain point of development that's not generally the case.

Oh man, i've never been able to get over the: "i really want to play a game now that i have 30 minutes to spare and some energy left" ah fuck, 60gb update...fine i'm off to bed then.
Can't imagine what i would do if a car update would come with the worst possible timing like having to take your partner to the hospital for an emergency.
- My Charger's Irratainment system decided to update during traffic in Dallas rush hour (I don't live there) and it took my navigation with me until I could regoogle my phone enough to use that.

Why the fuck would the engine be on?
- To ensure that the update process finishes without interruption due to weak battery - if that happens it can brick your car. Tbf you can also just connect the battery to a power source and keep the engine off. Depending on update and car updates that take a few hours are not unheard of
  
  This is such extremely poor engineering that it throws me into a rage. There is nothing to prevent them from installing the update in the background progressively while driving and then just switching to the new version in one swift atomic operation (like changing the name of a directory) when it's ready
  
  a few hours!?
- Because oil companies pay them to keep it running sarcasm

This is so backwards from my ID.3. When I get an OTA update, we get a message and have to deliberately update it, but it wont start until we’re out of the car and it’s locked.

My car is the same. I want to install a map update in my Ford, but it's 22GB and according to the manual it'll take 1-2 hours.
- Why tf would a map update be 22GB? What is it, a CP2077 patch / DLC?
  
  Map of world, and world's language packs so you can use voice instructions in any language.
- Is there no option to download it on a PC and use a flash drive to install to the vehicle? Or are they saying install time is 1-2 hours because the hardware is that bad?
  
  That's what I am doing. It'll take 1-2 hours with engine running to unpack and install the data from a USB drive.
- If I want to update the map in a 2016 Toyota, I have to pay the dealership about $200 to do so.
- Ouch, I doubt anyone would he looking forward to babysitting their idling car for 2 hours, just to install a navigation update 😭
  Older vehicles and standalone GPSes allowed people to just order a physical pre-loaded SD card, insert it into the appropriate slot, and that's your maps sorted with no idling or babysitting.
  While it's nice that there's no longer the excess physical electronic waste with the SD cards, I find it hard to see the cloud alternative as an improvement
  
  Nah, go on a road trip.
- Better upgrade to SSD

Those shiny reflective screens are terrible.
- There are like $5 matt screen protectors that help with this. Annoying that it's not applied in factory.

I 100% refuse to buy a car unless there's a jailbrake option. I don't want to get an update while I'm trying to get to work
- But its just 20min to update bro. Any you will get all the juicy spyware and tracking.
- I have a 2004 F-150 and a 2002 Mitsubishi Spyder. Think I'll just hang on to those.
  
  Depending on the country you might not be able to do that. In some countries you have strict emission guidelines where cars older than 5 years need to be certified that they output emission below a certain threshold. It's good for the environment, but if you live in a place that has shit public transportation it can force you to get new cars and spend much more than required to have a car that suits your needs.
  
  You should be ok with up to 2018 models
- You wouldn't brick a car...
- Same, which is why all* my cars are 15+ years old and I have no real plans to replace any of them, except possibly with different similarly-old ones.
  I own too many cars.
  
  I have one car, it's 20 years old and I've had it since 2009. Sometimes I look around and think, maybe it's time to get one not covered in scratches with a dent in the back? But then I see posts like this and feel incredibly grateful this little banger has kept me on the road for so long.

Nah, I'm jailbreaking my car if I get one that does this shit. I forced Windows to fuck off with their updates and I damn sure can tell my car manufacturer the same.

You're lucky that can be done remotely now and no longer requires a trip to the dealership.
- You say that. But really, if there was no OTA capability, (including on star,) then there would be no need for frequent updates.
  And there’s certainly no call for disabling the vehicle during an update.
  
  That completely depends on what's updating, and I haven't seen software updates as frequent occurrences. The frequency may be something I'm missing, of course.
- https://youtu.be/Tjpby8jt7jY?feature=shared
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://youtu.be/Tjpby8jt7jY?feature=shared
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

The heck is the car running? Windows?
- Disappointment. It's running disappointment.
  
  Corporate needs you to find the difference between these two pictures...
  
  Sadly, this is the correct answer.

WTF,
I don't care if it's just the infotainment system.
Engine (prime mover) should be off for any update on any vehicle.
- I'm just wondering why you felt the need to include "(prime mover)"
  Did you just like typing it?
  
  To be fair it’s a pretty cool way to describe an engine
  
  Because it's a main source of active power that can be re-directed.
  A battery on an EV can be too, in which case the main contactor should be verified disconnected prior to any software update. But typically people don't refer to that as the 'engine'.
  So prime mover encompasses engines and main batteries.
- Agreed, it’s a waste environmentally, on my pocket book, waste of time (do you have to babysit this thing while it’s updating?) and is unnecessary wear and tear on the engine.
  The electrics stay on on my car when you turn the engine off, until you open the door. I don’t see why that behavior can’t be overridden until the update is done, and then turn itself off.
  
  It's a safety issue.
  Crazy inexplicable things can happen when modern cars have electrical control access to brakes/steering/throttle.
  Firmware doesn't take right, download message emulates by accident another message, random bit flipping that even CRC checks miss.
  There's no reason to risk any of that. Just shut the engine off.

and that's why I dont want to buy a modern car (2010+)
too much going on. old cars are so much simpler. what's the ac set to? cold. Bluetooth? cables are so much more reliable
- New cars have all sorts of privacy issues too. I think it was the Mozilla foundation that released a report recently that claimed every single modern electric car harvests as much data as they can about their users and sells it.
- I have a 2017 Nissan versa and it's like a fleet trim or something. No power anything (locks or windows) no computer touch screen system, not even a chipped key! Manual transmission and gets almost 40mpg. What you want is out there, it's just hard to find because the car manufacturers won't make as much margin on them.
- my 02 model has automated climate controls and I'll be damned if I would ever go back to a manual dial

Honestly, they stopped making good cars after 2005.
- 2008 Mazda 2 still slaps
  
  I will give you that. After 2010, it's basically money sink vehicles with a terrible computer inside. Toyota still the best tho.
- Kinda true but I'm in love with my parents Dacia Lodgy of 2013. It's cheap and does the job (moving me and from A to B) while maintaining very low fuel consumption.
- I think VW Touran and Golf are still pretty consistent
  
  The new golfs and pretty much all new vws went full iPhone on wheels
  
  Vw's are good leases, I would never own one. Stupid expensive to maintain and are very fragile.
  
  yeah i've heard those are the best models but from what i've read VW has some of the highest costs for maintenance among non-'luxury' cars

While it may never be a reality, just imagine this: open source cars. The world would be a better place.

This is interesting. My Hyundai when it gets software updates (usually just updating the built in GPS) tells me the update can continue even when the car is off. Didn’t realize not all new cars could do that.

That's Soo stupid. That's why I buy old cars
- 10 years from now you might not be able to avoid it.

Very nice temperature though
- Yeah. I was in my driveway about to get out of the car but…

Don't tell me what I cannot do

First world problems

Shit car? My Hyundai Palisade lets me start the update and turn off the car and walk away for the ~1 hour update.
- The what now? What the hell takes an hour to update on a car?
  
  Uploading all of your collected data to the cloud
  
  27gb of files on an external HDD plugged into the USB port; Due to the slowness of an external HDD, all my 32gb+ flash drives are being used and don't care about the wait time if I don't need to sit there and babysit it. My car is never connected to WiFi. Not worried about collected data.

sorry to say this get yourself a classic car benefits : low tax, or none, low insurance, you can have good times fixing the car, it is not losing money every day, it makes money, carbon pollution on a car from 66, cars made with passion negatives, getting parts is becoming easy with 3D printing, engines are easy to fix, a bit more expensive to buy
- That's a whole lot of untrue
- Nah man, just buy a solar wind powered land windsurf board. Take it to the train that doesn't exist.
  
  https://newfastuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/fxy2rtr1ec651.png

This is why I refuse to buy anything too far from 2010 or earlier

To be clear - they've been doing this for years, but you used to have to take your car into a dealership for THEM to apply a patch, this is actually MUCH EASIER.
- What if you just never connect it to the net?
  
  I dunno, man

And this entire post is why i will never own a car in my life, miserable pieces of junk that you pay thousands and thousands for so they can spy on you and make your life worse.
Mopeds are just better in every way that matters, if i need to travel further than that i'll take the train.
- Buy an old car idiot.
  
  Still thousands of dollars…
  Edit: yeah you downvote me. Whatever makes you feel better pal lol
  
  Even better, buy an old car then convert it to an EV.
  (☞ ͡$ ͜ʖ ͡$)☞
- Mopeds rock!
- That works great abroad not in US of A. You'd get run over and killed on principle. That only if you manage to find a place where to buy a moped.
  And trains? Those were made for commodities! We don't sell tickets to people anymore!
  
  God if I want to catch a train I have to be in Cincinnati in the middle of the night of either Tuesday or Thursday depending on which way I'm going. Also not exactly moped range for me to get to Cincinnati.
- Found the European

Thank god I will never be able to justify paying more than 8k on any car I will ever own in my life, you rich removed can keep your fancy 50k 30 year morgage at 18% interest ass smart cars that need 2k in maintenance the second it leaves the dealers lot. I hate being dinged to death to wear a seatbelt and consider it harassment and an invasion of my agency, let alone this BS lol
- But... you should really wear a seatbelt. Actually, haven't cars been giving users seatbelt alarms for like... over 30 years now? It's a strange hill to die on, friend.
  
  Oh absolutely I buckle up pretty much every time. But if I want to take the car 2 minutes down the road and I deem it an acceptable level of risk to not bother with the belt, I shouldn't be harassed to do so by my own machine. You boss around your tools, not the other way around. A little light on the dash should be enough, its not like I don't know what im doing. Also our countries regulations on that may be different most cars from the early to mid 2000s here don't ding you to death. If it indangers other peoples health and safety sure but me not wearing a seatbelt isn't hurting anyone but potentially myself, if I end up crashing through the windshield and splattering on the asphalt thats the consequences of my own very stupid) decicion.

This might be "unpopular opinion" territory - but I kinda like that my car is better now than it was when I bought it. 🙃
(Due to over the air updates.)
- Same as with computer games - stop releasing half-finished crap. You cede ownership and/or use of your car when they control functionality.
- Depends on your definition of "better".
  Lots of OTA updates remove features only to replace tem with something less user friendly.
- I'm sure the manufacturers love all the new data they can collect on you every update
- You might want to be a bit quiet about that they might find out they accidentally made a good car with consumer friendly updates
- I do agree it's nice that a car can get better over time and fixes for issues over updates but just like other tech this will bring problems with long term support and features being removed/ pay walled by greedy manufacturers.
  
  If it can get better it can also get worse

New cars ARE great. I went from half screen Android Auto to full screen when it was released. It's a 30 second update. I know, the end of the world shit.
- Well, this one took 10+ minutes.
  
  What car model was this?
  
  Buy a 90s shit bucket if you don't want a nice infotainment, I guess. Modern software needs updates. I've never sat more than a few seconds. They are rare updates, I've got 3 in 3 years.

Engine? Lol. There is literally no reason to buy a car with an engine at this point. Fucking moron
- I love my EV. There are still reasons to have an ICE car (not knowing what OP has, but generally speaking) and frankly, comments like yours are not going to convert anyone
- They had to simplify it for the end user

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