For the most part, drivers find the technology in their cars to be pretty useless.
It turns out that more technology in cars isn’t necessarily something customers want, and it’s not really improving their driving experience. We know my thoughts on the matter, but I’ll do my best to stay impartial on this latest survey from JD Power that shows most customers don’t appreciate technology in cars unless they can see a clear benefit to them.
JD Power’s 2024 U.S. Tech Experience Index Study evaluated over 81,000 drivers’ experience with “advanced vehicle technologies” in 2024 model year vehicles after 90 days of ownership, It turned out to be a pretty mixed bag when it came to what people liked using. There are a number of tech features that customers like using because they feels that it answers their needs, but at the same time there is a whole lot that don’t get used very often or are continually annoying, according to the survey.
I don't want to ban it. Some people apparently want it (well, or at least the price reduction that comes with the auto companies having a new revenue source). I'm hesitant to try to impose my preferences on them.
I just want an option to pay regular price for a car myself and not have everything I do be data-mined. If it costs $N to pay your costs and make your profit, just charge me $N. I just want to be the customer in the relationship, not the product.
They operated just fine like that for decades. I don't see a need for that to change.
If the way you want the market to work is "everyone does things the way I want" rather than "let everyone choose what they want", the chance that the single route that is taken is not what you want is considerably greater.
It's funny, because there actually is 0 price reduction in most cases.
It is literally even more expensive cars and the corporations double dipping to make extra profit.
Except for maybe some lesser-known Chinese brands that I have no point of reference for, I don't believe there is a single corporation that has made their "smart" cars with tracking on-par or cheaper than their counterparts.
Most of the bullshit exists because of federal regulations requirements that they ran away with. Even backup cameras (which are arguably useful) because of shape/size/economy restrictions causing rear windows to be less easy to see out of.
Backup camera was mandated because of stronger pillar requirements to increase protection in rollovers, which was mandated because of an increase in rollover crashes, which was caused by an increase in SUV and Truck sales, which was caused by an increase in consumer demand for trucks and SUVs, which was caused by an increase in marketing for Trucks and SUVs which was caused by decrease in (relative) profit margin on sedans/coupes/wagons which was caused by the light truck loophole in CAFE standards, which was put in by manufacturers in the first place.
So I blame the corporations, their lobbyists, and the payroll politicians for it.