Are Cars Just Becoming Giant Smartphones on Wheels?
(www.carsandhorsepower.com)
from Changelin@discuss.tchncs.de to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 07:13
https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/44997229
from Changelin@discuss.tchncs.de to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 07:13
https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/44997229
For over a century, the automobile has represented freedom, power, and the thrill of mechanical mastery. The connection between driver, machine, and road defined what it meant to own and love a car. But in today’s digital era, a different trend is unfolding. Cars are no longer just machines designed to take us from point A to point B. Increasingly, they resemble something else entirely: smartphones on wheels.
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Imagine a car without cellular connectivity
You mean, like the car that I drive currently? It’s pretty tough to picture, honestly.
Tough to picture? Maybe improve your arts skills.
No need to improve your art skills. All you need to do now is feed your 2026 Civic some keywords to generate an AI image.
Archive link to an FAQ for the Slate electric trucklette that claims no sim cards and minimum digital bits. No clue if it will be a good vehicle so don’t take this as an endorsement. archive.ph/PMKpC
Anyone know other options?
Suzuki Jimny, still comes in a very basic electrical system
Fucking sim cards in cars. I hate everything.
Find a car that fits your needs and then pull the fuse powering the sim card before it leaves the lot. If it breaks, put the fuse back and don't buy it.
My 2019 corolla lost the right speaker and mic access when I did that. I fixed the right speaker by crossing some wires, and the mic hasn't really been needed enough for me to dig deeper to fix it.
Have they ever made an electric car that didn’t have that fucking SHIT ?
You can convert an older car to electric. As basic as it gets but with a new mode of power
When I ask car people about that they say (basically) “no, it won’t fit”.
Yes, there can be challenges about where to put the batteries, and some vehicles are certainly easier than others. But that hasn’t stopped a LOT of people from doing it anyways.
30 seconds of internet searching will show plenty of retrofits. One guy retrofitted a 1980s Delorean with a Chevy Bolt electric powertrain, and now it accelerates twice as fast as it ever did with gasoline.
For $40,000 plus.
Also the price of most new cars.
Yes, plenty. The pre-faclift Ioniq for example
My 2015 Nissan Leaf asks every few weeks if I want to allow the telematics to phone home. When you say no, it obeys. (I also removed the SIM card anyways.)
a 40k-50k USD phone.
I’m in a BYD, and I actually feel better connected due to the regenerative braking
I’m normally on a motorbike, so I use my gears to control speed almost entirely
With a manual car, I can actually drive it properly, but most of the vehicles I have to drive are automatics, which I have always disliked
With my little car, I feel much more “part of” it. It’s very responsive and I’m able to do so much without touching the brakes
I pretty much ignore the “tech” apart from occasionally telling it to change the temperature or do something with a window
Window, do a barrel roll
That’s be pretty sweet!
They go up and down, but I’m hoping that with some patience and treats, I can train it to do more
Use positive reinforcement and they’ll do whatever you want. Whatever. You. Want.
I’m much the same in my auto with dsg. Having a gearbox vs slushbox lets me shift down a gear where I only need to gradually slow down or sit in say 2nd on a downhill and not gain any speed.
My car is from 2011 and it had the right amount of modern features while lacking all the touchscreen climate controls and connected nonsonce.
It has wheels so the computer doesn’t touch the ground you know.
Yes, but why? Are they in place to protect the spinning rust when you hard drive the car? Or has it something to do with cracked Windows and a missing driver?
I’m always being extra careful around those computers on wheels, since most of them have a built-in backdoor!
Fuel for thought…
Shit headline. “No” is the answer. Let’smoved on.
If they are, would that make old cars giant feature phones on wheels?
My 97 Wrangler folds in half and takes 1mp pictures.
aand this is why I won’t buy a car made after 2010.
Eh, my early 9th gen civic is nice, though I think they ruined it only like coupla years later with cell radios.
Cars after 2010 are fine. It's the recent years that are the issue. My 2020 Forester is just a regular car with a small regular display just for radio or plugging in my phone for the map.
2016 is still a good year as most of the connected tech isn’t supported anymore as it’s on the 3g network.
good to know!!
My 2014 Crosstrek is fine. Doesn’t even have eyesight.
My 2020 Crosstrek with a manual is pretty good. The only things on the little touchscreen is the radio, backup camera, and android or apple for navigation. Also it isn’t integrated into the whole car so it can be replaced with an aftermarket unit. It has none of the blind spot monitoring, lane assist etc. It’s a lot of fun to drive on back roads, although it could use just a little more power.
IMO cars peaked around 2015
Interiors looked really nice and you had analog dials etc. Wish some small screens, just enough.
Today it's just big plastic dashboard with cheap tablets stuck in them
The analog dials were an illusion. That information has been processed digitally for at least the last 25 years.
I don't really care what's happening in the backend, I want it to look nice and not cheap
Analog an illusion? Yes.
Tactile effectiveness an illusion? No.
I had a base model around that time frame. Good safety ratings for its time but the car isn’t integrated with the touchscreen so while it’s already a dumb-car, I could make it even more simple by tearing out the radio and installing one without a screen. Makes me happy to know I’m not obligated to fix it if the radio breaks because I drive maybe 30-40 miles a week and would rather keep my money than shell out for all the gimmicks.
This is why I ordered a Slate.
I hope you get your money back when they fold.
I don’t currently drive since I live in a city with great public transit but if was forced to get a car it wouldn’t be made after 2006. I like buttons and don’t want to spend $400 replacing my rear view mirror because its linked to my touch screen for no damn reason
Don’t forget the transformation from a 5 buck bulb to a 1000 buck complete LED-system. Yay!
5 bucks on a bulb? When, the 1980s?
That’s still a normal price for a H7 to this day, what are you talking about?
Yes, and also no. They’re still pretty cheap nowadays. As long as there’s a literal bulb and no LEDs of whichever kind
But you will spend 1500 bucks replacing everything else on the car.
Also cars have plenty of buttons.
$1500 put into a 2003 Honda Accord is COMPLETELY different than putting that into a 2016.
And I want ALL buttons. No touch screen AT All
Yeah you will do it every six months.
So you will if you pay a loan for a new car…
…more, actually.
Why are you lying?
I guess you have never dealt with the bullshit hassle of a 20 year old car…
Why are you living in a dream world?
Old cars are work for sure, but if you are willing to learn it’s not bad.
I have a 2007 Mustang. I’ve replaced the entire front suspension, rear differential, alternator, and paid an upholsterer to replace the convertible top. I upgraded the radio and put in a 10inch touch screen with Wireless carplay and integrated backup camera. Next up is dropping the trans to replace the clutch plate, throw-out bearing, resurface the flywheel, and replace the rear main seal on the engine while I’m down there because the flywheel is rusty and accumulates a thin layer of rust every morning that makes a grinding noise for 30 seconds until it grinds off.
It definitely doesn’t just work like a new car, but since I do the work myself it also doesn’t cost me much.
Sounds like a pretty good project car it sounds to me like that is your hobby.
I bet you have a very well provisioned toolset and a pretty sweet garage and don’t even think about the time you spend on that thing.
Time is funny
Thanks, it’s definitely a good escape from the code, that’s for damn sure.
I have a todo list that will keep me busy for then next 3000 years, and that is before rebuilding the transmission on my 1999 is added to the list. (note that I assume the medical advances needed for me to live 3000 years are on someone else's list as I have no clue...) Eventually I have to give up on something so I can do something else.
I own four 20+ year old cars. Don’t talk shit about stuff you have no clue about.
Honda Accords from that era are remarkably reliable, and can last for upwards of 250k+ miles
It’ll be interesting to see how Slate does, if it makes it to production.
It’s DoA. At 20, they kinda make sense. At 27 without the EV credit you could be buying a maverick.
Except the Maverick isn’t an EV. It’s a hybrid, at best.
And? It comes with everything you’d expect from a ‘normal’ vehicle before you load up on your slate for several thousand dollars. You also get towing up to 8500lbs.
What’s the value proposition here? I only see this being successful in area where you MUST own an EV and even then it’s a hard sell without the tax credits.
For most people in general, the value proposition is that an EV is a Hell of a lot cheaper and simpler to operate and maintain in the long run (I say as the owner of a mid-1990s small pickup truck, among other vehicles). Your emphasis on towing capacity and purchase price is subjective preference, not objective superiority.
For my subjective preference in particular, it may well be the first modern EV (“modern” meaning not some NiMH fleet sales only compliance car from the '90s) that I can actually stand to own, because “everything you’d expect from a ‘normal’ vehicle” includes spyware that makes it a deal-breaker for me. Having it stripped down is a feature that makes it worth more to me, not less!
I don’t think a $1000 delta in maintenance costs over the first 5 years is a big a driver for the general public as you think it is. You’re not the target audience very few purchasing decisions are based on privacy.
It was a decent idea when the EV credit applied. But I’d be happy to betb a few hundred dollars the average new car buyer with that purchasing power and who is actually shopping for a vehicle will see the value. Especially not in the US where it’s sold. Gas is cheap.
As an owner of one (PHEV) I'm saving nearly $200/month in fuel. That is much more bigger than maintenance. I hope this lasts as long as the last one but the transmission isn't known to be good (the "better" transmission on the last one was failing) Only time will tell, but so long as I need to drive I the question is how much I spend in a lifetime and electric has proven it to me.
I love PHEVs, but not for saving money.
If you’re spending that much in gas at 30 mpg at $3.16 then you’re driving 22,000 miles a year. Almost double the national average.
You’ve also likely spent at least $6k on an engine, but typically it’ll be at least 10k more expensive than the base model. For most people, in most cases, you buy the PHEVs because you get a great around town experience, without the charging fears, and usually better power overall.
Maybe there is a specific model you’re thinking of where the economics are better but you really need to be driving a lot of miles and own the vehicle a long time before you are saving money. If you’re doing 40 miles a day 300 days a year you’re talking a 6 year payoff in a highly charitable situation where the PHEV is 7k more than the base, and the base is only 30mpg. I’m not even sure that exists in the US.
I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the slate. Is there a 27k comparable PHEV truck?
my phev is a minivan which I bought used for 25k. The only ev minivan in the us is 60k (just came out so used not available. Those are the real numbers, the engine prices you quote are irrelavent as I'm not buying an engine I'm buying a camplete vehicle.
nothing to do with the slate, the conversation has drifted. The slate is not available at anyprice today, though it looks like an interesting option in the future.
The eyebrow raiser in the Slate’s base configuration is that it doesn’t come with any audio systems: no radio antenna/tuner, no speakers. It remains to be seen how upgradeable the base configuration is for audio, how involved of a task it will be to install speakers in the dash or doors, installing antennas (especially for AM, which are tricky for interference from EV systems), etc.
I’d imagine that most people would choose to spend few thousand on that audio upgrade up to the bare minimum expectations one would have for a new vehicle, so that cuts into the affordability of the package.
Or the fully electric small truck Ford is working on.
As proof of concept, Slate is cool. Up against a vehicle from an actual truck manufacturer, it’s probably a hard sell.
Their headquarters is down the road from me. I will let you know when the sign no longer lights up. Should be a few days.
It won’t do well. Wrong country.
What becoming?
Giant Printer on wheels.
Yeah, don’t buy an HP. Love my Brother laser printer though.
My car is a 2023 and I pretty much by-pass all the integrated tech and use apple Car Play.
Watching people whine about tech in cars has always been comical to me. The first time I heard it was in the 80s and how cruise control was going to make cars unusable eventually.
Some of these comments are the most elitist, contrarian bullshit I’ve ever heard.
This article is about the positives and negatives of car connectivity, not how cool you are because you choose to ride a bike. You’re so cool because instead of choosing to not connect your phone to your car, you bought a rusty 07 Camry?
I’m not the biggest fan of the choices these companies are making either, but if your 1997 Mazda 929 is a personality trait, it’s not much different from the ding dong who bought the Ram 3500 to showcase his peanut balls.
Personally I think it is cool to not give money to anti-consumer companies, which I assume all car companies have become by now if they all have computers. Certainly they cannot forever resist the temptation to use the power they have over users when they control the software running on our hardware.
I don’t disagree with either of your points. However, I’m not edgy because I refuse to shop at Target. I’m saying these comments are a bit smug.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I drive old cars because they don’t spy on me and they’re inexpensive to own. I have an 07 hybrid and an 06 minivan. They’re only an expression of my personality to the extent that I don’t care about my car and need something to get from A-B. I don’t flaunt it, and I’ll probably replace it with an older EV because refilling gas is annoying for my dedicated commuter (the hybrid).
I’d rather ride my bike, but my work is too far away (2 hours on transit, ~1.5 hybrid w/ bike, maybe 1 with a riced ebik, each way), and my reasons for sticking with my employer and not moving are more important than my preference for cycling.
My mode of transportation is about utility, not expression of personality. I’d drive a truck if it made sense, I just haven’t found one that makes more sense than renting one the 2-3 times per year I need to haul something that doesn’t fit in my minivan.
When I need to upgrade my car, I’ll find something sensible and maybe remove the parts I don’t like. It’s not a big deal.
Agreed. Minivans are legit.
Hello, I’m here for my check-in so that you can tell me whether or not I’m allowed to like something. Let me know when you’re ready to start.
Neither I nor anyone else cares what you like, but don’t act like what you like makes you better than anyone else.
Whatever you say, bud. I’m really just here to get my certification from the board.
Thanks.
Seeking approval seems to be your forte.
<img alt="Zombie kid: “I like turtles”" src="https://media.tenor.com/iul7gbZeBDsAAAAe/i-like-turtles-zombie-kid.png">
Turtles are awesome.
Yes.
I remember people in the 80s/90s complaining that those pieces of shit were broken all the time. Not anymore IMHO. There was only thrill for a few car enthusiasts.
Yeah, 25 years ago. Where the fuck have you been? Cars were smart phones before smart phones were small enough to be smart phones.
Cars had on board computers standard decades before the personal computer became a fixture in the American home. I mean, the Audi 5000 in 1985 was a pretty famous example. Mostly because of how hilariously the computer fucked up. I should know, my mother had one at the time. Every trip was a real “adventure”.
Everything you’re smart phone does, your car could do 20 years ago. It just didn’t have such a look in her face, and it was a lot bigger than a device you could stick in your pocket.
My car is from 2014, no “smart” crap in it… So I guess it’s to varying degrees. I have the feeling OP isn’t talking about the first ever smart car, but that it’s become ubiquitous.
Pardon my aggression from the previous comment
I didn’t mean “every car” I just was referring to the fact that cars started to do what OP is referring to a very long time ago. Certainly not every car. It was a luxury option back then. Nowadays, it’s just becoming standard.
Perhaps I could’ve communicated that better
No problemo, Cheers!
EFI and a radio with a digital tuner does not a “smartphone on wheels” make. This shit didn’t actually start until the mid-2010s.
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Ads between gear changes in 3…2…1…
We’re not too far detached from that being reality already. There are several car brands that straight up block your entire infotainment system to show their own ads
It looks like you’re trying to brake. You’ve used up this months braking quota. Braking will be enabled again in two weeks. Please enter credit card details to upgrade your subscription to allow unlimited braking*.
*Fair use policy, limitations apply. Braking is not available on all roads. If you’re using the brake to often, an additional braking fee might be applied to your credit card for each use. Braking fee and subscriptions do not include mechanical wear, new parts or checks by a mechanic.
Stop giving Tesla, Stellantis, and Mercedes ideas.
Sadly yes and they’re mainly taking the worst aspects. Normal built in features like heated seats as subscriptions, dropping smartphone integration for their own far inferior dogshit UI and features, and so on.
Volkswagen is so bad at this! They have phone connectivity but they bog down the infotainment with they’re own crap software. The GPS is so bad it slowes down the whole system. I will never use vw maps. Ever. Just stop!
And Chevy just doesn’t have android auto on or apple play on their lower trim levels. But they do compensate by integrating Google maps at least.
Kia is the best though. Minimal proprietary software. Plug your phone in and android auto automatically comes up.
.
No need for data grabbing AA/Carplay shit in my car, stock ui works superior. But give people the option
It’s nothing less than a war against property rights.
They are pushing software into cars because they see copyright, and more specifically the DMCA anti-circumvention clause, as an excuse to retain their control over your property after they sell it to you. Rentiership is 100% of their goal, and providing useful functionality is nothing but an afterthought at best.
“Subscriptions” to hardware you already own is entirely FRAUD and executives of companies that engage in it deserve long prison sentences.
John Deere cough cough
we always flip off the John Deere plant as we drive by. Family tradition.
Bill Burr calls it “driving an iPad”
If the state of open source phones are anything to judge by, we will have open source cars at some point, except the foot brake isn’t working yet, so you’ll have to use the hand brake for now. Cars and phones both take a lot of resources to develop, and maybe you’ll be able to “de-Stellantis” your car at some point instead of going fully open source, but judging by the recent steps Google has taken to weaken de-Googling, I’m not sure how long that would last either.
The sad thing is ‘smartphone on wheels’ is a slur.
Smartphones don’t have to be soulless and uniform and enshittified and subscription based and completely inaccessible and straight up anti-consumer/designed to fail, but here we are.
I really hope Slate takes off though (and they make a nimble hatchback for their next chassis). It feels like the antithesis of all this.
The simplicity of the Slate interior is fantastic. They developed a screenless touch screen that you can rotate without even looking at them. I wish I were in the market for this type of vehicle.
Interior photo
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/0224bb02-8148-4c40-b402-9a3245fc21a4.jpeg">
Yeah, that is so perfect.
Imagine a sedan or hatchback. It would be light as a feather (in terms of curb weight) and still feel spacious being so ‘clean’ inside.
Kind of disappointing Bezos is involved though.
Backed, not owned though, and not alone:
slaterides.com/slate-auto-investors/
I view it as a net positive if Amazon wants them for EV delivery. A substantial guaranteed commercial customer is huge, and Slate isn’t exactly into dystopian tracking electronics or anything.
I drive a Kia EV6, and love it. Kia pushes like 2 OTAs per year for updates and small bug fixes, but hasn’t rolled out any new features. They have a premium connectivity package, but nothing but remote bells and whistles are behind it.
I use my phone for the infotainment via CarPlay.
My phone acts like a phone, and my car acts like a car.
Now, the reason I have an EV6? I was a happy Chevy Bolt owner looking for a newer vehicle and was eyeing the Equinox EV. I noped out as soon as they announced the Google partnership and decided to remove CarPlay and BYOD as a feature.
The two things that will turn me off from a future purchase is lack of CarPlay, or paywalled “hardware” upgrades, like performance tweaks or locking out something installed like heated seats. Nope.
Both fit in the same category of unfortunately necessary and terrible goods…so the merger makes sense to me.
That’s a part I never understood.
Cara are fucking expensive, they’re literally money drains. Unless you have that much money, you ainns having a car.
In Europe, bot having a car generally nis perfectly fine, you still can go everywhere easily as that place hasn’t been turned into a cars-only paradise
In the US, and countries that modelled themselves after it, you’re not going anywhere without a car. Public transit it shit at best and in many places completely absent. Want to try a bicycle? Good luck, you gotta mix in with the murder cars.
Cars do not represent freedom, they’re the opposite
In cities.
For those living in the countryside, not really, as distances are huge and public transport is rare (think a single bus that stops at a bus station a km or two away and passes maybe once every 2h) or non-existent.
That said, over 70% of people in Europe live in urban areas.
This depends on the country. Switzerland has excellent transit to even remote towns. And it has an excellent car culture for this reason as well.
Compared to walking or riding a horse they are freedom. They cost a lot, but also enable a lot.
i wish we had transit here, but that doesn't mean cars are not freedom. Even in europe most people drive.
My car is basically an accessory that turns my phone into a car, yes.
Yes, and car manufacturers are becoming SaaS vendors
Shit as a Subscription
Thank you
Combining two of the things I most hate. Makes sense.
Just?
My radio doesn’t even have a screen 😅
The only computer in my car is the radio, and that stays off most of the time. I’m honestly thrilled to not have so much tech in the car. Its nice to be able to fix nearly anything with some pliers, a multi-meter, and an adjustable spanner.
No engine control module in that thing?
Nope! Mid 70s MG, carbuereted. As far as I know it has a crank triggered ignition, ergo fully mechanical.
Edit: autocorrect assumed I no longer had this vehicle
Cries in atmosphere
Tuned to run slightly lean with an aftermarket catalytic convertor installed.
I do my best not to destroy the environment while still maintaining a vehicle I can work on myself
Lean burning increases mileage, but produces nitrous oxides.
Rich burning produces carbon monoxide, which eventually converts to CO2 in the atmosphere.
Unit for unit, NOx emissions are 265 times as damaging as CO/CO2.
…ucar.edu/…/some-greenhouse-gases-are-stronger-ot…
To successfully convert NOx, catalytic converters need a stoichiometric or slightly rich fuel/air mixture to the engine.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter
Guess i have work to do. Thank you 🙏
Indeed.
Unfortunately, no matter how well you tune your carburetor, just a change in atmospheric temperature is enough to throw off your mixture.
The only feasible way to adjust it fast enough to keep up with atmospheric changes is with some kind of fuel injection, an ECM, and an O2 sensor to provide the feedback needed for closed-loop mixture control.
Fortunately: speeduino.com
I’ve actually got a speeduino conversion on the agenda, but the car needs a full plumb in place rewire first. Its been through like 6 owners before me, one of which let it get infested with rats so a ton of the wiring had been replaced (notice I didn’t say repaired, or fixed)
The thing is a mess under the hood, I’m planning to run conduits with access loops every few feet to keep the wiring nice and clean. The end goal is California Ready but tbh I don’t expect it to ever meet emissions requirements that strict with a carb instead of EFI. I guess since I’ll be doing a speeduino conversion it wouldn’t be that much more work yo convert to EFI, or at least mod a turbo blowby hat to accept a diesel atomizer with which to jury rig a carb into a carbuer-efi hybrid.
Idk, I’m spitballing at this point.
They’ve been. Demand your privacy back
Cars have been giant
smartphones{tracking and data collection gold mines} for years nowYes.
Yes it’s why China was able to leapfrog and become a EV manufacturing giant. They were never able to compete in the traditional ICE vehicle market with the Europeans, Japanese and Americans. Since building an internal combustion engine that complies with the regulation, is fuel efficient and fast is really difficult for them since they lack the century of experience that the other manufacturers have. An electric engine is much less complex and since China has decades of experience building batteries, electronics and software, because they make the smartphones for almost every smartphone brand in the world, they were able to set up shop and catch up to foreign competitors very quickly in the EV market.
I don’t think that’s the reason. China makes tons of aftermarket replacement parts and even OEM parts.
Aftermarket.
There’s no Chinese translation for copyright infringement.
侵犯版權
My 2c:
You’re right they are going to become the EV king, but its not because they lack experience making ICE engines. Chinese vehicles with ICE engines are being sold on the European market and have been sold there for a while now. They weren’t able to out compete other manufacturers on the EU market because other brands have been well established and their lower prices were not significant enough. What I mean is: you aren’t going to disrupt a well established and saturated market with the same product.
The shift to EV presented an opportunity of equal ground on the EU market, in fact on worldwide markets. Domestic makers were not fast enough to adapt and so Tesla was able to gain a significant portion at the start. Other makers caught up soon but weren’t able to offer EV cars for the same prices as they traditionally did ICE cars. Now you have an unsaturated market with highly priced products. Chinese companies can exploit that. They don’t even have to disrupt any markets, they just need to enter them. Demand is there, supply is lackluster.
Its also an opportunity for new companies to start up and start picking at the old guard of 50+ year old car manufacturers. This is where you’re right. New companies don’t need to develop an ICE because its complex and difficult, making an EV is easier. Its just ironic the old car companies weren’t able to adapt. Was it their old ways? Bureaucracy? Oil investments? I don’t know.
They’re trying to for sure. Thats why I insisted on no electric doors, windows, or locks when I bought my truck. The CD player built in got yanked for an aftermarket mp3 CD player . no digital displays indash either
So the slate has a market after all
If you think that thing won’t have trackers everywhere, you’re dreaming.
Software enables new revenue streams. Manufacturers can lock out features and force people to pay subscriptions. The industry wants to normalize that so they get bigger margins and a source of revenue that extends long after the initial sale. Motor vehicle as a service.
I like controls that don’t distract from driving. Computers without any internet connection aren’t a problem. I don’t mind all the buttons and switches being connected to a micro-controller. It saves a lot of wiring and complexity. While I don’t like screens I can see how they are useful for some people. Ideally you can use a vehicle offline and with the screens off.
You can turn a lot of this stuff off. Still. Most of the driver assistant stuff is optional still.
In another few years? Probably not. They will probably change insurance policies to hold you liable if you drive without it.
I made sure my last car I bought had no modem in it. This is going to get a lot harder for my next. I will be probably limited to the used vehicles market.
I’m gonna be honest, I want my car to be an iPad on wheels. 120fps, buttery smooth animations, 3000nit brightness 19” vertical panel with CarPlay Ultra.
However, I’d be totally satisfied with the Slate truck model that has an app on a tablet that hooks directly into the truck. That’d be honestly more ideal.