Tech, does it matter that much to you?
 

So I keep reading review after review of new cars, and I see the MT headline about the X5 having decent driving dynamics, but oh the tech!!!!! I am also kind of interested to see what the next Golf R will offer and it might offer some more power but most articles focus on VW saying this will be the most online vehicle ever!!!!

My reaction to both is that I don't give a rats ass. I realize I am in the minority of people who do not own a cell phone, care to own a cell phone, or care about the tech. I have two cars that were loaded with what was the top tech at the time, way back in the olden days of 2014. They have both have NAV (the Cayman's is crap) and hard drives to store music. The BMW will read emails in a soothing voice if I had a phone, or read news or stock tickers if I had a phone, but I could not care less.

I really want the ability to play some music from some sort of medium (CD, Ipod, Radio, Sat Radio, 8 track, or whatever) and an awsome driving experience. I am sure Carplay or Android Auto are important to most, but really, outside of NAV and some sort of music streaming/playing are people really concerned about? Is tech the most important to you? Does a really fast infotainment make that much difference to one that takes a second or two if the other is a better car?

I gather from most reviews that tech is now the super important thing at a cost of (at least in my opinion) from R&D money on the driving experience. They got a fixed amount of money to spend, do you want them to have the latest tech, or put some steering feel into the numb electric steering?

Its all tech, tech, tech tech....... I am kind of bored with it. I'd still be fine with the S2000 no-tech and crappy radio if they had kept the car up with modern power levels.

For my fun car, no, I want a great driving experience... don't care about the tech, actually the less tech the better (IMO)

For my daily, yes I love the tech. Love the Apple Car Play/Android Auto integration, love satellite navigation, even some of the AutoPilot functionality Tesla/Mercedes/etc have. Granted I am in IT, so I love technology in general and its a huge part of my life.

Streaming audio from a phone is a must. Wifi hotspot is a great idea, but don't want another cell phone account. I love exit sign graphics on my Garmin based NAV traffic telemetry. Very realistic depiction of the exit and real time routing hopefully is doing the trick.

Well, I recently bought a Lotus Elise and promptly took out the stereo, so that says a lot about my preference.

I don't care for the most part, but there are a few things I've tried or have on other cars that make life a lot easier:
-Rain sensing wipers
-Keyless locks/ignition
-Bluetooth
-Apple CarPlay/Android Auto

But I mostly don't care. What's more important to me is that I can operate the main controls easily. For instance, I don't think I would buy a car where you have to go into a screen/menu just to change climate control or stereo.

Ok so....but pick some car you drool over and it does not have that.....do you still want the car or deal breaker? If someone offers me a M2 or Alfa 4c with a head unit ripped out and I have to drive it that way....DEAL! I am looking at jeeps and they come with some dinky ghetto looking 5 inch screen with no features except for pretty much a radio, or at least a grand for some big touch screen with a bunch of features and it occurred to me that I really don't care about the features. So I know people like them I just was kind of curious how bad they have to have them, and I guess by extension as time goes by and automakers put more and more emphasis on that and less on driving, do you care or wish it would swing the other way? I know it never will unless some niche automaker like Ariel made some actual daily worthy no frills car at a normal price and people like me lined up for them. Hey wait, am I talking about a Civic Type R here? Kinda, but it is still so...............looking.

Man I wish Honda would turn that platform into a decent looking car with an Acura badge.

None of those do anything for me personally, but I admit, we had 30 degrees below zero here, so I like heated seats. Anybody in Cali where it is 80 degrees? It was 110 degrees colder than that.

A big attraction for me in getting my AP1 was the lack of what I consider "pointless" tech. Even the radio was only on long enough for me to find the "off" button. I learned to drive having to do everything myself (including using a manual choke) so it's really not an issue to keep on doing it. I spent 18 years driving a car with four-stage aircon - you wound down more windows as you wanted more air.

We have a JDM import Leaf as a round-town commuter vehicle, and it does that job fantastically, but it's an appliance on wheels. I've never touched a fair number of the buttons in it and I don't even miss whatever functions I lost when the importer replaced the factory head unit with an aftermarket stereo. Okay, maybe the ability to stop the charge at 80%, but other than that I could care less. The dash is even in Japanese but the important graphics (speed, charge etc) are universal. I guess auto-on headlights are handy.

I've never used satnav in my life, if I need to go somewhere I just look it up on Google Maps before heading off, and use my memory to get there. It helps I don't live in a big city, and the whole island I live on is only 44,000 square miles so I've been pretty much everywhere on it over the years and the whole place feels like home. To me, tech is generally just dead weight.

(Disclaimer: I've worked in IT for 27 years, so despite my distaste for technology it has its uses. :p )

I just want tech to go into the engine and transmission, I could care less about the rest. I think NAV is still important for me as I use my vehicles for work and I travel a fair bit by car. I think the marketing geeks at most of the car companies miss the mark on the majority of crap they believe to be important, so we get worse driving vehicles in favour of all the tech features.

This. My fun car just needs AC/Heater and a basic radio. My s2k still has the original head unit and a jammed CD player. When I drive to track events, I sync my phone up to a bluetooth speaker and put the volume up to max since I drive with ear plugs...

My daily, I would like to have everything. I'm looking forward to self driving cars and drinking coffee and surfing reddit on the way to work in my own private space (i.e. not public transportation).

Tech in vehicles is like Trumps wall, they exist to distract you. Honestly, name all the tech features in most cars and I'll show you an smart phone that will pretty much do all that. When it comes to in car entertainment, all we really need is a interface screen of some sort and speakers because anyone who has the dough to buy a "high tech" car has a friggin smart phone that already has everything they want and is setup to their liking since they're never without it.
As far as other feature likes radar cruise, early braking, and partial self driving, I could care less, and it's that tech that's making drivers worse. Additionally, if I wanted a self driving car, and therefore hate driving, I still dont need that because we have Uber, and frankly the future model for autonomous cars is a shared model like uber.
With that said I still like great innovation and engineering, even with features. For example, a backup camera, I dont care how good of a driver any of you are, if you're parallel parking an SUV in an urban environment, the camera is invaluable. And the best part, no moving and relatively inexpensive parts. Parking sensors I despise. Radar cruise I despise. Things that I cant 100% rely on and are expensive complex systems I despise. And really, all of these features are window dressing for why your damn car cost so damn much. Tick some boxes for a Porsche or bmw and think to yourself for the same price of those options alone you could buy a civic with all those options in it.
Dont get me wrong though, I could appreciate a car like a rolls Royce or lexus ls with their isolate experiences as well, but again it starts with a well engineered car. Theres only so much you can do while you're operating vehicle.