How Much Tech Does Your Can Actually Need?
Aug 29
2010
I’ve only had my wheels for a couple of years now, but I wouldn’t change them for the world. It might have been made over a decade ago, but it fulfills all my requirements. This is namely transport me from A to B and occasionally keep the rain off my head. My friends however give me a lot of stick about my auto as they all have very new cars that all look like the Starship Enterprise on wheels and have more technology than a NASA spacecraft. A selection of technological tools do provide some benefit, but largely speaking I would say tech causes more problems than it solves. Here are just three reasons why I’m not going to be pressured into upgrading
1.) More things to go wrong. I’m constantly providing a shoulder to cry on after my friends “smart” air conditioning unit breaks and starts plummeting the temperature in his car to minus 30 degrees. Or consoling a mate whose parking sensor fell asleep during a vital parking moment. When all is said an done, tech will malfunction eventually and the more of the stuff you have, the more frequently it will cause you to pull your hair out
2.) Over dependence. Ask your granddad how he managed to get around in his old Ford Cortina and he’ll tell you that he only had the position of the sun to guide him and a dipping stick to work out how much petrol he had left. And yet, he’ll also tell you that he never got lost and never ran out of petrol. He may be stretching the truth a little, but I would put money on the fact a higher percentage of road users run into problems such as these nowadays. This tend to be the case because handing over your faith to a sat nav system that claims to hold 45 million road in its data center is great in principle, but not so great when it delivers you a location 100 miles from your home just because you happen to share the same road name.
3.) Theft. You might consider my view of the world too negative, but as far as I’m concerned the more tech you have in your car, the more of a target it becomes to thieves. Criminals like luxuries just like the rest of us and don’t want to have to nick a car without some climate control or have to put up with a dodgy sound system. For these reasons (among others) it’s almost always the flash cars that get targeted. This is not always the best decision thieves can make however, as it very likely some of that tech will go wrong and cause them to break down or get horribly lost.
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Tags: auto, auto technology, car technology, Cars

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