Like the title says, are there any EVs that just have a Bluetooth radio and that’s it? Like a normal car, not a smartphone on wheels? If not, do you all think that this will actually happen at some point? This is the main reason why I can’t (and will never) buy an EV. I like to have actual buttons everywhere on my car. I think those massive tablets on these cars with all the touch buttons are very dangerous. I like an “entertainment system” that only connects to my phone with either a headphone jack of or Bluetooth. It’s a car, not a PC.
That and safety and I genuinely don’t care for bells and whistles, as they add to the cost unnecessarily. Whenever I needed a new car, I never bought new, I always bought second hand and made sure it’s the “lowest trim” of the model. So much cheaper for the same car. I come from a 3rd world country and am used to cars that just drive with no other purposes. So, why not save my money and also be safe, you know?
Yeah, historically that’s how it worked, fewer features meant less money. The difficult part today is, the cheapest products are being subsidized with these “smart” features. For cars, as well as most other products, they are able to charge less because they can harvest your data, or lock you into their repair shops, or show you ads. We’re now at the point where it costs more to have a bare bones device, and it’s cheaper to sell your soul to the company.
And unfortunately, buying second hand doesn’t get you out of it. Just like how digital purchases can’t be re-sold or traded, “smart” cars can be remotely locked down if they determine it’s been resold.
This twitter post used to be a story of a person who resold a tesla, only to have Tesla remotely downgrade the battery capacity because they determined they made a mistake when servicing a previous owner.