The Age of the Nanny Car – CleanTechnica

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Last Updated on: 20th February 2025, 02:38 am

Are our new cars getting too safe? Are they becoming high-tech nannies? Australia has a shocking road toll that only seems to increase each year. I have a theory, that as the roads improve and the cars get safer, people take more risks, assuming that they are safe in giant SUVs while playing leapfrog with semi-trailers at 110 km/hour. Obviously, it doesn’t work. We are not listening to our nanny cars, the police, or the frequent warnings. For the curious, here are the stats.

This article is inspired by conversations with EV drivers and news items in the media. I have a friend who recently purchased a Hyundai Ioniq 5. He posed the question to me: “Are we being babysat? My car reads traffic signs and if I am 1 km over the speed limit, it beeps at me. The nanny car doesn’t understand time of day — it’s only a 40 km speed limit in school zones at certain times — not all day! Of course, there is an option to switch off the system, but it comes back on when you restart the car.”

The MG4 and the Polestar 4 also have nanny settings that have to be switched off every time you drive the car. See this amusing video review from Fully Charged’s Jack Scarlett. The car thought he was falling asleep and gave him a “non-consensual massage” at 6 minutes.

My friend shared an incident with me where one of his customer’s Ioniq 6 read the 40 km/h speed sign on the back of a bus and slowed down rapidly. This could be dangerous. It is similar to my Tesla reading the speed limit on a service road next to the highway.

You can turn off the ADAS in the Great Wall Motor ORA, and only the lane keeping comes back on — perhaps low tech is better?

“People don’t like being told what to do, especially by a machine,” he tells me. “If you hold the mute button down, it mutes the beeps and just leaves the visual. I find this nowhere near as annoying.” But what about listening to your favourite music?

“When I leave the service centre where I work, which has a speed limit of 10 km per hour, the car beeps all the way to the first 60 km sign. That’s a few minutes of beeping. The Sat Nav will know what the speed limit is, but the car’s own recognition system doesn’t. Sat Nav knows the times for school zones, but camera system doesn’t. That’s why I bought an Ioniq 5 Dynamic, built in Jan 2024 — doesn’t have all the nanny tech. But it does have all wheel drive. I traded in my old Ioniq 38. My Ioniq 5, fortunately, isn’t as bad as the newer 5s and 6s.” He tells me that used EVs are selling well.

My friend is in the process of getting OTA updates to his Hyundai for the camera, the front radar, and the main module. It is expected that these will tone down the system. This is in response to a lot of negative comments from owners, especially about the driver attention system — the camera looking at your eyes. After a few seconds of grace, the car starts beeping at you if you take your eyes of the road. An annoying but amusing anecdote: “The car beeps at you. You look down to discover you are over the speed limit. You adjust your speed. In doing so you go over the white line. The car beeps at you. You adjust. But the car thinks you aren’t watching the road as closely as you should and beeps again.

“Most of the issues have been addressed through Over The Air (OTA) updates via satellite to the car, similar to Tesla’s system. You still need to turn it all off every time you start the car. My Ioniq 5, fortunately, isn’t as bad as the newer 5s and 6s.” Hyundai Motor Group (like Tesla, and probably all other connected car companies) collects the car’s day to day data — distance, speed, location, and health of the car.

When I first bought my Tesla Model 3 in 2019, I tried to use the speed limit warning beeps, but found it out of date. I took my neighbour for a drive around the small country town in which we lived and the beeping drove me crazy. The town had recently updated its speed limits to 60 km/h, but the car thought the speed limit was only 50 still. The car “thought!” The modern EV is a cross between “My Mother the Car” and Mary Poppins! I have since turned the beeps off. It is easier to ignore the flashing speed limit icon instead. And the beeps have not come back!

Sometimes when we are driving the Tesla in the Brisbane suburb where my wife grew up, she takes issue with the car’s navigation. I have to tell her to either turn it off or stop giving me conflicting instructions. One wife is enough.

Yesterday’s Morning Show news item review of the Deepal SO7 posed the question “When does safety tech go too far? Is it too distracting?” The cast member who took the car out said that drivers are bombarded with alerts to keep their eyes on the road. He admitted that it actually highlighted how often he did take his eyes off the road. “The tech is cool yet distracting.” Like the gesture control that allows you to take selfies even when you are driving. That bit doesn’t sound too safe to me. He felt it wasn’t the most annoying car in Australia. Deepal is made by Changan Automobile of China.

These smart cars are teaching us how to drive. He learnt how much he wasn’t paying attention. He thought that lane assist was “a tad aggressive” and could do with “a little refining.” However, he does point out that the Deepal SO7 does have a 5 star ANCAP rating. Deepal has already responded to early reviews and customer feedback to modify the ADAS and. Make it less intrusive and provide less sensitive driver monitoring. Deepal are even sending a team to Australia to check the driver experience in real time. Hope they take the car onto some of the more dubious raids we have to drive on! Here is a technical review. I haven’t yet had a chance to see the car in person, but it is on my list. 

What other features might carmakers introduce to try and slow down our tendency to self-destruction? Will we let our cars help us? I remember when seatbelts were first introduced and how many drivers refused to use them.  What other distractions can they warn us about without becoming the distraction themselves? Maybe now we need ADAS that asks us if we driving impaired due to not enough sleep, the influence of recreational drugs, kids yelling in the back seat, or just a full bladder! The future is bright and electric! Our Nanny Cars are trying to make sure we live to see it.