If I was to buy a car these days (which I'm not, I don't have nearly enough money for that), I'd want something with as little "computer" in it as possible. Just a box with 4 wheels and an engine, or maybe a battery and a motor, maybe a heater for when it gets a bit cold, and I'll throw a bluetooth speaker in the back seat if I need something to listen to
Just to note the trade-off here: modern cars are much safer in crashes than even cars from ~20 years ago, and the less computer you want, the further back in time you need to go to find suitable cars. There are nuances to the safety thing: some brands were/are safer, more popular car designs today tend to have some features that may worsen safety (taller cars are less stable, heavier cars handle worse, big heavy cars are worse for pedestrians).
How much safer are they? I can totally believe that the crash safety of cars improved hugely in the 90s - that's basically when large crumple zones, computer modelling of crash performance, airbags, seatbelt pretensioners etc were all developed.
But 20 years ago was 2005. What's changed on a modern car since 2005? There's obviously a lot more safety features (and these have increasingly been part of the crashworthiness rating cars are given). But if you crash into a wall at 40mph, how much stronger are they?
A lot. Probably the biggest single change was the introduction of the small overlap crash test by the IIHS. It turns out that the standard frontal crash tests are quite unrealistic; in most frontal accidents, the driver swerves to avoid something but clips the corner, rather than just slamming into something head-on. Cars designed to perform well in the standard frontal crash test often performed miserably in the small overlap test.
Compare the same model before and after the small overlap test:
The safest cars basically saturated the safety tests. To the point where car companies are making up their own tests, simulating much more dangerous collisions.
I wonder if there's even any citations that can directly show that a 2024 car is "much" safer than a 2004 car. Without relying on NHTSA's safety rating system, which is an indirect proxy at most (and probably has changed multiple times for "reasons"). And without being confounded by changes in regulatory measures.
I'm struggling to find the original document/page I read on this, but largely, "a car having better parts is due to the road having features that benefit these parts due to generations of studying the way cars behave in that set of circumstances.
Autos are designed around and for the roads they will serve, not vice versa. This is the bane of auto manufacturers who want to make one tail light housing for all their cars in all their markets.
it's a bit more easy to read data comparing for example safety in Euro market vs American market (there are fundamental differences in safety thoery; lighting, ride heighgt, weight, engine size etc. As opposed to looking at changing trends in one market over 20 years, which are largely stylistic.)
I think it depends on what you're trying to gauge for safety.
Pre-2000 satedy improvements were heavily about WHEN you get into an accident...
Post 2000 it is heavily is heavily DON'T get into an accident, and it's heavily electronic. Anti-lock breaks, lane change vehicle detectors, unintentional lane change warnings, auto-breaking before collisions.
I certainly agree with the general vibe that cars do too much now, but I'd rather have a dumbified 2010+ish car
Perhaps structurally but the tech stuff isn't improving safety.
With the absolute slightest bit of fog, excessive humidity, rain or snow by Mazda tells me one of its radar systems isn't operable and to please drive safely.
I don't know what Mazda you have, but my Mazda CX-5 2017's radar systems are MUCH more reliable than the Volvo XC40. The CX-5 maybe failed a handful of times in the years I owned it, but the XC40 failed almost every time the weather was bad (rain, cold, mist, etc)
> The next car I am going to buy is probably going to be older than my current one.
I've also come to this bizarre conclusion. Cars are rapidly regressing. I currently drive an '09, and yearly maintenance costs have begun to approach the value of the car. I'm not sure how long I can economically keep it on the road, but what would I replace it with? A '24 Driving-IoT-Nighmare?
Depending on your locale, you're going to need to replace all suspension, steering, exhaust, frame peices etc. on that 09' car you bought used for 6. Will quickly approach 20k in time and money, and at that point, most people bite the bullet and deal with new car bullshit/payments.
I live in salt belt in US, have a 14 year old hatchback. This year alone I have had to replace 2 of the 6 control arms, rear rotors, all pads, parking brake cable (ugh), strut/shock assembly up front , clutch and brake masters, rear wheel hubs, trailing arms. That alone is like 4k in my time, nevermind the parts or if I brought them to a shop.
last year I did clutch job, vent/purge valves, intake cleaning, timing job....easily 5k
I am very jealous you have somehow avoided these things with the Clio. Idk how mazda managed to make my hatch out of seemingly rust.
Spare parts for clios are there practically free, since it's so common - also mechanics like them, since older models are very simple to service.
Largest parts I had to replace so far were exhaust (60€ for part) last year and exhaust hatch (I don't know if that's the correct english term for that, 80€ for part) this year. Brake pads I had to change twice so far, but it was also pretty cheap.
With my mother I have a joke that rebuilding my clio from scratch would probably cost me less than tire change on her merc.
The only annoyance I have with it is that it's eating through light bulbs at annoying pace, since electricity in the older clios tends to be a bit funky. But okay, that's a 5min change usually.
The backup camera is entirely analogue, zero computer required. All manufacturers use the same couple of camera modules which output standard composite video, which is why even nice cars have obvious analogue artifacts and distortions.
Even OEM headunits usually just consume a standard composite video input and switch to it when it has a signal.
This information is valid up until at least 2020, but it might be changing as cars get more advanced cameras and stupid-er head units. I bet Tesla just uses their existing cameras.
>not beeping if seatbelt not fastened
Also trivial to do with analogue electronics, which we have done for decades.
speed limit warnings are a dead end though. Impossible to do without some sort of technology to know what the "current" speed limit is.
I especially love the collision detection that goes "BIBIBIBIBIBI" and the screen goes red saying "BREAK NOW!". All of this happens regularly when I'm dodging parked cars in small streets at very low speed. The message appears about half a second too late anyway (assuming I have instant reaction time, which I doubt). I'm glad it doesn't break automatically at least.
Also it reads speeds signs but it has no idea when they no longer apply, or doesn't read the new one, or reads a speed sign from an adjacent road, or sometimes just imagines it.
Try buckling all your back seat belts. Recently US cars are required to annoy you if back seat passengers are not buckled in; many (most?) manufacturers are not putting in weight sensors to see if there are rear seat passengers present; they’re just putting in seat belt buckled sensors.
Our previous car did beep when there was any weight on the passenger seat while the seat belt was unbuckled, which is extremely annoying when you just put a bag there.
Another annoying thing was that in order to use the navigation from the car, you first had to agree to obey the traffic rules or something. I already do that by participating in traffic.
I don't think this incessant beeping for every little thing, nor requiring clicking though extra screens, is useful and I doubt it adds anything to safety. It's distracting and annoying and I start thinking about why the car is beeping this time, instead of focusing on the traffic.
That's the really big problem with this design: the car should not draw attention to itself; my attention should be on the road. Also, when it does beep, it should at the very least make clear why, and you should be able to turn it off.
I remember when i was a kid and the cars started dinging when your seat belt was unbuckled, and my family (and everyone we knew) went out and bought empty buckles that just plugged into the seat belt latch, to defeat the dinging and let you drive without your seatbelt in peace. I wonder if these still work to defeat the more and more aggressive warnings.
People will look for workarounds regardless. Some people just become irrationally incensed if you suggest that they aren't perfect. It's really frustrating. There's an entire subset of the population that lives life explicitly thinking "Rules are for everyone else and I deserve everything"
Next time you go to the grocery store look at how many carts don't get put away. The exact same people who do that will freak out and start a war if their car gets scratched by a loose cart.
Don't believe my takes? Go to a local city or school board meeting and see the utter insanity that comes from people that you will be shocked to learn are a middle manager at some company or own their own small and successful business.
Some people genuinely don't get that the world isn't about them, and I think we have drastically underestimated the percentage.
You'd be surprised how many "normal" people initially revolted against seatbelt laws and protested through noncompliance. Even the people who accepted that seatbelt use was safer, refused to use them because of the usual "The Government Won't Tell Me What To Do!" mentality.
"I will endanger my own life, just to spite the government that will never know about how I'm spiting them unless I die."
I can understand not wanting the government to decide how they live their life, who they can and can't marry, how they should identify, which bathroom to use, etc. But I'd think no-cost life-saving stuff is not a hard decision. Same with vaccines.
I've had a new Toyota Corolla over the weekend, and the beeps were driving me nuts.
The car reads signs, and beeps everytime it detects a change in speed limit. If you go over the speed limit, even if its 1 km/h the car starts beeping as well.
I never drive really fast, when the car says I'm driving 1 KM over the limit my GPS speed usually is 5 below. This makes the signals extra annoying.
They should have used beeps when you're 10 or more over the speed limit or something like that so you don't get spammed with notifications all the time. The system being as it is, I'm 100% sure I will get it removed by a tuning shop.
It has always been common for cars to estimate your speed a bit on the high side, because there's always a margin of error, and that way you don't accidentally go over the speed limit while thinking you're still below it.
But for a car to start beeping (or worse, interfering), they'd better use that margin of error in the other direction.
I can't stand all the beeping. It is wild how police are so against using mobile phones while driving (and they are right) but allow all these other distractions to run rampant in modern cars and distract drivers.
How we allow massive touch screens in Tesla's and other modern cars is beyond me.
I normally drive a 15 year old car, and recently traveled and had to rent a car at my destination. This thing was infuriating and constantly annoying in so many ways. I had to return the first one because I couldn't figure out the touch screen (!!), and the replacement I got just beeped and booped constantly for reasons unknown. I couldn't even figure out how to use the radio. It kept asking me to log in (to what??) just to use the nav system.
Of all the signals of "I'm getting elderly," who knew I'd first start feeling like this from trying to use a car?
It feels a bit counterintuitive to go for a Bluetooth speaker over 3.5mm?
Your low tech car will feel like a emotional prison. Of all the annoying modernities you want the worst one? If you want to make a deal with the devil I would choose rear camera.
Think about it. All the headache and time to pair Bluetooth devices over a dead simple connector.
I would aim for a pre 2016 car. I think that has some margin to the Internet of Shit product lines?
> All the headache and time to pair Bluetooth devices over a dead simple connector.
Conversely, I pair my phone once when I get the car and I never need to worry about messing with it again; it's just connected when the car starts. I don't even need to take my device out of my pocket or bag.
On top of that I get hands-free calling if someone calls while I'm driving, I get steering wheel media controls, I get voice controlled media selection (play playlist foo, play artist bar, etc.)
I would prefer 3.5mm over Bluetooth, but keep in mind most people get their music off their phones and (almost?) no modern phones have headphone jacks. Dongles are a thing, but meh.
Additionally, modern Bluetooth devices have very little friction in my experience.
Ye. Many modern phones are *@*$ too. My wife is still bitter about not having a 3.5mm jack on hers she unknowingly bought 5 years ago. So much trouble ...
However if more than one person will use the car (incl. as passanger) the annoyance of Bluetooth is even worse.
We have a dongle in the car that is protected by a sworn oath to never be removed from the cabinet along with some charger cables.
Multi user seem to be the major pain point. I think linked and active headphones blocks the car too.
There is just so much stuff that can make the abstraction of automation leak and you have to spend more time fixing it this one time than saved in the total lifetime of the car with a simple cable.
This is going to become nearly impossible in Europe, it may already be in some places due to regulations restricting old vehicles due to emissions. ADAS requirements and other laws forcing manufacturers to implement all sorts of restrictions: just as an example, from 2024 on all new vehicles must implement ISA (Intelligent Speed Assist) that limits speed based on GPS and signs recognition. Anecdotal, but many cars built since mid 00s are ticking timebombs due to their endless electronics faults that will cost drivers a massive bill at some point if not multiple times over their lifespan, good luck finding those proprietary boards that have dozens different variants incompatible with each other for one single car model and have not been produced for years or decades. And if most car manufacturers are utterly incompetent at engineering lasting electronics, let's not get into software that they dedicate the least paid and most desperate SwEngs to work on. Coming to an abrupt halt from cruising speed on an highway is a common failure mode I've seen more than once dictated by insane ECUs programming, for example. I'd like to believe miniaturization and just maturity in the industry will make those sort of issues less prevalent for newer cars, but I'm not hopeful about it.
