[MadinMumbai]

So, we finally bit the bullet and got a new Honda City. It was a straight upgrade from the 2012 VCVT to 2021 VCVT. The buying process was smooth and delivery was within 7 days of placing the order.

I know boring, right? But we did a lot of waiting and watching. I procrastinated for almost a whole year. Did everything possible to rule the City out as a rational choice. Looked at all the new models in the 14-17 lac OTR range. There have been quite a few new launches. Some excellent new crossovers that I considered seriously (drooled at) and am now glad I didn't get. I'll explain why. And it might seem silly.

Of all the cars we considered Honda is perhaps the most conservative when it comes to tech offerings for users, you know the little bells and whistles that a user can tinker with. To be honest there was a time when I was very happy to spend days playing around with features on my new phone. Sadly not anymore. I found both Kia and Skoda were both loaded to the gills. And while the specs are impressive on paper I had to consider my own usage. How many of the features will I actually use? And I realised basis that I could happily choose the Honda City.

Now, I am getting old, or let's say I am no longer a fan of many buttons, especially while driving in maddening Mumbai traffic. So, the City seemed a better fit. Even so I am finding new things, most of which I have no use for, everyday.

Do others also feel that? You know just the fatigue of learning to use a whole bunch of instruments, commands and instructions when all I want to do is get from point A to point B in some measure of comfort.

[Raghu M]

Totally agree with you and feel exactly the same. My XUV 3OO has quite a few features but the 7 inch screen keeps me away from it. I don't want to keep meddling with it and not enjoy the car/drive itself. Having simple features is pretty fine with me. I am not into stuff that is too fancy. I don't remember the last time I used any filters on my phone's camera. So, a few important features are good. I think the City is a timeless design, you should enjoy the car and the ride. Not worry much about bells and whistles!

[Rajeevraj]

My only concern with too much tech is the additional glitches and issues it can cause which can either be minor irritants or cause major issues including breakdowns. The probability of this happening is also high because the tech rampup in the mass market segments have been pretty fast. This may have resulted in a lot of half baked and gimikky technology.

Keeping that aside, considering we are spending more and more time in cars- Due to long commutes, never ending jams or just increased number of driving vacations, it is good to have all that tech and features that make the cabin a better place to be. If we don't prefer it, there is always the option of buying the lower variants which are all now well equipped with respect to the essentials like safety engine, transmission etc.

[RavSam]

True!
The only thing I use the touchscreen on my Ignis is for Music, Call, Reversing and Maps. Nothing else!

[lsjey]

Congrats on your Honda city @MadinMumbai. Wish you many miles of happy motoring!

I've a ZX Petrol MT 5th Gen City. I feel that the City is the good in terms of the technology packaged along with the car. The Connected car was hopeless initially, but with better dealer software integration it is becoming better. It still needs to go a long way before one can rely on it. But, I'm sure Honda will get it there.

Apart from this I feel that Honda has got all other Tech on the spot. Oh, here are some of the areas where Honda has forgotten it is Honda:

1. Bad rearview camera
2. Useless headlights
3. ICE resolution is very poor.

Regards,
lsjey

[Nalin1]

As long as all the gizmos, new tech and fancy features are reliable and the car is mechanically not too 'dependent' on them for its basic functions, then why not have them? It is good fun playing around with them and enlightening self and others.

A cockpit cabin in a car is simply too cool to resist!.

On the other hand, the worse thing is to have glitches in them resulting in immobilizing a car !. Then have the half baked technicians at the service centers breaking their heads on what went wrong .

[shancz]

I am worse.
Share your feelings and respect for driving the City in the city

With the onslaught of the gizmos and digitization its getting difficult to get a simple implementation which falls into hands rather than finding what is currently being displayed.

In T2 traffic, trying to keep away from everyone around, most of the times I forget to turn on the music, even if I had 20 other things I wouldn't even use it.

Modern Times

[abhishek46]

Originally Posted by MadinMumbai

Do others also feel that? You know just the fatigue of learning to use a whole bunch of instruments, commands and instructions when all I want to do is get from point A to point B in some measure of comfort.

The reality is that, the 'Car' is no longer a mild-steel cage with 4 wheels attached.

Just like the Mobile Phone evolved from a basic 'calling' device to an all-round entertainment suite, the very concept of a 'Car' is evolving as well.

The Users of the 'Car' are no longer content with just being able to 'drive'.

In addition to being able to move from point A to B, the Car must provide copious amounts of expensive differentiators, be it AI Mumbo Jumbo, Panoramic sunroofs, Half-TV displays, leather-y seats with holes and air emanating from them, etc.

[androdev]

That is the relentless forward march of time for you. We will all accept the new normal and eventually can't live without it. I was having BlackBerry phone till they stopped supporting even the most basic apps. I was a champ when it came to BlackBerry texting. Can't go back to it now. I am on iPhon 6 now :-) I expect the same with cars - I am delaying my purchase of tech loaded cars or EVs as I am typically not the early adopter (or beta tester) and to be honest my love for cars is deep-rooted in things that are mechanical. However I am going to be open-minded about the future. I believe there is a good dish in every cuisine and a good song in every music genre. I will find something to fall in love with - but I am in no hurry to transition.

[MadinMumbai]

Originally Posted by Raghu M

I think the City is a timeless design, you should enjoy the car and the ride.

Oh absolutely.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

My only concern with too much tech is the additional glitches and issues it can cause which can either be minor irritants or cause major issues including breakdowns.

So far so good. I've not had any issues on this account, hopefully it will stay that way.

Originally Posted by RavSam

True!
The only thing I use the touchscreen on my Ignis is for Music, Call, Reversing and Maps. Nothing else!

Same here.

Originally Posted by lsjey

Congrats on your Honda city @MadinMumbai. Wish you many miles of happy motoring!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Nalin1

A cockpit cabin in a car is simply too cool to resist!.

I know. That was the lure of some of the cars I didn't buy. Rational thinking made me make the simpler choice.

Originally Posted by shancz

I am worse.
Share your feelings and respect for driving the City in the city

Modern Times

Haha!

Originally Posted by abhishek46

The reality is that, the 'Car' is no longer a mild-steel cage with 4 wheels attached.

Just like the Mobile Phone evolved from a basic 'calling' device to an all-round entertainment suite, the very concept of a 'Car' is evolving as well.

Fair points.

Originally Posted by androdev

That is the relentless forward march of time for you. We will all accept the new normal and eventually can't live without it.

Of course this is the new normal. I am just glad that the ICE is a different interface from the driving basics. I can't imagine being stuck somewhere trying to decode a complex web of instructions to just get the car moving.

[GTO]

I personally love tech & gizmos. Most of them do offer functionality & features, and enhance the in-cabin experience. However, my conditions are that they:

- Should not be useless (The most useless features in cars). A few truly are, like gesture controls & even ADAS in India.

- Don't affect reliability, whether short or long term. Complexity does have disadvantages in terms of long-term ownership & out-of-warranty vehicles.

- Don't take the focus away from what really counts to enthusiasts = the driving experience. Must say, most of today's cars are nice to drive. Even the Koreans have learnt how to tune suspensions (go take a Seltos 1.4T on the highway and you'll know what I'm talking about). Haven't driven the Astor yet, but BHPians are saying that it has neutral road manners .

End of the day, after test-driving all the new cars coming our way, when I take my 25-year old Jeep for a spin, it truly is a throwback to a "pure mechanical" era. Forget gizmos, there aren't even power windows, fuel lid release or an MID in this one!

[MadinMumbai]

To give you an example of how foreboding Tech in cars has become a little story.

A friend had bought a shiny new BMW X1. One Sunday we went for a drive. The plan was to park at a jetty, catch a boat and spend some time watching Flamingo.

We got to the jetty early and were sitting around waiting. One friend sitting in the back was fiddling, men fiddle when they have to wait, and he clicked a knob, what seemed like a child lock to him. Well, he couldn’t unclick it after that. The door simple wouldn’t shut. When all else failed he thought of slamming it shut. The door bounced back.

It was still early, we were having a good laugh at his expense when he decided to show us what knob he had clicked on the other side door. And soon enough we had two door that wouldn’t shut.

We did everything, tried all measures. Nothing worked. Then another BMW owner walked over to ‘help’.

‘What have you jokers done?’ He asked. And then he tried his hand on the front left door and clicked the knob there. And now we had 3 doors inoperable.

We were in a low signal area, Murphy’s law, and it was early morning so reaching a service advisor wasn’t possible. We were well and truly stuck in a situation that could only be described as comedy.

Some of us went to check on the boat, we needed to know if a refund was possible, couldn’t possibly leave the car with three doors ajar for a couple of hours. Mumbai is generally safe but not that safe.

By the time we got back to the car the new owner and the old owner (the helpful guy) had managed to get into ICE and wade through a ton of instructions to find a way to fix things. Just in time for the boat ride. A full hour of comic genius if it were written by a scriptwriter.

So, l live in constant fear of all the tech on new cars. I worry that I might, unwittingly of course, press something that will make my sedate chariot think it is 007’s ride.

[Axe77]

On the tech front, overall I love higher tech, apple car play etc but I definitely think some aspects of tech are going overboard.

Some things I’d like to see less of:

1. ADAS like features where the car responds and overrides drivers. I don’t think we’re ready for this yet and given overall industry concerns over reliability it only exacerbates my nervousness.

2. Doing away with knobs and buttons to touchscreen controls, with Tesla taking the cake on this front. Fact is operating controls while driving a car is not the same as using your iPad in the bedroom. Mechanical buttons and knobs are the best way to handle frequent controls and I hate the over switching of some of these functions into a touch screen.

[kiran_aithal]

All the techs and gizmos are like giving the child a new toy - at first it will be very interesting to try out what each of these things do (great ex is adjusting vol in BMW using gesture control). Later on, it will be 'show off' feature to others who ask 'So, what's new/cool thing in your car'. However, some mechanical related techs are really useful like adaptive cruise control, etc....

[RoadMonkey]

Cars are the new gadgets. With cars getting mechanically robust and their longevity increasing, carmakers need new reasons for people to upgrade and even new potential failure points.

The more circuitry and electrical equipment there is, the higher the probability is of something going wrong. I don't much care about the feelgood electronic features but I despise every single one of them which affect a car's on road reliability.

But I guess I'm not an ideal customer for any carmaker either. I would ideally like to have simpler, robust cars that I can keep for a long time.

Edit: there's also the aspect that more electronics give carmakers a greater control over *your* car. BMW is particularly becoming infamous for this.

It can also be used to make cars repair unfriendly, unable to be sorted out by regular mechanics. The carmakers can strictly control who gets to access the onboard computers. This then becomes a discussion of right to repair and all that.