10 Most Useless Car Technologies

Sure, it's easy to complain. But these car technologies deserve to be called out for being underwhelming, frustrating, or just plain pointless.

Paddle Shifters for Automatic Transmissions


In theory, the ability to manually shift an automatic with nice, prominent steering-wheel paddles makes some sense. Many of us don't want the inconvenience of a manual transmission during the daily grind, but who doesn't want to manually change gears once in a while? On some cars, like the AMG Mercedes with the seven-speed auto box, the paddles work fairly well. But we've often found that that the computer-controlled transmissions are far too reluctant to respond to driver inputs. As just one example, we've tried on multiple occasions to actuate the paddle shifters in the five-speed automatic in Acura's nimble new TSX about eight times before one corresponding upshift occurs. Unless the paddle shifters are calibrated properly, they're just another pointless feature.

Interlocked Seatbelts and Starter


This one's a bit of a throwback, but it might be the most famous market failure here. Interlocked seatbelts and starters, which would prevent drivers from starting the car unless they were wearing their seatbelts, became law in 1973. But Minnesotans, for just one example, laughed it out of their market. No matter how well they were tuned, the carbureted cars of the period required owner finesse to start at minus 30 F. Why buckle up before you determine your car will start? So many Minnesotans would just buckle the belts in the fall and sit on them through the winter. Congress soon quickly rescinded this misguided rule.

Automatically Steering Headlights


For our money, we'll take good headlights with broad beam spread and light output that covers the road evenly over these systems, which were designed to help drivers see around corners by turning the beams when the car's steering wheel reached a preset angle. This feature is normally found only on luxury cars; we've tried them all and were never impressed.

Automatic Moisture-Sensing Wipers


This feature is just like the automatic spelling-correction that interferes when you type on a word processor or a smartphone: You spend more time defeating the system when it screws up than you'd spend using the system manually. We feel an easy-to-reach switch for wipers remains the best way to clear an intermittently misting windshield. Automatic rain-detecting wipers fall under the category of trying to read Mother Nature's mind — hundreds of meteorologists say it can't be done. The reason automatically adjusting wipers were invented in the first place is because customers complained of poorly designed and placed wiper switches. Carmakers should have adopted a slightly simpler solution: easier-to-reach switches.

Map Lights


What's a map? Oh right, that stack of papers we used to carry around. The Mercury Capri of 1971 arrived standard with an articulating small spotlight (made by Hella for rally drivers) that would fold down from behind the rearview mirror and aim directly at the driver's or passenger's laps, illuminating a map without blinding the driver. It migrated to some Mustangs, but similar effective lighting wasn't available in the U.S. until the early 1990s, though without the precise intensity of the Capri's unit. By the late 1990s, map lights were finally common — just in time for the slow obsolescence of paper maps.

Motorized Rearview Mirror


When Mercedes introduced this feature in the 1994 SL500, we found a great use for it: If a driver is following you with high beams at night, you can aim the mirror to reflect the light back into his eyes without reaching up. As Mercedes explains, the feature is meant to work with the memory system for seat positions, exterior mirrors, and other controls. We think, however, that it's a good practice to adjust the mirror manually with your right hand after you get in any car, and this vital habit isn't so inconvenient that you need the extra weight in a servo motor and wiring to allow you to unlearn it.

Motorized Seatbelts


Back in the 1980s, before airbags became common, automakers used motorized seatbelts to satisfy the passive-safety requirements (the rules for what a car needed to have to protect occupants during a crash). But for most, the only passive part was the shoulder belt and you still had to buckle a separate lap belt. Plus, the tracks were prone to getting gummed up slowing the belt to a crawl. Epic fail.

Proximity Warning Systems


In these systems, sensors detect an object close to a car and trigger alerts to warn a driver — sounds very handy. In practice, though, the alerts are not common between different cars (like vehicle horns), and they offer no easily viewed direction as to where the alerts are coming from: front, rear, or side. Often the alerts sound distractingly similar to other warning chimes, such as those intended to warn you about unbuckled seatbelts, open doors, and even low-fuel alerts.

Electronic Parking Brake


Junior Johnson of Nascar fame perfected the "bootleg" turn, a method of reversing the direction of a car at speed on a narrow road, sometimes with the help of a parking brake. Latter-day handbrake users employ the parking brake to slow down in speed traps without alerting the speed-trap operators by flashing brake lights, and still more mechanical-handbrake fans use the brake lever regularly to turn into sharp driveways covered in snow. Electronic parking brakes in Jaguars, Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, and Bentleys won't allow any of this driver control.

Chevrolet Volt Capacitive Touch Controls


Now that we've all learned the ins and outs of touchscreens, we also know they're nearly impossible to use accurately while we're walking or jogging, riding a bike, or riding in a car. And even though we all balked at the first mass-produced touchscreen in a car, featured in the 1986 Buick Regal, those pressure-touch screens are much easier to use on the move than the Volt's sensitive capacitive-touch screen. Plus, the Volt touchscreen, just like an iPhone screen, doesn't work if you're wearing gloves unless they're made of specially designed conductive threads.

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/10-mo...d=autos_2325#1

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So do you guys agree/disagree, have anything to add to the list?

 

Headlight washers. The one that sprays, not the classic wipers.

 

I have to disagree about the whole list except for the motorized seatbelt and interlocked seatbelts/starter.

 

In Europe, any vehicle with HID/Xenon headlamps is required by law to be fitted with headlamp washers.....................because elements like rainwater droplets will have an effect on the light dispersion.

Anyways, personally, I disagree with most (if not all) of the list.................most especially with paddle shifters.

When I test drove the 2IS, all of the time, I was using paddle shifters. When I test drove the Accord 3.5 V6, I used the flappy paddle gearbox. For cars that I test drove that don't have paddles, I use manual mode via the gear shifters (Volvo S60 1.6 T4, Hyundai Tucson Crdi, MB C180 CGI, etc.)

I rarely use D (or 'full auto')........and I only use if I'm lazy and/or tired. Other than that, manual mode all the way.

 

Can't say I agree with the entire list. The two seatbelt ones I do agree with. I've no experience with the VOLT so cannot give a verdict. The rest I do have experience with and I guess the author just didn't have good examples to experience.

 

I agree with everything on the list. Flappy paddle shifting is crap. that delay..horrible

 

Hit and miss on that list IMO. But map lights, derp they can shockingly illuminate other things! Good feature to have I like them.

 

Mostly agreeable list, but it failed to include Lexus's self-parking system.

 

Pretty lame list. Map lights are used for all kinds of things... usually to see what you are looking for when the vehicle is stopped or parked. And I always use my shift paddles to engine brake.
Lastly, how many $70k luxury car drivers worry about using an e-brake to avoid cops? Give me a break. That may come up maybe .0001% of the time.

 

Now you can use your paddle shifters to slow down when you see a cop

 

Dash-screens and I-Drive/MMI-type controllers generally lead the obnoxious-list for me, followed by Bluetooth, lane-drift buzzers, and fighter-plane-style heads-up digital-displays in the windshield. Listening to many auto-based Bluetooth calls is often like having someone with cotton stuffed down his/her throat. If I can't keep a vehicle in my own lane without a buzzer, then, IMO, I don't deserve a Drivers' License. I find digital displays in general, and especially in the windshield, annoying. And don't even want to get into my opinion of I-Drive and MMI.

I disagree with this. IMO, one should not be driving in a manner where this kind of action would be needed or desired) in the first place. And, if one is driving sensibly, usually it is not needed. One should not be driving far enough over the limit that they would have to make a sudden sharp slowdown when the man in blue shows up...nor should one be going fast enough on snow and ice that he or she would have to hand-brake-skid the rear-end around into a driveway. This is the kind of stuff that gets a lot of drivers into trouble.

 

Some of these features are in my LS430 !!! Makes me feel they're saying my car is obnoxious.

 

don't feel too bad, this is MSN posting after all lol

 

i agree on the volt touch display..and its also annoying to use, im a geek by all definition and i had a hard time going from option threw option..even the chevy rep who let me take it for a test drive had a hard time using ot on top of that it got stuck on stupid at one point..in a nut shell FAIL

 

oh i forgot i disagree on the map light my girl uses it all the time and on some cars the angle of the light doesn't interfere with me driving