Not surprising to see the WSJ skipping the surveillance angle entirely. Aside from classic sport cars and to a lesser extent manual transmissions, I've never even heard about someone preferring old models until surveillance started rolling in.
I wish the US or EU mandated the separation of "basic driving OS" and "surveillance/infotainment/everything else OS" with the requirement that the vehicle be operable with the latter disconnected completely. It would let you avoid costly repairs when the massively overpriced spy-tablet breaks down on an old car. It would incidentally make everyone safer by not having people drive 30-year old jalopies just because they're not mobile spy stations.
I recently got a new car, and my last one was 24 years old. It had a tape deck.
All these "convenience" features are annoying as hell. It reminds me of the old days of pop-up ads and no ad-blockers. There's random beeping and a dialog box pops up to distract me from the road, filled with indecipherable text and abbreviations. Even when you turn off the car it makes a bunch of random noise, either about "safe exit assist disabled" or "rear seat reminder".
Once in a Tesla, I clicked on one of the pop up dialogs. After five seconds of loading, it opened up the user manual, blocking out the entire navigation pane.
Even when you know exactly how the safety features work, they block your UI with a dialog that says "be careful" every time you enable them.
I spent the first month turning on and off various settings to get the car to actually help me instead of distract me.
I will say I think adaptive cruise control is great and CarPlay is preferable to a small phone screen that tempts you to review your notifications.
This is why I drive a nearly 30-year-old vehicle. Big, easy-to-use knobs and buttons, no screens, little automation of any kind. I find that slapping my iPhone into a magnetic holder on the dash is far more seamless than CarPlay integration, which sometimes fails to work or fritzes out randomly.
The mandated addition of screens to vehicles sold in the US, which happened around 2008 by administrative fiat (for use by backup cameras), was the death knell for simple mechanical human-automotive interfaces.
A good friend of mine (we'll call him G) worked at an auto body shop. An older client came in and was bitching about how his brand new Mazda (IIRC) kept freaking out when he changed lanes, and asked G if he could disable the lane departure warnings. G showed him how and said, BTW, these are supposed to be a backup for if you fall asleep - they don't go off if you use your blinker.
Dude bro politely asked G to turn the lane departure warning back on.
I don't know if it was a Mazda, one of my main complaints with my new Mazda is that the lane keeping isn't aggressive enough (outside of highway exits if you don't signal, where it will try to pull you away from the exit). Never had it freak out from a normal lane change.
> Even as the price of a new car soars—now hovering around $50,000—automakers argue buyers are getting more bang for their buck, including more safety and entertainment tech features.
> For many buyers, that’s exactly the problem.
Finding it hard to believe that for "many buyers" safety features are "exactly the problem".
I've seen enough complaints about features like automatic emergency braking to be quite scared—not of the tech features, but of the drivers who are so overconfident that they are unwilling to accept any false positives from a safety feature and would rather endanger others by eschewing those features entirely.
I live in rural England where the road network is medieval, lane markings represent the opinion of someone who’s never driven a car and getting personal with a hedge is just part of letting an oncoming combine harvester pass. These anti-collision systems cause accidents under these conditions, but the manufacturers don’t accept liability, so they can go and fuck themselves.
I’m sure they work fine in laboratory conditions, but that’s not my use case.
Some of those safety features, I believe, are a hindrance to safe driving.
Example one: I drove a rental car that had a feature where the side mirrors would blink yellow when a car was in my "blind spot"; but that's very distracting, and I arrange my mirrors to minimize my blind spot to zero. I do not want this feature.
Example two: lane assist. The car's steering wheel would gently nudge me back into the lane when it thinks I'm leaving the lane. Except where I drive, there's a lot of road construction, so sometimes the lane markers don't actually indicate the actual lanes - sometimes there's new lanes painted over the old, without removing the old ones, and sometimes not. So I'm happily driving along through a construction zone, and suddenly my steering wheel decides that I need to GO RIGHT.
Things like emergency brakes when I'm backing up and the car thinks a bush branch is a child are annoying, but ultimately probably a net good, along with the "vehicle ahead has moved" beep. The "BEEP BEEP BEEP OBJECT AHEAD" is objectively good.
This may not be the type of hot take that generates clicks, but I agree with you think we'll eventually settle on a collection that actually work. The 2017 Subaru I drive from time to time initiates emergency braking about half the time I back out of the driveway; not due to to cross traffic, but the driveway is pretty slanted and it thinks I'm in imminent danger of colliding with... the road. But the concept of emergency braking is a good one, overall.
Lane assist, as you mention, is one of those that I'm sure works perfectly on the manufacturer's track in testing. No construction, no exits, no problem! The first Hyundai I drove with lane keeping would "keep" me in my lane... right off the next exit on the freeway. I still think in places like Puerto Rico, with twisty, inconsistently maintained roads, that lane keeping is a hazard (there's a reason everyone drives straight down the middle until reaching an oncoming car). But the vehicles I've driven lately do a pretty good job even though they complain more than I'd like when entering or exiting a merge.
Just like physical buttons are making a comeback (not everywhere, have you seen the new all-screen Mercedes EV?) the safety features will settle down into a happy medium eventually.
I used to avoid all the new features and stuff, but then I wanted an EV. Picked up an Ioniq 6, which still has many physical buttons and such, but boy was I missing out on a lot of QoL and safety features keeping an old car for so long!
I'm waiting for humanoid robots that can drive old school cars. Also, I expected a discussion in the article about EU's newest policies that are relevant for this topic. They are requiring that all new vehicles monitor the driver.
In my personal opinion, I find that the newest car technologies are rife with abuse and fraud already. One of my newest cars can connect to my home WiFi and I started getting more targeted ads based on where I drove to. It's not a feature, it's a bug.
Not surprising to see the WSJ skipping the surveillance angle entirely. Aside from classic sport cars and to a lesser extent manual transmissions, I've never even heard about someone preferring old models until surveillance started rolling in.
I wish the US or EU mandated the separation of "basic driving OS" and "surveillance/infotainment/everything else OS" with the requirement that the vehicle be operable with the latter disconnected completely. It would let you avoid costly repairs when the massively overpriced spy-tablet breaks down on an old car. It would incidentally make everyone safer by not having people drive 30-year old jalopies just because they're not mobile spy stations.
Do you like the new European law that all cars have to have a camera looking at a driver's face and beep if it "thinks" you are not paying attention?
It's a new mandated feature.
I recently got a new car, and my last one was 24 years old. It had a tape deck.
All these "convenience" features are annoying as hell. It reminds me of the old days of pop-up ads and no ad-blockers. There's random beeping and a dialog box pops up to distract me from the road, filled with indecipherable text and abbreviations. Even when you turn off the car it makes a bunch of random noise, either about "safe exit assist disabled" or "rear seat reminder".
Once in a Tesla, I clicked on one of the pop up dialogs. After five seconds of loading, it opened up the user manual, blocking out the entire navigation pane.
Even when you know exactly how the safety features work, they block your UI with a dialog that says "be careful" every time you enable them.
I spent the first month turning on and off various settings to get the car to actually help me instead of distract me.
I will say I think adaptive cruise control is great and CarPlay is preferable to a small phone screen that tempts you to review your notifications.
Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/cars/driver-assistance-technol...
This is why I drive a nearly 30-year-old vehicle. Big, easy-to-use knobs and buttons, no screens, little automation of any kind. I find that slapping my iPhone into a magnetic holder on the dash is far more seamless than CarPlay integration, which sometimes fails to work or fritzes out randomly.
The mandated addition of screens to vehicles sold in the US, which happened around 2008 by administrative fiat (for use by backup cameras), was the death knell for simple mechanical human-automotive interfaces.
watching car repair stuff- it's more EPA requirements. an electronic thermostat and fan clutch on an econobox?
A good friend of mine (we'll call him G) worked at an auto body shop. An older client came in and was bitching about how his brand new Mazda (IIRC) kept freaking out when he changed lanes, and asked G if he could disable the lane departure warnings. G showed him how and said, BTW, these are supposed to be a backup for if you fall asleep - they don't go off if you use your blinker.
Dude bro politely asked G to turn the lane departure warning back on.
I don't know if it was a Mazda, one of my main complaints with my new Mazda is that the lane keeping isn't aggressive enough (outside of highway exits if you don't signal, where it will try to pull you away from the exit). Never had it freak out from a normal lane change.
Sounds like you're confusing Mazda and BMW /s
Great subject. Too bad about the content:
> Even as the price of a new car soars—now hovering around $50,000—automakers argue buyers are getting more bang for their buck, including more safety and entertainment tech features.
> For many buyers, that’s exactly the problem.
Finding it hard to believe that for "many buyers" safety features are "exactly the problem".
I've seen enough complaints about features like automatic emergency braking to be quite scared—not of the tech features, but of the drivers who are so overconfident that they are unwilling to accept any false positives from a safety feature and would rather endanger others by eschewing those features entirely.
I live in rural England where the road network is medieval, lane markings represent the opinion of someone who’s never driven a car and getting personal with a hedge is just part of letting an oncoming combine harvester pass. These anti-collision systems cause accidents under these conditions, but the manufacturers don’t accept liability, so they can go and fuck themselves.
I’m sure they work fine in laboratory conditions, but that’s not my use case.
Some of those safety features, I believe, are a hindrance to safe driving.
Example one: I drove a rental car that had a feature where the side mirrors would blink yellow when a car was in my "blind spot"; but that's very distracting, and I arrange my mirrors to minimize my blind spot to zero. I do not want this feature.
Example two: lane assist. The car's steering wheel would gently nudge me back into the lane when it thinks I'm leaving the lane. Except where I drive, there's a lot of road construction, so sometimes the lane markers don't actually indicate the actual lanes - sometimes there's new lanes painted over the old, without removing the old ones, and sometimes not. So I'm happily driving along through a construction zone, and suddenly my steering wheel decides that I need to GO RIGHT.
Things like emergency brakes when I'm backing up and the car thinks a bush branch is a child are annoying, but ultimately probably a net good, along with the "vehicle ahead has moved" beep. The "BEEP BEEP BEEP OBJECT AHEAD" is objectively good.
This may not be the type of hot take that generates clicks, but I agree with you think we'll eventually settle on a collection that actually work. The 2017 Subaru I drive from time to time initiates emergency braking about half the time I back out of the driveway; not due to to cross traffic, but the driveway is pretty slanted and it thinks I'm in imminent danger of colliding with... the road. But the concept of emergency braking is a good one, overall.
Lane assist, as you mention, is one of those that I'm sure works perfectly on the manufacturer's track in testing. No construction, no exits, no problem! The first Hyundai I drove with lane keeping would "keep" me in my lane... right off the next exit on the freeway. I still think in places like Puerto Rico, with twisty, inconsistently maintained roads, that lane keeping is a hazard (there's a reason everyone drives straight down the middle until reaching an oncoming car). But the vehicles I've driven lately do a pretty good job even though they complain more than I'd like when entering or exiting a merge.
Just like physical buttons are making a comeback (not everywhere, have you seen the new all-screen Mercedes EV?) the safety features will settle down into a happy medium eventually.
Those safety measures are mandatory so you don't have a choice.
You know in Aircrash investigation when the autopilot starts yelling "too low terrain"? That's lane assist.
I recently got a newish car 2022 and I like all the features. Way better than my 2008.
I used to avoid all the new features and stuff, but then I wanted an EV. Picked up an Ioniq 6, which still has many physical buttons and such, but boy was I missing out on a lot of QoL and safety features keeping an old car for so long!
I'm waiting for humanoid robots that can drive old school cars. Also, I expected a discussion in the article about EU's newest policies that are relevant for this topic. They are requiring that all new vehicles monitor the driver.
https://cybernews.com/security/eu-car-camera-monitoring/
In my personal opinion, I find that the newest car technologies are rife with abuse and fraud already. One of my newest cars can connect to my home WiFi and I started getting more targeted ads based on where I drove to. It's not a feature, it's a bug.
The driver surveillance is coming to the US too: https://www.gadgetreview.com/federal-surveillance-tech-becom...
>"Your alternative is to have products in 2026 that don't have state-of-the-art technology."
Unthinkable.