Part of the problem here is that some of the "farkles" are legally mandated.
There is no maybe about backup cameras - they are required by federal law since 2018. Automatic braking will be required starting 2029.
We are in the process of having driver monitoring systems becoming mandated, too. That's an internally facing camera that would read your face to determine if you are good to drive. Sucks for Jim Breuer, I guess...
The touchscreen epidemic is only partially driven by the designers who watched too much Star Trek. The real cause is cost. You are required by law to have a screen already, and it's cheaper to add menus to it than make knobs and buttons.
I am not sure if this is exactly how we got here, but it sure seems like we built a ton of distractions into the driving experience, and now are trying to compensate for it with things like lane assist, auto cruise, and self-driving.
That said, there is something of a pushback to it. Slate is aiming to be exactly that - as basic a car as you could possibly want, a small work truck with nothing included except what the law requires. r/slateauto
I want one. I don't know how many other people do, though.
The unreliability, by the way, is also an unintended consequence of regulation. The fuel economy requirements keep tightening, but the IC engine is really pretty close to the limit of how efficient it can be. So, the manufacturers have to use tricks like displacement on demand (shutting off cylinders), auto stop/start (the thing that shuts off your engine when you stop at a light), thinner oils. And those are the things that make engines not last. This is the same thing that makes transmissions unreliable. Fuel economy requirements are driving increases in the number of gear ratios. Transmissions used to be 4-5 speed, now 8-9 is common. A transmission can only be so big, and more gears in the same space makes for mechanically weaker designs. CVT transmissions spread for the same reason. CVTs that are not belt-type are too heavy and expensive, and the common belt CVT doesn't last. They work great on scooters, but scaled to car size not so much.
I worked at a Nissan dealership for years and the factory field technician (corporate paid tech that travels to different dealerships to help with problem cars) told us directly that it was cheaper for Nissan to replace all of the CVT's we were swapping out under warranty to meet fuel standards than to pay the fee the government would charge if they didn't meet the standards.
Came to say much of the same.
Federal regulations have drastically inflated prices. Each piece of required tech generally adds thousands per module. So just think if we have 5 required modules that each require only 2k each to install then that’s an additional 10k to your total cost.
That doesn’t even begin to account for having to make the vehicles bigger which also drives up the cost. Theres also the wild additions some companies made to meet cafe restrictions like Ram with the etorque system.
Oh hell naw am I ever going to be comfortable with having a camera watching me to figure out if I'm good to drive! What's the guarantee it doesn't just mess up and think my allergy eyes/end of shift dealing with working in customer service dead eyed stare are a reason to lock me out from driving and leave me stranded somewhere at night in the winter‽
On the Slate topic - I would love a modular car. Only thing is, I don't need or want a work truck. I want a sedan. As far as I can tell, the only market any US manufacturer cares about is people who want SUVs and trucks. Most of 'em don't even bother making sedans anymore, and even muscle cars are dying out. Maybe it's because of regulations, idk, but until US based manufacturers start making cars again, I don't see myself buying anything but Japanese vehicles for the rest of my life.
Oh fuck that. I can see that startling the driver and maybe actually causing a wreck. What do i know tho 🤷♀️
The backup cameras - my 75 yo uncle drives a shiny new truck that is too big and way too big for him. Anyway, he only uses the backup camera to park and whatnot. I asked him if he looks around too. Nope. Not at all. Solely relies on the tech.
And then why not a front facing camera... hood height is often taller than me and I'm 5'6. Kids and other shorties don't stand a chance in front of these behemoths
But the USA is a car-centric culture, weak or no public transit, so what are we supposed to do.
Well, the reason cars and trucks got so huge is the stupid way the CAFE law was written.
Fuel economy is calculated relative to the area the car occupies. The way to lower the number is to either make it use less gas, or make it occupy more area. Guess which is easier?
Vehicle size is a part of it, but crash safety is a bigger driver. I just got a new car earlier this year and holy crap are the pillars thick. I think if you added up the width of every pillar on my two classic cars, it still wouldn't match the width of one of the C-pillars in my new car. A-pillars are super thick now as well which is terrible for pulling up to intersections. You need the cameras because your view is physically blocked by the thicker pillars for rollover and crash protection.. I have a big ol rearview mirror, but only about the center quarter of it shows the rear window, the remaining mirror on either side of that just shows C-pillar.
Keep in mind too older cars were not actually more reliable. They broke down more than modern cars and were more likely to have catastrophic damage. They also had more mandatory maintenance to avoid breaking down.
But newer cars when they do break tend to be much more expensive to fix and take longer to much less ability for backyard mechanics to fix stuff (part of that is things getting more complex and requiring equipment, part of it is just fewer backyard mechanics because there are less things for them to fix). One simple example is switching from timing belts to timing chains greatly reducing destroyed engines due to the timing belt breaking. But the chain is definitely more expensive to replace if you do have to.
I remember as a 90s kid my extended family (10ish drivers who needed a car to get to work) basically needed an extra 1-2 cars due to one or another being broken or otherwise in the shop. Generally this was handled by whatever person who currently had a car, but didn't absolutely need it (often a kid that was in high school) lent it to the person who absolutely needed it.
I remember how automatic transmissions used to be so reliable that they’d always last only just longer than the warranty. O2 sensors would go at about 80k, the radiator would start leaking at 90k, the oil pan at 100k, and the head gasket would go a week after any other major repair. Cars have never been more reliable than now.
That wholly depends on what an "older car" is in this context.
80s model years and earlier, you have a point. Maybe even early 90s. Late 90s to mid-2010s - absolutely not. As a 90s kid, your family likely had 80s or early 90s cars.
1995 to 2012, cars were pretty damn reliable, on average, unless you bought a particularly crappy model. I have a 2001 Toyota I have owned for 8 years. My repair expenditures have been pretty minimal and breakdowns pretty rare. I have some repairs coming up now, but that's only because in 25 years some stuff just wears out.
Hopefully those cameras are trained on drivers that are chronic substance users... otherwise that whole "They cant tell when you're fucked up if you're just always fucked up" might come into play.
This is a load of shit, modern engines last way way longer than old cars. Most cars from 30+ years ago didn't even make it to 100k miles.
People just have rose tinted glasses because they think every old car is a camry with 500k miles. Thats the exception not the norm
There's also zero data that touchscreens in cars cause distractions. Virtually all distracted driving accidents are from phone usage, but no one wants to talk about it because everyone does it, so people just blame cars instead of taking responsibility
This is a load of shit, modern engines last way way longer than old cars.
Do they, now? Wanna talk to all the people whose cams got eaten by the failing AFM lifters?
And how about modern transmissions?
Most cars from 30+ years ago didn't even make it to 100k miles. People just have rose tinted glasses because they think every old car is a camry with 500k miles.
Most cars from 30 years ago weren't Chrysler K-cars either.
I have personally owned a 1985 Chevy with 330,000+ miles and a 2003 Chevy with 380,000+ miles. Have a late 90's one right now with 190K.
"Didn't make it to 100K" is more of a 40 years ago thing, not 30.
Virtually all distracted driving accidents are from phone usage,
Pretty sure this administration scaled back fuel economy requirements, along with 950 million other things that get in the way of profits for the well-placed.
This is a long winded way to say, government regulation will soon force the general population to EVs.
And EVs ain’t cheap.
Also, side point. Trucks are now bigger than ever because of CAFE requirements. Efficiency is tied to vehicle “footprint” so that the smaller the area between the 4 wheels, the more fuel efficient it has to be. In a nutshell.
The plus side about EV's, now that we've had two decade of them on the roads, other than the batteries they are pretty bullet proof. I've seen quite a few with half a million miles or more on the electric motors and they are still plugging away. Getting the battery lifespan up or the cost of them down and they really will be better and more cost effective over the long term.
EVs can be built cheap. Nissan leafs are 30k. If there was actual competition in the space, they'd be $20k. But America hasn't been real competitive in the automobile for some time. We've have 20+ years of mergers, acquisitions and regulatory capture.
73
u/LostInTheSeaweeds 8h ago
Part of the problem here is that some of the "farkles" are legally mandated.
There is no maybe about backup cameras - they are required by federal law since 2018. Automatic braking will be required starting 2029.
We are in the process of having driver monitoring systems becoming mandated, too. That's an internally facing camera that would read your face to determine if you are good to drive. Sucks for Jim Breuer, I guess...
The touchscreen epidemic is only partially driven by the designers who watched too much Star Trek. The real cause is cost. You are required by law to have a screen already, and it's cheaper to add menus to it than make knobs and buttons.
I am not sure if this is exactly how we got here, but it sure seems like we built a ton of distractions into the driving experience, and now are trying to compensate for it with things like lane assist, auto cruise, and self-driving.
That said, there is something of a pushback to it. Slate is aiming to be exactly that - as basic a car as you could possibly want, a small work truck with nothing included except what the law requires. r/slateauto
I want one. I don't know how many other people do, though.
The unreliability, by the way, is also an unintended consequence of regulation. The fuel economy requirements keep tightening, but the IC engine is really pretty close to the limit of how efficient it can be. So, the manufacturers have to use tricks like displacement on demand (shutting off cylinders), auto stop/start (the thing that shuts off your engine when you stop at a light), thinner oils. And those are the things that make engines not last. This is the same thing that makes transmissions unreliable. Fuel economy requirements are driving increases in the number of gear ratios. Transmissions used to be 4-5 speed, now 8-9 is common. A transmission can only be so big, and more gears in the same space makes for mechanically weaker designs. CVT transmissions spread for the same reason. CVTs that are not belt-type are too heavy and expensive, and the common belt CVT doesn't last. They work great on scooters, but scaled to car size not so much.