Technology

It has wheels so the computer doesn't touch the ground you know.

Both fit in the same category of unfortunately necessary and terrible goods...so the merger makes sense to me.

If they are, would that make old cars giant feature phones on wheels?

I drive a Kia EV6, and love it. Kia pushes like 2 OTAs per year for updates and small bug fixes, but hasn’t rolled out any new features. They have a premium connectivity package, but nothing but remote bells and whistles are behind it.

I use my phone for the infotainment via CarPlay.

My phone acts like a phone, and my car acts like a car.

Now, the reason I have an EV6? I was a happy Chevy Bolt owner looking for a newer vehicle and was eyeing the Equinox EV. I noped out as soon as they announced the Google partnership and decided to remove CarPlay and BYOD as a feature.

The two things that will turn me off from a future purchase is lack of CarPlay, or paywalled “hardware” upgrades, like performance tweaks or locking out something installed like heated seats. Nope.

the thrill of mechanical mastery

I remember people in the 80s/90s complaining that those pieces of shit were broken all the time. Not anymore IMHO. There was only thrill for a few car enthusiasts.

My car is a 2023 and I pretty much by-pass all the integrated tech and use apple Car Play.

Watching people whine about tech in cars has always been comical to me. The first time I heard it was in the 80s and how cruise control was going to make cars unusable eventually.

Shit headline. "No" is the answer. Let'smoved on.

It'll be interesting to see how Slate does, if it makes it to production.

Yeah, 25 years ago. Where the fuck have you been? Cars were smart phones before smart phones were small enough to be smart phones.

Cars had on board computers standard decades before the personal computer became a fixture in the American home. I mean, the Audi 5000 in 1985 was a pretty famous example. Mostly because of how hilariously the computer fucked up. I should know, my mother had one at the time. Every trip was a real “adventure”.

Everything you’re smart phone does, your car could do 20 years ago. It just didn’t have such a look in her face, and it was a lot bigger than a device you could stick in your pocket.