Connected everything comes to cars and it is simply stupid
In the era of Alexa everything and the smarthome, you’d expect cars to leap onto that connected bandwagon, and they have, as much as things with wheels can leap. If you’re a curmudgeon, which I think most people secretly are, deep down where we keep our secrets and all our best lint, you’d expect it to be pointless and stupid because beyond navigation and voice commands, how much does your car actually need to do?
Good news, then, NIMBY off-my-lawners, because I can sum up exactly how idiotic the connected car future is with one, I guess, equation: C-V2X.
C-V2X is what Ford has requested the press call “cellular vehicle-to-everything”, which from the skimpy details offered at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, CES, is a mesh communications network that includes car-to-car data transfer. The idea being if the car around the corner from you has an accident, your car would know about it in real time, and you could then have a software crash first, then followed by a real one.
Hyundai and Mercedes thought, the heck with formulae. Ford merely adopted stupid. We were born in it, molded by it, and introduced, ugh, artificial intelligence entertainment systems for cars.
Hyundai’s version is called the Intelligent Personal Cockpit and is a dashboard AI that does something something jargon I can’t even. It “voice-enables virtually every command” and “serves as a personal assistant and even checks the driver’s vital signs so the vehicle can take action if the driver is stressed.”Weak sauce, Hyundai.
Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX—that’s right, Em Bucks) features a pair of 12-inch wide holographic touchscreens for you to poke at while you rear end a street sweeper. The best part is that it’s going into production this year on the A-class. MBUX (“Mmm buxxx”) replaces the entire traditional dashboard, console, gauges and everything else; “learns thanks to artificial intelligence;” “can be individualized and adapts to suit the user;” and “creates an emotional connection between the vehicle, driver and passengers.”
Which is great, because you use it—and this is true—by saying “Hey Mercedes,” which is exactly what you want your spouse to hear you mumbling in the garage. Like all connected cars, it’s continually online and receiving over-the-air updates so it will almost immediately brick your screens and thus your $60,000 “entry level” Mercedes.
None of that even remotely compares to the Toyota e-Palette (seriously) one of five (seriously) i- or e- prefix vehicles they are sucking our brains out with. All I can do is quote them, because the eight-wheeled i-TORTureBox had an entire MBA program glossary thrown at it.
The e-Palette “is a fully-automated, next generation battery electric vehicle (BEV) designed to support a range of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) offerings. Created as part of a new mobility service business partnership, the e-Palette Alliance, the concept vehicle provides an open interior design layout that is scalable and customizable for various uses—including logistics services, ride sharing, and other on-the-road e-commerce.”
I’ve barely touched on the iceberg of a future where we are supposed to want to be pals with our cars that we call by porn star names and surround us with blinky lights and, I assume, slushy dispensers. Is it just me? Kitschy AIs are not what I want out of my future—you just know you’ll be able to download an emoji pack for your Mercedes that pops up a big embarrassed face when you drift out of your lane.
Maybe it still seems like a good idea, but say that when your infotainment has been taken over by Russian spam bots playing ads for sketchy casinos, or automated McDonalds popups every time you stop near one.
The automated, connected future is going to make itself not smart, but exactly as dumb as we deserve. Let’s just hope it stays off my lawn.
David Traver Adolphus is a freelance automotive researcher who quit his full time job writing about old cars to pursue his lifelong dream of writing about old AND new cars. Follow him on Twitter as @proscriptus.