Monolithic software. Cars come bundled with an entire suite of specialized software interfaces, for all sorts of personal systems - from sound, to interior lighting, to window control, to hvac. You take what you get, and hope it's ok.

I wish there were software interfaces that let users enjoy the "soft"ness software can bring. I'd way rather be able to try out & maybe build my own apps for different car functions. I'd like control via other devices. I'd like to share control with other people & their devices when they're in the vehicle.

It was posed as a negative thing, but the "Jeep hack" of 2015 (affecting a much broader range of vehicles highlighted what a simple capable powerful bus underlies the car. It's just a DBus compatible interface for a huge range of the cars functions. Just exposing that would massively tip the balance back towards letting people have actual agency & control over their vehicles.

Ideally though we'd all get full root access to the Linux computer or computers running multi-seat In Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) to boot. So we can work these computers as we might. And ideally upgrade or replace the brains as we desire too.

It's not just cars but the whole system built around them that is completely out of date.

If we want a really high tech transportation system it will be vastly more feasible in a greenfield city design that is a somewhat radical departure from typical assumptions.

Instead of 3000-4000 pound 7-10 passenger vehicles which more often than not carry one occupant, most vehicles should be very small and single passenger. So decrease the size of the vehicles by 10X.

These vehicles should not share the same physical space with pedestrians. Especially not in the current scenario where physics ensures severe injury or death in the event of a collision at any speed.

Vehicles should be fully autonomous. They should not need to drag their fuel around but rather have electricity supplied wirelessly.

There should be multiple levels of infrastructure so that even in dense areas you can be delivered almost door to door.

I have a lot of other ideas. Such as, buildings should be public megastructures designed to provide infrastructure for modular smaller buildings inside, with some open spaces and landscaping as well as reconfigurability. They would not need to provide a perfectly climatized space but try to make the baseline more comfortable.

I drive an old pickup. When I rented a "modern" car for a long trip, I was appalled by the numbers of needless features. In motorcycle talk, it was a garbage wagon. My 30 year old Chevy pickup is simple and functional. It's a lot like the early Macintoshes: so simple that it's elegant.

Touch screens replacing physical buttons.

Off the top of my head:

Why doesn't every car:

- stop collecting and reporting my data to the manufacturer

- offer full diagnostic readouts of trouble codes

- come with one or more docking bays to mount and wireless charge phones

- come with a router for all occupants to share a powerful car based hotspot

- offer a manual transmission

- showcase my fuel efficiency rather than my rpms (who needs a giant rpm gauge anymore?)

- come with airplane style passenger monitors tied to individual phones

- support phone based entry and start

- support find my car

- include E-ZPass or equivalent

- stop micro-transactions

- allow self repair

The things I do like about my cars are:

- 5k or 15k miles between services

- backup cameras

- integrated mapping

- remembers my seat and mirror preferences

- AWD when I need/want it

Not so much "about cars" - but how gov't regs effectively prevent smaller, more efficient vehicles from being made now

This question is too broad for me and it seems for me to invite flame wars.

Edit: unflagged, the intersection of these topics is really important after all and it was probably my own emotional response that made me flag this... thinking about this topic makes me tired and sometimes angry, but it comes up almost every day in some form.

Data collection.

The worse thing about cars is their users.

I hate driving at all, so I am very excited for the day I never operate a car again.