The Practical Features That Make A Car Easier To Live With As You Get Older
Most people aren’t automotive enthusiasts who own a different car every year. Typically, when people purchase a new vehicle, they intend to own it for a long period of time. They want luxurious features that help them out in everyday life. It’s not necessarily about premium luxury materials or high-output engines, it’s about how this vehicle can fit into your daily routine. A really well-engineered car is about the person and not necessarily about the car itself. It has to be economical, have high visibility, and intuitive/easy-to-use controls that eliminate frustration.
Features that were once out of reach for most buyers are now well within reach for anybody and everybody looking to future-proof their vehicle. It’s ideal for it to be easy to get into, easy to operate, and something that can be a sanctuary from the everyday outside world. That’s why a lot of cars are now (like Hyundai) considered more premium than they are luxury, because you can get luxury features at a standard price. Here are ten comfort-focused features that will help you enjoy your vehicle years down the line.
Heads-Up Display (HUD)
A heads-up display is one of those features that is nice to have, but it is not entirely necessary. It’s also one of those features that you wouldn’t believe was actually originally found on a 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. The Chevrolet Corvette C5 was the first to have different colors displayed on the display itself. Now, they can feature augmented reality style turn-by-turn navigation.
Heated Steering Wheel And Heated/Ventilated Seats
Well, not entirely necessary. Heated steering wheels and heated and ventilated seats are a nice option to have, especially if you live in more extreme climates. Even if you don’t live in more extreme climates, they’re nice to have. The first ever heated seat was offered on a 1960s Cadillac Fleetwood. Heated seats are more common in standard vehicles than ventilated seats are. Often, heated steering wheels either don’t work very well, don’t heat the entire steering wheel, or can be difficult to adjust.
Blind Spot Monitoring
While a lot of new cars have these standard features, blind spot monitoring could be considered to be more useful in some than others. The Mazda 3 hatchback, for example, is known to have a terrible C-pillar blind spot and absolutely needs a blind spot monitoring system. Other larger SUVs, like the Chevrolet Tahoe, have a pretty vast vantage point with which to see and don’t necessarily need it, even if it is an added bonus.
Power Liftgate With Hands-Free Kick Sensor
There are a few ways that automakers enjoy the hands-free lift gate. The power liftgate itself is a pretty ingenious design, but the fact that you can open it without pulling the key out of your pocket or touching the car is even more ingenious. Cars like the Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator have a foot kick option that you can use in order to open the tailgate. Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis products have proximity awareness and can detect you standing behind it and will automatically open it if you have this option turned on.
Proximity Keyless Entry And Push-Button Start
Again, a lot of these modern technical marvels came on much earlier in the scene than you would originally think. Wireless remote keyless entry was first found on the 1982 Renault Fuego. Then, in 1998, came the “passive” proximity keyless entry on the 1998–1999 Mercedes-Benz S Class.
This is a much simpler way of keeping your key in your pocket and not having to do anything with it, as most keyless entry vehicles have push-to-start buttons. There are even some newer vehicles, like Teslas and General Motors electric vehicles, that don’t even require you to start the vehicle, because if the car simply detects the key in your pocket, you’re good to go.
Multi-Way Power Seats With Memory Settings And Power Lumbar
If you can believe it, power adjustable seats first came onto the scene in the 1940s. They were found in super luxurious cars like the Packard and various General Motors models in the late 1940s. Technically, they only moved forward and backwards, but it was still a technological marvel. Then, by the 1950s, you could move it four to six different ways. Mercury coined the “seat-o-matic” in the 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser that would automatically adjust your seat. Now, cars like the Hyundai Tucson can also come with memory seating.
Adaptive LED Headlights With Automatic High Beams
Probably one of the biggest complaints about modern-day cars that you can ask anybody is the use of LED headlights. They are much more blinding to drivers in oncoming traffic, but they end up being more helpful to the driver overall. Adaptive LED headlights are just a fancy phrase for swiveling headlights.
As you turn the steering wheel, the headlights themselves turn in the same direction. They can also go up and down if you go up a hill and are about to curve over said hill. Automatic high beams are a marvel of camera and software technology, as the camera can recognize when a vehicle’s headlights or taillights are approaching, thus switching your lights from high to low beams.
360-Degree Surround-View Camera And Rear Cross-Traffic Alert
Backup cameras themselves used to be a luxury feature, but have since been mandated by the federal Department of Transportation in the U.S. as of May 1, 2018. Therefore, every single new car since then has a backup camera standard. However, it also used to be that a 360-degree camera was more luxurious than anything.
Now, you can get a 360-degree camera on something as standard as a Kia Sportage. Rear cross-traffic alert might seem like a luxury feature as well, but it ends up protecting the pedestrian as well as the driver, and in some cars, vibrates the steering wheel to alert the driver to oncoming traffic or pedestrians.
Physical Buttons And Knobs For Core Controls
Even though this was ranked in the top two on our list, it feels like automakers have recently constantly overlooked how necessary buttons are in vehicles. A high-profile case in Germany involving the Model 3 found that adjusting mundane features like the windshield wiper interval could cause serious harm to the driver as well as pedestrians.
Sweden’s major automotive publication,Vi Bilägare, found that in a 2005 Volvo it took a driver nearly 10 seconds to complete four tasks while it took almost 1 minute (44.6 seconds) with a touchscreen-only system. Sure, many would argue that voice commands mitigate this problem, but sometimes you just want to reach down and lower the volume or change the temperature with a knob.
Ideal Step-In Height And High H-Point
It doesn’t matter your age, getting into a lower car is objectively more difficult. Take the difference between the Honda Accord and the Honda CR-V, for example. The Honda CR-V is 9.1 to 9.4 inches taller than the Honda Accord and sits about 2.5 to 2.9 inches higher off the road. Not to mention the CR-V does offer 2.5 more inches of headroom, but that’s beside the point.
You have to genuinely squat to get into the Honda Accord compared to sliding into the CR-V. Doing that for the first year might be fun and fine, but five years down the line, it might be more exhausting than you once thought. This is easily the most important feature for owning a car long-term, as it’s the thing that you do day in and day out in order to even use it.
Sources: OEMs, Vi Bilägare, DOT
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