My wife and I recently bought a new car.
Well, not a new new car. A new used car. We wanted a new new car because our old old car had served us well for thirteen years, but it was time for an upgrade.
However, the new new car we wanted was going to come over on a ship from Japan, which wouldn’t have been a problem last year. But this year, under the constantly-changing regulations created by The Man Who Loves Tariffs But Doesn’t Understand Them, the price would have been at least ten percent higher.
Fortunately, my savvy shopper wife was able to find a year-old model of the car we wanted, and it was already here, about thirty miles away, and thus immune to tariffs. It only had eight thousand miles on the odometer because it had been driven for seven months by the dealer’s wife, and then put on the market as a used car, but with all the same warranties and guarantees it would have if brand new. Best of all, instead of paying thousands of dollars more than we planned, we got essentially the same car for thousands of dollars less.
Since the last time I bought a car, there have been quite a few improvements in auto technology, with a lot of commensurate bells and whistles.
I mean that literally: so many bells and whistles. There’s another vehicle in my blind spot. Ding! I’m backing out of a parking space and someone in Sweden is crossing the street. Beep! I’m pulling into my garage and there’s an Amazon package on the doorstep. Boing!
I know I’ll get used to them, and I appreciate other features like the different presets for my wife’s and my preferences for the seats and windows, and the heated seats, and the light that tells me that the three people who aren’t sitting in the back seat haven’t buckled their seat belts.
But there’s one new technology I’m not sure we needed: rain-sensing windshield wipers.
It’s apparently been standard in new cars for several years, but it seems like an invention which solves a problem we didn’t have. After all, I’m perfectly capable of noticing that the windshield has become moistened by balls of humidity falling from the sky, and in all the years I’ve been driving, I’ve never been stumped about how to clear them out of the way. The manual windshield wiper control is a single finger length away from the steering wheel, and even with the seat pulled back all the way to allow me legroom, I’m still able to reach that lever.
On the other hand, I’m glad I can finally power-fold the side mirrors in, because on the old car, we had to replace one or the other four times in the last dozen years because the idiot/husband behind the wheel didn’t make sure there was enough side clearance while backing out. I’m pretty sure if I tried to do that in this new car, it would beep three times and eject me from the driver’s seat.
And then turn on the windshield wipers.