I don't think I will ever buy a new car again

Rather than “Jesus take the wheel” it is “Corporate take over your car.”

Owners of some Jeep Wrangler 4xe hybrids have been left stranded after installing an over-the-air software update this weekend. The automaker pushed out a telematics update for the Uconnect infotainment system that evidently wasn’t ready, resulting in cars losing power while driving and then becoming stranded.

Stranded Jeep owners have been detailing their experiences in forum and Reddit posts, as well as on YouTube. The buggy update doesn’t appear to brick the car immediately. Instead, the failure appears to occur while driving—a far more serious problem. For some, this happened close to home and at low speed, but others claim to have experienced a powertrain failure at highway speeds.

Software update bricks some Jeep 4xe hybrids over the weekend - Ars Technica

A couple of years ago, James Tarr introduced a new paranoia in my mental basket with his book Cascade where the government decided to suspend most private vehicle activity using the infotainment systems. We have one vehicle that unfortunately has OnStar but we just got a 2007 pick up truck with zero in the sense of remote control which was a demand on my part.

Do I miss certain abilities from an infotainment system? Yes, but here is the good news: You can buy aftermarket devices that bot attach parasitically to your vehicle and can do most of the thing you want. What I miss the most is a reverse camera, but lo and behold, you can buy a wired or wireless system in Amazon. Do you want the ability to have a big screen to see GPS routes and select music or check the weather? Also available online. Tracking your vehicle in case of theft? Airtags and Smarttags are cheap and available also at the same online merchant.

And the advantages of the aftermarkets is twofold: you can rip them off and toss them out the window and still have a working vehicle and two: they are probably cheaper to replace than the factory-installed control device.

And more and more companies are starting to charge for the use of accessories and amenities that were free before, like AC to navigation to heated seats. I imagine that soon enough you will be charged for Fob wireless usage and pretty much can forget to drive unless you pay.

Oh yes, I almost forgot: Starting next year (unless it gets reversed) vehicles in the U.S. will start coming out with passive alcohol detection systems which will render a vehicle inoperable if it detects alcohol in the driver.

What a Brave New World!