25 grand? Haha okay sure. We'll see.
I'm still real iffy on autonomous driving. As a driving enthusiast myself, I can't see myself letting software take the driving experience away from me. I already can't stand how drive-by-wire further removes the driver from the driving experience (such as the lack of feedback in what the front wheels are doing on the road surface when using electric steering). I think I'm also too paranoid to sleep in a car that's driving itself. I'm pretty dang sure the ONLY autonomous car I trust is the Knight Industries Two Thousand.
I also do not care for electric vehicles. Yeah yeah, I know, they have zero emissions and instantaneous torque delivery and whatnot, but I dunno, they seem soul-less to me. If ICE vehicles are the organic beings, electric cars are the robots. I enjoy the experience of starting up an ICE, feeling the vibrations from the engine, hearing the engine/exhaust note, and shifting gears. I don't like the eerie silence of electric vehicles. They especially feel like appliances, like using a toaster or a microwave. No matter how fast or powerful they get, an element of "life" is missing from them.
I can NOT stand touch-screens in vehicles. I already don't like them in general (although I guess they are fine for smartphones). I need physical knobs/dials/switches, all of which can be used without taking your eyes off the road after you've gotten familiar with the vehicle and controls layout. With touch-screens you need to see what you are pressing, and they tend to be slower in terms of activation and responsiveness. Modern cars also love to bury features inside menus. Using the window locks in a Tesla Model S Plaid is a 4-step process in the menus, rather than a physical button on the door you can just instantly press and activate.
I can't tell if even half the drivers out there are even trying to steer.
The problem is, people don't drive with purpose. They are too focused either on just going from point A to point B, or their music, or doing their make-up/shaving, or eating, or talking on the phone, or whatever the f*ck else. They aren't focused on the act of driving, on listening to and feeling what the vehicle is doing, on the act of controlling a multi-thousand-pound vehicle that is capable of traveling at very high speeds (and by that I mean even just highway speeds), on what is going on around them out there on the roads. To most people, cars are just an appliance for travel. Yeah we use vehicles for traveling from point A to point B, but I need to be engaged with the vehicle
between A and B. When I am driving, I am all about the driving. I don't get distracted with other crap. My mind focuses just on what it takes to operate the vehicle. If more people paid attention when driving, and were more actively engaged in controlling the vehicles they are driving, we'd need autonomous driving way the f*ck less. I think autonomous vehicles will just give people even more excuse to pay less attention on the roads.
I like driving. I don't want self driving tech, even if I could trust it.
I feel yah there dawg.
If a car isn't driver-centric with enough gauges and dials around the driver position in a traditional instrument panel to make even the geekiest engineer blush, I don't want it. A simple user interface isn't necessarily better. That's why I don't own Apple products.
Haha yupz! Completely agree.
I really don't care about self driving tech. I don't want it in my way, I don't want to pay for it, and I CERTAINLY don't want it used as an excuse to dumb down my driver cockpit experience.
Amen.
I'm not interested in all these electric cars trying to redefine what a car is.
I know, what the f*ck is up with that sh1t? Sheesh.
Well, maybe that was a bad example...
I do think Ford tried to hard to be a Tesla here, and I too would rather it just look like a regular ICE Mustang than trying to chase a Model 3 interior. But... it is an electric Mustang, and it has some performance numbers that don't look too bad.
Please don't call that hideous abomination a Mustang. It really should have had its own name. Ford should NOT have used Mustang branding with that sh1t.
