This Is What You Would Make Your Car's Poverty Buttons Do

My US-Spec Mazda 5 was obviously built to a price point for the US market.

There are three blanks on the bottom left of the dash that, on a JDM Mazda5, control the opening and closing of both the side doors and the rear hatch. From what i’ve read on Mazda5 forums (yes, there is such a thing) the wiring is in place to add the mechanisms to open/close the door, but these were omitted from US models for cost and weight issues.

There are times i would love to have those buttons to have that functionality on my car.

I was at a kids science museum and they had a window that went from transparent to opaque with a flip of a switch. That would be cool function to have so I no longer have to deal with sun shades.

Fire the front mounted missiles to clear the lane of tourists going 10 below the speed limit in the left lane.’

A button that would allow me to switch the Uconnect voice between different “personalities” like the Enterprise computer, HAL, Cortana, Stephen Hawking, Optimus Prime, Jarvis, etc. depending on my mood.

This sounds silly, but to a defroster button. Let me explain:

My Fiat 500 Abarth had some dummy buttons where the heated seat buttons would be in the more luxury trim (versus the sports trim). I’m in the process of building it into a rally car, and wanted the stock sport button and defroster button locations to use for ignition kill and fire suppression.

So I did what any sane person would do (hah hah) and disassembled the panel, discovering that they cut corners in manufacturing and it was do-able to convert it into a real button using a dremel and soldering iron after reverse engineering the circuit board. I scratched the logo of the defroster into the button, added a backlight and hooked it up to the original circuit. From more than a foot away you can’t tell the button is not stock!

Nothing, because I feel no shame in not paying for features I don’t need.

Trying to think of a task that I have to do often and doesn’t already have a button associated with it....

Since my steering wheel already has audio controls that talk to the radio - a home button. A button that I can press and it pulls up my preferred GPS application and launches the route to my home address.

At least one steering wheel button should allow the driver to stealthily set the passenger seat warmer to max. Because I have the maturity of an 11-year-old.

Put little glitter star stickers on them to brighten up my day. Maybe some smiley face stickers too. Like those “have a day” set. Every time they wear out and come unstuck, replace them with something fresh to keep brightening up my day.

I want the James Bond spy gadgets. Oil slick, smoke screen, dual machine guns (also with a bullet proof rear window deflector), pop-out spinners on the wheels that cut into the other car, rocket launchers, ejecto-seato-cuz, and can a guy get some friggin’ lasers???

for some unthinkable reason cruise control is not standard on the chevy trailblazer. you get auto lane centering. auto braking. wireless apple car play. power doors, power locks. no cruise control.

Ordered all the options for my truck, so no poverty buttons here..

If I did have one, it would pop up a loudspeaker that shouts ‘PUT THE DAMN PHONE DOWN’ to the vehicle next to me.

Raise some sound proof glass between the front and back seats, allowing my kids to fight and scream to their heart’s content while my wife and I cruise in relative peace.

Elon Tesla style especially when promoting Tesla Roadster 2nd gen

SpaceX Option Package Jet Booster Rocket Thruster to run 0-100 km/h in just 1 second

Back in the 2000's we hooked up the streetglow in my friends ‘92 Accord to a switch on one of the empty spaces.