I drive a 10 year old vehicle and I feel like it has all the technology I really need or want. I might upgrade to something electric in the future, but I don't feel 'compelled' for any reason.

My vehicle's primary purpose is to get me from Point A to Point B. Anything else that gets crammed in there is just more gravy on my meat and potatoes.

Help me to understand why the "feeling dated" part of a vehicle is important to you? Or rather, what does a car from 2015 lack, that a car from 2020 has, that you find differentiates them enormously?

Our family has a 2012 VW Golf and a 2017 VW Golf. Compared to the former, the latter has a number of worthwhile upgrades. CarPlay makes both navigation and music enormously better. Automatic parallel parking comes in handy for getting into tight spaces, especially when there's pressure from cars waiting behind you. Automated emergency warning/braking has probably saved our 16-year-old from at least one minor accident so far. Radar cruise control definitely lessens fatigue during road trips.

None of this is essential, but to me the difference in user experience is notable when going from one car to the other.

A year or two ago I had access to a Tesla Model X for a period of time. I remember when the Netflix and YouTube watching features came out; I thought it was the dumbest thing. But then I realized I was spending probably a couple of hours a week sitting in parking lots waiting for my kids to get out of extracurricular activities (pre-covid), or waiting at the cell phone lot at the airport, etc. And having a huge screen and high quality audio to pass the time was pretty nice.

Fantastic points. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

I will say that CarPlay is a pretty big difference for me (when I had a loaner that had it I seriously was considering if I should sell my car)…

I wouldn’t buy a modern vehicle without CarPlay. It’s simply that good, and I’m pretty Apple critical these days.

I still like vintage junkers that are easy to work on, but there’s about two decades of nope for me now.

You can get an aftermarket head unit with CarPlay and keep your car! I have no idea why this wasn’t better publicized.

CarPlay (don't know about Google's system) is a huge upgrade over car manufacturers' systems. Still wouldn't cause me to sell my 10 yo vehicle with <70K miles though.

Good lane keeping and collision avoidance could be a lifesaver in some situations. Same for having other driver assistance features like good adaptive cruise control and auto-steering - long trips can be less fatiguing when the car is driving itself most of the time.

not OP, but I think the 'smart' features are what feel dated. Perhaps not quite the same, but in late 90s, I first saw 'high end' cars with GPS/maps built in to dash. not even a few years later, you could buy much fancier ones, that would update, and were faster, and had more features. The 1998 'luxury' in-built GPS felt way out of date by 2002 (UI, responsiveness/speed, display, etc). The rest of the car didn't feel as dated, just the "high tech" bits.

That, I believe, is a function of one material: PLASTIC.

There's just something about plastic that feels cheap and replaceable even when used in a "high end" product. There are toasters from the 50s made in stainless steel that are timeless. Contrast that with the plastic enclosed toasters of the last few decades and it's just no contest.

The plastic definitely makes modern cars feel dated quickly, but the tech alone ages really fast. Even simple back up cameras that are 3 years old seem really low definition compared to the new birds eye surround cameras. Not to mention the UIs are laggy, and Bluetooth even feels like old tech now. If it doesn’t have CarPlay or equivalent it’s a downgrade.

If some stories are to be believed then Tesla has sales people that expect Tesla owners to buy a new car after 3-5 years.

I don't think that's possible for the vast majority of people. A car should reliably take me for A to B and not lose 70% of its features just because the manufacturer decided to EOL the online service.

In states like CA, this means paying $4,000 to $10,000 in sales/use tax with each purchase. It’s an incredibly inefficient way to pay for having access to a car. If you’re going to trade in that frequently, it’s probably smarter to lease. (I say this as someone who generally opposes leasing and has never done so.)

It does cost money, but if you sell, you can pass part of that tax on to the buyer, as they’ll want to pay a bit more to avoid having to pay that tax themselves.

Huh? They’ll pay sales/use tax on the purchase of your used car as well.