Not much, but, there is some.

After working on infotainment, I'm doing my best to avoid purchasing a car with an infotainment system. I had to compromise and got a Civic with an infotainment system for my wife, but I'll probably stick to late 2000s, early 2010s for as long as I possibly can to avoid them. Seriously hate touchscreens, and there's just not enough value in an infotainment system for me to be OK with what I'm losing by having one.

I agree.

Personally, I actively do not want OTA updates, or much of any remote communication to or from my car at all, that isn't 100% isolated from all the essential vehicle control, safety and security systems.

I can tolerate the idea of a vehicle-initiated automatic emergency call system, or a remotely activated but otherwise independent tracker device as an anti-theft measure. These have a clear and beneficial purpose for me as the owner/driver, and if strictly limited to that stated purpose they pose minimal privacy, security or safety concerns.

Anything beyond that, I would rather do without. And I'll maintain my current car indefinitely rather than buying any of the current generation of might-work-or-might-kill-you stuff. The lack of effective regulation and oversight in the auto industry was scary when it was just mechanics, it became more scary when software started to eat the industry, and it's just plain terrifying in the new, connected era.

It's true that modern standards for the mechanics and driving controls in cars are a significant improvement on what I have. Sadly, modern standards for everything else they bundle in these days seem to be a huge step backwards. I want them about as much as I want a "smart" home and a "smart" phone.

It's sad, because I enjoy playing with new technologies and would love to have the benefits of recent advances and devices, but for me the risks and costs in terms of security, privacy and safety are often too high to use a lot of these things. I'm starting to feel like the older relative we all seem to have who doesn't know how to use a computer...

(Edit: Fortunately, as you demonstrated with the separate navigation box you mentioned, there are often good alternatives right now that have to compete on merit because they're not built-in, which aren't necessarily as owner-hostile. I just fear the day when the number of us willing to pay a little extra and give up a little convenience to maintain that independence will be too small to sustain the market.)

Also: virtually every consumer in the world would choose safety from some 'evil hacker force' rather than the ability to maintain their factory entertainment system themselves. There's really zero reason the nav/entertainment system should be on the same communications network as the engine and brakes, anyway.

Sadly, I think "normal" cars will go extinct the way non-smartphones and non-smart TVs went extinct. It's impossible to buy a TV these days that is not infected with Internet of Shit.

Where's the 70 Series Toyota Land Cruiser of today? The 70 series is still being made, it's just not sold in developed countries. Why can't they just make it emission compliant and sell that car in the EU and US? That's the car I want!

I appreciate all of the advances in emissions reduction, safety, etc., but when I was a kid I learned the basics of working on nearly any car on the market, and now even with an OBD scanner most of them are still near unfixable without visiting a dealership. Cars are literally immobilized by things like faulty sensors when if ignored, the car would legitimately still work just fine.

That's just the purely functional stuff. The hassle-ware that's been installed between in dash "infotainment" systems, integrations with remote third parties, etc., I honestly believe is more distracting and dangerous than genuinely helpful. We've grown accustomed to this so much that people have told me they are "bored" driving sometimes without all of their gadgetry. That shouldn't be the state of normal when driving, it should be "I am operating heavy machinery and should pay attention to what I'm doing because my life does depend on it".

It's interesting to me that our trend with software has been to simplify interfaces over the years and cars just keep adding buttons and integrations and auxiliary ports for devices, and excuse themselves with useless friendly warnings that tell you not to use them while you're using the car.

On the first paragraph, I thought I'd read this battle is mostly lost already, not with respect to Android, but car software in general is far more intertwined and less robust than you'd think prudent.

If that system is required in order to control a car's functionality (windshield wipers, etc.), then its existence is not just a disincentive, but a dealbreaker.

The cumudgeonly John Muir ( who wrote "Volkswagen Maintenance for the Compleat Idiot") is on record as saying cars would be safest if "... drivers were strapped to the front like an Aztec sacrifice" (paraphrased). Exploits to take over cars through the infotainment systems only reinforce my prejudice.

They're starting to put cars on the same obsolescence train as consumer electronics. This is on a device that costs a helluva lot more. I suppose that EVs have the same issue.

The parts situation is going to be interesting. Lacking standardized design and only a limited number of years of guaranteed (and high cost) replacements, it should be interesting in a decade. Cars a tough environment and I'm afraid that wrecking yards will see a lot of usage in terms of both cars become obsolete/unfixable and as sources of spare parts.

It's interesting that the original sin of pushing towards this situation is the mandatory backup camera. Once the screen and a tolerably fast embedded system get installed, cost reduction leads you to a monolithic place for car controls. The modern fascination with cell phones probably helps the population go along.

...and there's a 100m cliff behind you with some innocent families playing at the bottom.

It staggers me that regulators around the world didn't block the trend for highly interactive UIs and touchscreen controls for essential driving actions a long time ago. It's so obviously dangerous and unashamedly putting style before substance.

It terrifies me that before long I'm going to have to give up my existing car in favour of something modern. I would be very happy to have the better performance and environmental characteristics of modern cars but I have yet to find one where the technology didn't actively deter me from buying.