Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

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sharukh
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Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by sharukh »

Hi,

I am looking to buy a car. Just for recreational purpose, drive to a park or some other place on weekends. I used to rent car during non-covid times, now not comfortable to rent a car, so planning to buy one.

Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

No Tesla: No charging facilities in the apartment complex. Also no charging points near by.

Currently I am thinking of Toyota Rav4. It has few safety features supported by toyota safety sense 2.0.
toyota is comming up with safety sense 2.5

Few Examples that are present in 2.5 and not in 2.0
1. Evasive maneuver to not hit people walking in the lane.
2. Watch for cars and people when turning left in intersection
3. Stop sign reading and alerting

Say If I buy a car (currently Rav4 has only TSS 2.0) then If i want updated safety features (TSS 2.5) I have to buy their new car again in say 2022, I cant get the updated features to the same 2021 car by paying some small differential amount.


Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Thank you.
Tingting1013
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by Tingting1013 »

sharukh wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:15 pm

Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Thank you.
Tesla.

That is why people buy them
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willthrill81
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by willthrill81 »

I'm not aware of any such vehicle.

Forward compatibility can be hard to come by in software, let alone a car.

Being focused on driving and not allowing yourself to be distracted is of far more important than any driver assist feature.
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alfaspider
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by alfaspider »

I'm afraid you are going to be dissapointed by any car you buy if you expect driver aist features to always be the latest and greatest. Tesla is the only company that provides consistent updates, and even then you have no guarantees of always having the latest and greatest.
hi_there
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by hi_there »

What you are asking for is the opposite of the business model in the car industry. If your RAV4 evolved and got better over time, why buy the 2020 model over the 2017 model?
cadreamer2015
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by cadreamer2015 »

If this is an important need for you, perhaps consider leasing a car rather than purchasing.

That is not a typical Boglehead approach, however.
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bubbly
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by bubbly »

As far as I know, Tesla will offer continuous software updates but if there is a hardware upgrade, it is not guaranteed to be upgraded. The most notable example was autopilot 1.0 to 2.0, where 2.0 had a lot more sensor arrays and sensor fusion capabilities, as well as the hardware necessary to support future software upgrades.
adamthesmythe
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by adamthesmythe »

I do not believe you will find any such vehicle.

One important reason why this is unlikely- software alone isn't enough.

(You have ruled out Tesla, which does do software upgrades. There has been considerable technical skepticism about whether they will ever be able to implement full self-driving with only cameras.)

The changes in a year are not that substantial. If you really feel this is a concern (and I don't) consider leasing, shortest term the best.
GmanJeff
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by GmanJeff »

As others have indicated, substantially new capabilities usually require additional equipment in the form of additional/different cameras and sensors. Consequently, a better approach might be to select a vehicle which is currently state-of-the-art in terms of Level 2 or 3 automation, and just acknowledge that big steps forward will require a new vehicle. That said, advances tend to be in the form of incremental improvements, with major steps forward not happening annually, but on a more extended cycle. You won't need to buy a new car every year, unless you happen to buy in a year before a big technological advance.
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lthenderson
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by lthenderson »

sharukh wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:15 pm Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?
Since driver assist features usually rely on sensors, you would have to buy a vehicle that has lots of extra sensors that aren't utilized now but might be in the future. I doubt such a vehicle exists.
gerntz
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by gerntz »

cadreamer2015 wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:27 pm If this is an important need for you, perhaps consider leasing a car rather than purchasing.

That is not a typical Boglehead approach, however.
Good idea. I did that with my two previous cars. But it really gets expensive if not driving 10K/yr or more. SInce my mileage driven went down, I gave leasing up.
iamlucky13
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by iamlucky13 »

cadreamer2015 wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:27 pm If this is an important need for you, perhaps consider leasing a car rather than purchasing.

That is not a typical Boglehead approach, however.
I'm not personally a fan of leasing, but I've noticed there are plenty of Bogleheads who are. People of sufficient means can live below their means without viewing every financial decision as a matter of optimizing costs.

For what the OP's priorities appear to be, leasing sounds like a very reasonable approach.

On the other hand, I don't personally see a lot compelling about the current level of driver assist features and don't expect to see very rapid evolution (significant changes every 2 years), especially not once the lawyers get involved in earnest.

My main recommendation would be to simply accept a longer interval for getting the latest and greatest and save money. But if that's not how they wish to proceed, then leasing seems like the next best option.
hi_there
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by hi_there »

You know, many car owners probably don't want their car to get updated over time if it will change the way the vehicle behaves. Even if the updates are useful, they could be annoying or even a safety hazard if drivers have acclimatized to the old state of their vehicles.
H-Town
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by H-Town »

sharukh wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:15 pm
Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?
That's how car manufacturers get people to buy new cars.........
Time is the ultimate currency.
CorradoJr
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by CorradoJr »

sharukh wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:15 pm Hi,

I am looking to buy a car. Just for recreational purpose, drive to a park or some other place on weekends. I used to rent car during non-covid times, now not comfortable to rent a car, so planning to buy one.

Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Thank you.
Based on this, let's assume you'll drive less than 3,000 miles a year. That's a huge financial cost just to have a brand new car for weekend use.

Tesla has been doing over the air updates since 2012, they have about a 10 year lead on everyone else. I don't think you'll find a more safety-focused car than Tesla, they consistently receive NHTSA 5 star ratings across the board for safety (2021 Rav4 is 4 to 5 stars)
Normchad
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by Normchad »

CorradoJr wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 7:41 pm
sharukh wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:15 pm Hi,

I am looking to buy a car. Just for recreational purpose, drive to a park or some other place on weekends. I used to rent car during non-covid times, now not comfortable to rent a car, so planning to buy one.

Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Thank you.
Based on this, let's assume you'll drive less than 3,000 miles a year. That's a huge financial cost just to have a brand new car for weekend use.

Tesla has been doing over the air updates since 2012, they have about a 10 year lead on everyone else. I don't think you'll find a more safety-focused car than Tesla, they consistently receive NHTSA 5 star ratings across the board for safety (2021 Rav4 is 4 to 5 stars)
Porsche Taycan owners are finding out about software updates now. Short version, they have to leave it at the dealer for 2 days to get the software update. https://mashable.com/article/porsche-ta ... re-update/
vfinx
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by vfinx »

It is sad, but every other car manufacturer, aside from Tesla, that I have had experience with still treats their vehicles as "one and done" transactions, and their goal is to never hear from you again after purchase. I don't like Teslas, but they are so far ahead in their mentality around this.

As an example, my recently purchased vehicle didn't come with Android Auto even though the salesman told me it would. Turns out my car needed a software update, and it couldn't be delivered over the air. When I called the OEM they asked for $500 to have a dealership perform the update. They flat out told me they don't care if I ever buy another car from them again. Fortunately the dealership I purchased the car from stepped up and covered it. It's the kind of experience that Tesla owners (rightfully) mock the rest of us for. The software update took 20 minutes.
tibbitts
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by tibbitts »

I don't know anything about Tesla, but I would imagine many upgrades require new hardware, and I'm not sure that's going to happen. I see this with a product as relatively simple as my dslr camera. I can't buy new lenses for my camera because, while less than a decade old, it simply doesn't contain the electronics it needs to operate newer lenses, rendering them completely useless. It's a matter of hardware, not firmware.
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Nate79
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by Nate79 »

The only other company that might be close is GM. Many of their cars can do over thr air updates and Cadillac is the most extensive OTA update capability for GM including almost all main modules including updated to their driver assist features. But I doubt it will go as far as you are expecting.
02nz
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by 02nz »

willthrill81 wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:24 pm Being focused on driving and not allowing yourself to be distracted is of far more important than any driver assist feature.
I agree maintaining attention is important, and driver assist features are no substitute for that. But having driven several trips now - especially on freeways (both at speed and stop and go) - in a car with adaptive cruise, lane keep assist, and blind spot monitor, it's unquestionable they make a HUGE difference in reducing driver fatigue. I remained prepared at all times to take over, but the systems' adjustments to speed and steering reduced the mundane work of driving, so that I could be better prepared for true emergency situations. Similarly, I still checked my blind spots, but with the BSM's extra layer, I had much more confidence in tricky situations. To my mind, there was no question I was safer because of the systems and the way I used them. So, as with any other technology, it CAN help, but it's up to us to use it correctly.
goos_news
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by goos_news »

You will be seeing more after-sale feature enablement (for a fee) in the coming years. The OEMs first are focusing on secure OTA updates to reduce the amount of money they pay to dealers to perform firmware updates. But the choices now are limited.
Millennial
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by Millennial »

tibbitts wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:20 pm I don't know anything about Tesla, but I would imagine many upgrades require new hardware, and I'm not sure that's going to happen.
Eventually this is true, but Tesla does take steps to mitigate it. Hardware is updated ahead of software - cars come with cameras and sensors they can't yet use based on what Tesla expects them to need. Components that will be known bottlenecks (Nvidia based computer in early model 3s, for instance) are made to be modular and Tesla swaps them at no charge once the new parts are ready. Because of this, cars back to 2017 have the same capabilities as 2021s. When you get older than that, it's starts dropping off.
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by dboeger1 »

As someone who has worked on mission-critical systems so far in my career, I'm very skeptical of such upgrades in things like cars. I know generic open-source software is becoming more and more prevalent in many products and services, and there are certainly ways of using redundancy to mitigate the impact of errors in things like web services, but there are certain categories of products where it's still industry practice to use carefully constrained and vetted software and avoid upgrades or other potential points of failure. Even in major enterprise hardware systems which do allow software upgrades, many companies just delay them as long as possible, even despite growing security risks, because they expect to have to design and implement a complicated and costly upgrade strategy across large deployments. Even then, they often expect to deal with failures and unforeseeable edge cases. A car computer is not something you want to reboot in the middle of driving (I realize the embedded systems probably don't work like that for certain critical real-time functionality but you get my point). Until the industry establishes a good track record of managing car software updates, which is probably still many years from happening and would require a whole new business model, I would absolutely not seek such a feature out, and certainly not for the sake of safety, ironically. Tesla seems to be pioneering such an approach, but we're talking in very expensive cars and with mixed results when things like the automatic summon feature was released (you can see videos if Tesla cars struggling to auto-summon and bumping into other cars in parking lots). I would not trust Elon Musk's cavalier attitude when it comes to the safety of an automatic driver assist feature, but that's just me.
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by acegolfer »

If you like Tesla's constant software update, consider openpilot project (https://comma.ai/).
openpilot is open source software built to improve upon the existing driver assistance in most new cars on the road today. Tesla Autopilot like functionality for your Toyota, Honda, and more.
Check reviews at Youtube. Here's one I just found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opmxecU1VQ0 (published 2/2021).
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by onourway »

I will point out that if you buy a vehicle with the top of the line assistance features now, it is unlikely there will be any single major breakthrough that would be game-changing over the next 5+ years. We have a vehicle (not a Tesla) that was bought in 2013 with every driver assistance option available. Even today it does not seem like it is missing all that much from the top-end vehicles. Mainly it’s missing things like lane keeping, birds-eye cameras, automatic parallel parking, etc. I don’t consider any of those to be absolute must haves - they are incremental improvements on what has proven to be an incredibly reliable and robust set of driver aids. I’d buy what you want and drive it until there is substantial enough improvements to warrant an upgrade.
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by CorradoJr »

Normchad wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:22 pm
CorradoJr wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 7:41 pm
sharukh wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:15 pm Hi,

I am looking to buy a car. Just for recreational purpose, drive to a park or some other place on weekends. I used to rent car during non-covid times, now not comfortable to rent a car, so planning to buy one.

Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Thank you.
Based on this, let's assume you'll drive less than 3,000 miles a year. That's a huge financial cost just to have a brand new car for weekend use.

Tesla has been doing over the air updates since 2012, they have about a 10 year lead on everyone else. I don't think you'll find a more safety-focused car than Tesla, they consistently receive NHTSA 5 star ratings across the board for safety (2021 Rav4 is 4 to 5 stars)
Porsche Taycan owners are finding out about software updates now. Short version, they have to leave it at the dealer for 2 days to get the software update. https://mashable.com/article/porsche-ta ... re-update/
This is the 2021 equivalent of leaving your iPhone at the Apple Store for 2 days so they can upgrade the latest iOS version. Who has time for that?
Tesla OTAs happen in your driveway!
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by bubbadog »

goos_news wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:39 pm You will be seeing more after-sale feature enablement (for a fee) in the coming years. The OEMs first are focusing on secure OTA updates to reduce the amount of money they pay to dealers to perform firmware updates. But the choices now are limited.
I've read that the new Ford F150 can be optioned with a driver's assist package that won't be fully functional till later and you will have to pay an additional usage fee.
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by edgeagg »

acegolfer wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:44 am If you like Tesla's constant software update, consider openpilot project (https://comma.ai/).
openpilot is open source software built to improve upon the existing driver assistance in most new cars on the road today. Tesla Autopilot like functionality for your Toyota, Honda, and more.
Check reviews at Youtube. Here's one I just found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opmxecU1VQ0 (published 2/2021).
Thanks for posting this. I'll have to look at the testing codebase ;-). Consumer Reports seems to like them, placed over Teslas. I happen to have a couple of nvidia geforce 470gtx cards lying around and I will give it a whirl on the sim.

Unfortunately, I don't have a spare car lying around to try it out. I'll have to talk to a friend who works on junkers.
bogledogle
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by bogledogle »

None. Car manufacturers want you to buy a new car as frequently as possible. Any manufacturer that promises future upgrades is going to figure out how to monetize it. Ie: you pay for it in some way - extended warranty ..etc

Tesla is turning off features the first buyer paid for when they sell their car to a different person. Self driving, supercharging etc
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by hicabob »

edgeagg wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 12:58 pm
acegolfer wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:44 am If you like Tesla's constant software update, consider openpilot project (https://comma.ai/).
openpilot is open source software built to improve upon the existing driver assistance in most new cars on the road today. Tesla Autopilot like functionality for your Toyota, Honda, and more.
Check reviews at Youtube. Here's one I just found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opmxecU1VQ0 (published 2/2021).
Thanks for posting this. I'll have to look at the testing codebase ;-). Consumer Reports seems to like them, placed over Teslas. I happen to have a couple of nvidia geforce 470gtx cards lying around and I will give it a whirl on the sim.

Unfortunately, I don't have a spare car lying around to try it out. I'll have to talk to a friend who works on junkers.
It sounds great but I've read that Toyota voids the warranty if it's installed in one of their cars. Supposedly it works excellently with newer Corrola's too.
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SmallCityDave
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by SmallCityDave »

bogledogle wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:06 pm None. Car manufacturers want you to buy a new car as frequently as possible. Any manufacturer that promises future upgrades is going to figure out how to monetize it. Ie: you pay for it in some way - extended warranty ..etc

Tesla is turning off features the first buyer paid for when they sell their car to a different person. Self driving, supercharging etc
Safety sells!!

You only have one life you should be upgrading every year ;)
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by edgeagg »

Tesla views a car as a platform to upsell services. And they get you to pay for the platform!

CNATFB
bogledogle
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by bogledogle »

SmallCityDave wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:17 pm
bogledogle wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:06 pm None. Car manufacturers want you to buy a new car as frequently as possible. Any manufacturer that promises future upgrades is going to figure out how to monetize it. Ie: you pay for it in some way - extended warranty ..etc

Tesla is turning off features the first buyer paid for when they sell their car to a different person. Self driving, supercharging etc
Safety sells!!

You only have one life you should be upgrading every year ;)
LOL true. As a survivor of multiple car crashes (and motorcycles), I would be upgrading every year :)
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anon_investor
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by anon_investor »

Tingting1013 wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:21 pm
sharukh wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:15 pm

Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Thank you.
Tesla.

That is why people buy them
+1.
TravelGeek
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Re: Which car supports easy upgrades of driver assist features year over year without buying a new car every year ?

Post by TravelGeek »

hi_there wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 6:29 pm You know, many car owners probably don't want their car to get updated over time if it will change the way the vehicle behaves. Even if the updates are useful, they could be annoying or even a safety hazard if drivers have acclimatized to the old state of their vehicles.
It depends. If it is an actual improvement, I would certainly welcome updates and upgrades. As for the safety aspect due to the need to learn the new feature, as someone who (in normal times) rents random vehicles 10-20 times year, often in unfamiliar places, I already accept that risk.
lthenderson wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 3:58 pm Since driver assist features usually rely on sensors, you would have to buy a vehicle that has lots of extra sensors that aren't utilized now but might be in the future. I doubt such a vehicle exists.
Driver assist features depend on sensors and software. It is certainly possible that improvements (fixes or new features) are implemented without adding additional sensors. It just depends on the what sensors exist and what capabilities are already implemented. And it requires a shift in mind-set for the vehicle manufacturers.
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