Yeah. Looks to me that it's on a similar boat with the Yugo, but it probably makes the Yugo look like a masterpiece in comparison. AFAIK, the Yugo was successful in its markets, the Nano was not. Ouch. I know some variants of its lacked even the most basic features. Like for example, the car is rear engined, but it didn't have a rear hatch, so you'd have to access the engine from inside the car. Who does that? AFAIK, this glaring problem wasn't fixed until 2015, but even then that's still ridiculous, because the car had already been in production for 7 years, it should've had a rear hatch from the start. At least the Yugo always had a hood that can open. Imagine if it didn't even have that. Also AFAIK, no variant of this car has airbags, which makes me wonder how it passed safety tests. While I think not all Yugos had airbags, some did. Honestly, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the Yugo sounds like a much better car than the Nano, at least with what limited information I have on the two. And I don't know why, but something about its design makes me think of Toyotas and Mitsubishis, like how the first gen Ssangyong Rodius makes me think of Mercedes-Benz.
Here's the Tesla Cybertruck design language applied to the Roadster, the Model S, a compact crossover and a compact hatchback.
I swear vehicle infotainment systems are the way I'm going to die. Every single member of my family is incapable of driving a car if it has an infotainment system, it's like they are physcally incapable of keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel if the car has anything to play with at all. At least without infotainment system's they less to distract themselves with and they'll get bored enough to watch where they are driving. Why is it so difficult for car companies to lock these things while the car is in motion? Is it really that hard?
I think they all look very nice. The first one is my favorite. I like the fourth one too. Here's what I'm thinking. How many drivers in the world actually does what your family members are doing? Are the statistics high or low? I know there are a lot of drivers that are distracted by their phones, but how many drivers are there that are distracted by the car's infotainment system? My guess as to why manufacturers haven't integrated a system that locks the infotainment system while the car is in motion, is because there isn't all that much data and such to support it, so they don't see it as that big of a deal. If it becomes extremely apparent that people are being distracted by the infotainment system, and its becoming a big problem, then my guess is that the manufacturers will start working toward putting in a locking system like that. And what about this, does the infotainment systems in new cars do away with physical radio units? If that is the case, if the infotainment system locked itself while the car is moving, how would the driver and/or passenger(s) utilize the radio? Would it lock up too? Would any buttons that control the radio still work? For example, buttons on the steering wheel. I could be dead wrong though. If I am wrong, then I'll edit what I said here away. I ask that what I say here to be taken with a pinch of salt, because my experience with new cars are extremely minimal.
Well my family is a small sample size, but knowing how big distracted driving is I imagine it's fairly representative. It's not like better infotainment system lockouts are that difficult either, since "better" just means "anything" for most manufacturers. Manufactuers should be doing their part to improve saftey without big petitions/mandates/lawsuits/etc, especially for something so simple. As for radios, most cars I've been in have buttons on the back of the wheel to control the important stuff without taking your eyes/hands off of where they should be. There's no reason to design a radio/climate control/etc... that so much as allows, let alone forces, you to look through a clunky UI menu and touchscreen to do everything. Who is it, Porsche?, that forces you to do some horrible distracting major infotainment system procedure for any little climate system change now? It is well beyond idiotic and dangerous. I keep saying we are living in the worst time for car technology. Nearly every car has distracting tech but only the high end ones have the really good saftey stuffs. It seems like a lot of that is quickly trickling down at least. HUDs, Kia's camera blind spot monitor, systems that yell at you for irresponsible driving, etc... Just compare my 2005 Jeep to some of the 2020 model year cars in my family. All of them have dual zone climate with heated seats, yet for both radio and climate control my car is the only one that you can easily operate that stuff without taking your eyes/hands off the road/wheel for an excessive amount of time. Of corse when my dad is in the passenger seat of my Jeep he complains that dual zone climate is stupid while putting my car into first gear on the highway, but that's another rant. Some people need to be banned from cars...
That is a good point. Part of the reason I asked is because I don't think I've ever heard of distracted driving caused by the infotainment system, only by things like cell phones, so hearing about your family is possibly the first time I've heard of the infotainment system serving as a distraction for the driver. And I know that the Buick Rendezvous in particular has buttons on the front of the steering wheel that controls the radio. I do assume that it's not the only vehicle that does this. Can I ask for examples that reinforce why you believe that?
*My phone does not want to coperate enough to trim that quote* Cars currently have a lot of gadgets to mess with. Infotainment systems are virtually standard. Refer to earlier rant for my problems with that. Once upon a time when cars were simpler, there wasn't really much to mess with compared to today. If you wanted to distract yourself, you had to actively pull out your phone. Now there's a giant screen constantly infront of you lighting up with whatever on it. It's like dangling a drink infront of an alcoholic for much of today's population. A lot of these infotainment systems are a bit clunky to use, making it that much worse. Then you have companies putting primary radio/climate controls in them, and so on. Current standard saftey features like blindspot monitors and back up camera's are a concern too. As I've mentioned before, many people think they replace your own senses instead of supplement them. A lot of people think backup camera's have a much larger FOV, blind spot monitors tell them if a car is coming quickly from behind, etc... And how often do most people back up fast enough to damage something anyway? The FOV is often too small to help with any pedestrian's unless they are immediately behind you too. Don't get me wrong, I think they are all helpful when the driver is responsible enough to use them properly. But most drivers are not responsible. Compare that to high end cars. HUD systems can tell you what's important without even taking your eye's down to gauge cluster level. 360° camera's tell you so much more info than a standard backup camera. Kia's blind spot camera's are just all around great and I wish they were mandatory. Autopilot, systems that know when you take your eyes off the road, etc... are all limited to high end cars too. Automatic braking, automatic parking, and lane keep assist are currently trickling down. To my knowledge some companies have that down better than others currently, but at least other brands are getting them. TLDR: Virtually every car has more distractions or saftey features that people misuse or are overly reliant on, but only the high end cars have the truely good saftey features that can save a typical driver in typical driving from a crash. At least that stuff is trickling down fairly quick. Seeing the way my family drives, taking away their license is probably the only truely safe option though.
Tesla is the worst offender when it comes to infotainment screens. You need to tap a button the screen to even just open the glovebox. For example, if you put your phone in the glovebox and the infotainment screen breaks, you're SOL.
Oof. I do wonder, why can't there also be something physical that can open the glovebox? In case something like that happens? I don't think I'd need to be worried about that happening to me, because I don't keep my phone in the glovebox. I'd have it laying on whatever you call that divider thing in between the seats.
Got my hands on one of these the other day. Redesigned 2020 Toyota Highlander. First one I've seen in person, and I got to drive it. I love that. I quite like Highlanders, especially these new ones. The interior is nice and comfortable, and they drive good. Standard V6 power. I can go either way on the exterior styling. Tossed it through some turns and it is unsurprisingly very prone to understeer, but theres plenty of torque on tap to pull it through corners. I like as well that Toyota has retained the 8 speed transmission. It is relatively responsive and shifts nicely. I noticed an occasional popping sound coming from the rear suspension mostly during tight, low speed turns. Seemed like a production defect. A clip was also missing from a cover in the cargo area, allowing it to rattle around some. Perhaps Toyota is having some quality issues on the early builds.
Speaking of Tesla... Imma just leave this here. https://jalopnik.com/tesla-remotely...es-from-customer-1841472617?rev=1580941196331
This is what I really don’t like about Tesla. It’s a car company run like a Silicon Valley tech company, and this is a great example of that. This exactly the kind of thing tech companies do. I sure hope they haven’t implemented planned obsolescence in any of their cars.
Most of what you just described as "truly good safety features" are dangerously misprogrammed driver-interference devices/cybersecurity risks made to bandage inattentive or just plain bad driving, or in the case of parking assist to automate yet another operation so that people don't have to actually learn how to do it. This is scary for more reasons than one, considering that some ICE-powered cars are also capable of receiving OTA firmware updates. Not only is it a cybersecurity risk, but how long do you think it will take for everyone's mother the government to notice this and decide that it should be required for all new cars, and/or that cars with this capability should have their ECUs remotely reflashed to keep up (even at a significant loss of performance or functionality) with new regulations that were not in force when the car was built? Furthermore, how many so-called "car enthusiasts" would enthusiastically support this plan as long as it came with the proper signal words ("climate change", "safety", etc.) attached, or there was some assurance that performance models would have a GPS tracker that notices when you're at a racetrack and restores the original performance?
Yes. That is the point. I usually would advocate for privacy and right to repair and all for the sake of protecting autonomy, but my aunt's abysmal driving is one hell of a counter argument. She certainly does not care about her own personal autonomy, couldn't change a light bulb with an instruction manual, and public roads would be much safer without her on them. Sure she is not representative of 100% of the population, but she is representative of enough of the population that something needs to be done. Just look up any highway safety statistics if you don't believe me there. As for parking tools. Sure it's not difficult to learn how to park, but look at how much space some of the more advanced auto-parking features can save. Now look at how awful it is to find parking in a city. Need I say more?
