For over a century, the automobile has represented freedom, power, and the thrill of mechanical mastery. The connection between driver, machine, and road defined what it meant to own and love a car. But in today’s digital era, a different trend is unfolding. Cars are no longer just machines designed to take us from point A to point B. Increasingly, they resemble something else entirely: smartphones on wheels.
Yes, and car manufacturers are becoming SaaS vendors
My car is basically an accessory that turns my phone into a car, yes.
the automobile has represented freedom
That’s a part I never understood.
Cara are fucking expensive, they’re literally money drains. Unless you have that much money, you ainns having a car.
In Europe, bot having a car generally nis perfectly fine, you still can go everywhere easily as that place hasn’t been turned into a cars-only paradise
In the US, and countries that modelled themselves after it, you’re not going anywhere without a car. Public transit it shit at best and in many places completely absent. Want to try a bicycle? Good luck, you gotta mix in with the murder cars.
Cars do not represent freedom, they’re the opposite
The sad thing is ‘smartphone on wheels’ is a slur.
Smartphones don’t have to be soulless and uniform and enshittified and subscription based and completely inaccessible and straight up anti-consumer/designed to fail, but here we are.
I really hope Slate takes off though (and they make a nimble hatchback for their next chassis). It feels like the antithesis of all this.
The simplicity of the Slate interior is fantastic. They developed a screenless touch screen that you can rotate without even looking at them. I wish I were in the market for this type of vehicle.
Interior photo
Yeah, that is so perfect.
Imagine a sedan or hatchback. It would be light as a feather (in terms of curb weight) and still feel spacious being so ‘clean’ inside.
If the state of open source phones are anything to judge by, we will have open source cars at some point, except the foot brake isn’t working yet, so you’ll have to use the hand brake for now. Cars and phones both take a lot of resources to develop, and maybe you’ll be able to “de-Stellantis” your car at some point instead of going fully open source, but judging by the recent steps Google has taken to weaken de-Googling, I’m not sure how long that would last either.
It’s nothing less than a war against property rights.
They are pushing software into cars because they see copyright, and more specifically the DMCA anti-circumvention clause, as an excuse to retain their control over your property after they sell it to you. Rentiership is 100% of their goal, and providing useful functionality is nothing but an afterthought at best.
“Subscriptions” to hardware you already own is entirely FRAUD and executives of companies that engage in it deserve long prison sentences.
Both fit in the same category of unfortunately necessary and terrible goods…so the merger makes sense to me.
Bill Burr calls it “driving an iPad”
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.
Sadly yes and they’re mainly taking the worst aspects. Normal built in features like heated seats as subscriptions, dropping smartphone integration for their own far inferior dogshit UI and features, and so on.
Volkswagen is so bad at this! They have phone connectivity but they bog down the infotainment with they’re own crap software. The GPS is so bad it slowes down the whole system. I will never use vw maps. Ever. Just stop!
And Chevy just doesn’t have android auto on or apple play on their lower trim levels. But they do compensate by integrating Google maps at least.
Kia is the best though. Minimal proprietary software. Plug your phone in and android auto automatically comes up.
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Some of these comments are the most elitist, contrarian bullshit I’ve ever heard.
This article is about the positives and negatives of car connectivity, not how cool you are because you choose to ride a bike. You’re so cool because instead of choosing to not connect your phone to your car, you bought a rusty 07 Camry?
I’m not the biggest fan of the choices these companies are making either, but if your 1997 Mazda 929 is a personality trait, it’s not much different from the ding dong who bought the Ram 3500 to showcase his peanut balls.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I drive old cars because they don’t spy on me and they’re inexpensive to own. I have an 07 hybrid and an 06 minivan. They’re only an expression of my personality to the extent that I don’t care about my car and need something to get from A-B. I don’t flaunt it, and I’ll probably replace it with an older EV because refilling gas is annoying for my dedicated commuter (the hybrid).
I’d rather ride my bike, but my work is too far away (2 hours on transit, ~1.5 hybrid w/ bike, maybe 1 with a riced ebik, each way), and my reasons for sticking with my employer and not moving are more important than my preference for cycling.
My mode of transportation is about utility, not expression of personality. I’d drive a truck if it made sense, I just haven’t found one that makes more sense than renting one the 2-3 times per year I need to haul something that doesn’t fit in my minivan.
When I need to upgrade my car, I’ll find something sensible and maybe remove the parts I don’t like. It’s not a big deal.
Personally I think it is cool to not give money to anti-consumer companies, which I assume all car companies have become by now if they all have computers. Certainly they cannot forever resist the temptation to use the power they have over users when they control the software running on our hardware.
I don’t disagree with either of your points. However, I’m not edgy because I refuse to shop at Target. I’m saying these comments are a bit smug.
Ads between gear changes in 3…2…1…
We’re not too far detached from that being reality already. There are several car brands that straight up block your entire infotainment system to show their own ads
It looks like you’re trying to brake. You’ve used up this months braking quota. Breaking will be enabled again in two weeks. Please enter credit card details to upgrade your subscription to allow unlimited breaking*.
*Fair use policy, limitations apply. Braking is not available on all roads. If you’re using the brake to often, an additional braking fee might be applied to your credit card for each use. Braking fee and subscriptions do not include mechanical wear, new parts or checks by a mechanic.
What becoming?
Imagine a car without cellular connectivity
You mean, like the car that I drive currently? It’s pretty tough to picture, honestly.
Tough to picture? Maybe improve your arts skills.
No need to improve your art skills. All you need to do now is feed your 2026 Civic some keywords to generate an AI image.
Archive link to an FAQ for the Slate electric trucklette that claims no sim cards and minimum digital bits. No clue if it will be a good vehicle so don’t take this as an endorsement. https://archive.ph/PMKpC
Anyone know other options?
Find a car that fits your needs and then pull the fuse powering the sim card before it leaves the lot. If it breaks, put the fuse back and don’t buy it.
My 2019 corolla lost the right speaker and mic access when I did that. I fixed the right speaker by crossing some wires, and the mic hasn’t really been needed enough for me to dig deeper to fix it.
Fucking sim cards in cars. I hate everything.
Suzuki Jimny, still comes in a very basic electrical system
Have they ever made an electric car that didn’t have that fucking SHIT ?
Yes, plenty. The pre-faclift Ioniq for example
You can convert an older car to electric. As basic as it gets but with a new mode of power
aand this is why I won’t buy a car made after 2010.
This is why I ordered a Slate.
IMO cars peaked around 2015
Interiors looked really nice and you had analog dials etc. Wish some small screens, just enough.
Today it’s just big plastic dashboard with cheap tablets stuck in them
The analog dials were an illusion. That information has been processed digitally for at least the last 25 years.
My 2014 Crosstrek is fine. Doesn’t even have eyesight.
My 2020 Crosstrek with a manual is pretty good. The only things on the little touchscreen is the radio, backup camera, and android or apple for navigation. Also it isn’t integrated into the whole car so it can be replaced with an aftermarket unit. It has none of the blind spot monitoring, lane assist etc. It’s a lot of fun to drive on back roads, although it could use just a little more power.
2016 is still a good year as most of the connected tech isn’t supported anymore as it’s on the 3g network.
good to know!!
Eh, my early 9th gen civic is nice, though I think they ruined it only like coupla years later with cell radios.
