This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
death to "infotainment" systems
Someone tell me please why I can't find an EV with manual door locks and manual windows, rear view mirrors with maybe just one rear-view camera/sensor in a cost-affordable repaceable spot and only a radio. All it needs to be an EV is to be battery/electric powered. Dumping in all the gadgetry just increases complexity, driver distraction, power required to run, and cost of simple repairs.
Someone tell me please why I can’t find an EV with manual door locks and manual windows, rear view mirrors with maybe just one rear-view camera/sensor in a cost-affordable repaceable spot and only a radio.
Counterintuitively, having those alternatives would likely RAISE the cost of that car.
What is being discovered is that the most expensive component of the car isn't any specific tech. Its the labor to put it together. Making a design decision which shaves off 60 seconds of human assembly saves millions of dollars, and allows the car to be priced lower.
Ways to decrease assembly time include making modules with multiple functions together into one unit. This is one reason why your HVAC, infotainment, backup camera are usually one unit in the car. If your requirement of a replaceable radio is introduced, you've now doubled the modules that need to go into the car and drastically increased the wiring needed (wire looms are time consuming to assemble).
Further, your desire for a car with manual door locks and windows is likely not very common. So if this variant of a car were produced it would now have to have a separate logistical change and assembly line. This means more factory space, additional training for workers (there's that labor again), etc.
Because nobody outside an absurdly small niche wants that. They don't want the current base models and go out and over spend on upgrades.
Agree, I've been driving a bolt for 167,000km and the one thing I wish it was is simpler, like my old Mazda. Buttons and dials.
There are a few firms in LA that will turn any classic ICE car into an EV. Kinda thinking about getting a cheap '86 SAAB and converting it. You can find them with manual sunroofs.
I still have my 2015 Nissan Leaf, despite cycling through three other EVs since then. And while the Leaf isn't going to work for a lot of people, it does have manual door locks and in general the electronics are far simpler than other EV models. It's by far the most reliable EV I've driven - never failed to start or experienced a mechanical problem. So I get what you're saying. Wish there were more simple options out there.
It does feel like Nissan's mission with that car is to make sure to use the most outdated technology possible. That includes charging it.
Infotainment is made up bullshit. Its just a corporate spam center.
These software-defined vehicles need way more work and polish put into them IMO, but to be honest I'd rather these companies just give us something basic, simple, and electric that works reliably.
Toyota did it with the Prius vehicles, particularly the older models, can't be that hard?
Also infotainment systems should absolutely not be sharing core vehicle functionality, particularly if they can't be turned off in the case of this article - only option left to the user is a "deep sleep" that might fix the problem if the vehicle is locked for 5 minutes 🤦♂️
The worst part about this increase of software use is that it'll make a mechanically perfectly serviceable car dated and reliant on outside services. Car manufacturers aren't planning on supporting this software for 10+ years, so one day you'll find that navigation stops working or something like that.
infotainment systems should absolutely not be sharing core vehicle functionality
Particularly and especially when the infotainment system has an always-on cellular connection. Wired ran a story way back in 2015 that hackers had managed to gain control of (I wanna say) a Dodge (it was a Stellantis group car, can't recall which one specifically) and were able to control not only convenience features of the car like lights, wipers, and stereo, but to disable the transmission completely. All it takes is one flaw or zero-day.
Toyota did it with the Prius vehicles, particularly the older models, can’t be that hard?
Its looking like Toyota's efforts to make the Prius so reliable was to sell more ICE engines. They have no desire to abandon ICE and go whole hog into EVs. Sadly it looks like Honda is the same.
Wow. I hope, for Chevy's sake, it's just software glitches that can be quickly solved with some updates.
Frankly, they should really just abandon the custom infotainment crap and just go back to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
I didn’t realize “infotainment” got a new definition.
I wonder what Carmen San Diego would say, if she were here.
Well, the first "glitch" is how bluetooth works in any Subaru too - and it is kind of annoying that there's no easy way to tell it to just connect in pause mode and I'll hit play when I want to hear my podcast or music. I kind of assumed it's how Bluetooth worked in cars. I guess I'm saying this isn't EV specific - I've rarely seen a good review of car infotainment in the last 10 years, and TBH the only things I thought anyone liked was the carplay or android auto (not that I want either, I do just want charging and bluetooth but would love those to be less stupid).
The rest though just confirms my belief that GM makes pretty shoddy vehicles and I would never buy a new one again. My family got burned by GM products for decades before moving to Subaru in the aughts and haven't looked back till Subaru's lack of real EV options.
That said, it's not like Subaru's don't have faults - they do and they take forever to fix known manufacturing issues. It's just that so far they've never stranded any of us anywhere. We've always been able to get home or to a shop, whereas like in this article we're all to familiar with GM vehicles needing a tow randomly.
I had hoped (and been told) that GM improved their cars in the early 2010s but clearly not for EVs, and really - I already know where to get reliable ICE cars and that wasn't ever GM really either.
TL;DR?
But it's no secret the Ultium platform's launch isn't going all that hot. For starters, there are very few of any of these cars on the roads, but the ones that are on the road seem to be plagued with problems. There's a whole bugs and quibbles thread on the Cadillac Lyriq forum that is approaching 100 pages. TFL's GMC Hummer EV bricked while off-road, necessitating a tow back home. Would the Blazer EV follow in the footsteps of those two cars? If my experience is anything to go by, then the answer unfortunately might just be yes.
