Ford releases Truckle belt buckle to celebrate F-150’s 50th anniversary
Ford celebrates the F-150’s 50th anniversary with a commemorative belt buckle.
It’s not your imagination. Cars are actually becoming more and more complex. It’s easy to see how the digital tendrils that command our attention in modern cars create more hoops to jump through during the simple act of driving. But beyond 1s and 0s, there are previously pure features that have fallen prey to mission creep, an accumulation of extraneous features that can sometimes be detrimental to their original purpose.
Mission creep can come from a good place, such as an automaker’s desire to improve equipment that has been in use for many years. But it’s often driven by the twin forces of marketing and design, and is more concerned with persuading customers to hand over their money than with the real human impact of changing the way they use their cars. These bells and whistles can get in the way of getting the job done, and in the worst case scenario, they can actually make you less safe on the road.
Here are four specific vehicle features whose original functionality has been distorted by the never-ending onslaught of additions.
super complicated tailgate
Conceptually, a pickup tailgate is simple. Open to load cargo, closed to prevent cargo from rolling onto the road behind you. For decades, these were the only duties assigned to truck tailgates, and they performed it without complaint, raising and lowering them thousands of times before taking ownership.
Around the mid-2000s, automakers decided this wasn’t enough. What if the tailgate also did something else?As with most design-related disasters, the concept started small, with Lincoln introducing a split barn door on the tailgate of its very low-volume Blackwood pickup in 2002. Then Honda brought back the ghost of station wagon tailgates of the past to introduce a “dual-action” design to the Ridgeline. This feature added a second set of hinges on the driver’s side, allowing the gate to open both sideways and upwards. down.
It is no exaggeration to say that at this time, the dam burst and the ensuing tsunami of complications caused by reckless driving swept in. A few years later, Ford carved a steel drop-down step and tall assist handle into the center of the Super Duty pickup tailgate, a feature that was extended to the F-150 in 2009. General Motors cut into the Silverado’s rear bumper to give owners a foothold, and they were able to resist for nearly a decade. But by 2019, the MultiPro (and later Multi-Flex) tailgate was introduced, bugging Chevrolet and GMC customers with a heavy board that could be folded into a bench, table, or step. Oh, and did we mention it also comes with speakers (the latest “must-have” gear for showing off at the tailgate)?
The spiral continued. Ram’s multifunction tailgate offers 60/40 split barn door access in addition to traditional up-and-down operation, and Ford’s Pro Access tailgate features a swing-out chunk in the center.
All of the above helped transform the tailgate from a simple and reliable mechanism to a complex and heavy device that is a pain to lift into place, a puzzle to fold properly, and a magnet for moisture, dirt, and grime to cling to and eventually corrode the internal structure.
PlayStation style steering wheel
Like the tailgate, the steering wheel was once a single-purpose component, a simple rudder that kept the vehicle pointing in a desired direction. But starting in the 1980s, buttons began to be placed on the steering wheel, and natural mission creep brought functions like stereo volume and cruise control speed closer to the driver’s fingertips, reducing the need to reach for controls while driving.
Modern wheels occupy far more steering area than they should, for two main reasons. The first is a shift to software control. CD players may have once been the pinnacle of in-car entertainment, but today streaming services, digital music files, satellite radio stations, and of course additional needs such as Bluetooth calling, Internet-enabled navigation, and smartphone mirroring are putting increased strain on the driver-vehicle interface.
This comes in the form of dual do-it-all control pads ported to the left and right spokes of nearly all modern steering wheels. Whether it’s capacitive touch or more basic plastic buttons, drivers are now expected to learn what is essentially basic Braille, using a thumb pad to scroll through endless menus projected onto the gauge cluster or central infotainment screen. This is much more than the stereo and cruise controls that still exist today (the latter becoming even more complex with the introduction of adaptive systems).
The second reason steering wheels are becoming increasingly complex is due to design rather than convenience. The current trend in many brands is to present the smoothest, feature-free dashboard possible, eliminating buttons and knobs and displaying the software on one of the many screens placed on the dashboard. As a reminder to customers frustrated by the lack of physical controls, the steering wheel is now the last refuge of functionality found nowhere else in the cockpit.
Heads-up display shows Detroit Pizza pie size
Head-up displays have had one of the most interesting mission creep arcs in the industry, especially considering their original intended goal of keeping drivers safe by focusing their attention on the road ahead. The first mass-produced HUD appeared in the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme in 1988, but was limited to using a dashboard-mounted projector to display two basic pieces of information “floating” above the hood. One of these was important (vehicle speed) and the other was slightly irrelevant (turn signal), but the visual footprint was small and unobtrusive.
For the next decade, limiting HUD information to the digital speedometer remained the standard strategy. In some cases, automakers added warnings to the system (like a door ajar or an oil pressure light on) or kept the turn signals on, but the display was clean and simple.
That all changed in 1999 when the Chevrolet Corvette began offering more comprehensive HUD information, including tachometer graphics that expanded its visual footprint. That same year, Cadillac went even further by projecting an infrared “night vision” image of the road ahead via a HUD installed in the DeVille. This large, distracting concept lasted only five model years before being relocated to the gauge cluster.
Unfortunately, it suffered, at least from a design perspective, as brands of all kinds began to tap into the new real estate waiting on the other side of the window. It wasn’t long before navigation instructions, radio station presets, cruise control data, and transmission gear selection became common HUD information, joining the already crowded space occupied by tachometers and speedometers. By the end of the 2000s, full-color displays and more advanced navigation graphics were added.
Now, heads-up displays in some vehicles can feel like replicas of dashboard-mounted infotainment screens, displaying an ever-growing amount of information that can obstruct your view of the road ahead, plus an augmented reality overlay that combines real-world visuals with detailed navigation instructions.
Some brands feature HUDs that are a whopping two feet wide, which has come a long way from this once-humble feature’s original “just a speedometer” roots. Yes, this information can often be narrowed down to a minimum, but even with the option to eliminate the real world seen through the windshield, it’s hard to justify a feature that was once intended to keep the driver’s eyes on the top rather than distracting them with a cavalcade of far-from-mission-critical data.
confusing key chain
The key fob represents a unique axis of mission creep. Originally started in the late 1980s as a simple black plastic plate with lock, unlock, and panic buttons, it evolved to become more restrained and task-focused during its first 15 years on the market. Gradually, additional features such as remote start and trunk release were added, and the physical key was either integrated into the housing like a switchblade or eliminated entirely, but its general functionality remained fairly static.
Since the 2010s, automakers have begun to differentiate their products, especially in the luxury segment, where power, handling, and comfort are a near-even playing field. Naturally, they turned to ever more affordable technology to add a little fun to their daily drives, and key chains were the low-hanging fruit. This is where we start to see that fobs such as those from BMW have tiny touchscreens that embody so many different functions that the battery requires regular charging to keep working. Coupled with later additions like remote parking on Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis cars, and of course the move to fully digital keys locked to smartphone apps from many other automakers, key fob overcomplexity has now reached its peak.
Interestingly, the fob’s mission creep may have finally crossed a tipping point that took its design back in a different direction. For example, Volvo’s latest effort is to differentiate itself by having zero buttons at all. Instead, this fob relies entirely on the proximity sensor built into models like the EX30, and will only unlock if you’re standing next to the driver’s door.
It’s hard to see how the lack of features solves the overload of features crammed into today’s busy devices. But then again, it’s easy to tell the difference between the nondescript piano black dashboard favored by many modern designers and the nondescript piano black rectangular plastic that sits in the pocket of a Volvo owner.
Photo by MotorTrend Archive. Illustration: Alan Muir
