Why Modern Cars Are Going To Age Horribly, And What We Can Do About It

I’m going to come out and say it: if you’re buying a car because it has the most advanced software or assisted driving features or the biggest touch screen or the best wifi or whatever, you’re doing it wrong. To put it as delicately as possible, you’re being a drooling simpleton being bent over and brutally mistreated by pretty much every automaker. But don’t feel too bad, because it’s not entirely your fault; the whole way we approach tech in cars is kind of stupid, and we should rethink it all.

The fundamental problem is this: electronic technology advances far too rapidly to be something that gets permanently integrated into a car that you may want to own for more than, say, five years or so. There’s nothing that ages an otherwise perfectly-fine car more dramatically than integrated technology that was cutting-edge when the car was new.

Don’t believe me? Look at the center-stack display/infotainment system from this 2010 Maybach Zeppelin, a car that cost almost $500,000 when new:

(Photo: Maybach/Mercedes-Benz)

At the time, this was hot shit, the bleeding-edge of automotive tech at the time. Today, the crappiest Mitsubishi Mirage has a display with far better resolution than this gleaming chariot of the elite. And that was only 15 years ago; the lifespan of a car like a Maybach should be far, far longer than that! Is it not a precision engineered machine? Is it not an ultimate expression of driving comfort, luxury, and refinement?

And yet, when almost anyone gets into this thing, one of the first things they’ll notice is how embarrassingly backwards the tech inside is. That doesn’t seem fair, right? If we look at a Maybach from close to century ago, they don’t suffer from this issue. Look at the dash of this 1933 Maybach DS-8 Zeppelin:

(Photo: Bonham’s)

So what’s different here? It’s not like this car is free of technology; it is technology. But it’s a different sort of technology, and, more importantly, the intent of the technology is different.

(Photo: Bonham’s)

Of course, the dashboard here is full of dials and gauges; this car was extremely well-instrumented for its era. But the intent of all of this instrumentation wasn’t to showcase the absolute latest tech; it was just the application of the best available tools for the job. These are not the sorts of machines that change and advance dramatically. A good mechanical speedometer or tachometer or temperature gauge is still a good speedometer or tachometer or temperature gauge eight decades later. The fundamental technology hasn’t changed, and as a result, the instruments themselves can wear their age with pride, secure in their timelessness.

There’s a reason why absurdly expensive cars like the Bugatti Chiron decided against having any sort of center-stack screen:

(Photo: Bugatti)

Sure, I have my issues with cars like these Bugattis, but I do think they understood this fundamental concept: technology can date a car deeply. And rarely well.

There are some exceptions to this rule: some kinds of extremely-advanced tech can age well, or at least interestingly, not from a perspective of usability, but from a novelty perspective. This really only works if something is among the first of its kind, like the CRT touchscreens in 1980s Buicks:

(Photo: GM)

…or perhaps the CRT dashboard instruments of the Aston Martin Lagonda:

What these systems have in common is interesting hardware that was way ahead of its time. Neither would be great in a daily driver perspective, but from a historical interest perspective, they’re fascinating. If they work. Which, especially in the case of the Lagonda, is wildly unlikely.

Now, I’m no luddite. I’m under no illusion that we should be banning modern digital tech in cars, because that would be idiotic, and no one wants that. But what I am suggesting is that all modern tech in cars, anything that is likely to rapidly advance over the years, needs to be easily and readily replaceable, because the whole experience of an otherwise great car can be ruined by outdated technology that just taints everything.

And that means we need industry-wide standards. We had them once – the DIN and double-DIN standards for head units was once very effective, and there was – and still is – a thriving aftermarket for new head units that can quite easily bring old cars into modernity with greater ease than new ones.

For example, you can upgrade a 2002 Toyota Corolla to have modern tech with the latest version of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto far cheaper and easier than you can, say, a 2022 Toyota Prius Prime. Here’s a double-din unit that’ll drop into a Corolla for about $200, giving the car the ability to interface with a standard and devices that weren’t even introduced to the world, in their earliest forms, for a solid five years after the car was sold.

If you wanted to upgrade your 2022 Prius, if you had one that, say, didn’t have CarPlay or Android Auto, you can either tack on a clunky extra screen to just give you that, or you could find a used OEM entire center stack for about $1,600 and replace the whole middle of your dash. There’s no upgraded versions for new tech, this is just the optional stock one from Toyota.

Here’s what I think should happen, in an ideal world: all the major carmakers would agree on a set of car tech standards, ones that define both physical dimensions and connector standards. If carmakers want to have HVAC controls on screens or other functionality, no matter how insipid, they need to agree on standards to control those.

If you spend a crapload of money on a car you really like, it’s ridiculous that it should be stuck with rapidly-aging display and infotainment hardware. At some point fairly quickly into your car’s life, your phone, which many people upgrade every few years, will significantly eclipse your car, technology-wise.

This is not always something that can be fixed with exciting OTA software updates; sometimes you need new display and computing hardware. Remember how Tesla had to upgrade the internal computers in many customers’ cars so they could run the latest versions of their FSD driver-assist software? This could have been made vastly easier if these cars adhered to some sort of car-tech standards that were designed for easy upgradability.

I realize there will be some sacrifices in design and packaging if everything must meet universal standards of some sort. Also, I don’t care. It’s not like any carmaker has made such fascinating center-stack display designs that the world will be impoverished for their loss. I would much rather be able to have a crapton of options to replace the clunky old system in my otherwise-fine car with something new.

Of course, carmakers will not like this idea at all; they’re generally loath to standards of any sort, and technically, it’s not a trivial task: there needs to be connector standards, we need to know what signals and inputs can be read, from cameras to temperature sensors to radar units. Then there’s outputs, like being able to control servo motors for vent direction (if so equipped) or fan speed or other hardware. There’s a lot!

Here’s the overall point, though: standards are good! A thriving aftermarket is good! We shouldn’t let what we had in the rapidly-declining DIN/Double-DIN standard days go away. It’s madness that we spend so much money on a car and find ourselves locked into the tech that was current when the car was new.

It’d be like buying a house with a built-in television and game console, and that’s just what you’re stuck with as long as you own the house. Would you want that? Stuck playing your Sega Master System on a 15″ Sony Trinitron in 2025? I mean, I have a basement full of old Ataris and similar archaic stuff, but that’s by choice.

We deserve better from our cars. I just wish I knew how to make this happen.