The only time I had an issue w/a digital dash was in a Volvo that had a battery that was nearly flat. The screen itself would glitch in various ways, but the data itself was still solid.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220920-00/?p=10...

Turning the car and back on again to stop the noise got old really fast. All of the radio inputs stopped working when this happened.

Oops, I forgot to give you more data... >:)

As a result, I'm firmly on team "make every infotainment system a dumb terminal for your phone" and refuse to buy any car that doesn't support both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

My old car has a cheap phone clip screwed into the dashboard, and the phone connects to the speakers for music. I can't imagine anything improving upon that.

* Traditional Automakers: Mostly as you describe, though honestly I am fond of the UI in my VW. Most others score B-D in responsiveness and anywhere from B-F in my "is this UI closer to ideal, or to a caricature of a baffling UI that no one will ever like to use?" scale.

* Apple: "No one needs physical controls for anything, and people HATE seeing any details, so let's try to get as minimal as possible because that's just elegant. Maybe just a dashboard with a your speed, as a single number, unlabeled because labels are ugly, and three dots (touch target 0.6cm) that you have to touch to access a menu to access all other features."

* Recent Automakers: "People love screens. Let's delete lots of switches to save a few dozen dollars, and stick functionality in deeply-nested menus that require you to take your eyes off the road."

I really want the $20 worth of physical buttons, knobs, stalks and switches of a traditional car, and the extensibility of the CarPlay world.

It’s a Land Rover, so obviously those screen crash/bug out then he gets no HVAC.

He hates that car. It’s beautiful, luxurious and a pleasure to drive. But it’s been in the shop >50% of his lease.

* Software is simple, consistent, and functional. Some goofy choices, but they're mostly visual preference than meaningful usage degradation.

* Hardware buttons support all of the core UX.

* Lane centering and adaptive cruise control as rock solid. I've legitimately had the car follow lane lines that I was struggling to see (rainy with reflections).

Made me remember when I turned on my new (dumb) TV and it did a startup sound. I knew it would get worse in the future.

I have a current model Sprinter and this behavior is frustrating (thanks for the explanation, by the way, I thought it was a random bug). Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow, with the system saying the sensor is dirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if traditional cruise control would keep working without the active braking assist, etc. but unfortunately it’s all or nothing. I do like the system when it works, which is most of the time, and it’s never done something that felt unsafe.

I haven’t had any problems with the info system. This is my first vehicle with a touchscreen, and I was worried that it’d be a pain to use. But Mercedes provides real buttons for common actions, little trackpads on the steering wheel that can control the system without ever having to touch the screen, Car Play works great, and the built-in nav system is useful for those times I need directions and don’t have a cell signal.

My biggest worry is how these delicate parts will hold up over the years. My 10 year old car has a monochrome dot matrix display that loses a good number of pixels when it gets hot out. Will I really be able to get replacement parts for the Sprinter when the screen or computer start to die in 10-15 years?

That’s what it should do, honestly. It’s not safe to drive with cruise control in low traction conditions.

I’m mostly annoyed that false positives such as the Nevada issue described above or a one-time splash of water on the sensor when it’s perfectly safe to use cruise control results in the whole system being unavailable for an extended period of time. To me, the right solution would be to disengage Distronic when the sensor can’t see well enough and then allow the driver to re-engage traditional cruise control if they deem it safe to do so. The system doesn’t have the sensors or the smarts to know if it’s actually safe to use cruise control, only the driver can make that judgement. From the manual: “Cruise control is only an aid. You are responsible for the distance to the vehicle in front, for vehicle speed, braking in good time and for staying in your lane.”

Recently, I drove in a whiteout blizzard with huge flakes without much accumulation on the road. Road was drivable, but I couldn’t see road markings. The experience would have been less scary with some sort of augmented display to show the road borders.

That's a bit contradictory. If you can't see the road markings the road is not drivable.

But yeah if you can't see the road markings due to an active blizzard, flip the hazards on, follow the tail lights ahead of ya, and stay in the middle of were the road should be.

Isn't this what road signs are for?

You’re absolutely right. You just do what you need to do.

Having some form of inertial navigation supplemented by GPS and visual odometery from features that stick out from the side of the road (like a road sign; memorized by the vehicle on past drives) would help a lot. A HUD UI could show road markings on “slice” of the road.

Call it “low viz aid” or something catchy.

In my case, I was driving on a rural road just before dusk without street lighting where there is nearly no traffic on a good day. Low-beam headlights were reflecting off the flakes and high-beams were obviously out of the question.

Risk of a collision with another vehicle was low, but going into the ditch was possible if you didn’t know the bends of the road.

Yes, these are dangerous conditions, but I started off driving in rain and didn’t anticipate the switch to snow mid-drive.

They're fun to drive on still, but there's an over-reliance on painted road markings, which are often not repainted, if they're even visible they disappear when it's raining, or just you know, when there's traffic and the car in front of me is covering it.

It's the absolute fucking worst on gyratorys and other complex roundabouts where I have no idea which fucking lane to be in because I can't see the road marking, covered by cars, positioned right at the entrance to the roundabout rather than before.

Would be completely solved by ensuring roundabout signs were so far in front of the roundabout depending on road speed, then on the roundabout sign indicating at each exit the # of which lanes you can take to get there, ie mark exits going around with 1 2,3 3,4 5. Then I know immediately that the left most lane is dedicated to the first exit, to take the 3rd exit I can be in the 3rd or 4th most lane. And "going around" has a dedicated lane, the 5th from the left.

So sick of being forced out the wrong exit because I've picked the wrong lane and there's too much traffic. So sick of locals in areas complaining on forums about the "idiot drivers" not magically knowing the road layout beforehand. So sick of having to change lanes and feeling like the asshole in the equation because I know it looks like I've done it to queue jump; I'm not trying to skip ahead, I just have no idea where the fuck I'm going.

Gyratory lane markings are shit, too. Proper lanes and then with each segment no marking at all before the lanes start again, it can often be difficult to tell which lane you need to funnel yourself into after the break because the road numbers on the lanes up ahead just aren't visible until you're right on top of them.

Then the driving test here. Oh, the driving test. The first time I tried it I failed for failing to indicate correctly at a mini roundabout. Okay, fine, fair dues. Pass second time. Been driving a while now & maybe like 30% of people actually indicate on a roundabout. Let alone all the other antics people pull while driving here; pass the strict test & then throw it all out the window.

Mount Baldy (right next to LA) is expected to see 7+ feet of snow over the next few days.

I'm fairly certain they're aware of the particular fact you mention. We do have (had thanks to this drought) multiple ski resorts across the state that do not rely upon artificially-made snow to operate.

> Developed by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, the Advanced Rotary Plow (ARP) uses a network of magnets embedded along the roadway to guide the massive snow-spewing machine along the Interstate in zero-visibility conditions -- like a blinded pilot flying on instruments. Meanwhile, an onboard array of sensors sniffs out obstacles -- such as abandoned cars, hungry cows, napping yetis, or whatever -- that may lie hidden beneath the deep snows.

https://path.berkeley.edu/development-advanced-rotary-plow-a...

https://path.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/development_of... (pdf)

The PDF has a complete breakdown of how it works (and I mean really complete - like "here's all the gates in the magnetometers")

You can see some of the interface in https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/janfeb-2001/safe-plowi...

> This ASP Human-Machine Interface is mounted on the windshield. Some of the worst visibility conditions on the planet can be overcome with the aid of the ASP cab-mounted display, which receives its data from the plow's collision-warning system. Radar sensing assists human sight to find the road and obstacles that may be in the way of the plow.

Hydroplaning/sliding is a real risk, but you can mitigate that by simply understanding how your vehicle behaves and paying attention. Sudden, unexpected change in engine RPM, you should probably cancel cruise control. Weird torquing on the steering wheel, disengage cruise and steer by hand.

And snow is a pain too. Ford Transit vans were terrible for no manual over ride maybe it's all Ford since I doubt Transit has its own unique system. I used to drive a Transit for work the little goofy looking vans. I couldn't make it through a 12 inch high pile of snow the van kept cutting the engine power. I had to back up hit the gas put it in neutral and coast though the tiny little snow pile. You could pull the fuse to disable the traction control but it also shuts off ABS and the airbag. Useless piece of crap van.

Strange that the van doesn't have it.

Most likely, yes. Part of why most automotive tech lags behind the times on raw performance is guarantees around things like how long you can source a given SoC, for example. 10 years is not an uncommon manufacturing lifetime in the space, and a Sprinter is a relatively high volume car so I wouldn't be too concerned about MB producing/stocking spares

I can't tell you how many years, but there is always someone in these discussions who points out with pride that we still tractors from the 1950 in use by customers who demand replacement parts for anything that breaks.

If you guys are having trouble storing boards for 10+ years with caps regularly going bad, I would highly recommend you look into a new supplier. Well-built caps should have no problem going for 25+ years in storage (especially cold).

In addition, this is probably the easiest component on the board to replace. If you can’t find functional new stock and this is the only issue, just recap them.

Caps are an issue that is easiest for people here to understand, but we have a long list of similar issues to watch for in storing parts

By contrast inductors have not changed in size at all and resistors are very much limited by power dissipation.

The harvest time sensor reset tax is why some small-time farmers stick to old and overseas equipment they can repair without a tech visit. It's not about the customer being unreasonable about NLA parts, but the modern unreasonableness of how the manufacturer impedes the customer with artificial scarcity and artificial limitations on knowledge, diagrams, diagnostic equipment, diagnostic equipment manuals, and the nature of some repair parts.

They're subject to a lot worse than that for design verification. And I assure you John Deere has many _many_ PCBs that have sat for 10 years to enable service needs today, it's not like they just started using complex circuit boards yesterday...

You know you can also download Offline maps. One of Google Maps best features.

I keep an atlas in my back seat just to be safe now.

You can keep offline all the maps you want.

A previous car I had, a 2019 CRV, did this too. I understand that it could be a very dangerous situation if the driver forgets or doesn't realize they're only using the dumb cruise control instead of the adaptive cruise control they're used to.

Mercedes may not be the OEM in this instance, though they are certainly the vendor, who put their name and reputation to it.

The automotive code for many of these systems is incomprehensibly awful but the entire process of how it is made virtually guarantees this outcome.

It reportedly happens with 80 kph speed limit signs in Canada as well.

Japan OTOH seems to be very aware of how these newfangled tech can screw your reputation.

I'll take a Japanese car any day, however, Hyundai, Volvo, Skoda, Kia, Peugeot and Ford are also better engineered than most German cars nowadays in my opinion.

Then in 2020 I swapped it for a brand new Volvo XC60(made in China!) and in the last 3 years this car has literally been completely trouble free. No rattles from anywhere, nothing. Extremely well put together, comfortable, drove it across Europe multiple times now and literally no issues with it whatsoever. Such a stark contrast to mercedes for me.

Japanese engineering on the other hand in my experience is very solid and also pretty cheap. It is easier to repair and vehicles are like mountain goats that can go anywhere and can be handled roughly.

My toyota is absolute crap, if this helps.

The positions of the pedals is not fit for humans (but that's a bit OT)

The integrated not readily replaceable without servicing the entire dashboard USB port just broke.

The feature to alert me when I'm about to hit an obstacle triggers when I've already done a full stop.

The radio touch interface is awful. There is basically no way to say "play everything". You've got to select the artist, then the album, blabla. Of course you need to stop the car to move on to the next album.

The detection for speed signals is so wrong. It consistently gets the signs that are meant for slow-down lanes to exit the highway as the actual limit I'm supposed to have.

In some specific places it imagines ghost speed signs every single time I pass.

As I said, the pedals are placed in a position that was not designed with human beings in mind. So, not really. Quite uncomfortable.

And as a bonus, I can adjust everything about the car (climate control, volume, overdrive, 4wd, ECT mode, etc) with real buttons and tactile feedback while going down a washboard track, without ever having to take my eyes off the road.

If anyone out there starts making EVs with the same bare-bones attitude (analog knobs and dials, no flashy infotainment system, double-DIN head unit slot, modern safety features and a simple ultra-reliable EV powertrain), sign me up. It'll probably never happen because there's not really an economic incentive right now to try to hit lower price-points in the EV market, everyone's going upmarket. But I'd still love to see somebody try.

We do a _lot_ of driving on rural roads where we can count on a single hand the number of cars we pass in an hour.

Then he created a piece of slow software full of flaws and performance problems - with a lot of unnecessary fluff in the UI. (At some time he mentioned that he was going to use multi-threading for every button, to reduce the lag when drawing the UI).

Then he joined Mercedes-Benz... And makes a lot of money there. And I'm really happy that I don't have to worry about him anymore. I read some job descriptions for Mercedes-Benz and I think he most likely totally fits in there.

What they do to young people in Universities today must be really terrible...

Not trying to blame anyone here. Did no one guide him? Just by virtue of him being a young student, surely his unproductive proclivities were easily correctable? Was he averse to mentoring?

There is too much self-esteem in those young guys. And they blindly trust every new framework that shows up on the market. Also they have excellent grades in university and get offered a lot of money. Somehow guys from management and HR like them. For me there was not much chance to mentor anything.

I could talk more about young guys being problematic... but to me this was extraordinary and somehow related to the things people complain about Mercedes software.

For me two things seem to be dysfunctional: 1) University today and in this case the University closest to Mercedes headquarter 2) HR (as usual...). Things like "practical experience with multi-threaded UI performance improvements" in a CV somehow clicks with HR. At the moment I have to deal with a guy who dislikes databases and instead of adding a column to a table wants the database-server internally to query his webservice when someone selects something from the table. I bet Mercedes HR will love this when he writes a nice line about that in his CV...

micro-column-service oriented schema. He'll go far /g

> I could talk more about young guys being problematic

It's the false sense of 'knowledge' afforded by trivial access to technical content without the benefit of practical experience. It's the internet, not the young men. LLMs are going to max this to an unpleasant extreme.

But that's like buying the mcdonalds supersize family meal because you want the fries. There's better ways to go about it.

Maybe it wasn't needed for those internal apps, but for consumer electronics I wish everyone reduced input feedback lag.

From experience, I've found that turning a car off is akin to putting a computer to sleep. If the state is fubar, no amount of turning the car on and off will fix it.

The only proper way to "power cycle" a car is to momentarily disconnect the car battery (remember to turn the car off first) so all power to the computers are physically cut off and they /have/ to start from a cold boot next time you turn the car on.

Better yet, do so, then demand part costs + time + debug + this is the only way to fix it. A $1000 seems abiut right. Having the dealer fail to fix it (all those reflashes) helps, for the small claims court case, as surely they will refuse to pay.

Then post the court case win online.

This seems to be the only way to get big anything to do right by the consumer, these days.

Had this problem with an A-K200 about 13 years ago - when driving long distances, after a couple of hours the nav system would randomly stop working. Sometimes stopping at a gas station would allow the system to reset by itself, sometimes not.