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jolt42last Wednesday at 12:02 AM2 repliesview on HN

Renting a car is more of a pain these days. I find I actually have to learn how that car "likes its buttons". I don't remember having to look at a physical gear shifter to know it's in drive/reverse, etc. Now I have to see if some light is on. It must have been obvious to Human Factors folks from the outset that this was all a waste of time.


Replies

mmmlinuxlast Wednesday at 6:54 PM

not to mention it has all the phone pairing of the last dozen people to use that car. I wish rental fleet cars had some super easy to access setting to reset them for the next person.

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AngryDatalast Wednesday at 9:55 AM

Yeah but if they didn't change anything substantial and merely followed customer preferences and established norms, how would they justify the massive administrative and managerial bloat with inflated salaries in established auto companies? How will you keep the investor class satisfied without promises of massive returns within the next few years or so to keep that stock juiced with new gimmicks to sell? How do you keep the MBA holding c-suite relatives employed if they are simply making the same or similar bulk consumer cars for decades at a time? Think about that year or so window when only OEM parts are available to repair new vehicles before generic parts are modeled and built and the new and completely unnecessary tools that can be sold to mechanics and dealers that they can gouge people on.