But the bigger issue, and one which led me to extreme dismay regarding this impending model, is what I found at the bottom of the official product page: "automatic braking", "collision warnings", "blind spot warnings", "land departure warnings"-- this car has every nightmare in the books: it's as bad as my mother-in-law's Subaru Forester!
I'm not the only one who gets completely and utterly overwhelmed by all of this gadgetry, check out this article. While it focuses on pensioners, I suspect you would get the same types of responses from many forty year-olds like myself, not to mention a lot of it is personality-driven (bold emphasis is mine):
"'The technology we’re putting in cars today are unsafe for all of us to use, especially for older adults,' said Jake Nelson, AAA Director of Traffic Safety Advocacy and Research. 'Our advice to consumers is that just because technology is built into your car doesn’t mean that it’s safe to do those things.'"
"Paul Brown, a 71-year-old retired attorney who resides in Salt Lake City, is one of the drivers who took part in the study. 'It was a comedy of errors,' Brown said of the displays and lights that he was asked to respond to as he drove.
'I don't need something that is going to do everything for me and distract me while I'm driving,' Brown said. 'Quite frankly, when I was driving, I found myself feeling as if I was driving dangerously because of all of those distractions.'
Brown said he found the large display screen situated to the right of the steering wheel in the cars he drove for the study especially distracting. 'If I was driving that kind of car, I would probably put a napkin or blanket or something over that screen so that I could concentrate on driving the car,' Brown said, adding that he prefers older, simpler cars."
"Paul Brown, a 71-year-old retired attorney who resides in Salt Lake City, is one of the drivers who took part in the study. 'It was a comedy of errors,' Brown said of the displays and lights that he was asked to respond to as he drove.
'I don't need something that is going to do everything for me and distract me while I'm driving,' Brown said. 'Quite frankly, when I was driving, I found myself feeling as if I was driving dangerously because of all of those distractions.'
Brown said he found the large display screen situated to the right of the steering wheel in the cars he drove for the study especially distracting. 'If I was driving that kind of car, I would probably put a napkin or blanket or something over that screen so that I could concentrate on driving the car,' Brown said, adding that he prefers older, simpler cars."
All of this leads me to: for that kind of money, why in the world wouldn't I just buy a used C7 Corvette, of which they are tons on used car sites? The new Z isn't even on the same planet in terms of performance, and best of all this Corvette generation started in 2014: it doesn't have any of the "safety" stuff at all! It still has a touch screen, which is somewhat annoying, but that's about it.
The base model has 460 bhp, a seven speed manual, can do 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, pulls 1.03g on the skidpad, and can brake from 60 to 0 in 100 feet. Those are supercar numbers. I can get one for fifty thousand bucks, with less than seven thousand miles on it: essentially a brand new car. It's also exotic looking. The only downside I can think of is that I see a lot of them in my rural area. But I shouldn't let that dissuade me.
Food for thought.