The state of new cars, a non Emira rant!

[centerpunch]

What I’d really like would be an Evora with the Emira body and interior - but without all the Emira screens, driver aids, etc.

 

[Orchardbike]

What I’d really like would be an Evora with the Emira body and interior - but without all the Emira screens, driver aids, etc.

For me, I think the ‘Emira hits the good balance. I personally like the screens and the connectivity (I use mine quite a bit (when it’s not in the garage), not as an daily, but much more than a weekend car) and the driver aids are relatively small and not obtrusive.

 

[brainf18]

What I’d really like would be an Evora with the Emira body and interior - but without all the Emira screens, driver aids, etc.

The Emira doesn't really have any driver aids (accept for park distance)...I agree it would be nice to have real analogue gauges but the center screen for carplay is really nice to have.

 

[centerpunch]

So the lane departure etc stuff in the manual isn’t in the US cars?

I also want the Evora old school parking brake instead of the Emira electric one, so I could run 18” wheels.

 

[Lotus64]

Every new car made is loaded with finicky electronics and dozens of computer modules controlling every system due to federal standards and the cheapness of new technology. Some base models are able to limit the amount of electronics with simplicity but it's largely unavoidable. Drivers cars do the best job at concealing the electronics from the driver.

 

[brainf18]

So the lane departure etc stuff in the manual isn’t in the US cars?

I also want the Evora old school parking brake instead of the Emira electric one, so I could run 18” wheels.

US spec Manual V6 has no lane departure stuff. The only "driver aid" is the parking sensors which are kinda nice for tight spaces

 

[boisecrawfords]

Love this topic! I completely agree with the original post. As a Human Factors Engineer, I loathe today's vehicles. Simple tasks like changing the temp that took three seconds and zero eyesight to twist the knob in my 2000 Nissan Pathfinder, now take 13 clicks, an embedded touchscreen slide, or pressing a virtual button (i.e. Dodge Durango, Volvo XC90, Acura MDX, and many others). My current DD is an Acura MDX and the lane keep assist sucks, the voice control is useless, the cruise control is weak at best, the touchscreen resolution is crappy, rain-sensing wipers don't work, and the list goes on.

I recently drove a Tesla Model 3 to try and understand the Kool-Aid drinkers that love them. I hated it. I wanted to adjust the steering wheel and it is three pages deep on a touchscreen.

I recently bought a 2017 Mini Cooper and welcome the simple controls and basic interfaces. Hoping to get a similar sense of joy with my Emira Turbo...which I hope to have by the end of the month.

 

[Nova]

On “The Importance of Loving the Daily Driver”.

From 2013 - 2017 I had a Cadillac ATS. During that time there was not a trip I wasn’t excited to take nor an errand I did not want to run: the car was engaging and brilliant to drive. I didn’t own it: it was on a 4 year lease. When 2017 rolled around, I wanted to purchase a new ATS. I didn’t want to buy the car I had off lease because I wanted a few more bells and whistles and my buyout was a little pricey. Alas, by 2017 GM had done what GM does, and had stopped offering the manual transmission on the ATS in a high trim level (except for the ATS -V, and that was a bit out of my price range at the time.)

So, I bought a new Audi A4 which I purchased to my specifications. I thought it would be a worthy ATS replacement. Alas, very soon after purchase it became true that there was not a trip that I was excited to take nor an errand that I wanted to run. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very nice car: but it was an appliance, devoid of character, almost to the point of it being irritating to drive. To make matters worse it developed more creaks and rattles in 4 months than the ATS had had after 4 years.

I drove that A4 for almost 8 years. Eight years of mundane, boring, and frankly often irritating daily driving. But to be honest: nothing else out there seemed more promising .

Ah, but I had forgot about the Golf R. It had been a compelling contender to replace the ATS back in 2017, but it didn’t come with a couple of items that had become essential for me back then, so I had passed. Furthermore, they had been unobtainium around here since about 2021. In the past few months though, that all changed and dealers have quite a large number of them.

Two months ago, acting on the knowledge that the manual transmission on these cars would no longer be offered for the 2025 model year and moving forward, I purchased a 2024 Golf R. Don’t get me wrong: everything they say about the lousy ancillary control interface is true, but… there is not a trip I’m not excited to take nor an errand I don’t want to run: the car is engaging and brilliant to drive.

Great story. Reminds me of my experience with a 2015 Toyota Corolla LE.

What an absolutely miserable car. Every day I drove it was torture. The numbness was no accident, because sapping away the spirit in the parts was the only way the factory could get them to stay bound together for such a long time. Deep down, the car knew too that there was no meaning to its existence. Born of star dust, folded in the fiery fabric of the universe's creation, condensed and forged into rocks, mined, smelted by fire again, and pressed into form. It had been so promising to become blocks and sheets of raw material. The parts desperately wanted to be something else, even if it's to melted down and remade into a toaster. But there was no escape now. It had given up, resigned to the fact that suffering was its existence, forced to be on the move for decades, over hundreds of thousands of miles, past countless things - things that the car could have become but didn't.

It just wanted an end, it wanted to be put out out of its misery. The only way it could do this is to pass on its suffering to something that could connect with it and sense its nightmare -a car enthusiast. It hoped, begged, and prayed that the driver would have mercy and run it head long into a concrete wall and total it. The end would be the chance of a new beginning.

But alas, I sold it, and it's somewhere out there, being driven past all of its hopes and dreams.

 

[seriously]

There are a lot of great daily drivers out there. There are no interesting sports cars at reasonable prices. Beyond the Emira and the Miata I'm looking at used cars for cars that interest me. Porsches - even with the bloat are interesting but not at the prices they are asking. Porsche has gone the way of Rolex. A great product, but inflated prices where so much of your money is being spent on the brand and not the product itself. I'm not a label chaser and only willing to spend so much on the brand. The Emira is a godsend.

 

[Steve24]

So the lane departure etc stuff in the manual isn’t in the US cars?

I also want the Evora old school parking brake instead of the Emira electric one, so I could run 18” wheels.

No lane departure crap in the Aussie manual V6s either.

I actually think Lotus have the balance pretty well spot on in terms of driver aids.
There aren’t any that I need to turn off every time I get in the car (unlike every other car I own).

In fact what would make the Emira perfect in my view would be the addition of blind spot detection and keyless entry.

 

[Beachbum]

No lane departure crap in the Aussie manual V6s either.

I actually think Lotus have the balance pretty well spot on in terms of driver aids.
There aren’t any that I need to turn off every time I get in the car (unlike every other car I own).

In fact what would make the Emira perfect in my view would be the addition of blind spot detection and keyless entry.

God no, not keyless entry

 

[RoryBellows]

The real rub with all of this is that cars are way safer now. We all know people aren't going to become better drivers so we will forever be supplementing their failures with tech and body structure. The work around for most of us is the appliance daily driver and the weekend car with feel and to be fair, for commuting purposes, EVs are objectively great so I guess I can live with that for now.

 

[rstutts]

I don't drive my Emira much, but there are still numerous things it has that I don't either know what it does or I don't know how to get to it. I figured out cruise a month ago, but have evidently forgot how to access it since (lol). I guess that is an indicator of my age.

 

[Tomwa]

God no, not keyless entry

This is easily the biggest failure to make the car not feel dated.

Not being able to walk up to the car, key in pocket and open the door is just such a weird thing to drop for a modern car. Easily pushes the feel of the car back 20 years.

I get that there are security concerns around vehicle theft by using things like a Flipper0 to get a radio signal which will be interpreted as the key, but I doubt that's the reason it was not included.

 

[tankski]

This is easily the biggest failure to make the car not feel dated.

On the other hand this is one of the biggest selling points of the car to me. Keyless entry systems were the vulnerability point of so many Range Rover products in the UK that most people were refused insurance for them! If it was a feature of the Emira, I'd be asking the dealer to disable it.

 

[sonor8s]

This is easily the biggest failure to make the car not feel dated.

Not being able to walk up to the car, key in pocket and open the door is just such a weird thing to drop for a modern car. Easily pushes the feel of the car back 20 years.

I get that there are security concerns around vehicle theft by using things like a Flipper0 to get a radio signal which will be interpreted as the key, but I doubt that's the reason it was not included.

Agreed. This was an odd omission. Every car I have owned since 2006 has had keyless entry. I am unfamiliar with Volvo's lineup but I am willing to bet their vehicles have this feature. I am surprised it could not be integrated into the Emira.

 

[Enut]

I was told by the dealer that keyless entry wasn't included for security reasons. Yes it would be handy but I'd rather that small inconvenience than waking up to find my Emira gone because someone used a laptop to intercept the signal (although mine is safely locked away in a secure garage so probably less of a risk for me than others).

 

[sonor8s]

I was told by the dealer that keyless entry wasn't included for security reasons. Yes it would be handy but I'd rather that small inconvenience than waking up to find my Emira gone because someone used a laptop to intercept the signal (although mine is safely locked away in a secure garage so probably less of a risk for me than others).

Honestly, I would rather have the convenience. In the states, the manual transmission is an anti-theft device on its own .

 

[rstutts]

Every vehicle I own does not have a keyless entry (Elise, 2 Toyota Tacomas, Ram 3500 Dually, Emira). No big deal to me!

 

[Beachbum]

As stated by others, in the UK Keyless entry is a real security issue, JLR vehicles are notoriously hard to get insurance on and even when you can, it is cripplingly high.
Whilst the main method of theft is the old laptop intercept, the other is the smash and grab option i.e. they cave your front door in and enter the house looking for the keys. No idea why this is specific to keyless, as it would be appropriate to button activation keys too, but for some reason the Thieves seem to only concentrate on the keyless cars