[Newtown]

Many features on modern cars were conceived as a result of reducing mental fatigue while driving. This in turn reduces the probability of an accident.

The act of fiddling with buttons and switches at the same time trying to focus on the road is a dangerous one. Muscle memory will build over time for a few things and it would become easier but why not just automate when it can be. As an example, suddenly approaching a tunnel, I have observed many drivers not switching on their lights on time causing them to slow down and that impacts everyone in that lane. Not to mention that this could cause a pile up. This is the same for an auto dimming mirrors. Freeing up mind space and making things more interactive will always be the direction manufacturers will aim towards.

The future I foresee in the metaverse is something like this - Your family would virtually be with you in the car while they are actually comfortably sitting at home or at their office. They'd be able to see the road you are driving on and you as the driver will be able to interact with them in real time.

Simplicity certainly has its virtues - Provided the world is as simple as it was back then. It's not. It has become more complex and with that mental fatigue has increased.

Cheers.

[Rodo_Faita]

Some useless features in cars:

1. Integrated Neck Restraint or Fixed Headrests.

2. Skinny tyres for better fuel efficiency on a dynamically sorted car and/or skinny space saver spare wheel.

[Arun Varma]

A car is a highly personal experience. As such, this list is a personal preference. Every feature that is listed here as not essential would have found some meaning for some driver elsewhere. To dismiss someones preference as lazy is itself lazy and not thought through. As Newtown rightly mentions, the world we live in is not simple anymore, at least compared to when some of us were younger. Some prefer to stay in tune with the changing times while others prefer to hold on to what they believe is ideal. There is no right or wrong, as long as it makes you happy and does what it is intended to do - take you from point A to B in relative comfort. That relative part is truly that. I am happy we all have options to choose. If we truly desire safety and security, then changing the behaviours of the road users and enforcing traffic rules will change the game far more than ANYTHING you can have on the cars themselves.

[MaheshY1]

Solid choices mentioned in the opening post. I wonder why people want to make their cars a greenhouse with a sunroof. It's a western thing for people who live in colder climates.

I'm worried to my core about the windshield when it hails. It's an an angle so it's still a lot less likely to shatter than a sunroof, which takes full blunt.

The auto day/night mirror is another thing. Why would I want to add one more electrical equipment and a point of potential failure when a simple prismatic mirror works more reliably with minimal effort?

Tata Motors are the worst offender. In the XMA (S), which costs well over 10 lakh on-road, they're offering auto headlamps, auto wipers, sunroof but no day/night mirror. Not even a manual one. But I guess we're to blame here. More car buyers know about the "benefits" of a sunroof. Very few even know what a day-night mirror is.

I think even TPMS as a must-have feature from the manufacturer is overrated. It's certainly a must-have feature but you can get it for peanuts from the aftermarket compared to what the OEMs charge us. External ones literally take less than 1 min to install. Although they're just as easy to steal.

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

1. Cooled glovebox - How chilled can a cooled glovebox make your drink? The delta temperature between the glovebox and car cabin wont be too much. Also if you really are stocking up drinks, you can just buy them whenever you take a break.

Cold storage is one I think can be a deal-breaker for someone who needs to keep medicines for diabetes or other conditions in cooler places. Even a 2 degree delta is very valuable for such people. Otherwise, this again is a good-to-have feature for me.

My list of must-haves includes:
- cruise control (because of mostly highway driving)
- power mirrors
- front and rear armrests
- rear washer wiper
- rear defogger
- steering-mounted controls
- TPMS (aftermarket-external)
- rear parcel tray
- halogen reflector headlamps (for easy upgradability to 100/90 bulbs)
- fog lamps
- auto high-beam (which makes it low beam if it detects oncoming traffic)
- height-adjustable driver seat
- ADAS (if fits in the budget)

Even a music system is a good-to-have feature for me. I'm fine with a small Bluetooth speaker in the cup holder for listening to my podcasts and audiobooks.

But, definitely no touchscreen infotainment for me please. I want tactile buttons, which I can use without taking my eyes off the road.

[lina]

Originally Posted by Storm2.0

2000rpm, you have nailed it. I'd like to add a few more.
1. Automatic climate control
2. Auto heaplamps
3. Auto wipers
4. Engine push start/stop button
5. Sensor based keyless entry
6. Wireless charging
7. Air purifier
8. Remote engine start/stop
9. Connected car features
10. ADAS/ autonomous driving tech
11. LED headlamps
To name a few.

Automatic climate control prevents you from fiddling with temperature. Auto headlamps are a superb safety feature. Makes sure you are always visible to others. Auto Wipers are another safety feature that ensure you dont drive around without proper visibility. Keyless Entry is of great help if you are carrying a lot of bags. ADAS features such as adaptive cruise control are a boon on the highway!

[skendora]

Personally, I hate the following things in our MG Astor

1. Touchscreen interface - Although the Astor has multiple physical buttons for quick adjustments, a lot of functionality still requires you to interface with the touch screen. Every car manufacturer has moved to a touch screen interface and there seems to be no escape from it.

2. ADAS - I have switched almost everything off. Don't get me wrong, ADAS is amazing but our road and traffic conditions are just too unruly and unpredictable to use ADAS. With the front collision warning turned on, as I was overtaking 2 trucks on the highway, the car decided to apply the brakes for me as it thought I was too close to the truck in front. This interference would have caused an accident if there was a vehicle right behind me.

AS OP mentioned things like ventilated seats, auto-dimming IRVM, pano-sunroof are all absolutely optional features but I do appreciate the in-built battery readouts, TPMS systems, and the e-sim in cars is a great addition to have to make life easier.

[rjalihal]

Cruise control is a feature which I find not much useful in India. Even on 3 lane highways (Hosur road) one cannot maintain constant speed for more than 10 mins max. There will be a cow, moped or people crossing the road and you have to slow down a bit. Or you have to maneuver between trucks in order to overtake them.

Regards,
Rohan

[aniketi]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

My point is, are we auto-enthusiasts yearning for random useless features rather than focussing on important features, while also complaining about prices growing. I want to illustrate with a few examples below

Needs I have never understood, which a lot of people express on the forum

1. Auto dimming IRVMs - For gods sake, its a flip of a switch, if you are lazy enough to flip a switch, you shouldnt be in the drivers seat.
2. Powered seats - How many times do you guys adjust your seats? If you are chauffeur driven, this is irrelevant anyways.
3. Cooled glovebox - How chilled can a cooled glovebox make your drink? The delta temperature between the glovebox and car cabin wont be too much. Also if you really are stocking up drinks, you can just buy them whenever you take a break.
4. LED lights - I havent understood the obsession about the blinding white lights, but I dont completely understand the lighting technology

Some additions from my side -

1 Auto wipers - Really? It just takes a second to start wipers when it starts raining without taking your hands off from steering.
2 Auto lights - Again, when it's dark you anyways switch on lights within a second. I actually start them when it starts getting darker, may be around sunset only to be on safer side.
3 Cooled glovebox - I am strictly against storing such items in car which can make my car dirty if it spills. Also it can make my glove box sticky for sure. It will make noise also which can be very annoying too.
4 Alloy wheels - It mainly serve aesthetic purpose, nothing functional or value addition by it. Some diamond cut alloys are really costly and cost you extra 30-50 K, even more in case of bigger cars.
5 Different color lighting inside car - Some color looks so pathetic that its better to have dark inside the car instead of those weird colors.

All cars should have -

1 Better build quality.
2 Better brakes (All disk)

[shancz]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

My point is, are we auto-enthusiasts yearning for random useless features rather than focussing on important features, while also complaining about prices growing.

Your premise of important vs useless features itself is subjective. What's useless for you could be important for me and vice versa.
I have counter points for the important and useless features mentioned but will skip it since its not going to lead us to a conclusion.

But most importantly you've raised an excellent point of prioritising safety above other features and thankfully we've seen much better progress in the last 5 years than ever before.
BNVSAP is the only way to have a minimum safety envelope across segments as we shouldn't forget that while being enthusiastic about cars we still form a miniscule percentage of car buyers.

[RijuC]

2000rpm, the rear windscreen defogger and rear wiper+spray are sorely missed in my Swift.
These are must in my opinion, when we drive in rainy conditions or in dusty areas, hills etc.

I don't know why the car OEMs do not make them a standard just like the front wipers. Fitment of these two items from aftermarket is either impossible or very cumbersome and costly affair (and may not ensure good success).

By the way, Auto headlamps also should be made must. Many a times I find speeding vehicles in highways or in local sector roads do not switch on the headlamps in dark/ after sundown. Everyday I struggle in Delhi-NCR and when I am in Kolkata due to this. Don't know what psychological barrier people have to switch on the headlamps when it is dark outside. Or does it give them any savings on fuel bills?

[karthikg87]

I believe it's all about perceptions and profit margins. How do you take a chassis that's inherently not sound in terms of safety, ride quality and road manners and make people believe it is a premium car/suv worth lakhs of ₹ without eating into the profit margins. The recipe is the laundry list of features. That is why a lot of the cars in our market start at a low base price and climb steeply for equipped versions.

• Panoramic Sunroof - Check
• Bose Audio - Check
• Electric Seats - Check
• TV sized touch screen - check
  etc...

I was reading a book which talks about the Toyota's way of product engineering called "Genchi Genbutsu". One of the examples given is how the chief engineer of Sienna took a 53k mile trip around USA and Canada to observe and understand the actual needs of its intended customers.

If someone senior from one of our car companies rode across India it would be pretty obvious what qualities we need in our cars. Instead what we have are pure salesmen(ex:Mr R.C Bhargava) running our car companies.

[AjayJoshuaN]

Originally Posted by condor

LED lights ? As long as they are 4300k. 4300k is closest to daylight. A person typically spends about 11 hours in day light, and the eyes are used to this. 6000k is all bling, and not very useful in rain. or even night, as much as 4300k lights are.
If anyone has doubts, do check on any illuminated highway section for the old Sodium Vapor lamp lighting vs the new LED cool daylight type lighting.

Agree with most of the points mentioned in this thread, but regarding LED lights, I think it is an efficient upgrade. Why draw more current and use up more power (110watt), generate more heat and produce lesser light instead of using lesser power (60watt) to produce more light?

[FrAgile]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

Guys,

1. Powered seats - How many times do you guys adjust your seats? If you are chauffeur driven, this is irrelevant anyways.
2. LED lights - I havent understood the obsession about the blinding white lights, but I dont completely understand the lighting technology

I would like to share my opinion on these two points.

The powered seats do not add any value to the car if car is mostly driven by one person, or is driven by people having similar driving positions. Though, it becomes a huge plus point when it is driven by two or more people in the family and a chauffeur who have widely different seating positions. Adjusting the height of the seat is much much much easier and quicker than pumping the lever up or down every time it's your turn to drive, or it might be me and my thoughts being wayyy too lazy or convenience oriented . I also think that the value of electrically adjustable seats increases enormously once memory functions are added to it along with the memory for mirrors as well. It's so much simpler to get to your position just by a press of a button. Still, it is a good to have feature(that would be on the top of my list amongst good to have features) and not a necessity by any means.

As far as lights are concerned, halogen or LED, I don't care. The primary purpose is good visibility. Though I would agree that LED lights do look good at night and gives a premium character but it isn't a deal breaker for a car under 20L. Some good tech which I appreciate though are auto levelling headlamps, the auto booster function in XUV700, auto high beams and low beams, and matrix lights that dims the light to prevent the oncoming traffic from going blind (ka-ching).

The features that I think are necessary (excluding some basic ones)

1. Armrest at front and rear
2. Rear Wipers and Defoggers
3. Coming home or leaving home lights
4. Rear Parking Sensors and camera
5. Good Braking (All 4 discs aren't necessary in my opinion, again, the braking should be strong. IIRC, according to the reviews, even without the disc brakes, Kushaq/Taigun have equally good braking as Seltos)
6. 4 star and above safety rating with stable bodyshell including pedestrain safety
7. Heated OVRM
8. A basic and simple functional touchscreen with no lag which can support Wireless Android Auto or Apple Carplay, along with a wireless charger (That would reduce wired connections and exposed USB ports, would make the car cleaner aesthetically, and AA or AC are a big big big boon for road trips, to listen to music, or to use google maps, which is much better than in-built navigation, which I am not able to appreciate, or people who get/make a lot of calls while driving by the nature of their job.)
9. Fine Tuned suspensions as per our road. (Power, steering feel and feedback, driveability depends on person to person. But a nicely tuned suspension by both enthusiasts and a person using a car just to go from point A to point B. Citroen marketed their ride quality for the C5 Aircross)
10. All buttons should be backlit. Atleast in 2022.
11. Boot Lamp, and all the interior lamps should be bright enough.
12. Active TPMS
13. Not a feature but, quality of materials in the car should be the best possible in that segment. We have recently seen manufacturers cutting corners in either the plastic quality, fit finish or the build quality of the vehicle. Many people like to keep their cars for 10+ years and 1L+ Km and won't appreciate a car with creaking and rattling plastics and the plastics getting sticky over time.
14. The car should be very reliable and durable. The basic mechanicals should be sorted. Or atleast, they should be made properly aware if they are purchasing something that has a tendency to fail over the years, say, the DCT gearbox. People should be mentally ready to get these replaced and set a budget aside to avoid monetary shocks while replacements. The last thing one would want to happen on a road trip, or a traffic jam is a breakdown of a car.

P.S. automation of features, such as auto headlights, auto AC, auto wipers,... are the future as we go ahead. Though these should not be deciding factors while buying a car, these could turn out to be very useful and non-gimmicky features in the long run.

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

Auto dimming IRVMs - For gods sake, its a flip of a switch, if you are lazy enough to flip a switch, you shouldn't be in the drivers seat.

That's a big statement you are making. Once a person drives an auto dimming IRVM equipped car, he/she will understand the importance of it. My car came with a flip switch anti glare IRVM but it was neither convenient to flip it while driving (more of a hazard) nor it used to provide much of visibility when flipped. But the day I drove a car with auto dimming IRVM, I fixed one in my car in just a week's time. It's a boon to have it and not at all an overrated feature.

[condor]

Originally Posted by AjayJoshuaN

. Why draw more current and use up more power (110watt), generate more heat and produce lesser light instead of using lesser power (60watt) to produce more light?

Visibility over constantly produced current ? And the stock electrical system is already designed to support all electrical functions during running. What I am going to do with the excess anyway ?

Well, for me it's a no-brainer. Visibility any day