Most car companies these days are positioning themselves more broadly as “mobility tech firms“. Doing so generates buzz that excites shareholders, but it’s also a strategic play — one that makes plenty of sense in a market where traditional car brands may soon be generating more profit from their technology than selling cars.

The trouble for car buyers is that — whether the intention is to look trendy and tech-forward or just to show off new features — that technology ends up in the cars we buy, making them more complicated and costly. And much of that technology sits unused, in the best case scenario, or worse, converts routine tasks into an absolute nuisance.

Here are seven car tech features found in modern vehicles that we could do very much do without.

Hands-Free “Driving”

We can debate whether full self-driving is mere tech solutionism or a feature that real-life buyers want from their car. What’s not in dispute is that current hands-free driving systems are not fully self-driving. The best systems, like GM’s Super Cruise, can do impressive things, but such systems still place an undue attention burden on the driver, rendering their ultimate benefit — slightly less fatiguing highway drives? — nebulous.

Extra Drive Modes

Drive modes work well — in theory. Who doesn’t want a car that can shape-shift to meet your needs in different situations and conditions? In practice, however, fancier cars can end up with a dizzying number of drive modes, plus individual settings that can create more customizations. It’s overkill.

Most drivers seldom, if ever, move out of the default (often called “comfort”) mode. When they do, it’s often because the presence of a sport mode enticed the engineers to limit the throttle response too much in normal mode. And if they do use the individual settings, it’s to correct that very problem — by giving them a combination where they have sport throttle response without the more harsh suspension settings that often come in sport mode in cars with active suspensions. Drive modes have a place, but more is not necessarily better.

Gesture Recognition

Touchless interfaces may be the future in many facets of society, but they are not the present in cars. Gesture recognition technology isn’t precise enough. The effort involved to nail the exact gesture so that the system can recognize it means the driver winds up diverting their attention from the road, thus creating the very problem the feature supposed to eliminate. And it’s not clear why anyone would want to change the volume in their BMW via hand jive rather than buttons on the wheel.

Fancy Door Handles

Tesla has been an innovator in door handle complication technology, and other manufacturers have followed suit. Now, we have door handles that sit flush and pop out when they detect your approach, or use haptic mechanisms to activate. (Hell, Tesla may try to eliminate the door handle entirely.)

None of these tech-laden door handles work more simply and effectively than a classic mechanical one, which is also straightforward in a safety situation — and won’t become a problem when coated in ice.

Haptic Buttons

Designers don’t like the cluttered look of physical buttons. Drivers don’t enjoy navigating through touchscreen menus to perform essential functions. Enter the haptic button arrays in new cars like the Volkswagen ID.4 and GTI as a compromise. They look futuristic, but they’re also far more aggravating and less satisfying to use than conventional buttons. Touching them requires exactitude, which detracts attention from the road. The only thing haptic buttons make it easier for you to do is inadvertently adjust the climate controls.

Rear-Seat Entertainment Systems

Luxury family haulers like the Cadillac Escalade and Chrysler Pacifica show off fancy rear-seat entertainment systems. Moving forward, many vehicles will have Amazon Fire TV live-streaming technology built right in. Sounds great for families, right? Take it from a parent: it’s not.

Older kids come with their own ubiquitous screens and headphones. Younger kids, meanwhile, can’t operate the system independently — and they launch kicks right where the screen is. Some of them may be in car seats that face away from the screen (and have fun firing up Encanto for just one of your two children). And even if it all works out…do you really want that episode of Paw Patrol to follow you into your car?

Head-Up Displays

Head-up displays work great — in principle. They display salient information like speed, navigation and alerts on the windshield itself to minimize the amount of time the driver must look down. The trouble is, most driving occurs during the daylight hours. Many drivers wear polarized sunglasses in those conditions — and those all but block out a head-up display.

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