Comment by Grombobulous
4 hours ago
There are a lot of electric cars that are relatively normal, usually from more traditional auto manufacturers.
Toyota bZ/bZ Woodland, the entire Hyundai/Kia lineup, Honda Prologue, Jaguar i-pace, original Audi e-tron
I haven’t seen the newer Nissan infotainment system, not sure about that one.
Are these without tech? No, not at all, but they do have fast and simple interfaces that are designed to dump you into CarPlay/Android Auto with ease, and a good amount of them retain separated climate controls that live outside the screen.
Obviously if you want something like a 2008 Accord that’s not really going to be a thing, but almost everyone who isn’t Tesla or Rivian is surprisingly conventional. If you haven’t done much EV shopping and your impression of EVs is “they’re all like Tesla where everything is in the screen” that isn’t true at all. For example, Kia/Hyundai EV models have absolutely zero difference between the gas models and EVs in terms of control design. Toyota’s latest infotainment system is as basic and straightforward as it gets.
The only electric car that I drove was a Peugeot 208e. I liked it a lot, but just the fact that the car has a SIM card with 4G connection is already weird for me. Why would my car connect to the internet? I also have doubts about the GPS... And I absolutely do not want Android Auto. Anything related to Google or any GAFAM is a big no for me.
Android Auto (and, similarly, Apple CarPlay) isn’t by itself any form of draconian Google data collection, you can really think of it as a second screen mirroring car-oriented user interface for Android OS.
It is almost 100% equivalent to connecting a second monitor to a laptop, but with a car UI.
You can use Android Auto without any sort of internet connection with offline maps, perhaps an app utilizing OpenStreetMaps. There is no prerequisite to sign your life away to Google or have them collect tons of data from you to use it.
As far as cars having cellular modems, yeah, I guess I’m not a fan of not having the choice to buy new cars without them, but usually they are there for pretty logical reasons. The car manufacturer infotainment system usually has its own software with online-enabled maps and apps, which some people prefer, I guess.
Believe it or not, Rivian has a complete global off switch for data collection, although it disables features like adaptive cruise control. Still, you’d probably be the type to not mind losing that as a trade-off.
There definitely needs to be more privacy legislation surrounding automotive technology, for sure. However, our original topic here was “bloat,” which in the context of automotive technology I take to mean “overbearing software and a lack of intuitive controls for automotive functions.”
For me, if a car has separate climate controls, turn signal stalks, non-haptic steering wheel buttons, and a volume knob, and the screen isn’t wildly laggy, I’m good.