Comment by cptskippy

> looking at you, Volkswagen

I have a new Volkswagen and there's an annoying amount of arrogance behind the technology decisions in the vehicle that really sour the experience.

Perhaps the most annoying is that many notifications like "you can't do that while driving" are toast style notifications that disappear before you can notice or read them.

It has 360 degree cameras but it gets to decide when you can activate them. Want to know if you have enough room on the passenger side to go around a vehicle stopped in front of you without scratching up your tires? Too bad, the car doesn't detect a parking spot.

Wireless charger refuses to charge phone and puts up a notification saying it can't charge it any time you place your phone on it. There's a menu setting to disable the wireless charger, and that puts up a persistent notification telling you to re-enable wireless charging.

You put the re-circulation fan on, perhaps because you don't like smelling exhaust fumes? Car quietly turns it off again in the not to distant future.

You adjusted your volume, car readjusts it for you because reasons. You can see some of those reasons buried deep in the menu system, but not all of them. Car will adjust your volume again at a later date without your consent.

The car sends notifications about the status of the car but doesn't update or remove them when they're no longer true. I wake up most mornings to several "Your doors are unlocked" notifications but the doors are locked. Did they unlock? Why did they unlock? How long were they unlocked? Nobody knows...

Walk away car locking? Works 100% of the time when get out of the car at home and walk two feet away from the car. Fails to work the first time you park it downtown and someone rifles through your car and steals your charging adapter.

You got home and are unloading groceries from the trunk, the car is going to honk at you that the trunk is ajar before you can even get inside the house. You'll receive alerts on your phone that the trunk is open as well.

Car honks any time a door is left open or the car isn't locked even if you're standing less than 2 feet from the car holding the key.

You have a charge schedule setup so your car only charges during off-peak times. Want to charge at a pay-charger or outside of that schedule? Sure, just click the button on screen which permanently disables the charge schedule and requires to you go deep into menus to re-enable it.

Similar situation with State of Charge limits. Want to charge to 100% for a road trip? Sure that's the new permanent setting, and we're going to remind you it's bad to charge to 100% all the time.

Tesla gets dumped for so much, but their software is so well tuned compared to this garbage.