[fright]

I've always been at a complete loss as to why and how we ended up with the archaic and clunky in-car systems we have today.

If you look at a smartphone from 5 years ago and a vehicle from 5 years ago, the capability of the phone is going to dwarf that of the in-car infotainment system. In all honestly, that 5 year old phone will likely out perform most of the infotainment systems in vehicles rolling off the assembly line right now. I don't even want to think what consumers are being charged on a line item basis for the outdated hardware in vehicles.

I still can't figure out why car companies are even attempting to build these systems themselves (besides profit, I suppose). Pretty much every American has a phone in their pocket that is much more capable than any infotainment system, and it specializes in the things we mainly want from an infotainment system (music, maps/gps, txt, calls).

Wouldn't it be so much better if vehicles just had a barebones screen in the dash with a connector for smartphones to power the system? You could even have the screen size mirror the resolution of the phone so it's just scaled up and rotated. Doesn't seem like much else would have to be done.

I'm sure I'm over simplifying things to some extent, but it still seems like a setup like this would be much easier to produce and much better to use than anything coming from car companies who are typically pretty terrible at software and UX design.

*of course not all vehicles are for Americans and not everyone has a smartphone.

[kalleboo]

Tesla tried to just stick common modern tech in their cars instead of outdated "automotivr grade" hardware and are paying the price for it https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...

> Wouldn't it be so much better if vehicles just had a barebones screen in the dash with a connector for smartphones to power the system? You could even have the screen size mirror the resolution of the phone so it's just scaled up and rotated. Doesn't seem like much else would have to be done.

Don't most new cars these days support Apple Carplay and Google Android Auto? That's basically what they are, (h264 video cast of the screen and a back channel for touch/button input)

[judge2020]

A big reason is the backup camera requirement[0]. Why just have a screen for the backup camera when it's marginal to add on the other features.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_camera#Mandates

[fright]

I wasn't thinking about the cameras I guess.

Still seems like it would be better to just include what's required and then let a phone handle the software.

[cardiffspaceman]

My newest car is a lousy old 2015 model. I rented a small (2018?) SUV recently and it allowed some of the apps on my phone to take over the screen. I discovered this by accident because my goal was to have the phone connected to the USB for power while I ran the navigation app on it. It was great for navigating to a known destination. It was not so great for finding the nearest Starbucks.

My 2015 piece of junk requires a $500 p.a. subscription to receive traffic data for the navigation system. That is about 5 new Garmins a year, or 1.25 Pixel 3a's, a phone I don't own but have heard good things about.

[Fins]

That's all nice and well, as long as you are in cell tower range. I drove mine cross-country through places where you get 0 cell coverage. Having a navigation system that actually works is pretty nice.

[wvenable]

Navigation on a phone doesn't require cell coverage -- it works the same as your car, just download the map you need.

[Fins]

That at the very least presumes that you remember to do that in advance. And that this functionality is actually available to do. Last time I tried, e.g. Google Maps would not download offline maps in some countries.

[StudentStuff]

Slapping a tablet in place of the infotainment system is possible, but you make serious compromises on reliability. A tablet was never designed to sit in a 120 degree Fahrenheit car for days on end, Tesla has felt this issue acutely.