Most car companies these days are positioning themselves more broadly as “mobility tech firms“. Doing so generates buzz that excites shareholders, but it’s also a strategic play — one that makes plenty of sense in a market where traditional car brands may soon be generating more profit from their technology than selling cars.
The trouble for car buyers is that — whether the intention is to look trendy and tech-forward or just to show off new features — that technology ends up in the cars we buy, making them more complicated and costly. And much of that technology sits unused, in the best case scenario, or worse, converts routine tasks into an absolute nuisance.
Here are seven car tech features found in modern vehicles that we could do very much do without.
CadillacHands-Free “Driving”
We can debate whether full self-driving is mere tech solutionism or a feature that real-life buyers want from their car. What’s not in dispute is that current hands-free driving systems are not fully self-driving. The best systems, like GM’s Super Cruise, can do impressive things, but such systems still place an undue attention burden on the driver, rendering their ultimate benefit — slightly less fatiguing highway drives? — nebulous.
Ford
