• 2 Posts
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Joined 5 months ago
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Cake day: February 14th, 2025

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  • A pity. I love my Volvo, but it’s several generations old. The software (particularly driver assist) is arguably the best I’ve used, including current cars. The UI suffers from a small screen but everything just works and there’s real buttons. I do wish it had CarPlay of course.

    No idea what to replace it with. Wagons are basically dead as a class (don’t say crossover); Volvo is apparently unreliable and besides, I can’t yet afford an EV with the range I need (I have one; it’s great; I need more range and that’s still more than I can afford). Ah well, hopefully I’ll have time to consider it before it dies; it’s barely 10 years old and I plan to have it another 10.

    Worth noting - I don’t know where these are built, but my feeling is that the EV and software is more Chinese, and the design, chassis, interior, and gasoline engines are Swedish. It’s difficult to know, but it may be that the safety culture in the Swedish offices hasn’t been replicated in China. That’s always a risk with acquisitions and certainly not a Chinese problem.

    I am not sure that the issues he has experienced are especially unique however. Pop into forums for BMW and Mercedes and there’s always a few people who got lemons.





    1. Require auto technicians to own thousands of dollars of their own tools.
    2. Pay auto technicians piecework.
    3. Senior techs take on “gravy” work that pays better per hour, leading to very long hours for the junior techs to make ends meet.
    4. Society and government guide everyone with three brain cells into university degree programs for decades on end.
    5. “There aren’t any automotive technicians”!

    Plus, it’s very obvious that there’s a massive push towards ending fossil fuel use in the personal transportation space, and electric cars simply don’t have the same maintenance requirements. It’s like stating your intent to become a professional typist in 1988 when computers were clearly going to massively impact the line of work.











  • I believe that the driver assistance systems encourage inattentive driving. Tesla rightly gets a lot of press for this, but when the car holds the lane and brakes for you 99.9% of the time, it sure seems safe to send that email, formatting and all.

    But the problem is that one would require self-awareness to identify what degree of inattentiveness is OK (change the radio station) or not (review the PowerPoint Jane sent over). With our current technology situation, those systems probably are net positive for collision avoidance.

    My kids get to learn to drive with all that shite disabled. Except the emergency stuff (auto braking), which seems like a good idea. Check your own blind spot, dummy.