Working for the ministry has its perks. I can 'reserve' a free car whenever I need to visit anywhere work-related. But every single time I enter the newer models, I get confused. It seems as if the cars were designed by people who don't drive cars.
Working for the ministry has its perks. I can 'reserve' a free car whenever I need to visit anywhere work-related. But every single time I enter the newer models, I get confused. It seems as if the cars were designed by people who don't drive cars.
The ministry has a fair amount of different cars. Most of them are 'older' Peugeots, Toyotas, and Opels, ranging from 2016-2020. As we are slowly transitioning to electric cars, I usually drive the newer Kia e-Niros or Hyundai Konas.
Where it all began
I drive a Mazda Miata from the year 2000. It has no A/C, no cruise control, no parking sensors or whatever, it's just... a car. The image below is my dash. Any car that's 2010+ is new to me, but that's usually also the fun of it. However, it's not always fun.
The first time I started noticing weird, unintuitive interactions was when I got in a Peugeot from I believe 2020. When I got in the car, I assumed it had Bluetooth or at least a USB phone connection. I looked around for a few minutes but couldn't find anything physical. Alright then, guess it's gonna be Bluetooth. I opened the 'Media' menu. To my surprise, the menu gave me one option: Radio. That's it. I had no time to spare for a treasure hunt so I started the car and drove to my destination.
When it was time to head back, I tried again. There has to be some way to connect my phone right? Surely a 2020 car has more options than just a radio. So I started digging through the menus, which was a hell in itself already. It took me several minutes until I finally found Device Settings. It turned out I had to manually remove a non-existing device, and then link my phone manually. The strange thing is, now the Media menu suddenly had another option: Bluetooth media. This whole process of digging through menus could've been prevented so easily. Why would you hide the Bluetooth option all the way down in the depths of your system? Stop making it so complex.
Information overload
There's something peaceful about starting my own car. I turn the ignition, turn on the lights, put the handbrake down and I drive away. Newer cars don't have this luxury. First I have to press Start, then I have to confirm that I will drive safe, followed by a few sounds indicating... what exactly? It's beeps and boops all around me. Did I start the car wrong? Did I press the button too hard? Who knows. The inconvenient information doesn't stop there.
For example: the last time I started one of the Kias, it showed me a cool 3D image of the car, with all tires highlighted with a number next to it. That's it. No indication of whether it's good or bad, it just showed me for some unknown reason. It was the first time the car did that so I assumed there was something wrong. Why else would you suddenly show me all the tire pressure numbers? If you (as a car), are able to read all my tire pressure numbers, why aren't you smart enough to tell me if it's good or bad? Now you just scare me.
Fancy features
Obviously these cars have much more advanced features than my own car does, but for some reason, most of these features are lost in inconvenience. The Kia for example. It has a very strange automatic clutch. It's a circle. I turn the circle right to go forward, left to go back, but I turn the circle... nowhere for neutral? The circle physically turns back when you choose forward or backward so it's always centred. I'm still not sure how I get back to neutral.
I've driven the car a fair few times now, and every time there's something new. After all these times, I'm still not sure when and why I can or can't start the car. Sometimes I just turn it off and turn it on again, because it feels like the car is telling me I failed and to try again.
Final words
Most of these problems are easily solvable, which is all the more frustrating. I believe that most of it could be prevented by just using someone who drives an old car as a test subject. Maybe someone who drives a 2000 Miata. So, Kia... let me know.
