Dashboard Madness

Cars peaked around 2005. This is the model year of my Subaru Forester STI (SG9). The best and coolest car ever made. 350 hp,  1500 kg (3300 lbs), frameless side windows, ultimate performance (including offroad), driver-focused interior, sub-5s 0-100km/h acceleration, unbelievable handling.

The dashboard is driver-focused too with clean instruments panel featuring central tachometer and all distractors moved away. The other controls are just three well know knobs for ventilation (fan direction, fan speed, temperature).

Then I have a 2-din aftermarket radio unit with capacitive touch and wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. It also has tons of other functions including a CD/DVD player but I don't use them. Android Auto / Apple CarPlay is all that is needed these days. OK maybe an FM receiver for some old schoolers.

As I travel a lot, I drive many rental cars too. The problem they all indicate is the car industry got drunk with semi/automated driver assistance subsystems and computerized screens. Last week I was driving a Golf 8 in Germany. Hats off for the ICE engine performance: 4l/100km (~60mpg). But otherwise the car was very complicated and was doing all it could to distract me as the driver.

There was a continuous stream of notifications flowing from the dashboard. And I earned countless badges on the way, manifested by colorful icons popping up on the instruments panel and on the huge glowing LCD screen in the center console. All that time every couple of minutes it was also reminding me to keep eyes on the road (which I did). The driver monitoring system seemed simply too aggressive: when joining a main road at an intersection you need to look through the side window for the incoming traffic. The computer beeping at you does not help. And I did not dare to change the airflow through the cooling vents, as it could cause me ending up in a ditch.

Compare this to the Saab night mode. Pure calmness and focus instead of the everlasting cacophony of beeps, bells, popups, options, updates, warnings etc.

The car industry has gone astray. They drown drivers in digital slop fully distracting and isolating them from the most important parts - the car and the road.