Why are new cars so expensive? Part 2: Rearview cameras.

I’m a very recently unemployed (53 hours ago) automotive professional. I will not be “updating my resume” and looking for ways to worm my way back in to this regulatorily suffocated nightmarish hellscape of morbidly obese, souless safety cages on wheels.

I actually did update my resume, and thought no – better to connect more directly with end users. I’ve been there, done that for 28+ years. Stick a fork in me – I’m done.

The auto industry (specifically, new cars) is in trouble. Who could have seen this coming? This was literally unpredictable. A black swan event if you will. Oh wait – somebody actually did see this coming.

All else equal – complexity is inversely proportional to reliability. Here’s a layman’s example: Anvils rarely fail. Even cheap Chinese knockoff anvils are quite reliable. I want no part of “Smart Anvils” or “Connected Anvils”

Electronic, and especially “connected” complexity increases the rate of depreciation. Just ask your mobile device. Apple or Android – they don’t last long until they become obsolete or just “brick out.” Your new car is getting more and more device like every passing year.

There is a mandatory backup camera and monitor system present on all new cars. The OEMs have been forced to implement this system – at gunpoint – since Spring 2018. You’re likely familiar with these cameras. Maybe you like them. I’ve got no quarrel with you if you do. That’s not the point. The point is you have no choice to “pass” on this once “optional” system if you want to buy any new car in the land of the free.

This system is now baked into the new vehicle transaction price for every new car manufactured after May 2018, plus a generous marginal profit. If you are unfortunate enough to live in one of the several nanny states where annual vehicle “safety” inspections are required, it means you are footing the bill of the 600-1000+% markup of the service parts (not including labor) once that system takes a crap. And it will take that giant, stinking, steaming crap – generally at the least opportune time. Hear that sound? It’s your new car’s depreciation curve, car payment and insurance premiums sucking up more of your income every passing year.

My ex company is working on a rearview vision system. Separate from the system above. High end luxury cars already have this. It apparently works better for rearward night vision than a mirror. I sure hope so: This “Advance safety system” costs about 80 times (8,000%) the cost of a rearview mirror. “If it saves one life…” Excuse me while I throw up. Your argument is beyond absurd and quite tiresome.

Superior technology never requires a mandate. Have Cathode Ray Tube TVs been banned? No. – they didn’t need to be banned. Did landline phones get banned? No – they didn’t need to be banned. The people calling for “banning the things” are always the bad guys. No exceptions.

Some wise man once stated there was once a day where if your main concern was vehicle safety – you tended to buy a Volvo, and if your primary concern was fuel efficiency – you tended to buy a Honda.

When did Volvo first showcase rearview camera systems? 1972 Even the car company most dedicated to safety decided there was no market for it.

This is directly from the NHTSA “Rule” linked above. Geniuses there I tell ya:

This reads as if 70+ year olds are killed by getting backed over when playing behind the rear wheels of cars. Those obnoxious and annoying 70+ year olds you always see playing doen on the pavement behind cars. I hate those people… They’re everywhere.

It only took them them 46 years (or about 9,660ish dead kids) to mandate it. Glad NHTSA was on the ball.

Anybody can add, or pay someone to add, a rearview camera system to their car. Any car. Any model year. Even a Model T if that’s your ride. The OEMs were free to install them on their new cars – and did – long before they became mandatory. There is absolutely, positively, no reason to mandate such technology – unless you’re a psychopathic, unimpressive, rent-seeking control freak possessing neither logical reasoning ability nor marketable skills. Did NHTSA also mandate that nobody could buy or drive a pre 2018 vehicle? Well I guess they don’t “care about the senseless back over deaths of the 210 innocent chilllllllllllllllldren a year” to throw their own emotionally appealing but logically void argument right back at them.

Nobody is making the argument to ban rearview camera systems. Congrats on the strawman slaying. You’re a hero. I’m a demon. Shiver me timbers. You’re scary. Many, including myself, are arguing banning their mandate. In fact – I would argue for completely dissolving NHTSA, and the EPA, and the DOE, and CARB, just to start. I have no quarrel with IIHS so long as auto insurance is optional, not mandatory. If it remains mandatory – then IIHS can buzz off as well.

Believe it or not, I actually can sympathize with anyone who has killed or injured anyone by backing over them by accident. I can’t imagine the guilt they must feel. Here’s the punchline though: In the end – it is the driver’s fault. The parents who let their very young kids play, unwatched, behind the neighbor’s car bear some (arguably more) responsibility as well.

You know who doesn’t deserve any blame whatsoever: Everyone buying a new economy trimmed car who would have never checked that 300ish dollar option box.

You know who else doesn’t deserve any blame whatsoever: The 99.99990987% of licensed drivers in the US who don’t accidently back over kids annually – back when this system was forced down our throats.

Mission creep anyone?

Stop offshoring your guilt by making new cars financially out of reach for low, and increasingly, even middle income people.

I raise your “You don’t care about the Chillllllldren’s safety” with a “You don’t care about low or middle income people’s ability to have an affordable and reliable way to get to work. You want them to starve to death. Murderer!” You see: 2 can play this stupid game.

Just a guess, but the “Moms for Common Sense Vehicle Safety” have absolutely no clue about how to build anything. I made that group up – but I’d bet my bottom dollar there’s something similar.

Moms for Common Sense Vehicle Safety (MCSVS) have destroyed your ability to buy any affordable new car in the US and Canada. MCSVS should learn to look behind their car before backing up or watch their damn kids.

Guess what: If you have one of the many large or even midsize (they’re all giant now) 4WD pickup trucks or SUVs, a kid (or one of those pesky 70+ year olds) could still be underneath the back end playing, completely out of view of the rearview camera system. Let’s add another few hundred bucks for a new “Rear Undercar Camera System” (RUCS in industry speak) to the new vehicle price – just in case. Better put one more more in the front too (FUCS) since they might be playing there as well, invisible from the driver’s seat. What’s another thousand bucks give or take? If it saves one life right?

This is just one of many hundred to thousand dollar bills added to the new car price in the past couple decades from our betters at the 3, 4 and 5 letter agencies. These thousand dollar bills have been mandated by these agencies. No voter in America voted for a single one of these people to have any power over their vehicles’ options – but here we are.

Here we are indeed. If it saves one life…