The Best Features to Look for in Your Next Commuter Car

This gear can keep you feeling fresh and alert no matter how long your daily drive.

Benjamin Hunting | 

Aug 1, 2024 | 3 min read

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Getting to work and back each day shouldn't feel like an endless and dreaded slog. Equipping your car with certain features can take the edge off the daily drive and help keep you comfortable, alert, and safe. Here's our take on which features could make your next commuter car easier and more pleasant to be in.

Chevrolet

Heavy Traffic Is Less Stressful With Stop-and-Go Adaptive Cruise Control

One of the most frustrating aspects of any commute is dealing with traffic — particularly the constant slowdowns and speedups of rush hour.

Here's where adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go capability steps in. This feature is designed to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle ahead and automatically resume forward progress from a stop. It can relieve you from accelerating and braking over and over through heavy traffic, helping you arrive at your destination feeling less frustrated and more refreshed.

You can find adaptive cruise control in a range of modern vehicles, including rugged options such as the Chevrolet Silverado EV truck.

Alfa Romeo

Heated and Cooled Seats Are Ideal for Temperature Extremes

If you live in an area with hot summers, you're aware of how high the temperature can rise inside a vehicle. Cooled or ventilated seats, which pass air — or refrigerated air, in the case of cooled seats — through tiny perforations in the upholstery, can help your body cool down much faster than simply relying on the air-conditioning system.

Cold winter weather brings the opposite problem. It's here that heated seats transform themselves from a luxury to a must-have for warming up quickly on frigid mornings as you drive to work. Heating and ventilation options for seats can be found in many vehicles, including the Alfa Romeo Tonale, a hybrid SUV.

Fight Fatigue With Massaging Seats

If your commute lasts an hour or more, it might be wise to tick the option for massaging seats if you're ordering a high-end vehicle. While this can seem like an extravagance, massaging seats are far from frivolous on longer trips: They can increase blood flow in your body (helpful after sitting for an extended period) and may help keep you feeling more alert and awake.

Automatic High-Beams Help You Focus on Driving, not Lighting

Depending on your work hours and the time of year, chances are you're commuting in the dark at least some of the time. If this involves roads without lighting, you're in for a trip filled with flicking your high-beams on and off to keep from temporarily blinding oncoming drivers.

Like adaptive cruise control, an automatic high-beam feature detects traffic ahead and takes care of the lighting for you, removing some of the mental load.

Buick

Keep Your Attention on the Road With a Head-Up Display

Keeping your eyes on the road is much easier when you don't have to keep diverting your attention to the dashboard every few seconds to verify speed or navigation instructions. A head-up display puts all of that information above your hood at the brightness and angle of your choosing, making it that much easier to stay on top of important vehicle information.

These displays are becoming more common, and can be found in a range of cars, trucks, and SUVs, such as the Buick Enclave.

Toyota

A Hybrid Drivetrain Will Reduce Fuel Costs Without Range Anxiety

Not everyone is ready to go full electric. Choosing a hybrid option for your next daily driver, however, can reduce your fuel costs without adding the requirement that you find a plug every day.

If you want to offload most of your mileage onto a battery, a plug-in hybrid offers the versatility of an electrified commute with a gas engine to back you up. Toyota has long been associated with the hybrid automotive market; the Prius Prime is one of the plug-in models the carmaker offers today.

Benjamin Hunting

Benjamin Hunting is a writer and podcast host who contributes to a number of newspapers, automotive magazines, and online publications. More than a decade into his career, he enjoys keeping the shiny side up during track days and always has one too many classic vehicle projects partially disassembled in his garage at any given time. Remember, if it's not leaking, it's probably empty.