Automotive is progressing rapidly, Faster cars can now travel fastest. Cars are looking stylist at the same time they are fast and safe. Most of the modern automobile trends are splendid. Adaptive headlamps, Ventilated seats, automatic wipers are awesome but at same time there are some weird trends which are totally irritating to eyes. Automobile manufacturer always try to introduce new unique and exciting designs; not all innovations are good some innovations are disaster.
Let’s look at modern car trends that car manufacturer needs to stop producing.
One developing trend is going on right now is eliminating physical buttons and moving these functions to touch screen. Let’s discuss infotainment touchscreen first, that is available right from entry level economy cars to luxury cars nowadays. These Touchscreen are super sleek, looks cool and feel upmarket on dash boards. Some touch screen display looks like they are glued inside the car rather than integrated in dashboards. You will have to get your eyes off the road to use touch screen panel to reduce or increase volume when car doesn’t have steering mounted control.
How many features can be controlled while driving on single touch screen. Some manufacturers decided to have all the controls through touch screen. Touch Screen AC control is just a gimmick. In Honda City, you need to use touch screen to control AC fan speed. It looks very fancy, futuristic and also add to feel good factor. When you are driving on hills or bumper to bumper traffic, touch control can be extremely dangerous. Driver will have to get eyes off the road to look over AC control panel to control temperature or reduce blower speed. Without looking at touch screen panel driver may activate wrong function as touch buttons are placed very close to each other.
Voice commands technology in cars is far behind mobile Phones. Differentiating regional accent is the major problem. It takes longer to recognize command and follow instruction. Command misinterpretation is common problem.
In Generation Y, everybody has smart phones and they have internet on phone with 4G data connection. Mobile data connection is fast enough to do anything anytime. Really difficult to understand why manufacturer are offering Wi-Fi hot spots in car just to lure customers. Mobile wifi works even better than car Wi-Fi in some situation. Wi-Fi may affect your privacy as well. Manufacturers can easily obtain your data of video you watch or social media account details and most importantly your location.
It’s an offence to use mobile phone while driving then question arises why manufacturer use smartphone integration and mirror linking in car infotainment display.
Piano Black finish on dash board. Piano Black or any glossy interior that is either reflective or metallic. These are fake piano black textures made with poor quality plastics and sometimes it gets reflection. The Sun hit it and reflect in driver eyes and making really hard to see out of the car. It looks good but soon it shows hairline scratches. It gets covered with smudgy finger prints and dust. It also gets dirty very quickly.
Flat Bottom Steering wheel actually makes driver uncomfortable.
Vents and Air Dams looks cool and sporty. Functional vents help to pass air and reduce drag resistance. It also keeps car engine cool. There has been extremely good-looking design in 90s and early 2000s. Simply look at bonnet air dam of 2007 Scorpio. It looks amazing. Fake vents are totally irritating to eyes. New generation cars come with big vents; those vents are not functional. Those vents are added to design to improve car aesthetics. We are at the end of internal combustion era but vents are becoming bigger and bigger. Engines are becoming smaller and efficient; these engines require less amount of airflow.
In economy car its ok to have fake exhaust but sports cars, luxury sedans and SUVs; there is no need to have fake exhaust. Style exhaust has been around decade. It is becoming increasingly bolder aesthetic part of new car design. Fake exhaust portrays image of power prestige. In high end performance cars, there is no need to have fake exhaust.
A Pillar is the foremost roof pillar in a vehicle. Rollover test and roof strength test gives it a lot more importance to A Pillar as a result A Pillar is getting thicker and thicker. Roof strength helps in safety of occupants during rollover protection but now it comes at cost of outward visibility. Some car manufactures come with innovative concepts like lattice on A Pillar.
Sometime manufacturer offers services at premium price but these services are almost free for any economy car. For example; Suzuki Connect, Buyer will have to pay for subscription but you can get similar service barring one or two additional features with any OBD device available on Amazon.
Massive front Grills: Really don’t understand why car need massive big grills.
Performance badging and actual performance model look identical but there is vast difference between them.
Car size is growing steadily. What if someone want small vehicle. If you stay in village, it does not matter but if you stay in metro cities it really matters and car doesn’t fit in tight parking spaces.
You might have noticed spare wheel in your car is smaller as compared to other wheels. Width and profile of spare wheel is also small. Car manufacturer have started following international standard where car have run flat tires and it is not mandatory to provide spare wheel with car but here in India we don’t have good roads.