The mandated addition of screens to vehicles sold in the US, which happened around 2008 by administrative fiat (for use by backup cameras), was the death knell for simple mechanical human-automotive interfaces.
> Even as the price of a new car soars—now hovering around $50,000—automakers argue buyers are getting more bang for their buck, including more safety and entertainment tech features.
> For many buyers, that’s exactly the problem.
Finding it hard to believe that for "many buyers" safety features are "exactly the problem".
I’m sure they work fine in laboratory conditions, but that’s not my use case.
Example one: I drove a rental car that had a feature where the side mirrors would blink yellow when a car was in my "blind spot"; but that's very distracting, and I arrange my mirrors to minimize my blind spot to zero. I do not want this feature.
Example two: lane assist. The car's steering wheel would gently nudge me back into the lane when it thinks I'm leaving the lane. Except where I drive, there's a lot of road construction, so sometimes the lane markers don't actually indicate the actual lanes - sometimes there's new lanes painted over the old, without removing the old ones, and sometimes not. So I'm happily driving along through a construction zone, and suddenly my steering wheel decides that I need to GO RIGHT.
Things like emergency brakes when I'm backing up and the car thinks a bush branch is a child are annoying, but ultimately probably a net good, along with the "vehicle ahead has moved" beep. The "BEEP BEEP BEEP OBJECT AHEAD" is objectively good.
Dude bro politely asked G to turn the lane departure warning back on.
https://cybernews.com/security/eu-car-camera-monitoring/
In my personal opinion, I find that the newest car technologies are rife with abuse and fraud already. One of my newest cars can connect to my home WiFi and I started getting more targeted ads based on where I drove to. It's not a feature, it's a bug.
Unthinkable.
Lane assist, as you mention, is one of those that I'm sure works perfectly on the manufacturer's track in testing. No construction, no exits, no problem! The first Hyundai I drove with lane keeping would "keep" me in my lane... right off the next exit on the freeway. I still think in places like Puerto Rico, with twisty, inconsistently maintained roads, that lane keeping is a hazard (there's a reason everyone drives straight down the middle until reaching an oncoming car). But the vehicles I've driven lately do a pretty good job even though they complain more than I'd like when entering or exiting a merge.
Just like physical buttons are making a comeback (not everywhere, have you seen the new all-screen Mercedes EV?) the safety features will settle down into a happy medium eventually.