This is a seriously overlooked thing by auto makers!

@Ynotisay Like your thinking. But I would like power steering, power brakes, power locks, power driver's seat (to fine-tune adjustments), power adjustable mirrors, and a power soft-top.

@Ynotisay it’s a nice thought, but there are a few issues…like as of 2018 reverse cameras are a legal requirement for US sold cars, so the car has to have a screen by law.

@Zaphod42 Yeah. You're right. Then in my world I'd buy the after market screen cover so I don't have to look at it. :)

@thisguy20 Yeah. Power steering, brakes and locks make sense. But the electronic component is a little different than the software stuff. I'm ok with handling the steering and braking.

@Ynotisay I'm not sure I'd go quite that far but I broadly agree with you. There is far too much over-complicated guff in modern cars, not because it's necessary but to appeal to the gadget-conscious who must have everything.

While the idea of a car heavily controlled via a portable telephone and the Internet, alarms me. It is not only needless. It is more to go seriously and expensively wrong, I would not trust it in areas with poor coverage, and I do not like the security implications.

The only additional electronics I have put in my car are a removable sat-nav I rarely need, and a reversing-camera that is a definite advantage in my narrow street with cramped parking along both sides.

@Ynotisay I think when you start making injection molds and molds for cast parts and program all the cnc machines and PLCs and robots for the assembly line making automated features it actually turns out to not be that much more expensive to include the automated features in all the cars....especially when we are talking about producing 100,000 cars

to actually split up the work into two lines of cars could be more expensive

just a theory I have

I have designed these lines before in my engineering career but not for cars but for other products

@goneNow6565 The difficulty for the owner is that he or she might not want all these "features", many of which are meretricious, and merely add a lot of extra material, more to go wrong, higher sales price and more expensive and difficult to service.

We should be thinking of manufacturing goods to do what is necessary, rather than larding them with "because we can" extras wasting so much dwindling resources.

I don't advocate going back to 1960s crudeness and appallingly bad fuel consumption; but there comes a point where the "features" are not necessary and could even compromise safety!

I've a friend whose own car illustrates this. It is a hybrid, a Honda I think, and she is happy with it generally but it has one "feature" she finds annoying and potentially dangerous. If it "thinks" you are too close to objects on the nearside it does not warn you. Instead it grabs control of the steering - ignoring that you may have pulled in very closely for a very good reason, such as passing an approaching vehicle in a very narrow road. She does not want this, and tells me though you can switch it off at the start of the journey you have to do that for every journey - you can't turn it off and leave it off.

While looking at some car reviews, the amount of additional "stuff" and needless complexity especially in the more expensive models in some makes is staggering. Who the Hell needs 24 loudspeakers inside a car? Or a 700 Watt radio? Or has to use a "smart"-phone to adjust the seat?

I don't think it's a matter of needing separate assembly-lines but every manufacturer makes models differing in details like the additional "features" already, so it can't be that hard to design and build a variant that does just what is needed by buyers who don't want to waste their money on 22 surplus loudspeakers, or the potentially hazardous, so-called "infotainment" screens" in the middle of the dashboard - an idea as bad as the term. If designed properly the gee-gaws can be added later, or at least connected, by owners who want them.