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Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

Safety is a big factor here. The basic trim for all entry level models includes driving aids such as proximity sensors, blind spot warning, backup camera, pre-collision warning. The changes required to integrate those features into the car are diverse and influence design. The net result is that it's not economically feasible to offer them as optional components on higher trims and the base price of all models goes up as a result.

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Meh. I feel like that's a scapegoat that they like to use. Honda packed all that into the Fit (Honda Sensing), and it wasn't a $50,000 car. It was reasonably priced, and an excellent, economical car, with a top safety rating. It's literally the exact same tech used in their top end cars.

But what they did was, they killed the Fit in the US. So now the cheapest Honda car you can get is the Civic. Which isn't the small car it used to be.

I mean also, how much does this tech cost really? A backup camera? You really gonna claim that cars are unaffordable because of a $20 LCD and $10 camera installed into the bumper?

Pre-collision warnings, blind spot monitoring, it's all 20 year old tech now. And it comes in everything.

So your argument on a software development site is that feature creep isn't a thing?

>> unaffordable because of a $20 LCD and $10 camera installed into the bumper?

Yes. An automotive-grade LCD that will last years, plus a camera that will survive the elements, not mention the unreliable power supplies on which these must operate. Then 10+ feet of cable. Then the dozen little plastic clips to keep that cable secure. Then the manpower to install all of this. Yes. That camera system is more expensive than an injection-molded mirror bolted to the exterior of a car or glued to a windscreen. Multiply that by dozens of similar little things and it does result in more expensive vehicles.

I bought my Honda Fit in 2014 for 16k. It has a back up camera, but no other sensor/parking tech. I’ve put almost 200k miles on it without anything more than regular oil changes and brakes. I could afford a much more fun and feature rich vehicle, but there’s something to be said for the simplicity and functionality of this modest hatchback.

Europe is still full of cheap base models with manual transmissions. Americans just go for luxury and it shapes the market in that direction.

Safety is also the driving factor in vehicle size. We are in an arms race of constantly increasing vehicle complexity and mass. The safest vehicle to be in any two-vehicle crash is almost always the bigger one. With mass comes cost.

The irony is that vehicles are now ridiculously safe in comparison to decades past. Regulators who for years improved safety by leaps and bounds (seat belts, crumple zones, anti-lock breaks etc) are now forced to playing at the margins. Every incremental improvement now comes at greater and greater complexity/mass/cost. Rear view and side mirrors are going away soon, to be replaced by backup cameras. Also are coming anti-drunk features. There is serious talk about interlock breathalyzers being built into all steering wheels. This is going to get much worse.

For those who cannot afford a car but still need to travel the distances, there is always motorcycles. New two-wheeled vehicles are still cheap.

Motorcycles are absolutely not a solution as anyone who has ridden will tell you.

Neither are bicycles and electric skateboards, but needs must. With cars costing tens of thousands, not to mention parking issues, I see a great many young people turning to two-wheeled vehicles in years to come. A small motorcycle, be it IC or electric, will always be the cheaper option.

Not a solution to what, exactly? Motorcycles have satisfied most of my everyday transportation needs for many years now.

Not a solution to carrying passengers, or lots of bags, or in snow and ice, or very long distances, or going somewhere you don't want motorbike gear and helmet to worry about. I love my motorbike but it's not as practical as a car for lots of things.

It's funny - I find cars to be less practical than motorcycles for most of the trips I take, for example whenever traffic or scarcity of parking are involved - which is most of the time! - and if for some reason I could only have one vehicle, I want to say that I would choose the motorcycle, because life without it would suck; but then, a car actually can handle all the trips a motorcycle can make - comparatively slow, expensive, and annoying though the process may be - whereas there are a minority of errands one occasionally has to run which a motorcycle cannot handle at all. So perhaps the real answer is that it's too much to expect any one mode of transportation to handle every need.

I _hate_ this trend of moving everything into software. Touchscreens in cars are awful. And now cameras instead of mirrors? No thanks.

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