Well, that didn't work: here are 23 car tech dead ends

The Story

Manufacturers invested in these technologies and engineering solutions, only to bin them. Whoops.

Manufacturers invested in these technologies and engineering solutions, only to bin them. Whoops. Published: 24 Sep 2026 External link to Top Gear Magazine Subscription – 3 months for £6Joystick steeringYou know that saying about reinventing the wheel?. Turns out that was the chosen metaphor because wheels are generally pretty good at their job. Nevertheless, in the ’90s, Mercedes and Saab both built concepts and prototypes that were steered with joysticks instead. Presumably the latter got on board because it wanted to take the whole ‘fighter jet for the road’ thing to its logical conclusion. While a joystick makes sense for executing high-G manoeuvres in a Eurofighter, though, it’s a lot less convenient for steering a mid-size Swedish saloon down the A40, so thankfully, unlike a fighter jet, this one never got off the ground.

The early days of the car were a bit of a free-for-all in terms of control layouts, and plenty thought it was perfectly reasonable that a steering system borrowed from the world of boats should work for these newfangled horseless carriages too. In fact, the very first car as we know it, the Benz-Patent Motorwagen, used a tiller. Thankfully, this particular brand of old-timey nonsense disappeared not long after French company Panhard figured out that actually, this is an idiotic way of steering a car, in 1894.

1212 French hot hatch legends for less than Peugeot’s new GTI12Don't want an ID.3 GTI?. Here are 12 classic used Volkswagen hot hatches from £2k1212 interesting used classic cars for less than a new Dacia SpringDonut’s Lab’s solid-state battery has hit 409Wh/kg: can this tech transform EVs?Automatic seatbeltsThese wacky contraptions were mostly a thing in the US in the ’80s and ’90s, before airbags became mandatory but also before most states had introduced seat belt laws. The intention was good, then, even if the execution often wasn’t: the complicated automatic belts were less secure and less comfortable than a simple three-point manual one, and the motors that powered them could and did fail. Their time was up as soon as most states realised that if anyone still thought the simple task of buckling a manual belt was an infringement of their human rights, it was probably easier to just fine them.

Before the advent of cassettes, you were out of luck if you wanted to listen to your own music in the car, and stuck with whatever rubbish was on the radio. Well, almost: a few companies came up with ways of playing vinyl records in cars. Spotted the obvious issue?. Even sneezing near a vinyl that’s being played normally can damage it, so even the specially-designed records used for in-car playing were usually toast after a few runs down a bumpy road. Sensibly, this is one area the 21st century vinyl revival hasn’t touched.

This turned up in the mid 2010s when car companies began their systematic removal of physical controls from interiors, because technology, innit. Gesture controls seemed, on the surface, like a good alternative to jabbing at a screen, and they probably would be… if they worked. Instead, you mostly just ended up waving your hand about like a confused conductor while your infotainment did the exact opposite to the thing you wanted it to. A few manufacturers gave it a go, but even BMW, its biggest proponent, is now hand-waving it out of existence across its range.

Nothing too flawed behind the thinking here. After all, an infrared night vision camera is going to do a better job of spotting things like errant deer on a dark country road than your weak, pathetic human eyes. The problem with them is that to get the best out of them, you need to be looking at the screen showing their feed, rather than arguably more important places like, y’know, directly out of your windscreen. Most manufacturers have abandoned these systems as a result, although there are still aftermarket systems if you’re dead set on pretending you’re in an old James Bond film.

You likely associate the clatter of an air-cooled engine mostly with old VWs and Porsches, but plenty of other manufacturers, from Fiat to Chevrolet to Honda, have dabbled in them over the years. They are, after all, generally more simple and cost-effective to both build and maintain. They’re also noisier, rougher, and far more prone to overheating, all of which means that once the various kinks of water-cooled systems were largely ironed out, air-cooled engines were toast, except in some motorbikes. Let’s be honest, Porsche only stuck with it for as long as it did out of fear of an angry mob of die-hard 911 fans descending on Stuttgart.

Without getting too much into the engineering nitty gritty, an engine that can alter its compression ratio on the fly could yield all sorts of benefits, allowing it to maximise both efficiency and power pretty much all the time. There’s just the small drawback of such a thing being hideously complicated to actually achieve – while companies including Saab and Peugeot have experimented with variable ratios, only Nissan’s actually managed to put it into production with its VC-Turbo engine, which uses an absurd multi-link conrod system to alter the piston stroke and therefore the compression ratio. We don’t see many companies rushing to follow its example, mainly because regular engines are so efficient now.

Why It Matters

The early days of the car were a bit of a free-for-all in terms of control layouts, and plenty thought it was perfectly reasonable that a steering system borrowed from the world of boats should work for these newfangled horseless carriages too.

CarMotion Daily’s Take

This tech stuck around longer than most on this list, and brought some genuine benefits, as multiple French presidents who spent their terms being wafted about in the supreme comfort of a big Citroen will no doubt confirm. Watch this space over the coming weeks. Supply chains, regulations, and consumer demand are reshaping the playbook faster than five-year plans can keep up. Dealer networks and service capacity will need to evolve alongside whatever the headline announcement implies. Regulatory filings, supplier contracts, and any production-volume adjustments usually trail the headline by a quarter or two. Stock price moves and dealer council chatter are leading indicators worth monitoring.