My wife and I took the chance to upgrade our old Chevrolet Spark to a newer Volkswagen T-Roc. This is a huge bump up for us. We needed a bigger car now that we’re heading into adulthood and starting a family. Technology and safety features were also a big factor in our decision making. We didn’t plan to get such a good car, but turns out my 194cm of height can’t really get comfortable in any car, not even models we thought were big.

As a tech enthusiast, this is not quite the high-tech jump I would’ve dreamt of (I’m really looking forward to trying EVs and self-driving capabilities) but nonetheless we found ourselves light years from where we started.

Our new car is much safer than our previous one, full of features like lane detection, adaptive cruise control (which is almost like magic), automated parking assistant, fatigue detection… It has automatic gear switching (which is not a common feature in Spain), and it’s also comforting to drive a newer and up-to-date car (I was worrying our luck with the previous one could run out at any moment).

In hindsight, I feel like a bigger jump could have made me feel a bit overwhelmed. This setup has already taking lots of getting used to as it is. Watching the wheel turn itself automatically (for the park assist) can be very stressful at first, so I can only imagine what it’s like to see it while going 120km/h in the highway.

I’m really looking forward for the next step in a few years, but I’m pretty sure this is the appropriate one at the current moment and context, the one that feels «right». The next move will be much easier now that we’re already on a higher tier of quality and tech.