Not even that. The phone is the center of our lives, so it really only needs to be on our phones (if people even care about IoT--this is an open question).

This is Mercedes Benz taking its internal worldview that the car is the center of our lives, making product decisions based on that, and trying to get people to buy into that worldview.

A simple carplay supported touchscreen is all we need in the cars

Ideally, one that isn't irreversably entangled in the CAN bus! So it can easily be upgraded to something that isn't as awful as nearly all auto mfg infotainment attempts, or isn't obsolete when the mfg doesn't bother with software updates to maintain compatibility with carplay updates, or high quality audio for audiophiles, or aftermarket infotainment with tactile knobs and buttons for us old farts who like to keep our eyes on the road while we're driving.

And letting customers buy lower-tier packages and install upgrades themselves? Or avoiding your car looking old after 3 years? Why? That’s the inly purpose. The only “innovation point” left for auto makers is features so they scramble year after year to show the latest trick sacrificing quality to balance the costs.

>The only “innovation point” left for auto makers is features so they scramble year after year to show the latest trick sacrificing quality to balance the costs.

Of course the latest gimmicks are a big part of why you'd buy a S-class, but it's not like the basics like seats and suspension haven't seen significant improvements generation after generation.

A great example would be the rear wheel steering they just introduced, not at all a gimmick.

I don't think sane people are shopping for a new car every 3 years because their "infotainment" looks old. Such features IMHO are for the comparison shoppers who will compare competing cars side by side and can be pushed either way by tiniest gimmicks.

There’s a valuable segment of car buyers who do change cars every 2, 3, or 4 years to always have the newest features. They often lease and are influenced in their overall decisions by the fact that cars do change. “I can’t have the old-looking tail lights and grill!”

Manufacturers almost surely tailor some of their product plans with this in mind.

Sure, people who lease will get a new car every time the lease term is up, but I am skeptical they do it for the new gadgets. It looks like that not having to care about maintenance and wear&tear as well as financial incentives are the major reasons to lease. Besides, the cars being leased are mostly expensive ones, with OTA software updates, why manufacturers would do that if their plan was to make you buy a new car for the new features?

Well, one of the(but definitely not the main) reasons why I replaced my perfectly functional 2016 Mercedes Benz was that my model missed the ability to have Android Auto/CarPlay by literally 2 weeks of production. It was impossible to add later without an extremely expensive head unit replacement.

Replacing the head unit was more expensive than the money you lost on trading-in/selling the car?

Absolutely. Any money put into modifications like these is essentially lost, you won't get even a fraction of it back when it comes to time to sell the car. The modified head unit plus labour to fit it was worth about 9 months of payments on that car, so doing it would have been nuts.

So your German car depreciated less than 9 month of payments (supposedly on a 60 month loan with little down?) after being used? That's not my experience with German autos, was it some A-B Klasse that they don't sell in the US?

GLA45 AMG, 4 year PCP, £400/month. I have actually beaten the depreciation by about £4000 at the end of the contract, sold the car and was left with a massive chunk of money to put towards the next car. Buying the head unit would have effectively wiped all of that money out because its value on sale would have been exactly zero(in fact it would have been negative, as the car would have been now modified which has to be reported to insurers increasing your premium and putting off potential buyers).

It was absolutely not worth doing, in any conceivable scenario, not at the price Mercedes wanted for it.

But once again, like I said in my first post - this wasn't anywhere near the main reason for changing the car, but I would lie if I said I wasn't looking forward to finally having access to Android Auto.

I am still uncertain how your calculus work. In the US, at least, if you buy a car and sell it the same day you are still out of sales tax (depends on location), various fees and the depreciation due to not having a clean title. On German cars this is about 20% of the cost (again, depends on location). I am sure a CLA45 (I suppose you mean that, not GLA) head unit with labor is less than $10K you'd lose on selling a $50K car (as you said, 9 payments of 400 pounds). So, as it seems, it could not be a possible reason for a sane person (lose 10K vs lose 4K + some insurance premiums in the range of few hundred bucks over the life of the car).

No, a GLA45 - not sure why there's confusion, as a matter of fact I know a GLA45 is available in the US as well?

And.....well, I can present my maths clearer, sure. But I think you're missing the part where I said I had the car since 2016 - so obviously got 4 years of use out of it. Had I sold it day one then sure, I can't beat the depreciation. But assuming a well structured finance agreement you(with some luck) beat the depreciation around year 2-3. By year 4 you should be able to sell the car with some "profit" for yourself unless something bad happened.

I don't know the equivalent financial product in the US, but here in UK I had what's called a PCP - personal contract purchase. It means that the bank loans you money for a car, you buy it, it's in your name(not owned by the bank, it's not a lease), but you pay off what the bank assumes will be the depreciation over 4 years, and then after 4 years you can make the final "lump sum" payment of whatever remains and that's it, or you return the vehicle to the bank and pay nothing more. So it's in some ways similar to lease, but in some ways it's better(the car is always yours from the start so you are always free to sell it at any point without asking your bank for permission).

So in my specific case, I was paying £400 a month for 4 years, then the "lump sum" payment at the end of the PCP was set at £20k. I have reached the end of my agreement, but found a buyer willing to pay me £24k for the car - so I sold it to them, paid off the bank, and was left with a nice £4k in my account(which I then used to purchase another vehicle).

Now, MB UK wanted £3600 for fitting the new head unit(it was a lot of electical stuff in the car that would have to be replaced, tons of labour). Had I paid for it, that alone would have wiped off what I made/saved on selling the car at the end. It would have been(financially) an incredibly bad investment, as like I said, the value of such mod is zero or less.

And(once again, for the 3rd time), this wasn't a reason to swap. I have and am losing money on the next vehicle that is currently standing in my driveway. But certainly a lot less than on fitting a new headunit to my previous Benz.

My bad, I checked Costco website for the price and they only list GLA 250 trim in the GLA model, sorry about that.

> And(once again, for the 3rd time), this wasn't a reason to swap.

So why did you bring it up as a reason to swap? Obviously people lease or whatever their cars and get new cars after 3 years and the new cars have new features how does it contradict my point that people do not sell their cars for the gimmicks?

Because, like I said:

>>Well, one of the(but definitely not the main) reasons

I made a list of reasons - like, I'd like a car that uses less fuel. Car that doesn't wake up the neighberhood when I start it. Car that can actually take some shopping from IKEA. These were the main reasons for a swap. But obviously, there is a secondary list to this - car that doesn't have a shit audio system. Car that has comfortable seats.

Somwhere on that list is a car that has android auto support.

All of this has contributed to me swapping. But logically thinking, there was nothing wrong with the car - I could have just paid it off and kept it. It's very specifically not a lease so I don't have to hand the car back after 4 years, keeping it(either by paying it off or refinancing) is actually an option.

I think what I am saying is that the lack of something like android auto(in a scenario where it cannot be easily retroffited) can and does contribute to a decision to change the entire car - it's not just a stupid tech gimmick that no one cares about as some much earlier comments were trying to suggest.

Well, logically thinking, if you were completely satisfied with the car except for Android Auto and owned the car ( really owned, not PCP or whatever where you actually owe money to the bank and the car is a collateral on that loan) would you sell it? If not then can you really count it as a reason? This word implies it's a sufficient condition, but I am not in UK and not even native English speaker, so I might be wrong here.

And just FYI - you don't have to hand over a leased car, at least in the US, you can pay it off and keep it.

Dude, you're focusing on this one point too much. Yes, reasons can add up. No, a reason doesn't have to be sufficient on its own. The car having uncomfortable seats, loud exhaust or no android Auto are not a reason to swap cars alone, but in aggregate they are.

Like, think about houses - a small bedroom, noisy neighbour and no fast internet are probably no reasons to move houses on their own - if you told someone you moved houses just because your neighbour was loud people would think you're weird. But when you start listing other reasons in addition to that, people understand. Same for relationships(small reason to leave add up), changing employment or even changing your phone - once the list of reasons for changing is long enough, you make the jump, you can finish justify it to yourself.

And FYI - in UK you can't keep a lease, that's specifically the difference between a lease and a purchase contract. I'm also not a native English speaker so apologies for perhaps not explaining things clearer.

I honestly forgot what the argument was about at this point. I thought it was me saying that the lack of android auto contributed to my decision to change the car. I don't recall supporting anyone, but then again it was a long time ago now.

'Need' is not the right word, since cars without any of this nonsense work just fine. You could perhaps argue the car itself is a luxury that isn't needed, but smartphone integration certainly isn't needed in any sense.

Just make it open.

Homeassistant is opensource, controlls a bunch of different gadgets/smartdevices/switches/..., gets data from a bunch of different gadgets/sensors/smart devices, and has a bunch of apps using it's API.

Honestly, I only buy stuff, if I can integrate it into homeassistant (without using the devices cloud services)... sometimes that means soldering + flashing tasmota, but in the end, I get it to work.

Letting people use a web browser while driving is pretty much a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, but the free market can never find that optimum by itself.