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Cars should just come with a big open socket up front, where I can buy (or build) my own infotainment system to install there.
…which is precisely what we used to have, before auto makers decided to insist that they should be enclosed in a swooping dash.
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I mean, the DIN hole was a standard size but it certainly wasn’t a ‘socket’ and anyone who had a Ford Focus that needed a Mercedes-Benz writing harness to plug up their aftermarket radio knows what I’m on about.
I may be weird but why would you need an infotainment system at all? I have all the infotainment I could possibly want in my phone, the car is only needed as a Bluetooth speaker and for standard playback controls.
The car screen is significantly bigger than the phone screen, making it quicker to glance at it for driving instructions.
But now we’re just coming back to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I just want a big screen with physically touchable controls for those. My previous car did exactly that, but now I’ve gone near two decades older so I now get a fancy screen with no functionality beyond FM radio and DVD video lol
That was also the point of Apple CarPlay/Android auto. Let the manufacturer provide the hardware but your phone can run the infotainment. Let actual software companies do that, instead of the horrible mess that car manufacturers make out of software
Cellular enabled cars are conceptually dumb. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on.
Me when my car gets hack and remote controlled to drive off a cliff:
“Ahhh” D: sploosh
Naw, I live in a hot as hell country I’m super jealous of people who can remote-start the air conditioning in their cars.
It should be an open interface like OBD2 though where you can choose the hardware/provider instead of being locked to the car manufacturer deprecating everything in 3 years to sell you a new car.
Two way alarm systems with remote start have been a thing for pretty long and don’t all require cellular connection. Some are just super long distance key fobs.
You don’t really need connected cars for that. My car has no smart features but still has a remote start capability. It uses the car remote to trigger it instead of cellular connection.
I cannot remote start my car. If it’s really hot or really cold, I go outside for a few seconds to start the car and then go back inside. It’s really not that big a hardship.
Assuming you park next to your house a WiFi connection on the local network would be everything you need. Relatively cheap compared to the car would be a repeater to extend it for people like me who park 30-50m away I agree with you assumption that this is car manufacturers creating software based planned obsolescence. An open source framework would resolve this concern even over cell networks but defeats the entire point of also pushing power windows and seat heating as a service.
Makes no sense to me…but at this very moment I’m a hypocrite lol
It’s not just cars. Anything with electronics (appliances, smarthome devices, healthcare, transportation) that is designed to last more than three years will hit a wall.
The host devices are designed to last 10-15 years, but the electronics will be out-of-date in 3-5 years.
The processor manufacturer will have moved on to new tech and will stop making spare parts. The firmware will only get updated if something really bad happens. Most likely, it’ll get abandoned. And some time soon, the software toolchain and libraries will not be available anymore. Let’s not think of the devs who will have moved on. Anyone want to make a career fixing up 10-yo software stack? Where’s the profit in that for the manufacturer?
So as an end-user, you’re stuck with devices that can not be updated and there’s still at least 10-20 years of life left on them. Best of luck.
Solution: go analog. Pay extra if you have to. They’ll last longer and the ROI and privacy can’t be beat.
Yes and no. My “smart” TV is still doing just fine a good decade since I bought it… by never connecting it to the internet.
I dream of an open source car. Something simple but reliable, say a legally-distinct 2004 Honda Accord, bog standard, no frills, no detail package options, just A Cheap Car with standardized parts and open source software. It’s the only car the company makes, you can buy one for 10k or build your own for 6k out of parts and a couple months worth of weekends, car nerds will fork the software for infinite tuning customization, and it doesn’t report your location back to headquarters. Parts are standardized across every car we’ve ever made so your local parts store will have them in stock. The new model year is the same car as last year, we just built some fresh ones for people to buy new.
I have no way of making this dream a reality. But I dream of it nonetheless. American car culture has gone off the rails, and the number of people I see already driving around old 5-owner Hondas and Toyotas and Buicks tells me that there is definitely a market for a cheap basic car that runs.
That would have been the Sono Sion, but there was too little interest. Not enough preorders meant they ran out of money to continue development.
Yeah I want my autonomous electric town car to be fully open. We should be able to have sustainable cars if any cars at all. Cars you can’t easily repair or maintain are not sustainable.
I assume car manufacturers would try to stop this by saying people would just load up video games or netflix on their dashboards while they drive. Even though you could probably do that now already, if you really wanted to.
Car dependency is a dead end. It’s inherently wasteful, privileged, inefficient, unsustainable, unhealthy, etc. I would much rather have free, extensive, public transit and safe infrastructure for pedestrians, bikes, and light EVs.
Great, lmk when there’s a regular train from Boston to my office in Boxborough, which currently requires it’s residents to drop off their own trash at the facility. I’m sure that’ll be frequent and efficient right?
Locked bootloaders should be illegal. Manufacturers should have to provide enough specs that third parties can write code that runs on the hardware.
Phones are supported well beyond their average ownership lifetime.
Are they?
Supported in the sense that “We will update your device and deliberately slow it, break it, or brick it because fuck you.”
I’ve been screaming about this for years and no one listens. My old car will run longer than my new one because I can change the head unit in the old one
When you car can connect to the Internet, it becomes a data-mining tool that tells everyone your business. Companies would LOVE to have all that juicy location data that only Google has right now (from your phones). Insurance companies would LOVE to know your driving habits to have any excuse at all to jack up your premiums.
How is the 3G sunset not solvable by just swapping out a modem module for an LTE or 5G one and maybe installing some new modem firmware? A lot of cars are running a Linux kernel under the hood, so I’d think it’s pretty well swap and go
Ah, if only car hardware was modular and standardized… And if you had access to your infotainment system beyond touching the pretty buttons…
Imagine something as outlandish as user serviceable infotainment systems. Like they used to have in the old days. I’m hanging on by a thread to my basic 2014 car which still has a double DIN slot I can put my own system into…some day
Are these buttons in a room with us right now
Give me my buttons back
I’m lucky enough to never have owned a car without buttons - My newest car was a '19 Benz and they LUCKILY were pretty slow about hopping onto the touchscreen bandwagon
However, in my comment I meant on-screen buttons anyway, as that seems to be the norm nowadays :(
Hopefully that’ll change, iirc the EU discussed about requiring physical buttons for the highest safety rating a few months ago. Idk how that turned out but if it passed there’s hope
I love it when politicians in a democracy are doing things for the people.
Just another way to force you to buy a new one
If only. They are more like rolling SmartTVs. Once they stop getting updates, only the offline features will work.
Please tell me someone thought about a switch to take them offline.
And this is why I drive a 1980 Volkswagen rabbit pickup. better gas mileage then modern cars (50mpg+ on the highway) I can replace about any part in it for under a few hundred in most cases even a new engine can be done under 1000. And everything is dead simple to work on no fancy computers or anything.
How about those crumple zones? Feel safe in your passenger cage? Hope you’re shorter than the dashboard in case of a rollover. Don’t have to worry about getting hit by those airbags, do you? Imagine that steering column spearing through your chest
New cars aren’t just about the latest infotainment, gadgets, and design. There have been huge improvements in pollution control and safety. There has also been huge improvements in efficiency, even if they’re masked by the increased weight of safety improvements, increased performance, and generally much larger size. So far a lot of that increased complexity is well worth it - I’ll never have another car without anti-lock brakes
That’s the only reason I bought a modern car.
My parents would always buy cheap beaters. They had a car from the 90s they only recently got rid of because the transmission was shot. My first car was an '05 Caravan I drove for almost two years and got rid of in 2018.
I swallowed the pill after seeing cars get absolutely crushed to the point where the jaws of life were necessary yet passengers could just walk out.
I remember someone posted a picture of their brand new sedan. It was involved in a serious accident and sandwiched between two large pickup trucks. The entire car was squished down until it was smaller than the passenger compartment. The driver was able to walk away with minor injuries and the paramedics weren’t even surprised.
I don’t give a shit about the fancy features. I just want something that is reliable and safe.
Polluting as hell though, or so I imagine?
Even in Sweden catalysators were not mandatory before like 1986 IIRC.
The rest is awesome though 👍😎
And what are the pollution costs of even manufacturing a new vehicle, VS one that’s already in place?
We can’t manufacture our way to using fewer resources.
You can, though. There are many lifecycle analyses using actual data to calculate the tradeoff point.
We can’t manufacture our way to using fewer resources.
Why not? Seems like a pretty simple formula: if it costs X amount of resources or pollution to save Y amount of resources or pollution per unit time, the break-even point is whenever Y times time exceeds X.
This depends a lot on how much the one already in place pollutes, vs the new one.
For an EV vs a slightly older ICE, on your average western power grid (so not fully renewable, but not fully coal either), it takes just a few years till the EV’s total lifetime emissions are less.
Oh yea it’s a straight pipe diesel ain’t anything good for the environment gonna put a slightly more modern engine in it at some point for some more power the 1.6l in it currently only makes like 50 horse so when I do that it’ll be a little better but still not great
Well there are a bunch of reliable late 90s and early 2000s German engines that would make that thing ridiculously fast compared to now, pollute less, burn less fuel, and would be pretty easy to maintain.
Long as you avoid all the ones with known pitfalls and research standalone ECU options first of course.
I’m partial to Mercedes engineering myself, I’d tell you to use an OM646. But there’s nothing wrong with an M47 or a VW 1.9 tdi either. The PD version of the tdi is slightly more complex than the oldschool versions (66 and 81 kW), but would get you ridiculous performance and fuel economy considering how little your car weighs.
Of course if you had more space in there, I’d suggest an OM648 or M57, but I don’t think you’d get an inline 6 to fit. MAYBE an OM647 since it’s an inline 5?
You can get a inline 5 in it cause I know you can fit a o7k or a vr6 lol. my plan was to swap it to a TDI I actually have an 01 TDI sitting here for it just don’t have the money currently to finish it but once i do, this TDI is actually supped up some pushing 20+ psi of boost not the I will probably run that much since I plan to daily it but it can
What’s wrong with just a pot box, a motor and some batteries?
That’s what I like about CarPlay. Just give me a dumb screen with CarPlay compatibility. I’ll get new features with my phone upgrades. The rest of the car could be mechanical for all I care. I prefer cable clutches anyway.
Hehe. I’ve just got a Sony Bluetooth speaker sitting on the dash. For poddies it’s good enough.
Had similar in my old car, honestly a decent Bluetooth speaker will be better than a lot of old, stock car speakers would be anyway.
The main issue is that the NHSTA requires a backup camera, which requires a screen. Since they have to make room for that screen, manufacturers now want to make it a premium thing they can use to justify up charging.
I don’t see a solution to this until someone actually tries to make things cheap again and small screens become the trend.
Is that a new rule? For all cars?
If by “new” you mean decided a decade ago and implemented 6 years ago, then yes.
I didn’t know. Maybe it’s not a law in Australia or I just haven’t been paying attention as my '96 Magna is still going fine.
Apparently Australia only got around to it last year, but they’re requiring it to be implemented a lot faster.
TIL. Thanks.
That doesn’t seem to have anything which will manage your heated seat subscription or data mine your driving activity.
Hehe. Ok. Add an inverter and an electric blaket under the seat cover :)
Can you buy a TV based on the same basic functions like you list there?
Maybe a USB DVB-T adapter plugged into a laptop or phone is about as close as you can get now.
Or an older set top box, but not so old that it can’t handle MP4.
Get a “smart” TV, never connect it to the internet, and attach a Chromecast and connect that instead because they cost about $30. The Chromecast with Google TV has apps for Kodi and Plex along with the basic streaming services so you can turn your TV into a media center.
That way, the only thing that will stop being unsupported is the Chromecast and you’re only out $30.
Profit. They can add all those features and charge significant higher margins. The same as the bigger the car the bigger the profit so they push huge SUVs and pickups on everyone.
this should be part of car safety and legislated by the govt, no?
in the uk it would be part of the MOT to see that your software is up to date and working
Just like they legislate vehicle size, headlight brightness, and enforce fuel economy standards?
Headlines now are now not even now proofread now
To be fair, I used the Lemmy auto-generated title. They did fix the title that actually displayed on their website.
But thanks, I fixed the post title
