Truly ‘smart’ car would be easy to start – and not scold me in French
IF THERE’S not already a parking space reserved in hell for the designers of fancy modern cars that require a degree in aeronautical engineering just to start them, then there should be. I’ve just returned from my holidays in western France, which is probably a lovely place, but I wouldn’t know as I spent most of the trip sitting in the car park at La Rochelle airport trying to figure out how to work my rental car.
The trouble started when the first car we were given, a relatively straightforward model, developed a slow puncture. No big deal, right? Au contraire. “You do not want to get a flat tyre on this thing,” warned my father-in-law, who drives the same car at home. “It’s so modern that there’s no spare, and you need a special key to unlock each wheel. It’s a nightmare.”
So I drove back to the airport to pick up a replacement. My heart sank as the rental guy directed me across the car park towards a brand new American SUV, which was roughly the same size as a small jet engine.
I took one look at the souped-up dashboard and knew that this time I had met my Waterloo.
First up was the task of moving the driver’s seat forward so that my very short legs could reach the very far away pedals.
I reached under the seat to find the lever, but there was none. I consulted the handbook.
It was in French. So I resorted to my phone where I learned from a series of YouTube videos made by enthusiastic petrolheads for dimwits who like me are baffled by their cars that the seat can only be moved by using an electronic knob tucked carefully away down by the door.
First, though, I’d have to start the SUV. But how? Where was the start button? In the previous car, it was down near the gearstick. Not in this one. After what felt like several weeks, I found it tucked away behind the steering wheel, virtually invisible to the human eye.
Phew, I thought, and pressed it. The lights came on, but no engine. The car started talking to me in French. The dashboard pinged urgent messages at me. All in French. I wiped the sweat from my brow and resorted again to YouTube, where I learnt that in this model, you needed to depress the clutch at the same time as hitting the start button. Polar ice caps melted as I sat in the car park, longing for my trusty 12-year-old Golf in all of its old-fashioned perfection.
Next up: releasing the handbrake. The lever looked the same as rental car number one, so surely it would operate in the same way? Of course not – that would be far too simple. This car (thanks, YouTube) required you to keep your foot on the brake pedal before releasing the handbrake. By the time I’d finally manoeuvred out of the parking space, it was almost time to fly back home to Ireland.
I like the simple things in life. All I want from a car is that it will get me from A to B. I don’t want it to converse with me in foreign languages, I don’t want it to chastise me for momentarily taking my hand from the steering wheel. I don’t want my parking assisted or my headlights dipped. I can do all that myself, thanks. But I would like it to start, oddly enough.
Technology is great and everything, but there is such a thing as being too smart, as anyone who’s ever been reduced to tears trying to work a TV using 17 different remote controls will understand.
If designers spent as much time making things as simple as they are fancy, that would be really smart.