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European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

modeless
156 replies
11h18m

Now, Euro NCAP is not insisting on everything being its own button or switch. But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features

This is much more reasonable than I assumed. Unlike seemingly most people here I have no problem whatsoever with fan controls or audio controls or whatever on the touchscreen, as long as it is responsive (of course the vast majority of car touchscreens are not, but some are). However, the absence of a physical speed control for the windshield wipers is the single worst design flaw of Teslas. Or at least it was, until they removed the physical turn signal controls. I'm very much in favor of requiring safety critical controls that must be used frequently or urgently to be physical.

iforgotpassword
50 replies
11h0m

But even then, how do you find the A/C or volume control on a touch screen without taking your eyes off the road, without accidentally touching something else? You just can't feel your way to the volume knob. Sure, you are a responsible driver and would only do that at a traffic light or other completely safe situation, but I don't know how many accidents touch controls in cars already caused with less responsible drivers, trying to adjust their AC while driving by an elementary school.

modeless
22 replies
10h45m

Volume is on the steering wheel.

A/C is automatic and I don't need to touch it the vast majority of the time. While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. It's at the bottom of the screen so it is easy to do by grabbing behind the bezel and only requires a quick glance to align your thumb. In practice I glance at physical A/C controls when adjusting them too, so I don't see a big difference here.

If you really need to adjust the temperature so often and can't stand the thought of using the touchscreen, you can assign that function to the left scroll wheel.

franga2000
8 replies
9h33m

It seems like you have a more sensible car than many. I was recently in one with really dumb automatic AC that needed adjustment very often, the AC settings were in a menu behing two clicks, there was no convenient landmark to orient my hand without looking, the temperature slider was very small and dense needing high precision and the temperature text was rather small. And the steering wheel buttons are, of course, not remappable.

I drive about a dozen different modern electric cars on a regular basis (carsharing) and all of them have at least a few of the above flaws (if not for AC then for something else that needs adjusting while driving).

PcChip
6 replies
5h12m

What is carsharing, and how does it work insurance-wise?

netsharc
4 replies
4h46m

Like rental, but per minute. Look up car2go, although maybe they're no longer in business in the US, i. Europe they changed their brand name.

It's like those scooters you can hire and leave (almost) anywhere, the benefit with a car is, if you park it idiotically, they can check that you were the last driver and forward the parking ticket to you.

seltzered_
2 replies
4h17m

Car2Go and Reachnow both ended in the US around 2020.

There are some other carsharing services in the US in some major cities (e.g. gig car share in sf/seattle), but I would argue overall there's less carsharing now compared to 8-9 years ago. Partly the age demographics have changed, ridesharing (uber/lyft) rose in popularity, and carsharing in the us has had its share of profitability issues.

Peak carsharing in the US to me was around 2017-2018 (car2go, reachnow, limepod, maven, ...)

cruffle_duffle
1 replies
2h42m

I think cheap uber/lyft ate their lunch originally but what sealed it was the introduction of dockless bikes & scooters.

Of course those smart cars didn't really help either. They were great for parking and stuff but damn did it feel like driving a gocart. My foot was either at full throttle or no throttle.

...I do miss it though.

seltzered_
0 replies
1h10m

I think another kicker for carsharing at the time (~2020) was this forecasted revolution of driverless cars and robotaxis, which has sortof continued (waymo) but also collapsed (argo, cruise / tesla safety issues, etc. ) over the past couple years.

I liked carsharing from the stance that even if it didn't make me want to get rid of car ownership, it made me feel less inclined to invest as much into car ownership (i.e. keep an old used car with cheap insurance, use carsharing if my car needs maintenance or going on a trip where i dont want to worry about breaking down or if taking another mode of transit back.)

This line of thought kinda gets into the predicament of carsharing (and arguably rideshare/robotaxi) services owned by automotive companies - they're fairly deep in the business of selling cars much more than attempting a service business.

Steltek
0 replies
1h14m

Zipcar is still around in Boston.

franga2000
0 replies
3h36m

The kind of carsharing I use is company-run, so it's basically just rental, but billed by the minute and with parking spots scattered all over the city. I imagine they have a very expensive fleet insurance in the background.

There are also a handful of "peer-peer" carsharing systems where you let other people use your car and I have no idea how insurance would work there.

l33tman
0 replies
8h11m

Avoiding to get into a "which car brand is best", I'll just say that I think there is simply a difference in the "DNA" of the car brands for how they approach the driving experience. It takes many many years and iterations and care about driving a car to produce a good car UX and some brands you can just immediately conclude that the CEO or the product managers don't care about driving and probably have never driven the specific model themselves, while in some brands you really feel they are a "driver's car".

This goes for tech in general and not just cars btw :)

generic92034
3 replies
9h37m

While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time.

That is good reasoning, but are you sure a high number of drivers are also waiting with adjustments, instead of fumbling on the screen while continuing to drive?

otherme123
2 replies
7h37m

A lot of people send and read phone messages while driving. I highly doubt that same people gives a second thought before playing with the screen while driving, unless they are under a real stressing situation (pouring and twisted road at 2 AM).

generic92034
0 replies
6h15m

Exactly. That is why physical buttons you can use without looking are so much better. For the perfect driver it does not matter so much, but that is a rare species.

RHSeeger
0 replies
5h54m

If the choice is between

1. Physical controls that you can interact with without the need to take your eyes off the road

2. Touch screen that you need to look almost every time, much of the time while actually interacting with it. But you can mitigate that by using it more responsibly, waiting until you are at a stop, our out of range of anything you might need to react to (which might not happen for 10 minutes or even longer)

Then #1 is clearly the winner. Because 2 is more dangerous for everyone on the road (not just you with your own behavior, but everyone else that might act irresponsibly and hit you). We specifically craft laws to make people interact with their phones less (hands free only, etc) because "people must act more responsibly" is not a reliable solution.

vladvasiliu
1 replies
6h47m

It may depend on the car.

In my car, I basically never change the A/C. My dad used to have a same-vintage car for a while, but a different make, and it absolutely needed adjustment depending on whether the sun was shining on you or not, and possibly other parameters. They both had "automatic" A/C.

Now these cars are ~20 years old, maybe things have improved. I haven't ridden in my dad's ~2yo car for any long stretch during the summer to compare.

SoftTalker
0 replies
3h17m

Automatic climate control is one of those things that sounds good and is nice when it works but never works properly in all situations. I much prefer manual controls.

egorfine
1 replies
8h8m

grabbing behind the bezel

so, physical control.

vladvasiliu
0 replies
6h46m

This is presumably one of those models with the screen that's not integrated in the dashboard and looks like an afterthought. Those usually have some kind of bezel you can grab to stabilize your hand, but the actual control is still touch-based and on the screen.

thsksbd
0 replies
1h8m

The HVAC controls are a safety critical control because they are what dehumidifies your windshield screen.

And quick changes of T or RH needing the user to crank up the heat, turn on the AC and direct the air to the windshield at full speed are very possible depending on where you are.

Imagine crossing a miles long tunnel under a mountain separating two weather zones.

Hands off my HVAC controls.

litoE
0 replies
3h24m

My mother-in-law has had a Mercedes for four years. It has a self-parking feature. She still doesn't know how to use it and probably never will. She couldn't possibly assign a function to the left scroll wheel either. And she's Mercedes Benz's target market.

gspencley
0 replies
2h34m

While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time.

I'm not sure how much I agree that temperature is not safety critical. It's relative for sure, less safety critical than breaks or transmission, but it can still impact safety in certain situations. In the city when you have a lot of red lights and stop signs, it's not a big deal to wait for the next stop. But on a free-way when you've got a ways to go before you can make a stop then uncomfortable temperature can create a distracted or nervous driver situation. I suppose you could pull over on the shoulder if it were that big of a deal, but even that isn't the safest thing to do on freeways and it's recommended to only do that if you're making an emergency stop.

In my opinion this shouldn't even have to be a big deal. The only reason we're even discussing it is because car manufacturers are moving from tactile buttons to touch screens. People are accustomed to working these types of auxiliary systems without stopping and historically have been able to do so without taking their eyes off of the road. People aren't going to stop doing those things because now they have to use a touch-screen.

daniel_reetz
0 replies
1h32m

I think this is missing something fundamental. If it's too hot or cold, folks are distracted - from driving. Perhaps you are less distracted than most.

Yes, they can reassign buttons. But the core problem is distraction, which causes users to go to the touchscreen, which creates even further distraction by capturing their visual attention.

WirelessGigabit
0 replies
2h26m

No. Ventilated and heated seats are something I want to control easily. And when driving in the sun I have the AC set to 64. When driving at night it's set to 72.

And it's different if I drive with the top down depending on weather. I don't need to look at the buttons to do that now.

vel0city
10 replies
5h39m

I don't change the AC while I'm in motion. All my cars have auto AC so I rarely touch them even as the temperature changes outside. I probably adjust the AC a handful of times a year. I'd rather not waste a lot of dashboard space on buttons that practically never get pressed, I'd rather have my map be even bigger and easier to quickly glance at and have more space to browse my media collection while stopped.

I don't understand how so many people have come across cars with seemingly terrible auto AC systems. Even my old 2000 Honda Accord had a competent auto AC system. I haven't had manual AC on any of my cars in decades. Whenever I rent a car it's always infuriating having to constantly muck with the AC system.

me_me_me
5 replies
5h36m

this is akin to it works on my PC so not an issue

vel0city
4 replies
3h57m

I'm not talking about a single car, I'm talking about several different makes and models over the last couple decades.

Works on my machine implies it's something special about that one device. My experience has been auto AC has worked fine with several different car models from several different makers across the last 24 years of car manufacturing.

me_me_me
3 replies
3h39m

I am talking about a use case that works for you but not others - due to preference, hardware limitations etc.

My car can only turn AC on and off. What about me then?

vel0city
2 replies
2h32m

I take it your AC controls aren't behind a touchscreen then?

I'm mostly arguing having AC controls on a screen aren't that big of a deal, because chances are if they're on a touchscreen they're auto, and if they're auto you really shouldn't need to ever really mess with them while moving. The only real exception to this would be defrosters, but I do agree there should be a least a physical defrost toggle button.

me_me_me
1 replies
1h29m

Fair enough, I wouldn't mind controls behind the screen for stuff you wouldn't need on daily basis. But I feel like we already had it with early screens and infotainment.

Functionality that might be needed when you drive (fogging up, change audio src, increase temp) should have physical interface.

So if you have auto AC it could go behind the screen.

But what I am afraid is that cars are sold with premium features as upgrades. So features that are fine behind screen would suck in cheaper models. And when looking at what BS automotive industry is pushing now (subscription services for physical features that are present), I am not hopeful this would be addressed.

vel0city
0 replies
1h6m

Functionality that might be needed when you drive...should have physical interface.

I generally agree. Safety critical features need physical control options close to the driver's normal inputs.

But I feel like we already had it with early screens and infotainment.

I have two cars. One with a big screen and few physical buttons, and one with a small screen with lots of physical buttons.

Because of all the physical buttons, the screen had to be a lot smaller. The vast majority of those buttons relate to actions I really shouldn't be messing with when driving or are connected to the auto AC system which as mentioned doesn't really get used. So it is a ton of wasted space on the center console.

On the other car, the screen is very large. There's still important physical controls related to driving and defogging and adjusting media and what not, but they're all immediately around the driver's area not the center console. This allows for the maps for navigation to be very large and easier to glance at. The interface for changing media a lot easier to use when stopped and wanting to actually look at what choices I have or have my passenger make changes.

At least to me, I'd much rather have the center console be filled with the map and actually used input surface rather than just have it filled with tons of buttons which generally still shouldn't be used when driving.

Toutouxc
3 replies
3h6m

I don't understand how so many people have come across cars with seemingly terrible auto AC systems.

Whenever I rent a car it's always infuriating having to constantly muck with the AC system.

Am I missing something or do these not make sense together?

vel0city
2 replies
2h41m

I guess I should have phrased it as "chosen to own cars with seemingly terrible AC systems". Theromostatic controls are pretty cheap to implement, its not like you'd need some high-end extreme luxury car to have that feature be normal.

If the AC controls are on a touchscreen, chances are they're auto. If they're auto, you probably shouldn't have to mess with them at all while moving.

dzikimarian
1 replies
44m

You need at least sun direction, temperature and humidity sensors and reasonable software behind them to have good automatic AC.

Basic thermostat is somewhere in center console, which doesn't help much if your chest is blasted with sun. Also temperature you feel is different depending on humidity.

vel0city
0 replies
33m

I live in North Texas. I guarantee you we get a lot of days with intense radiant heat.

Both of my cars have glass roofs. Previously they had sunroofs. Lots of sunlight in the cabin.

I haven't had issues with automatic AC in decades in cars that aren't exactly luxury cars. It is a solved problem for at least every brand of car I've owned.

oven9342
1 replies
8h23m

Each crew member should have been assigned the management and activation of a given portion of the touchscreen.

Morning briefing by the Captain: “John, you’ll supervise and operate the bottom left corner of the Touchscreen. Adam, as a left handed sailor, you’ll stand right to John and operate the bottom right corner of the Touchscreen with your left hand so there are no collisions in case of emergency”

Aye, captain

hef19898
0 replies
7h22m

The control interface you know is the touchscreen of your smartphone, isn't it?

forgetfreeman
0 replies
9h29m

True. With a car there are fewer eyes monitoring the situation and frequently little or no time to correct from a mistake.

elif
3 replies
6h32m

I know it will cost me karma to point it out, but in a Tesla you can use voice control to adjust your AC/radio/navigation while your eyes are on the road and your car's 10 eyes are on the road.

grndn
1 replies
4h17m

As one of the comments pointed out, it's even funnier if you turn on the automatic captions :)

alistairSH
0 replies
3h36m

Exactly. I have a mild accent, but my dad still has a thick brogue. Would a car understand him? Not if it's using the same algorithm as YT's captioning.

maccard
2 replies
8h55m

You just can't feel your way to the volume knob

Yes you can. My last three cars have had a volume knob under the left thumb. My current car has a second volume knob behind the gearstick, and the A/C is the only analog dial along the center console. I can easily adjust both without looking away.

RHSeeger
1 replies
5h52m

I have volume controls and similar on my steering while, and I never use them.... because I can never remember which is where. I prefer my stereo controls to be in the stereo controls area, my climate controls to be in the climate control area, etc. Spreading them out makes it more annoying to deal with.

SoftTalker
0 replies
3h16m

Yeah I really dislike controls of any kind on the steering wheel. Should not have more than a horn button in the center.

NovemberWhiskey
2 replies
3h34m

My car has no physical climate controls etc. I just use the voice controls.

“Hey Google, set the driver’s side heated seat to one”

“Hey Google, turn off the steering wheel heater”

guappa
1 replies
3h10m

Judging from how google subtitles my videos on youtube, this would look like a comic gag for most people.

NovemberWhiskey
0 replies
1h52m

In my other car, which adheres to the “buttons for nearly everything” philosophy, the steering wheel heater (for example) is down by the driver’s left knee, even using it via the touchscreen is probably safer.

Experiences with this sort of thing are subjective, but I’ve never had any problems with Google Assistant in the car.

tmikaeld
22 replies
11h8m

…Teslas. Or at least it was, until they removed the physical turn signal controls.

The turn signals wasn’t removed, they moved them to the steering wheel as physical buttons. Which ofc isn’t optimal, because you turn it…

nehal3m
10 replies
10h51m

You’re supposed to signal before you turn the wheel.

Way too often I see people signaling as they turn, not because they are trying to communicate with other road users but because it’s the law. Indicate your intent first and then take the indicated action.

martin8412
5 replies
10h49m

Roundabouts..

gambiting
3 replies
10h39m

Correct. But then maybe OP lives somewhere where roundabouts aren't very common so they never ran into that usecase.

nehal3m
0 replies
7h22m

I do, but I’m also an idiot. Worse, I’m an idiot that does not even own a Tesla. Maybe my temper in traffic got the better of me in that comment.

hawski
0 replies
8h23m

In my country there are a lot of roundabouts, but also crossroads do happen on a quite tight curve especially in smaller cities.

ben_w
0 replies
8h40m

In the UK, which has loads of roundabouts, this issue is still common enough to notice, and derided.

nottorp
0 replies
8h12m

Roundabouts..

And crossroads that aren't at 90 degrees. Like, you know, old cities that weren't built on a grid.

The one time i test drove a Tesla I abandoned a left turn because all the roads involved were curvy enough I couldn't get the turn signal to stay on ;)

Mind, it was just a test drive. I guess that if I practiced for years I could master the wisdom of Tesla controls.

usrusr
2 replies
8h12m

Yeah, that might actually be an advantage of that new Tesla layout (never seen a Tesla from the inside): small fiddly sensor surfaces on the wheel are best operated while going straight, whereas the stalk keeps tempting the driver to leave operation to the hand movement that happens anyways when starting the turn. Guilty as charged, deeply sorry about that (I don't think it's a regular habit of mine, but we've all seen cars driven like that)

But, as a sibling comment already mentioned: roundabouts! One of the most important indicator engagements is made crazy awkward for people who keep "walking" their hands to neutral position while the wheel is turned instead of wrestling it like some animal.

Which does make me wonder: has any carmaker started engaging turn signals from navigation? I'd imagine that this could be an amazingly subtle user interface for following a route: just don't press the veto button when the car decides to engage indicators and steer as if the indicator decision had been your own. No more following robot voice orders. An established pattern I don't know about? Tried, but turned out to be terrible? Legal uncertainty (or legal negative certainty)?

rightbyte
1 replies
7h3m

Yeah, that might actually be an advantage of that new Tesla layout

Seems annoying if you want to do a turn when in a turn?

usrusr
0 replies
6h28m

Absolutely, that's the roundabout scenario. Downsides do outweigh the advantages.

the_gipsy
0 replies
10h16m

You might already be turning, but completely unrelated to an upcoming maneuver that you must signal.

williamcotton
4 replies
11h5m

So that’s why everyone who drives a Tesla never uses their turn signal?

concordDance
1 replies
8h58m

I've seen hundreds of Teslas driving in the UK and they're just as likely to use a turn signal as anyone else (~99%).

I'm not sure I've seen a less substantive comment on hacker news that wasn't flagged.

williamcotton
0 replies
4h41m

People in the UK actually use their turn signals. Try driving around Central Texas. The joke, as another commenter pointed out, used to be BMW drivers. There is some kind of linear relationship between the luxury of a car and the lack of conscientiousness amongst many American drivers.

snowfield
0 replies
10h50m

They used to own BMWs

resolutebat
0 replies
10h49m

That's a weird assertion, because if you're driving a Tesla and using autopilot/TACS you have to use turn signals to change lanes.

modeless
2 replies
10h40m

I would call them virtual buttons rather than true physical buttons, as they are capacitive touch buttons that don't depress and are missing a defined physical boundary. Granted, they are fixed in place and don't move. Except that, as you point out, they do move...

mgoetzke
0 replies
8h1m

the new model 3 highland buttons feel and behave exactly like physical buttons.

AlexandrB
0 replies
5h12m

"Designed for California" nonsense. It's pretty common to wear gloves while driving in the winter in Canada. Now you have to make sure your gloves are compatible with your car.

maccard
1 replies
8h54m

Which ofc isn’t optimal, because you turn it…

You're supposed to indicate before you turn, to be fair.

Biganon
0 replies
1h18m

Not if you want to indicate that you're exiting a roundabout, in which you'll be constantly turning

LeoPanthera
0 replies
8h51m

They're not physical buttons. They're touch sensors. They don't move or click.

sensanaty
17 replies
8h53m

Teslas don't have physical blinker switches?? That is pure lunacy, are you telling me they're touchscreen activated now?

OvbiousError
11 replies
8h48m

From the article:

Tesla is probably at greatest risk here, having recently ditched physical stalks that instead move the turn signal functions to haptic buttons on the steering wheel.
mgoetzke
7 replies
8h2m

those 'haptic' buttons are real buttons. with a click feel and everything. they are great (tested in highland model 3)

close04
6 replies
7h35m

What people call "real buttons" usually require a certain force and travel to activate. Capacitive buttons require little to no force or feedback, sometimes not even solid contact.

I think the easiest way to understand the difference is to ask 2 questions: "can I put my finger on that button and not immediately trigger it" and "can I can physically tell that I am triggering it (ideally some physical travel)?" If the answers are "yes", then it's probably the kind of button people look for when talking about wanting "real buttons".

yreg
1 replies
6h44m

It depends. The solid state button under the MacBook trackpad is indistinguishable from the previous physical button.

close04
0 replies
4h44m

I wrote more in the comment above but just to add that the old trackpad is not the best point reference. This is just Apple chasing thinness by making any button barely have any travel. Signal or wiper stalks have 2 orders of magnitude more travel.

ricardobeat
1 replies
4h47m

The parent commenter was making the point that the particular buttons on the latest Model 3 (Highland) actually feel almost like physical buttons. They require pressure and won’t activate just by being brushed against.

Still, as blinker controls they don’t have tactile markings and a stalk would be much better.

close04
0 replies
4h15m

feel almost like physical buttons

You're correct. But I was addressing GP's wording (emphasis mine):

those 'haptic' buttons are real buttons

I was making the point that it's not a "real button" if, as you also say, it just "almost like" a real button. Knowing the M3 buttons, that "almost" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Press a classic hazard lights button, and a Tesla signal button and see if they really feel similar. No need to go to the vastly different stalk.

For any normal person a button involves not only the application of pressure but also the consistent feedback of travel. Things like Apple's taptic engine and similar techniques simulate already bad buttons with microscopic travel.

mythhabit
1 replies
6h38m

Apple has actually combined the two with their touchpads. When you press on them you get the "click" feedback. But its not actually a physical travel that activates, it's what they call "the haptic engine" that vibrates in a way that makes it feel like you've clicked a physical button. It works really well.

However, I think that such buttons are far more expensive than a physically activated button, even if the latter is engineered to last a lifetime of heavy use.

close04
0 replies
4h50m

But its not actually a physical travel that activates

This was the little (to no) feedback of a press I was mentioning. Simulating the absolute bare minimum of travel. With the pressure sensors and the piezoelectric actuators it becomes a super-expensive, overengineered button simulator that works almost as well as the real thing.

Even Apple dropped the fancier 3D touch completely, and the less fancy Force touch is just for trackpads. Everything else is the cheaper Haptic touch doing away with pressure sensors entirely. It was fine for my iPhone 8 home button and old watch.

But a car is different. A hazard light button has ~5mm of travel. Blinker or wiper stalks have centimeters of travel. Same for rotary knobs. They're also well spaced from each other with hard to confuse actuation methods. In noisy and vibration prone environments, with time sensitive requirements, you want to have very clear and distinct ways to act and receive feedback that actions were performed, especially if critical for safety.

sensanaty
2 replies
8h47m

That's legitimately insane to me. Plus you don't even get that satisfying clunk of turning the blinkers on.

God the future is turning out so lame...

yurishimo
0 replies
8h23m

Some parts of the future are always lame! But luckily, they can get better if at least one person cares enough to make facilitate the change :)

nottorp
0 replies
8h14m

The main problem is you have no tactile confirmation of the blinker status.

They may have left some blinking icon on on the screen, but you're watching the road and don't see it.

They may have left that confirmation 'click' sound on, but you can't hear it because you can't adjust the music volume :)

LeoPanthera
1 replies
8h51m

They are touch areas on the steering wheel. It's not on the screen, but they're not buttons. They don't click.

mgoetzke
0 replies
6h8m

They do in the new models like the 3 refresh

lm2s
0 replies
8h0m

On recent models they removed the stalks and put blinker buttons in the steering wheel.

ainiriand
0 replies
5h3m

It is even worse, because the buttons are placed on top of the steering wheel so when you turn they also turn in place and it is confusing.

Yizahi
0 replies
6h25m

Tesla planned that everything in the car would be automated, including driving. In such case people don't need a thought out UI and responsive controls and all that can be cut down to either save money or to focus on media entertainment for the passengers. That's why they replaced steering wheel with a yoke, buttons with screens etc. Unfortunately they forgot that car need to be fully automated first, and then redesigned later. Not the other way around.

ClikeX
17 replies
9h20m

Volume control is a very commonly used feature in cars. That should definitely should be a physical button. I drive a Lynk & Co (reskinned Volvo XC40) and it has a rotary knob on the center terminal for fan speed, temperature, and volume. Which are all within reach without me having to look or lean over. There's also a volume button on the steering wheel next to my thumb, which is great.

The only annoying part is that the left button pad on the wheel is the absolute worst. It's essentially a d-pad with a center press, but it's one single button cover. Which leads to a lot of wrong clicks.

Slartie
12 replies
8h32m

But you are not legally required to use the volume control regularly in order to drive safely. You are not even legally required to have any kind of volume control in your car.

You are legally required to have and use the turn signals. You are legally required to have and use the windshield wipers (because you need to be able to see the road when it's raining). Same is true for the horn and hazard lights - those are safety-critical features, with their use at least partially regulated by law.

While I agree that volume control should be a physical button due to my personal taste, I would not go so far as to mandate it legally to be a physical button, with the reason being that it is not a safety-critical feature. The market can figure this out by itself. But for safety-critical features whose swift and correct use is mandated and regulated by law, I would absolutely mandate them to be provided to the user in a way that supports the swift and uninterrupting use expected from the driver, and that means: physical controls, placed reasonably reachable.

harry8
7 replies
8h26m

Volume control is pretty damn safety critical when the driver takes their eyes off the road to jab at the f&^king miserable touchscreen and accidentally wipes out your family.

Sir Issac Newton wrote down the laws about piloting a couple of ton of steel some time ago. Very unlikely to be repealed.

Every control that will be used by the driver for any purpose whilst the vehicle is in motion is safety critical.

Slartie
6 replies
8h21m

That is true, but in that mind your kid in the back seat is safety-critical, so maybe we mandate no kids in the back? Or your wife next to you in the passenger seat, she could also make you remove your eyes from the road (happens quite a lot actually) - mandate no wifes in the passenger seat anymore?

You need to draw a line, otherwise really anything in your car can be safety-critical, you just need to imagine the right circumstances.

I would draw the line at the controls that are mandated by law. Every control mandated by law should not only be mandated to exist, but also be mandated to exist as a physical, easily reachable button.

Every control that will be used by the driver for any purpose whilst the vehicle is in motion is safety critical.

Okay, that's at least limiting it somewhat. However, what about the setting for Bluetooth connectivity of the radio? It technically can be used while driving, and there's probably a non-zero count of people who have already used such a setting while driving to pair their phone or whatever. What about the time/date setting of the clock in your car? Same thing. Physical buttons for all of that?

otherme123
3 replies
7h44m

I think you are doing a strawman here. Nobody but you is talking about "mandates", and then you go ridiculing imaginary mandates that nobody is defending.

Case: seat belts. First introduced in 1949, three-point seat belt invented in 1955, Saab made them standard in all their cars in 1958, Volvo in 1959 after being shown studies with fatalities. The first compulsory seat belt law was in 1970 (Victoria, Australia), and only began in the US in the 1980's (with great opposition).

Case: ABS. Patented anti-locks in 1930-ish, the modern ABS in 1971, the system was slowly introduced first in high-end models, soon in every model. The US only mandates ABS in cars since 2012, Europe since 2004 (for new cars). Read: all cars were already being sold with ABS in those dates, except for the cheaper and shittiest ones.

Case: Airbags. I skip the history there, because airbags are still not mandated anywhere. They are subject to some regulations, but you can technically build and sell a car without a single airbag in it.

My conclusion: we should not wait or even hope mandates do anything. In the car market we should do our own research and trust (to a point) car brand safety records and voluntary tests like NCAP, IIHS or NHTSA. If a brand doesn't give a shit about safety unless under a government mandate, don't buy that brand, because they are decades behind safety standards.

Mandates are not the bare minimum in safety, they are well below that. Take for example one of the lowest scores in the current NCAP: Lancia Ypsilon 2015, two stars. Still, they have (not mandated): two front airbags, two side head airbag, belt pretensioner, belt load limiter, belt reminder and ESC. Fear no more, even if we find today that kids in the back raises the death rate in a collision by 20%, we won't see it mandated until 2080 if ever, way after car makers figure out a solution by themselves.

otherme123
1 replies
7h1m

Your first link doesn't prove nothing, it has nothing to do with airbags being mandatory. According to this: https://autoily.com/when-did-airbags-become-mandatory/ , they are only mandatory in the US (my fault, sorry). Some countries, like India, are requiring ONE front airbag since 2019. The core of my message stands: car makers go way ahead the mandates. I don't recall any safety technology that ever banned or delayed a car model from the market, unlike for example emission regulations, that are announced with a deadline in a "by 2030 no car can emit more than X CO2 g/km, so you better comply or be banned" fashion. In Europe that kind of regulation is causing diesel cars to vanish from the market. Safety regulations are always after the fact: "it seems than 100% of the new cars already have seat belts. Lets make it mandatory", and are usually announced with "the UE would like all cars to have anti-collision alert mechanisms before 2025", signaling that maybe in 2030 they make it mandatory for the remaining 20% that still don't have it today.

About the NCAP, I don't understand your message. Maybe you understood that brands send their cars to NCAP voluntarely? What I meant was that NCAP is a voluntary non-profit organization, and they can't do much even if your car is a cofin with wheels other than giving it zero stars. It's not like they can ban your car from the market under safety motives, like a government could do if they want.

tialaramex
0 replies
3h30m

What happens with these non-mandatory programmes is that a manufacturer can give the programme money to buy their standard equipment vehicle and then the programme will buy the appropriate car from a dealer. The vast majority of vehicles are purchased this way.

This way they can't manipulate the vehicles being tested. The easiest way for your new 4954 model to get excellent NCAP scores is to make the actual 4954's people can buy from a dealer all good enough for excellent NCAP scores, the NCAP will just buy one and test it and it should score well because it's a 4954.

ljm
0 replies
8h6m

They were all physical buttons before touchscreens became the norm, so the slippery slope argument you’re making doesn’t really carry much weight.

RHSeeger
0 replies
5h44m

That is true, but in that mind your kid in the back seat is safety-critical, so maybe we mandate no kids in the back? Or your wife next to you in the passenger seat, she could also make you remove your eyes from the road (happens quite a lot actually) - mandate no wifes in the passenger seat anymore?

You're being intentionally obtuse. Like everything else, this is a question of what options we have to make things safer. "Not allowing children in cars" isn't reasonable, because there isn't a simple alternative. Using controls that require less attention focus is reasonable.

amenhotep
2 replies
8h0m

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. We don't really want to mandate physical volume controls, because they're necessary. We want to ban touchscreen volume controls, because they're unsafe. If Tesla want to deal with this by having no volume control, that's fine! Good luck to them.

Slartie
1 replies
7h31m

Touchscreens are not exactly the only way to construct a control in a way that's problematic to use when driving. You can just as well place a physical control in a hideous spot in the car, which you can't reach easily, hence making you as the driver bend over and search for the control. Also, physical controls don't necessarily mean that you can recognize them safely without looking at them - buttons can be physical, but still blend into their surroundings in a way that provides no real tactile feedback to your fingers when they find the button. I've seen crazy physical controls in cars that aren't much different from touchscreens with regard to their usability when driving, but still they were technically physical controls and would thus pass your "touchscreen ban".

If you want physical controls that actually are significantly safer to use than touchscreens, you need to lay down some ground rules for them as well (reachability, size of buttons, tactile difference from surroundings,...). And that rules out a "blacklist" approach (banning some particular undesired solution) and instead requires a "whitelist" approach (requiring a solution within a defined set of guidelines that constitute what's considered an acceptable solution).

numpad0
0 replies
3h23m

Just make it like 90-second rule for aircraft escape chutes. The manufacturer has to prove the stock interface is reasonably safe.

It'll be exploited a lot, so the standards must be high enough, and implementations also must be continually scrutinized by independent neutral bodies.

And we know what comes of it; the industry consortium implementations pass the test with flying colors and it'll look like hugely unpalatable dinosaurs, while new entrants like Tesla struggle to even interpret the spec to follow. The consortium may also explicitly or implicitly ban Chromium based everything.

But at least it'll be safe.

RHSeeger
0 replies
5h46m

Being able to use your phone to talk to people is not safety critical either. And yet, we make laws to lower the amount of physical interactions required with the phone while driving. Because people _do_ use them in ways that negatively impacts safety, both for themselves and other people on the road.

The question isn't whether or not the interface needs to be interacted with at times when it would be a safety issue. The question is whether or not the interface _will_ be interacted with in a way that would be a safety issue. And how much of a safety issue that is to _other_ people. And what better options there are to prevent those issues.

"People can use it responsibly" is not a viable strategy here, when the (many) bad actors injure and kill 3rd parties.

modeless
3 replies
8h54m

Is there a car without a physical volume control? Teslas have it on the steering wheel.

What really kills me is my wife's Civic has no pause button at all, physical or otherwise. And it autoplays media on your phone when you get in. Don't want your phone to play whatever random YouTube video you happened to click on hours ago? Gotta pick up your phone to pause it there. And this doesn't happen right away, oh no, it takes at least a minute into your drive for the Bluetooth to wake up.

spicybbq
0 replies
3h11m

We have a newer Mazda, and I thought it had the same issue, but the mute button causes Carplay to pause the audio.

moogly
0 replies
5h57m

Most MEB cars with the VW ID style center screen have a touch strip under the center screen to adjust volume. On earlier models this isn't even illuminated at night.

PodgieTar
0 replies
8h38m

A Mercedes C-Class, 2023 model, also has no way to pause the music with physical buttons. It has a volume switch, and that clicks in, but doing the Airpod double click doesn't do anything. It just mutes the music.

Instead you have to either use a weird capacitive DPad to navigate the Android Auto interface, or click the screen. It's terrible for UX.

Kuinox
14 replies
9h10m

I have no problem whatsoever with fan controls

Fan controls are important to remove fog on the windows. I should be able to enable it without looking away the road.

modeless
12 replies
9h4m

If you live in a place where this is frequently required, in a Tesla you can put the defrost button on the shortcut bar at the bottom of the screen, where it only requires a quick glance to align your thumb to activate it. Which is actually easier than many cars with physical controls that may require multiple button presses and/or knob turns to configure all of the correct climate settings for defrosting in the current conditions.

arethuza
10 replies
9h0m

Much easier to have a single physical button.

modeless
9 replies
8h49m

Overstated. It's at best marginally easier to hit a random physical button on the center console than to hit a single button on the bottom bar of a Tesla screen, where it is very easy to grab by design. I generally don't hit those physical buttons without at least a glance, and that's all it takes for the Tesla bottom bar buttons too.

This doesn't save the wiper situation, though, because that requires navigating menus. Clearly far worse than a physical control in that case.

klausa
6 replies
8h32m

It's at best marginally easier to hit a random physical button on the center console than to hit a single button on the bottom bar of a Tesla screen

You presumably typed this out on a keyboard of some sort.

Which one can you do more confidently and reliably without looking:

— hitting the "u" key on a physical keyboard without looking — hitting the "u" key on a touchscreen keyboard on your most used mobile device?

modeless
5 replies
8h26m

I can touch type and hit 'u' without looking, sure. But only if my hands start on the home row. This has no relevance for the situation under discussion. I cannot hit the 'u' key on a physical keyboard confidently and reliably without looking if it is mounted on the center console of a car and I am driving with my hands starting on the steering wheel. I always look to position my hand to hit those buttons. Meanwhile, the Tesla bottom bar buttons are far easier to hit than any key on my phone keyboard because they are much larger and mounted in a fixed position relative to me with a built in place to rest and align my hand. These situations are completely incomparable.

nottorp
1 replies
8h16m

But only if my hands start on the home row.

But but... in a car your hands always start on the wheel...

modeless
0 replies
8h14m

...which is nowhere near the center console, very much unlike the 'u' key's convenient position millimeters from the home row...

otherme123
0 replies
7h27m

Be honest: when you reach for a physical button you might glance for 0.5 seconds or even less. Usually you'll try to reach it without looking, and only glance if for some reason you can't do it. You glance, reposition your hand, and operate the knob without looking.

When you try to use a touch screen, you look at it all the time. I've just tested: to unlock my phone I have to push a physical button on the right side, swipe up and then make an easy pattern. I can grab the mobile, orient it correctly and push the side button without looking or even thinking. But just to make the up swipe I look at the screen (I can force my self to not do it, with effort). But I'm unable to make the pattern without looking all the time I trace it. It's like the brain don't want or can create muscle memory for touch screens.

klausa
0 replies
5h51m

I can touch type and hit 'u' without looking, sure. But only if my hands start on the home row.

The keys have bumps to let you know when your hands are in the right place.

Similar affordances exist in many cars. Even where they don't; the much smaller amount of them makes remembering things like "the third button from the left mutes the audio" and finding it by touch entirely possible.

Look, I'm not trying to argue that touchscreens are useless or whatever — if you like your touchscreen, fine, whatever, your problem.

But claiming that they're _as easy_ to use without looking as button is just not believable.

Omin
0 replies
7h48m

There are knobs on the f and j key so you can find the home row without looking. Similarly, physical buttons in a car can be shaped in such a way that they allow for feeling your position.

hermitdev
0 replies
2h30m

Why touch screens should be an absolute no-go for anything safety adjacent: gloves. The overwhelming majority of touch screens just do _not_ work with the user wearing gloves.

If I get into a car and it's -20F out, last thing I want to be doing is removing my gloves to operate a fucking touch screen to turn on heater/defroster/defogger/wipers, etc. And I absolutely, definitely, without a doubt, do not want to have to be removing/putting gloves back on while actually driving to adjust anything.

arethuza
0 replies
8h38m

Well, I'm the customer and I want physical buttons!

Edit: I had a car that used a touch screen feature to activate the heated windscreen - it was perfectly responsive, easy to find but I still hated it. Current car has a single physical button to turn on all relevant features with one press and I love it.

Kuinox
0 replies
7h34m

My electric car, a Zoé, have real buttons to toggle the defrost. I know what the buttons are like, so I can jut move my hand until I feel I'm on the right button. I don't need a "quick glance".

vel0city
0 replies
3h48m

Properly defrosting/defogging the windows would be more than just a fan control. Ideally you want to ensure the AC compressor and heat are both running and you need to change the vent settings.

Far better to have a dedicated defrost button next to the driver's normal controls that does it all as a single toggle rather than have the driver make multiple adjustments. Which is what I have on both of my cars, one of which people complain about how it's just a giant touchscreen.

sundvor
8 replies
10h48m

Tesla wiper? Just push the wiper button on the left stalk and you can cycle through the speed settings with the left funky switch (multi function button) in addition to the on screen display options that then pop up. Very easy to do.

Also this: https://youtube.com/shorts/3eKcDOHVZWc?si=-jL4o4Bhu-2y0ibj

Doesn't cover the left multi function button feature after short pressing the wiper button.

(Model 3, 2022, Australia).

modeless
5 replies
10h34m

Just push the wiper button on the left stalk and you can cycle through the speed settings with the left funky switch

Yes, they added this relatively recently. For the first few years I owned the car this was not possible. Also, guess what, it still sucks! More steps than a physical control, fiddly because of the short timeout, and still requires an extra step of looking at the touchscreen because you can't know which way to push the wheel without finding out the current setting. Is it on "Auto" or "Off"? They're at opposite ends of the menu. Acceptable for something less important like setting the A/C temperature; definitively not acceptable for something safety critical like wipers.

darkwater
3 replies
10h11m

I had cars in which for the life of me I could not ever remember which part of which stalk controlled the wipers and which part controlled the lights. Ah, and then there are Volkswagen and Opel which had the light control as a wheel outside the wheel-drive, on the bottom left, and you had to take a hand off to modify it.

My point: just having physical controls doesn't mean it is easy or safe to use, if the layout sucks.

sensanaty
2 replies
8h50m

I haven't driven that many different cars in my life, but isn't it usually the stick on the same side as the driver's seat? Aka if the driver's seat is on the right, then the blinkers are on the right, and the other way around in left-seated cars?

I switch between Indonesia and EU fairly often and most cars I've driven followed that pattern as far as I can remember (maybe I just never noticed though)

frumper
0 replies
27m

My wife's car has a stalk that you can turn the end, turn the inside. It has a slide that moves up and down inside of the inside rotating part. The stalk can go up, or down, or double up. You can also pull the stalk towards you. It's bonkers.

darkwater
0 replies
8h25m

Yeah but there might be 2 stalks on that side. Also in some car you need to pull the stalk down X positions, in others you have to rotate a crown, so it really depends.

The safest solution is to have properly working automatic wipers (UNLIKE current Tesla, where wipers are complete dogshit) so you just don't care. The same for lights.

Dunati
0 replies
9h32m

I have a 2018 model x with a traditional wiper dial stalk and it almost never works. It has markings for 5 settings and most of the time it just ignores the setting you have it on. The auto setting doesn't seem to change the behaviour at all. My model 3 was annoying with the wipers on the touchscreen (mostly) but at least they worked consistently.

rvba
0 replies
8h10m

Controls should be standardized across cars.

Imagine that someone rents a car and is tired + every manufacturer has their own konami code, or secret button to start the wipers. That's how accidents happen.

paganel
0 replies
6h23m

That's just lame, sorry to say it. I'll start with the end by saying that most probably voice command won't work in a downpour, for the simple reason that downpours are usually associated with lots of noise that will cancel out your voice commands. And all the other "options" involve taking your eyes off the road and looking at a big screen in order to adjust wiper speed, all this while there's a potential downpour happening. That is a very big no from me. And, no, "automatic" wipers never do their job perfectly when it comes do downpours, you always have to adjust them in one way or another.

Granted, that guy that posted it was from Australia so that they probably don't have that sort of downpour problem over there (the same goes for places in the US like California or Texas).

CorrectHorseBat
5 replies
8h44m

However, the absence of a physical speed control for the windshield wipers is the single worst design flaw of Teslas.

The fog lights are much worse

ojosilva
2 replies
7h57m

How about the voice commands for these? ("Wipers 1-slash-4"). I just got my first Tesla, MYLR, and even though it's annoying not having the stalks given the rain sensor is absolute junk the voice command seems to work 98% of the time. The voice command is activated from a button on the steering wheel - it may require a network connection though. I haven't tried the fog lights, it may not have a command, but there's apparently a shortcut with the left stalk where you pull or push and a quick light menu comes up - 2 clicks instead of 1 but seems reasonable - I could never find my fog lights quickly enough on most of my previous cars anyway.

My only concern with the wipers would be for an emergency, ie the street washers drive by and suddenly I have no visibility, but for those situations I have the button on the left stalk that fires the wipers on demand.

eldaisfish
0 replies
3h51m

why are so many people in the tech world obsessed with voice controls? Seriously, this is imperfect at best and definitely a downgrade from a physical button.

What is with this obsession?

Hamuko
0 replies
7h34m

Voice commands are absolutely crap and are never ever a substitute for actual controls. The device can't either hear you, mishears you, doesn't speak your language, doesn't understand your accent, doesn't understand your dialect, doesn't like the tone of your voice or just doesn't like your particular combination of words.

Hamuko
1 replies
8h3m

Highly doubt it considering that fog lights have very limited use compared to the windshield wiper.

trompetenaccoun
0 replies
7h59m

Depends very much on where you live. Some people need them every other day, some may never use them at all. Certainly not "limited use" when you're in a mountainous region with regular fog.

snowfield
3 replies
10h51m

To be fair, the new EVs have pretty good adaptive wipers. I have not found the bed to actually overwrite this yet.

ahahahahah
1 replies
10h43m

Cars for 15-20 years have had good automatic wipers, they're just becoming more widely available now (and evs are generally in the price range where it's expected). Well... except for Tesla. They decided that a person can tell when wipers are needed just by using their eyes, so certainly they could save a buck or so and do it using just a camera.

usrusr
0 replies
7h42m

Cars had it, because an ICE drive train is so cheap that in the price range you are talking about it's almost negligible. All the cost is in nice to have things like extra sensors for every tiny niche use case. Fast forward to BEV and suddenly the drive train eats such a large part of your cost budget that you are hard pressed to cut much of the fat of the ICE era.

Carmakers haven't stopped doing electric variants of ICE models because it's oh so difficult to put batteries where an engine, tank and gearbox used to be (it's not), they switched to dedicated BEV designs to have an opportunity to do a "cost reset" about their approach to all those little nice to have things they introduced in the late ICE era to maximise the price buyers were willing to pay for a given vehicle class. The BEV-specific base architecture certainly helps, but it's as much about the expectations reset. This certainly does not mean that they switch their rain sensor to the Tesla approach, they might actually end up cheaper cost-optimizing what they have and know, but BEV does mean looking at costs in a very different way than in the ICE era.

modeless
0 replies
10h45m

Not Teslas, unfortunately. The auto wipers are trash and always will be because Tesla refuses to add a dedicated sensor. It's a double whammy: handicapped auto mode and awful manual controls.

flatline
1 replies
3h49m

My Jeep Wrangler has a physical volume knob that may or may not elicit a change in volume when turned within the first 30 seconds of starting the car. Which can be literally deafening if you had on e.g. a podcast at 75% volume when you turned the car off and it turned back on to the radio. Some of these things need a dedicated circuit.

stronglikedan
0 replies
3h36m

The 2022 Acura MDX has that too, but it's not a "may or may not", it just doesn't. Thankfully they fixed it in the 2023 model, but I still don't understand why it's not fixed in the 2022 model since it's obviously software and both get OTA updates.

trogdor
0 replies
3h59m

I can’t believe that Tesla still ships cars without a center-press horn button.

I own a Model S Plaid, and the horn button’s location on the yoke can generally only be reached by the driver’s right hand. Even more dangerous, its position in space changes dramatically any time you are in the middle of a turn. The horn button is not easy to press in an emergency.

Same story with the turn signals.

If you are in the middle of a turn and you have rotated the yoke 180-degrees, your turn signal buttons are now upside-down, and on the other side of the yoke. I have owned my car for a year and a half, and there are still times when I have to look at the yoke mid-turn to figure out which turn signal button is which.

So stupid.

sandworm101
0 replies
2h9m

> I have no problem whatsoever with fan controls or audio controls or whatever on the touchscreen, as long as it is responsive (of course the vast majority of car touchscreens are not, but some are).

It was -27f/-33c this morning when I started my car. At those temperatures ALL touchscreens generally become slow and unresponsive, especially when wearing mittens. I want the defrost/fan/temperature controls on a physical switch. I also don't want a screen that isn't happy unless it is getting a full 12v/14v. Not all car batteries will give that when cold. Frankly, I'd be happy with a series of valves ... anything other than a touchscreen.

Fyi, automatic wipers are a nightmare in winter. It is very easy for them to break if caked in snow. Standard procedure being to start the car first and let it warm up as you remove the snow and ice. So you need them to be on a physical switch to ensure they are off prior to turning the car on.

nottorp
0 replies
8h28m

with fan controls

I want at the least a physical recirculate/bring air from outside button.

The use case is coming up behind a vintage truck that was made before they even thought of pollution standards on a winding mountain road where you can't overtake and you need to pay attention to the road. And you also need to set the a/c to recirculate before you suffocate.

For audio... with radio dying or dead I guess you can just run Spotify the whole trip. I'd still like volume and mute buttons.

mavhc
0 replies
4h37m

Let's check all those items with the Tesla Model 3 2024 manual

To engage a turn signal, press the corresponding arrow button on the left side of the steering wheel. (The buttons move on the Highland steering wheel)

Turn signals: To turn on the hazard warning flashers, press the button on the drive mode selector located on the overhead center. All turn signals flash. Press again to turn off.

Hazard lights: Overhead console drive mode selector with arrow pointing to hazard warning light button in the middle.

If a severe crash is detected by your vehicle, the hazard warning flashers will automatically turn on and flash quickly to increase visibility. Pressing the hazard warning flashers once will return the lights to their normal cadence. Pressing a second time turns all hazard warning flashers off.

To sound the horn, press and hold the center pad on the steering wheel.

You can access wiper settings by touching the wiper button on the steering wheel

Press the wiper button on the steering wheel to wipe the windshield.

Press and hold the wiper button to spray washer fluid onto the windshield. After releasing the button, the wipers perform two additional wipes then, depending on vehicle and environmental conditions, a third wipe a few seconds later. You can also press and hold the wiper button for a continuous spray of washer fluid—the wipers perform the wipes after you release.

Whenever you press the wiper button on the steering wheel, the touchscreen displays the wiper menu, allowing you to adjust wiper settings. Press the left scroll button on the steering wheel left or right to choose your desired setting.

Off/Auto/Intermittent slow/fast/Continuous slow/fast

kwhitefoot
0 replies
6h15m

However, the absence of a physical speed control for the windshield wipers is the single worst design flaw of Teslas.

My 2015 Model S has a stalk with a rotary switch for wiper control that includes several automatic and manual modes and speeds.

But I was loaned a Model 3 when my Model S was being repaired and I hated it because most of the stalks had been removed making things like cruise control and the radio much more awkward to use.

jajko
0 replies
7h22m

Even if I wouldn't be hating Musk for his position re actual freedom and his apparent respect for murderous dictators, these moves would solidly cement Tesla as a company I wouldn't buy a car from.

Stupid, arrogant moves nobody asked for pushed down the throats of unsuspecting users. A colleague's model 3 died during rain (apparently its such a solidly built car that a bit more than normal amount of rain can kill it for good, got replaced without questions which indicates this is a well known issue). Newer version didn't have physical turn signals. He was almost crying, an early adopter with a lot of love for the company that evaporated in an instance. Its not every day that car manufacturer actively tries to increase chances of people getting killed and acts like all is fine.

elif
0 replies
6h35m

What's the difference between "physical turn signal controls" and "physical buttons with haptic feedback"?

anilakar
0 replies
7h44m

I'm going one step further and arguing that if a function has no physical control, it's not essential but just a distraction and should be done away with.

andrepd
0 replies
6h16m

I have no problem whatsoever with fan controls or audio controls or whatever on the touchscreen

Why? What's the difference? You fiddle with these as well while you're driving, and they're also dangerous and distracting.

MyFirstSass
0 replies
4h54m

No just make buttons. Screens can hickup, scroll weird, etc. also you don't get any tactile feedback.

I don't wan't a touchscreen keyboard on my laptop, and the travel is already small enough - i say bring back tactility! The dead cold glass orb has destroyed so much.

userbinator
150 replies
16h50m

But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn

Are there really cars where the horn is not a physical button/ring on the steering wheel?

IMHO the driving UX peaked in the 1960s, and was largely unchanged into the 2000s, until touch screens started taking over.

Compare:

https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads...

https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/2010...

https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/5/2017/07/Tesla-Mod...

At least the steering wheel and pedals still behave the same.

I_Am_Nous
40 replies
16h44m

At least the steering wheel and pedals still behave the same.

For now, companies are experimenting with drive by wire. Don't think I like that concept.

shepherdjerred
17 replies
16h35m

Why? Brake by wire is already a thing.

I_Am_Nous
13 replies
16h26m

If my steering wheel isn't connected to my front wheels mechanically, that's asking for a lot of trust. Previously a severe mechanical issue would be the only thing to worry about. Maybe on an EV with always connected and charged batteries it would be better, but on ICE I can imagine a number of ways the electrical system suddenly fails and now the wheel does nothing, even if just for a short lag.

At least on brake by wire ICE systems I could let engine braking slow me if the brake system fails somehow (even if I have to blow the engine to save my life, worth the trade).

amluto
10 replies
16h22m

Having previously driven a car with a mildly unreliable power steering system, it’s an extremely good thing that the power steering was backed up with a mechanical linkage (that worked very well — it was surprisingly subtle when the power steering crapped out at 30mph).

A drive-by-wire system had better be a lot more reliable and also notice impending failures.

dkjaudyeqooe
6 replies
16h11m

it was surprisingly subtle when the power steering crapped out at 30mph

It's not a problem at those speeds, having it crap out when turning slowly and sharply around fast traffic is much more likely to be deadly.

dotancohen
5 replies
13h46m

The opposite is true. Those old AMCs without power steering were just as easy to steer on the highway as any other car (once you managed to get up to speed) but the parking lot was a chore and parallel parking was neigh impossible.

dkjaudyeqooe
3 replies
6h26m

I guess I got the wording wrong because that's exactly what I meant.

amluto
2 replies
3h9m

The most dangerous situation I encountered was turning left across traffic from a stop.

dkjaudyeqooe
1 replies
2h3m

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking about (and thought I wrote, but the downvotes say otherwise).

If your steering assist conks out just as you're trying to turn at slow speed you could end up heading into oncoming traffic, at an angle at least.

It's actually pretty dangerous, good thing you don't drive it any more.

amluto
0 replies
1h42m

A combination of whatever fiddling the mechanic did and making sure the fluid was topped off seemed to solve the issue. Also, it was a good, if somewhat old, car, and the mechanical steering was quite good. I was able to steer it without much difficulty at pretty much any speed even in no-power-steering mode.

But yes, I agree, unpredictable steering response is dangerous.

bombcar
0 replies
13h20m

Fancier power steering systems basically fully disengage at speed because you don’t need them; they’re for moving the wheels when you’re stopped or nearly so.

devmor
2 replies
16h10m

I personally cannot stand power steering systems. There’s always a dead zone and the feedback is delayed, in some vehicles more noticeably than in others, but it’s always there.

I feel like I have had several close calls that would have been accidents for sure had I been driving with power steering.

lathiat
1 replies
15h31m

What car do you have without power steering? Or, are you referring to electric as opposed to hydraulic power steering? I haven't seen a car without power steering since the early 00s (which was a 90s car).

The steering deadzone is not purely a function of power steering. Some of it is design or could be attributed to that, but a bunch of it also comes from slop in the physical connections in the steering column, as well as the suspension bushings, your tyre profile, etc.

amluto
0 replies
15h1m

I once drove an early car with an electric steering assist system. (It was either a renta or a test drive, I think it was an American car, and I don’t remember what brand or model.). It was terrible. There was essentially no feedback from the road to the wheel.

These systems have improved.

otherme123
1 replies
11h50m

Mechanic connections can, and do, fail. Ask Ayrton Senna. AFAIK, steer by wire are already doing full redundancy, like it was a plane.

There has been a number of plane accidents related to physical connection between the yoke and the actuators (cables loosing tension under high temperatures, or cut/trapped on a deck failure). Electric cables does not suffer that, and they are easily doubled.

SbW makers are already making software that does constant surveilance of the system, something that traditional systems has never done.

The number of dead people caused by the steering column going straight through their chest in a collision is huge. That shouldn't happen with SbW.

I hate the trend towards car controls in a screen, but Drive by Wire sounds like a real advance towards better cars to me. DbW without redundancies and continuous tracking could be a safety issue, but with them I don't think it's an issue. Fly by Wire has a good safety record.

pompino
0 replies
8h52m

Fly by Wire has a good safety record.

Because there are dozens of people helping keep each plane safe.

doubloon
0 replies
16h17m

Boeing.

dexwiz
0 replies
16h30m

Post ALB there isn’t the same feedback thru breaks as there are steering. Steering systems have been highly engineered so you can get feedback from the road while still having power assist.

alexey-salmin
0 replies
11h57m

There must be a physical connection though? How do you stop if you're out of power? If not, I can only think of truck-like system where brakes are "on by default" and user input disactivates them.

static_void_
15 replies
15h25m

Electronic power steering already exists. It's used in a lot of cars, and has been for at least 10 years. Your car may have one of these systems in it.

In an electric power steering system there are steering angle and torque sensors that know what direction the wheel is turned an how hard it has turned, and this is connected to an electric motor that powers the gears to move the steering rack.

There are still regulations in place that require a mechanical connection to the steering wheel and rack, but try and turn the wheel with the car off and see if your wheels move... But when the car is running when you turn the wheel you're just a voting remember in the system.

There are no such regulations for throttles. Pretty much every car since the late 80s has electronic throttle control and there are no mechanical linkages from pedal to throttle body.

ok_dad
4 replies
13h24m

Most of the modern steering systems are just hydraulic or electronic power steering which boosts your input with a hydraulic or electric assist motor. You're still moving the mechanical linkage at any time you're steering, it's just that when the car is off the assist motor is disabled and because modern cars have massive tire contract patches, huge weights, and a lot more caster compared to yesteryear, it's damn near impossible to turn the wheels when the car is off and not moving. If you simply disabled the assist, started the car, and let it roll, you would find that it is only maybe 1.5 times harder to turn the wheel than a classic car with skinny tires and larger steering wheels and such. You're still fully controlling the direction the wheels are turned in said systems, the assist motor simply adds force.

pmontra
2 replies
11h29m

Turning my car at low speed with the engine off feels much harder than 1.5 times the turning of an old times car of similar weight. I could hardly make it turn at all when it happened. I don't think I'd be able to make it through a real turn on a road. And I have a small car of about 1000 kg.

consp
1 replies
11h20m

You also have to overcome the little but non zero friction of the power steering and your steering wheel is considerably smaller than they used to be.

dchest
0 replies
7h14m

Yup, cars designed for power steering don't work as well without it as cars specifically designed to operate without power steering. Not just the steering wheel size, the whole steering geometry is probably different.

consp
0 replies
11h23m

it's damn near impossible to turn the wheels when the car is off and not moving.

That was also strongly discouraged on older cars and only possible with big steering wheels and good grip. Just move very slowly and the turning becomes really easy even without assistance (and which is what you were thought when this was still a thing in countries with required driving lessons).

jjav
3 replies
11h57m

Pretty much every car since the late 80s has electronic throttle control and there are no mechanical linkages from pedal to throttle body.

All 90s cars I've had or worked on had a real cable from gas pedal to throttle body.

Maxion
2 replies
11h43m

Even fuel injected ones?

jjav
0 replies
3h11m

Yes, the throttle cable operates the opening of the throttle. Downstream of that is the airflow meter which is an input to the fuel injection computer so it knows how much air is going in.

dchest
0 replies
7h1m

Throttle body is a part of fuel injected engines. It was mechanically operated before the electronic throttle bodies.

Reason077
3 replies
15h5m

“There are still regulations in place that require a mechanical connection to the steering wheel and rack”

Are you sure? Fully “steer by wire” vehicles with no mechanical steering link are already in production. The Tesla Cybertruck is the most well-known example.

Toyota/Lexus has also been demonstrating steer-by-wire for a while (Lexus RZ), and it will apparently ship in consumer vehicles later this year.

lokedhs
2 replies
14h52m

Are any of these cars available outside the US? From what I've been able to tell, US regulations are much weakest in this regard which is possibly why there are so many words cars there.

Reason077
1 replies
14h40m

The Lexus steer-by-wire tech is expected to ship in Europe later this year:

https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota-lexus-steer-by-wire-sys...

(In some aspects the US automotive regulations are actually stricter than in Europe. For example, in Europe there are some vehicles (eg: Audi) where the wing mirrors are replaced by screens/cameras, but this is not permitted in the US. Adaptive matrix headlights are also not allowed in the US.)

kevin_thibedeau
0 replies
12h31m

Adaptive headlights are coming soon.

DinaCoder99
0 replies
10h34m

Being able to feel the resistance of the road is valuable, especially in inclement weather. Much more so than with, say, an airplane.

Aurornis
0 replies
12h45m

Pretty much every car since the late 80s has electronic throttle control and there are no mechanical linkages from pedal to throttle body

Electronic throttles became widespread much later than the 80s. Pop the hood of common 2000s economy cars and you’ll find a mechanical throttle linkage.

culopatin
4 replies
15h34m

Experimenting? It’s been around for a long time. My 1999 Jetta had it. It’s smoother and you can control the fuel adder on throttle opening from all angles. Sure, it’s not instant, but stabbing the gas in a non dbw is not great either. In electric cars there is no other way than dbw

AsmaraHolding
2 replies
15h21m

A 1999 Jetta doesn't have steer-by-wire. Wikipedia says the first production car to have it was the 2013 Nissan Infiniti Q50.

maxdo
0 replies
14h26m

It had duplicated mechanics

culopatin
0 replies
12h44m

Well I see what you mean. Steer by wire is part of drive by wire if you want to be specific. But before that was a thing “drive by wire” meant a throttle body controller by the ECU.m for many years. So if you go to a shop and say DBW what the other end hears is “stepper throttle”

gonzo41
0 replies
15h20m

It's be really cool if there were some giant high power potentiometer connected directly from the batter to the motors in an EV. Just smash the pedal, see a blast of plasma and you take off. Just like slot cars. I can't see a single downside to this :p

userbinator
0 replies
16h15m

Drive-by-wire is at least a decade old if not more.

c22
28 replies
16h35m

The pedals do not behave the same.

userbinator
26 replies
16h13m

You mean you don't press the left one to stop, and the right one to go?

spdustin
15 replies
16h1m

You don't feel the hydraulic feedback in the brake pedal (just the ABS buzzing), and gas pedals in many modern EFI vehicles feel more like foot-operated potentiometers than throttle linkages.

magicalhippo
12 replies
15h38m

gas pedals in many modern EFI vehicles feel more like foot-operated potentiometers than throttle linkages.

In my EV it literally is a potentiometer. I really miss the feel of a physical throttle linkage on the snow and ice, I feel it's much more difficult to judge grip.

Also, since it's just a pot, I don't know why there's not a speed mode for it, it to make it operate the cruise control speed set-point rather than torque.

user_7832
8 replies
15h5m

I really miss the feel of a physical throttle linkage on the snow and ice, I feel it's much more difficult to judge grip.

The throttle is separated from the wheels/ground by the transmission and the whole engine, which makes me wonder if the response you felt probably was a combination of eg rpm/physical vibration and a few other factors. It should be possible to recreate these even in an EV, then.

kedikedi
4 replies
14h52m

The throttle feeling of a cable operated throttle is more about how much air the engine wants to breathe. I’d say it’s kinda still related to rpm, but it might be a completely different feeling on a turbo engine, that I haven’t experienced.

cuu508
1 replies
10h19m

Right, but how does the changes in engine wanting to breathe manifest through the throttle pedal feel? Changes of vibrations? Changes of resistance? Changes in lag from pushing the pedal to the engine responding? Perhaps on the direct throttle car you could simply hear the engine better?

magicalhippo
0 replies
9h58m

It was probably sound and vibration in combination with less lag.

We had an older non-turbo car before the EV.

consp
1 replies
11h28m

On most turbo engines these days they are electronically operated and have no linkage anyway. That's even the case in most modern petrol cars where people think there still is a linkage. And that trend has been going on for at least 20 years.

garaetjjte
0 replies
1h16m

Linkages were out when electronic stability control was introduced.

macNchz
2 replies
11h13m

There is a noticeable difference in feel between ICE cars with physical throttle cables and those with electronic throttles…the drive-by-wire models have a very small amount of lag between pedal input and engine response. If you’re attuned to it, or drive “spiritedly”, the effect is quite noticeable. I think mainstream cars mostly switched over around 20 years ago, I remember learning about it when I googled for why the accelerator pedals in new cars felt so weird to me.

I think there are a few reasons for it, one of which is simply increasing efficiency by smoothing the accelerator input a bit. I’ve only driven an electric car a few times, so I’m not sure if they also have this delay, but I would expect they do.

mythhabit
0 replies
5h14m

Many modern cars have a turbo that makes this almost impossible to tell. It almost feels irrelevant, compared to planning ahead for the inevitable wait for the turbo to build pressure.

magicalhippo
0 replies
5h46m

one of which is simply increasing efficiency by smoothing the accelerator input a bit

Right, it feels very much like I'm just changing a set-point. Putting the car in eco mode makes it very noticeable, but even though it's less noticeable in sport mode it's still not the same.

Vecr
2 replies
13h57m

Multiple cross-checked hall effect sensors, hopefully. Same concept though.

magicalhippo
1 replies
10h4m

That's what I had thought, but mechanic that replaced the throttle pedal assembly called it a potentiometer (had a weird pulsing in the force feedback).

Of course, could be he was wrong.

Vecr
0 replies
9h11m

I read the "unintended acceleration" report from NASA. The Toyota cars involved had two independent hall effect sensors. Hopefully there's been no backsliding since then.

mythhabit
0 replies
5h18m

"Old" cars tend to have brake pedals where the pressure is used to judge how much force you are applying - find the point where it bites and then modulate the force. Many "modern" cars brake pretty much as soon as the pedal moves, and the amount of braking is determined by the position of the pedal, rather than the force applied at a certain point. I have no idea how they do this, but whenever I switch to a car with the "old" style, I always end up braking way too hard until my brain recalibrate.

fy20
0 replies
13h9m

Every vehicle I've ever driven since I learnt to drive 20 years ago has had an electronic throttle body, a digital accelerator and ABS. Welcome to 2024.

I did learn to drive manual, but I'd never buy another car like that. Maybe it's fun for racing, but for every day driving, automatic requires less effort and longevity isn't a concern today.

Beldin
8 replies
11h48m

Around here the middle one is to stop, left is to switch gears. Except in go-karts, those only have 2 pedals.

arghwhat
5 replies
11h9m

Remember to press both left and center pedals to stop.

Manuals proliferate in EU, but we have also always had automatics on the road - and a significant increase since DSGs hit the market - so no one who has driven a few normal cars would be surprised by two pedals in an electric.

aaronmdjones
3 replies
10h59m

Using the clutch before you need to when braking is bad form. The engine will assist in braking if you let it, especially in the low gears, and this doesn't use any fuel -- dumping the clutch immediately consumes more fuel to keep the engine running. Put the brake pedal in first, and then the clutch pedal as you approach idle RPMs.

rad_gruchalski
2 replies
10h50m

Remember to press both left and center pedals to stop

To stop, not to slow down.

amenhotep
1 replies
7h42m

It's still not correct. You press the brake to stop. You press the clutch to not stall. They're separate concerns, or maybe more accurately one is only a response to the other - you clutch as you're about to stop because otherwise you'll stall, you don't brake and clutch at the same time because you decide to stop and not stall at the same time.

rad_gruchalski
0 replies
7m

Yes: to STOP. Your answer is just pedantry.

hnbad
0 replies
8h25m

I think "proliferate" is the wrong word. Automatics seem to be on the rise - I learned on a manual but have only been driving automatics for a decade. They're also more accessible and I'm not sure there are any EVs that emulate manual transmission as there's literally no point. So if anything, manuals are largely on the way out.

oblio
0 replies
9h7m

I don't know where you live, but if you're feeling smug about being in Europe, Europe is going automatic. 30% and rising if I recall correctly plus EVs don't need manual transmissions anymore.

mythhabit
0 replies
5h10m

Except DD2 and KZ, well true, they only have 2 pedals, but they also have a hand operated clutch. But you only need it to start the kart. You shift without the clutch, and for starting you can have it in neutral and just push it in first when you have build a little speed and sit in the kart. I suppose if you have one with an electronic starter you need it.

theGnuMe
0 replies
16h7m

No, it’s the feedback loop. You feel the hydraulic system for the brakes and the steering. If you have an accelerator cable then you feel that tension as well… but the accelerator feel is less important.

tempestn
0 replies
16h30m

Nor does the steering yoke.

rkagerer
19 replies
11h11m

At least the steering wheel and pedals still behave the same.

Don't give them ideas...

jojobas
18 replies
10h27m

Tesla Cybertruck uses steer-by-wire with almost no redundancy. Electric power steering was bad enough to cause crashes, this is just ambulance chaser's dream.

gsich
16 replies
10h4m

steer-by-wire

This is the norm for most cars with servo steering.

jojobas
10 replies
9h35m

No. Almost all cars except some concepts and prototypes have mechanical link between the steering wheel and the steering rack. Even if the link is augmented by a hydraulic or electronic booster.

If a booster fails you have a chance of overpowering it, it's not that strong. A faulty steer-by-wire will swing you into the oncoming lane with no recourse.

oblio
9 replies
9h9m

I think the lack of redundancy is the issue. Redundant electrical connections can be very robust otherwise they wouldn't put them in F-35s.

tiagod
2 replies
8h42m

The F-35 took like 25 years and a staggering amount of billions to develop...

oblio
1 replies
6h6m

Fly by wire has been a thing since the 80s, F-18 IIRC. At some point we'll have drive by wire, it just makes sense.

jojobas
0 replies
4h49m

This doesn't necessarily follow. Planes became pressurized and got oxygen masks, it's very unlikely that cars ever do. Having steel cables and/or hydraulic lines for the 4-6 dimensions of aircraft controls adds up to some serious extra weight worth fighting for on a plane, while one steel rod might never be more problematic than the heap of problems its absence creates.

As long as the steering wheel is there it might as well be connected to the rack, forever.

jojobas
2 replies
8h31m

Anywhere in aviation it's redundant transducers (the thingies that transform rotation into some sort of signal), redundant flight law computers implemented by independent teams on dissimilar hardware, a stupidly robust vote/compare module, I think mostly analog, and usually a last resort direct mode.

When all of that is implemented in cars and weathers for 10-20 years I might consider it.

Otherwise, seeing as Toyota's regen braking code had like 10k global variables, I'm not touching that with at 10 foot pole.

Acceleration/braking can be quite bad but there's normally neutral and ignition switches. With steering there's literally nothing between you cruising along a highway and you splattered on some concrete pillar 200ms later.

fodkodrasz
1 replies
7h49m

That is more than likely generated code. Model based development and code generation (by certified toolchains) are the norm in automotive and aerospace.

jojobas
0 replies
7h35m

Nope, all hand-written apparently.

rightbyte
1 replies
5h31m

Fighter jets are falling out of the sky quite often. Compare to airbus passanger jets instead.

jojobas
0 replies
4h48m

Partial control failures on passenger jets are not that uncommon.

pompino
0 replies
8h55m

But no ejection seats to escape a collision.

fodkodrasz
4 replies
7h50m

Nope, ColPAS and ParPAS solutions both normally have the mechanical connection of the steering column between the rack and pinion mechanic and the steering wheel, they mainly differ by the way of introducing the mechanical assist force to the system. (on the steering column, or at the rack and pinion mechanism).

They generally have the following root safety requirements:

- the assist system must not cause "blocking" (unturnable wheels/steering wheel)

- the assist system must not cause unintended steering

- the assist system must be able to restart in less than 20 milliseconds

- the assist system must stay passive after a number of unsuccessful startups/unrecoverable errors (typically 3). In this case the mechanical steering column still provides a way for the driver to control the car.

It has been 10+ years since I last worked such a system, but drive by wire was only on the horizon, not the norm, and as far as I know the authorities only allowed drive by wire solution some 2-3 years ago, with product development lifecycle of around 5 years that means they are still not the norm among new cars I believe.

Back then more redundancy in the electric motors (more gradual failure if one phase goes bust, not going into deadlock in certain angles when any of the 3 phases is malfunctioning) and authenticated communications on the system bus (which was considered trusted earlier) were on the roadmap for the next gen steering systems, which are mandatory requirements before you can get to steer by wire.

jojobas
3 replies
7h32m

Why even put it on the bus? Adding a couple of meters of cable per critical system like steering or even 10 for braking couldn't offset the complexity of bus steering.

fodkodrasz
2 replies
7h27m

On the contrary, adding just "a few meters of cable" per each critical system, and adding separate sensors instead of using the same critical sensors would greatly increase complexity. Also so really underestimate the cabling and sensor needs for modern requirements.

Having redundant bus and redundant sensors usable by multiple subsystems is a better way.

Well, I have heard of power assist using a single simple potentiometer as a steering wheel position sensor in some really cheap cars... I'm not sure how much of an urban legend that is, but nowadays it surely wouldn't cut it for road permission in the EU.

jojobas
1 replies
5h10m

Compared to classic hydraulic lines everywhere dedicated cables seem easy.

Having to account for a DOS attack from a compromised head unit or some such just seems like a nightmare.

fodkodrasz
0 replies
1h46m

On one hand you are right, but only if we can ignore the highly increased risk of electric malfunction from the extensive traditional (non bus based) wiring. This was a common problem in the 1980s when electric gadgets became numerous, but no standard bus was used on many such cars.

To overcome this the plan back when I was working on that product was to use 2 system buses, one isolated internal for the safe critical sensor/control network, and one user facing untrusted bus, with a ECU designed to serve as a firewall basically.

tom_
8 replies
15h24m

My 1995 Renault Clio had it as a button on the indicator stalk. Worked very well, in my view. Much easier than pressing the centre of the steering wheel. There's often no need to even move your hand!

noncoml
1 replies
13h41m

Probably a French thing. My dad’s 70’s Peugeot had the horn where in most cars today is the windscreen washer action, ie pull towards you the right stalk.

I would prank my 6-7yo cousin at the time that all you had to do is ask the car to beep and it would do

nikau
0 replies
11h15m

80s Fords in Australia had horn on a stalk too

sonofhans
0 replies
15h12m

That helps explain Paris drivers :D

puzzlingcaptcha
0 replies
10h1m

Although it seems to have changed, my 1990's Twingo also had the horn on the indicator stick but a 2000's Megane already has it in the steering wheel proper.

gambiting
0 replies
10h38m

It's a French thing - my Peugeot Partner was the same, horn on the indicator stalk.

fransje26
0 replies
8h48m

Our family Peugeot 305 also had the horn on the indicator stalk.

fecker
0 replies
10h2m

My Dacia Sandero has it on the tip of the left stalk

cccbbbaaa
0 replies
9h15m

I had the same on a 2003 Twingo. Very handy, except for that time when I horned at a poor jogger on the side of the road instead of activating the turn signal :(

onionisafruit
5 replies
15h25m

My grandmother used to have a car where the horn was a button at the end of one of the stems. I think it was on the same stem that controlled the wipers. I wish I remembered what kind of car it was. I think it was from the 40s.

yaky
1 replies
14h36m

First generation Chevy Volt (2011-2016) has a button at the end of the left stem that sounds an alternative polite (aka "pedestrian") horn. It's several very rapid, but somewhat quiet honks, that sound like "brrrap".

Tagbert
0 replies
13h43m

I like that. I used to have a car that would give that kind of polite honk with a light press and a louder honk with a harder press. I’ve always wished that were still a thing.

sandermvanvliet
0 replies
11h19m

My Land Rover Defender has that too and that’s from early 2000, think they kept that for quite a bit longer than that too.

lokedhs
0 replies
14h55m

The old Mini had that. I remember seeing it in the 80's.

brabel
0 replies
11h42m

My parents had one of these... I believe it was Ford Corcel from 1978 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Corcel), a South American model, according to Wikipedia, based on Renault 12.

userbinator
3 replies
13h47m

Touché! It's interesting how early vehicles were very different in their controls, but seemed to mostly converge and stabilise for a few decades, before again diverging and changing rapidly.

The Model T (Ford) had a throttle on the steering wheel and 3 pedals, but not the ones you'd expect today:

https://www.fordmodelt.net/images/ford-model-t-controls_smal...

Animats
2 replies
11h25m

but seemed to mostly converge and stabilise for a few decades

Due to regulation.

The US Congress mandated the PRNDSL quadrant for automatic transmissions. (GM had PNDSLR, and people kept shifting into reverse by accident.)

Kon-Peki
0 replies
1h32m

Congress didn’t “mandate” it, they made it such that the federal government could only buy vehicles that used the PRND sequence for auto transmissions. If you don’t want any corporate welfare you can make your transmission shift in any order you feel like.

ChrisMarshallNY
0 replies
43m

I drove stick for most of my early driving years, and they were all over the place.

threeseed
17 replies
16h29m

I think the issue with the horn is referring to the Tesla Model S.

And specifically the horn button being capacitive co-located with the voice assistance and windscreen wiper buttons.

Which in a safety situation was difficult to locate and press.

letitbeirie
6 replies
9h44m

It's weird that Tesla is being called out over the horn.

In driver's ed they tell you to not to use your horn when you're annoyed at other drivers - only use it if there's an imminent danger to avoid a crash.

But you better hope it works because if it doesn't, the airbag behind it explodes.

...

I'm not sure Tesla improved the situation, but it definitely seems like the situation has room for improvement.

zarzavat
2 replies
8h34m

In driver's ed they tell you to not to use your horn when you're annoyed at other drivers

This is definitely not a cultural universal. Different countries have different practices. In some places the horn simply means “I’m here, check your mirrors”, in other places it means “You bastard!”, and in some other places it means “We are both stuck in traffic let’s make as much noise as possible to pass the time”

only use it if there's an imminent danger to avoid a crash

Therefore the difference between the horn being readily accessible and being hidden away could be the difference between life and death.

watwut
0 replies
5h41m

And in others is it simply infraction worth of fine to use it in cities or nearby buildings for anything except danger.

letitbeirie
0 replies
48m

Therefore the difference between the horn being readily accessible and being hidden away could be the difference between life and death.

Being readily accessible is a must. The point I was trying to make (poorly; it was late) was that having the horn button in the middle of the wheel is about the worst place imaginable if you lay on the horn to avoid a crash and it happens anyway, because some portion of your arm is probably going to be broken when it gets crushed between an exploding airbag and your rapidly-decelerating body.

astura
1 replies
5h22m

Exactly - you need to have quick access the horn in a safety critical use case, so it shouldn't be a small button you have to find among other small buttons. You should be able to mash the center of the steering wheel.

But you better hope it works because if it doesn't, the airbag behind it explodes.

... what? I had a car who's horn stopped working and the airbag didn't explode or go off.

nucleardog
0 replies
1h44m

Better hope it works to avoid the imminent danger.

If you hold your horn down trying to alert someone that you’re about the slam into them, your hand is going to be on the wheel as the airbag deploys.

RedShift1
0 replies
8h10m

In danger imminent situations you might not have the time or mental capacity to think about buttons.

userbinator
3 replies
15h44m

Not the least bit helped by the fact that there seem to be several models all called the "Model S", but with very different controls.

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-DEB259C...

For vehicles manufactured as of approximately January 2024: To sound the horn, press the middle of the steering yoke (or steering wheel). For vehicles manufactured prior to approximately January 2024: To sound the horn, press and hold the horn button on the right side of the steering yoke (or steering wheel).

"press and hold" doesn't seem like it'd be easy to do if all you wanted was a quick toot.

hn_throwaway_99
2 replies
13h25m

Thanks for that link, which has images. Jesus, the pre-2024 horn is insane. It's one tiny button among many on the right side (of that stupid yoke, but I digress...) The whole point of having the horn in the middle of the steering wheel is you can just mash it with your palm, no need to hunt for anything. Really wonder how that ever got into a production car in the first place.

userbinator
0 replies
13h2m

The whole point of having the horn in the middle of the steering wheel is you can just mash it with your palm, no need to hunt for anything.

One can easily see this "meme" if one searches for images of "driver honking horn":

https://www.google.com/search?q=driver+honking+horn&tbm=isch

kergonath
0 replies
11h23m

Really wonder how that ever got into a production car in the first place.

Teslas are the Dunning-Kruger cars. Designed by people who seemingly do not really know how to design cars (a wheel is boring; let’s put a yoke because video games! Look how cool we are! Also, touchscreens!) and built with poor quality control. I was not aware of the horn button, but if I had to guess, Tesla would be my first choice.

darkwater
1 replies
11h4m

They just reverted the horn positioning in the soon-to-be-released refresh of the Model S/X.

Sometimes even Elon admits he was wrong.

rlt
0 replies
8h57m

I mean, one of his mantras is "If you're not adding things back in at least 10% of the time, you're clearly not deleting enough."

rsynnott
0 replies
7h33m

And specifically the horn button being capacitive co-located with the voice assistance and windscreen wiper buttons.

... Wait, is this a real thing, or just a joke about them being bad at UX? If a real thing... goodness, I'm quite surprised that doesn't break some mandatory safety rule.

mgoetzke
0 replies
6h6m

Recent Model S versions have the horn where it belongs

mgoetzke
0 replies
8h0m

I a safety situation by drivers used to old style cars ? but it doesnt matter, even Model S has it in the middle now again. good choice

kwhitefoot
0 replies
6h3m

Which years does this refer to? The horn on my 2015 S70D is huge pad in the centre of the steering wheel.

nly
16 replies
9h19m

I've been driving for 15 years and only ever used my horn once.

freeAgent
6 replies
9h3m

Then it’s likely you don’t have a significant commute to work in a city with heavy traffic.

trgn
5 replies
5h38m

How's honking helping the commute?

freeAgent
2 replies
4h20m

It helps when people try to merge into the side of your car or when someone forgets to watch traffic signals after stopping at a red light.

trgn
1 replies
1h28m

It helps when people try to merge into the side of your car

fair enough!

when someone forgets to watch traffic signals after stopping at a red light

I dunno. If you wouldn't blow a horn while walking the sidewalk when inconvenienced, I don't think drivers should either. You're not the only two people on the street, there's other people around here and they don't need to be abused by impatient drivers. ymmv, ianal, etc.. of course.

freeAgent
0 replies
1h19m

I don’t lay into the horn like a jerk when someone is inattentive to a traffic light. I just give a quick tap to get them to snap out of whatever it is they’re distracted by. I also wait at least a few seconds. Most people seem to appreciate this because they don’t want to block traffic, either.

magnetowasright
1 replies
5h9m

Using the horn to prevent myself from being squashed by yank tanks with a hood and tailgate height significantly taller than my car (and most adults) helps the commute. They'd have to shut down part of the road to clean the car bits and the red goo off the road otherwise. If my country legislated those absurd vehicles out of existence I wouldn't need to lay on the horn to make my existence known.

ajuc
0 replies
5h2m

yank tanks with a hood and tailgate height significantly taller than my car

Not a thing over here.

oblio
3 replies
9h10m

And in that situation it probably was easy to use because most likely you REALLY needed it, which these laws are trying to make sure happens: it's easily accessible.

throwaway82063
2 replies
5h52m

I disagree, whenever in the past I needed to use the honk, I've failed to do so because it's hard to press and requires you to take one hand off the wheel, which is the last of your instincts when you panicking, or both if you are juggling your gearstick.

itishappy
1 replies
3h7m

Your instincts suck. Sorry to be blunt. It's similar to correcting a slide: your brain won't do it automatically, but it's worth learning because it's a safety feature.

If somebody enters your lane at speed, the safest thing to do is to let them know you're there. Swerving or breaking in response multiplies the problem, as now there are two cars driving erratically. The horn won't always resolve everything, but it's by far the most effective way to get somebody's attention in a hurry.

throwaway82063
0 replies
2h28m

Swerving or breaking in response multiplies the problem, as now there are two cars driving erratically.

Holding your steering wheel with a single hand will cause you to drive erratically too.

The horn won't always resolve everything, but it's by far the most effective way to get somebody's attention in a hurry.

That's why it should be possible to activate it with an easy to reach button or lever, preferably next to the emergency lights, instead of a heavy pressure button right in the center of the steering wheel.

trgn
2 replies
5h39m

You're making the world a better place. 100% sincere.

99% of time there is absolutely no reason to honk. People only do it because the button is there and they're safely insulated from getting punched.

diggan
1 replies
4h44m

99% of time there is absolutely no reason to honk

Could it also be that in different places, there are different expectations, and different environments that makes people use the honk for various purposes?

I get that in the US it seems to mostly be a social signal of "fuck you", but in Spain where I mainly drive, I've avoided a couple of accidents by honking after seeing cars slowly coming close to my own car on the highway, especially when passing lone cars when things are no so busy. People seem to stop paying attention then.

Then in Peru the honking is seemingly constant, and people honk in prevention when they pass you, like a "just in case" honk. Honking seems to be a way of life there, rather than for emergencies.

trgn
0 replies
1h27m

I've been in similar places. It's so awful. Really degrades city life.

vleaflet
0 replies
3h52m

I never use my horn either, but I must admit that this "courtesy honk" is cool and I would probably use the super chill button if I had it :)

https://youtu.be/lv8wqnk_TsA?si=V4rPj1L3W5uZz_2J

donatj
0 replies
7h59m

In fifteen years you’ve never been stuck behind someone stopped at a green light?

You’ve never had to give someone a “hey don’t back into me” toot in a parking lot?

You’ve never seen your friend Ricky, on the sidewalk?

richardw
2 replies
12h40m

Except for radios. It's very annoying that every radio had a different UX, likely in the name of innovation and differentiation. I think that's a safety issue for e.g. rental cars.

userbinator
0 replies
3h11m

The two-knob radio was a standard for a long time, and it looks like they're still made.

consp
0 replies
11h33m

The radio is a feature in which a move to change station should not take more than a fraction oft a second. If it takes more you should stop. That is valid for any action but for some reason people start adjusting their entire audio setup while driving...

inferiorhuman
0 replies
11h9m

Peugeot through the 505 put the horn button on a stalk on the steering column. The 505 ended production for most of the world in the early 90s and I've not seen any of their more modern cars so I've no idea how long that design lasted.

The French made some really… interesting choices with their cars.

cwillu
48 replies
17h8m

A start, but not far enough: anything a driver might be reasonably expected to do while driving should have a physical control.

Zero-force, zero-feedback, zero-travel controls should be illegal for such functions.

bhpm
31 replies
16h38m

Wouldn’t it be safer to require all cars to have voice controls? Then the driver doesn’t have to move their hand off the wheel at all.

amluto
6 replies
16h20m

“Hey car, honk the horn”

“Hey car, signal left”

“Hey car, reverse”

You’re kidding, right? Even if this worked far better than Siri, it’s too slow.

bhpm
4 replies
15h57m

None of those controls are commonly located on a touch screen, which is the topic of the article.

JeffL
1 replies
11h51m

Yes, I have it. It's great. I much prefer a quick swipe on the side of the touchscreen to having a giant physical gear selector wasting a ton of space.

I honestly love just about everything about the UI of the refreshed Model S, from the yoke to the turn signal buttons to the on screen gear selector. Only thing I don't like is the horn button for the two times a year that I honk it.

amluto
0 replies
3h12m

Wasting what space? Sure, the gear selectors on a lot of cars are in the center console, and maybe I’d rather store something there. But I have never, in my entire history of driving cars, wanted to put anything right behind the steering wheel — first, it’s really awkward to get anything else there and second, any dangly thing there could tangle with the wheel, thus killing me.

So no, please keep the critical driving controls in fixed locations that are easy to access without looking away from the road or looking away. IMO that includes the horn, the turn signals, the wiper control, cruise control settings, and turn signals. And things I might want to adjust in a moderate hurry while driving should have fixed, tactile locations; climate control and sound volume are in this category.

My first car nailed all of this. Recent cars, not so much.

shagie
0 replies
15h32m

But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features like the European Union's eCall feature.

Those are exactly what is at issue.

This also needs to deal with multiple languages and regional accents for Europe.

If I, an American, rent a car in Germany, do I need to speak German in order to engage the windshield wipers? For that matter, navigating the on screen controls may also be problematic.

Here's a picture of a German car - https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dashboard-luxury-ge...

Do you know which button to push to get the hazard lights on?

It's remarkably similar to my Honda. https://www.sheehyhonda.com/honda-dashboard-light-meanings/ and my parents' Chrysler https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/chrysler/300/2019/photos...

ruined
0 replies
15h57m

HEYCARSTOP STOP STOPHEY CAR STOP STOP HEYCAR STOP

*bong* i don't have that answer

focusgroup0
5 replies
16h32m

I took a ride with an owner of a brand new BMW with glass cockpit and minimal buttons. He complained to the dealer about not being able to find any of the actions in the endlessly nested menus. The dealer's response: Use voice controls.

He tried it, and it's even worse than Siri in terms of reliability. Absolute unmitigated disaster.

Reason077
3 replies
15h30m

I’ve yet to find any car where the voice control works speedily and reliably, unless using Siri via CarPlay.

(Siri is actually pretty great at accurately recognising words, it’s just not always so good at doing something useful with them…)

Even Tesla’s is really bad: “Turn off the wipers” frequently gets interpreted as “turn off the wife please” or other similar nonsense.

resolutebat
0 replies
11h43m

Tell a Tesla to "go home" sometime, and it will respond what's obviously the best interpretation of your wish, namely playing Boney M's minor 1979 hit "Gotta Go Home" on Spotify. Fortunately, "stop wipers", "stop navigation" or in fact any kind of stop at all will instantly pause the disco assault.

dotancohen
0 replies
13h43m

To be fair, many phrases that I utter (in the car or otherwise) are all also interpreted that same way.

asyx
0 replies
11h17m

Haven't used it extensively but BMW and Mercedes works reasonably well in German.

arlort
0 replies
12h32m

And that's presumably in english, which is likely the language which had the most money poured into having good voice to text and vice versa

dexwiz
3 replies
16h32m

Not all drivers can speak. Not all drivers speak in a way a voice control can reliably understand them. Not all drivers are in environments where voice commands can be easily understood, like loud music. If you are driving a car you likely have the ability to push a button.

golergka
1 replies
14h15m

Not all drivers can use their legs, they have cars specially fitted for them.

dotancohen
0 replies
13h41m

Yes, and so far as I know there is no physical control system to fit into these touchscreen cars.

Market opportunity?

scaryclam
0 replies
7h30m

And even when the driver can speak, use the language, be understood and the voice controls are reliable, sometimes they don't actually want to disturb the passengers sleeping in the car just to crack the sodding window open a bit!

roywiggins
2 replies
14h41m

Being able to honk the horn or turn the windshield wipers on from the back seat would certainly be an interesting feature, especially for people with kids.

seattle_spring
0 replies
14h4m

"Alexa, honk at this asshole"

"Ok, calling Hank Armstrong"

resolutebat
0 replies
11h41m

On all cars I've driven voice control is not always on, you need to trigger it by pressing a button first.

justinclift
1 replies
15h38m

"Break"

"BREAK!"

"BREAAK!!!!"

"OH GOD PLEASE BRAKE!"

crunch

Problems can occur if it the voice system brakes (pun intended). ;)

Izkata
0 replies
14h30m

Instructions followed, car is now broken.

timothyduong
0 replies
13h51m

I hope you don't have any speech impediments, accents, and english is your first language.

stevage
0 replies
15h55m

Pretty impossible to have a conversation with a passenger then.

morkalork
0 replies
14h34m

Your reflexes are faster than you can speak. At least I hope they are.

mc32
0 replies
16h22m

Some reactions are instinctive and don’t require thought.

Imagine mid-sipping a drink and something falls out of a truck… garble garble garble —-crash.

Voice controls in an emergency wouldn’t work unless you require like 500 feet (maybe more) car to car separation. And then you have people with temporary voice conditions (losing voice) and permanent voice conditions (mute/dumb)

infotainment
0 replies
16h33m

IMO, voice controls are good additional control modality, but not a good primary one, since the discoverability is zero. (And also they're usually just...not very good.)

gnicholas
0 replies
10h40m

I've heard some of the newer cars have pretty good voice controls, especially on the more expensive models. However, the companies tend to put these behind a subscription wall, which I hate. I don't want my car to be always connected to the cloud. I'll do my navigation via my phone, and nothing else requires connectivity (except perhaps if I had an EV and wanted to schedule charging stops).

delfinom
0 replies
16h33m

Causing drivers to get road rage because they can't figure out the correct phrasing for voice controls probably also isn't a good idea.

Google Assistant still regularly misinterprets what I say <.<

Not to mention most voice assistants are fucking awful slow in language. It's like they pick a rural dweller as their speech model instead of a city slicker.

Just give me a button instead, it'll be quicker and less distracting.

culopatin
0 replies
15h32m

Like voice control is a reliable method of communication lol. Have an accent? Sorry can’t use your car. Mute? Cough? Lost your voice at a concert? Have the windows down? Come on…

AdamJacobMuller
0 replies
14h42m

I'm not entirely sure you've ever used voice controls.

I've never had experience with any car voice controls which didn't make me want to drive my car into a divider just to end the pain. Voice controls are so frustrating to use that I'm sure they are more distracting to use than even a touchscreen. I might be able to keep my eyes on the road easier with voice controls, but, my brain is going to be quickly annoyed and focused on trying to suss out why the voice control system is not understanding me, or am I using the wrong phrase, or do I need to put the windows up (impossible for me 6+ months of the year) so the car can hear me better?

It's like trying to pair bluetooth with a non-carplay (or non-android auto -- which I haven't used but heard good things about) with virtually all OEM and many aftermarket receivers. A uniquely frustrating experience which makes me wonder if QA departments at automakers actually exist.

dzhiurgis
15 replies
14h29m

Obvious limitation is something like Maps and media.

My guess ones that use mechanical dials (i.e. Lexus until ~ year ago) cause more distraction than touchscreen by simply being harder to use and taking more time to solve your problem.

Given how well chatgpt's voice recognition works - why not just put it on all cars!

Spivak
4 replies
13h9m

Check how Mazda did it with their ring control. I love it in mine. No touch screen needed.

It's amazing that accessibility is such an afterthought that having a physical wheel that tabs forward and backward through a UI as the primary means of using it is unfathomable until it's actually implemented.

speedgoose
2 replies
13h4m

If it’s like the old BMW iDrive systems, it’s pretty good but I think it’s a bit like comparing a blackberry and an iPhone. Sure the physical keyboard on the blackberry has advantages.

Spivak
1 replies
12h55m

Sure the physical keyboard on the blackberry has advantages.

Yes, being able to operate it without looking at it and capable of navigating arbitrary 3rd party apps. And because the tab position is stateful you can perform complex actions incrementally. Touch screens win for phones but you would hate one as your laptop keyboard. It's not a better or worse situation as much as a fit-for-purpose situation.

speedgoose
0 replies
12h46m

I think a good mix of physical buttons and touch inputs is best.

jeffchien
0 replies
11h53m

I just wish Android Auto had an option to disable activity boundaries for spinning so I can spin from Maps to media, and use the joystick control for directional selection (i.e. it tries to find the next button in that direction). I was excited for Coolwalk but then never got used to switching between Maps and media with the joystick. In the end I just reverted to pressing the Nav and media buttons then spinning.

croo
3 replies
11h45m

Given how well chatgpt's voice recognition works - why not just put it on all cars!

Because saying "roll down the left window" is still a fucking nuisance compared to a click of a button.

dzhiurgis
1 replies
11h16m

Open/Close all windows comes to mind. Fading audio forward/backward/center is a PITA on a Tesla. There's tons of things one should be able to automate - don't you have any imagination?

troupo
0 replies
10h58m

We do have imagination. And that's why we're saying that voice control in the car is bullshit.

nottorp
0 replies
7h26m

And because you may be driving with your windows open, listening to music or having passengers and talking to them.

gamepsys
2 replies
14h7m

Obvious limitation is something like Maps and media

I would love to see some data to see how dangerous it is to operate Maps and Media apps on a touch screen while operating a moving vehicle. This is data modern automakers should have access to. I suspect the answer is that it does reduce safety.

avar
1 replies
9h53m

Nobody has access to that data, even if you're excluded it to extreme cases like "an at-fault crash happening as the user was manipulating the map software directly". We can't bridge the gap between that and accident reports.

And that doesn't get into the more subtle cases, e.g. a crash that happens later due to an earlier loss of situational awarenesses.

It's also hard to quantify the opposite. E.g. I sometimes have to manipulate the map while driving, and resent the distraction. But afterwards I'm more likely to be in the right lane earlier, not be distracted because I'm trying to read a traffic sign in the 1-2 second window I might have etc.

gamepsys
0 replies
1h53m

There are enough sensors in a car to know when a collision has occurred. The car is capable of capturing touchscreen use metrics. Bonus points if you can find metrics for the same region/timespan for cars with tactile controls. You can then do any year 1 statistics algorithm to see if using the touchscreen is correlated with collisions. Yes, this doesn't prove causation. A correlation is enough to raise the flag about a safety issue.

EDIT: A decent statistical analysis will also uncover if using the touch screen is negatively correlated with accidents -- if people that use maps in general are less likely to get into an accident. This again won't prove causation but would be of interest to the general public and regulators.

peeters
1 replies
13h7m

I've only used a Lexus that had a touchpad. I do however regularly use a Mazda with its commander knob, and it is far safer than a touchscreen in my opinion. You can do most navigation without looking at the screen, with just an occasional glance to confirm you're doing what you think you're doing. Whereas a touchscreen requires constant attention while you're manipulating the screen.

The only thing that annoys me about Commander Knob + Android Auto is that AA still forces attention breaks as you scroll through big lists (e.g. Spotify playlists) which is really stupid because you're not usually looking at the screen if you know you need to scroll say 75% down. You're just looking occasionally to see how far you've made it. By making the task take longer, it's reducing safety.

The biggest safety issue by far with Mazda+AA is Google's baffling regression in handling voice input for common tasks while driving.

pzduniak
0 replies
5h47m

Google's baffling regression in handling voice input for common tasks while driving

Is it just me or is Google Maps voice input in AA completely busted now? I used to be able to press the "Search" bar on the touch screen in the app, say the search term and it would just show the results. Likewise for adding stops along the way. Now for the former I need to explicitly say "navigate to X" (or it says that it doesn't have a screen and refuses to do anything???) and for the latter I have to say something like "add a navigation stop at X", the assistant lists our the result (??????) and asks me which one I want to choose. Of course I don't see anything on the map in either case.

I can't imagine how bad it is when you

sa-code
0 replies
11h44m

Because it still makes mistakes, and it's not always clear when a mistake has been made.

jwr
33 replies
8h3m

I have a VW (ID.4) and they took the touch craziness to another level. There are things that don't look like buttons, but are touch-sensitive, and there are also buttons, that apart from being pressure-sensitive, are also touch sensitive. Like volume buttons on the steering wheel, where if you try to feel for them without looking, you end up accidentally "swiping" and turning your volume up to the max.

The whole touch cluster on the left of the steering wheel, just below the vent, is a disaster, too. If I want to check the temperature of the air that's blowing into the cabin, I end up accidentally turning off the lights, turning on rear antifog lights, and turning on defroster heating for the windshield. The next minute or so is spent trying to get everything back to normal.

The rule should be that everything in the car needs to be a physically actuated button, and touching those buttons without pressing them should only ever light them up or show help messages, never perform any action.

Vespasian
15 replies
7h51m

I ultimately decided against an MEB based model because the (steering wheel) UX felt almost unusable during my test drive. I partcularily struggeled with the cruise control swipe-click and hilariously the window switch.

The car i ultimately settled on has worse overall infotainment software but physical controls which can be operated blindely and reliably.

No wonder VW is already in the process of correcting this disastrous, budget driven, decision.

moogly
5 replies
6h1m

Doesn't Skoda have pretty sensible steering wheels still?

ack
2 replies
4h41m

The Skoda I just rented in Portugal has real controls but they were really horrible. Even once I got used to their locations, I regularly made something happened than I wanted. Rear windows open instead of front, etc. There's even a control for the digital dashpanel enticing one to play with the display while driving.

moogly
0 replies
4h5m

I really wonder how much money you can save by removing the individual rear window buttons and instead adding a modal touch "rear" button, like VAG has started doing.

a_gnostic
0 replies
2h53m

Had an old Chevy with similar problems. Ended up taking a Dremel to the rear window controls, a bit of roughness is all it took.

arethuza
0 replies
5h32m

They do but I would say the design of the two scroll/click wheels has got worse in the last couple of years.

Vespasian
0 replies
5h57m

Yes I should have limited my comment to VW, Cupra and Seat(?)

Maakuth
4 replies
7h32m

And how much cheaper can this stuff really be than real buttons?

heavyset_go
1 replies
7h11m

Can the buttons show you ads and upsell you on features?

Maakuth
0 replies
6h17m

That's just it - these are no more customizable than real buttons! They come with preprinted symbols for their function, so no cost advantage of customization.

hef19898
0 replies
7h25m

Enough. Also, these design changes were advocated for by the CEO at the time.

Bluestrike2
0 replies
3h23m

We're talking a few dollars per unit for the various capacitive buttons, if that. Steering wheel controls already connect over CAN bus so it's not like you're saving a great length of wire, for example. They still connect to controllers, etc. Even tiny savings add up, but the cost of non-capacitive buttons is something they could recoup with almost zero effort.

Instead, it's almost certainly a design choice: they're easier to design around and 'feel' futuristic. Or that's what the designers and marketers think, anyhow.

The bigger cost-savings are in the touchscreen infotainment systems, where they get to eliminate the physical cost of a ton of buttons while simplifying manufacturing and parts inventory (no having to deal with a bunch of different trim parts to accommodate buttons for various options, etc.). That's probably the biggest reason why consumer pushback against touchscreens has taken so damn long to barely start having an effect.

hef19898
3 replies
7h48m

VW went so far into left field with their controls on the ID-series, it is embarassing. Good to hear that they correct.

Vespasian
2 replies
7h31m

Just my own thought but I believe they were under immense pressure to achieve similar (or even some) margins with their very first broad market BEV, as they are getting with comparable ICE models.

As a car the MEB siblings are not bad at all and by now the software is fine I hear, but they cut just to many ergonomic corners instead of accepting the costs of getting started in a slightly different market segment.

hef19898
1 replies
7h26m

Funny thing is, Skoda is doing better (no real news so), despite using the same platform.

What definitely didn't help, was putting a self-declared Tesla fanboy in the CEO seat. Only Tesla is Tesla, no other brand can get away with Tesla stuff. Should have been clear for VW, as they lived of marketing to sell overpriced cars for decades.

foobarian
0 replies
3h46m

I think you're right, this is not a financial decision but cargo culting at its best. Just look at what happened to phones after iPhone 1 came out.

kevincox
7 replies
7h17m

The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.

By Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

ndsipa_pomu
3 replies
5h43m

Can people please stop implementing ideas that were intended as satire?

drewzero1
1 replies
4h37m

Or as social criticism! A lot of tech giants seem to be trying to bring about the techno-future of scifi and completely missing the point that a lot of it is a dystopian hellscape serving as a thin veil over commentary on contemporary society.

ChainOfFools
0 replies
3h11m

The sense that you're being asked, or coerced, to participate in realizing someone's shallow, misunderstood, but aggressively peddled reading of a dystopian social commentary fantasy scenario is very near to the heart of what makes tech bro culture so obnoxious for everyone else.

MR4D
0 replies
2h49m

No. That's the only way we know we're in a simulation. Reality could never be this stupid.

Silasdev
2 replies
3h29m

Did Douglas Adams travel in time.... this is scarily accurate!!! My BMW keeps turning off the volume if I wave at anything in the direction of the touchscreen. There is a little infrared camera near the roof that can sense hand-gestures and turn volume up or down ... and lots of other things.

Douglas Adams so spot on I want to cry!

papichulo4
0 replies
3h6m

Um, hello friend. Turn gesture controls off. It's in the settings.

graphe
0 replies
2h37m

You did buy a car without a dipstick, what do you expect? BMWs are fun to drive and are horrible too maintain. I remember helping someone because the radiator melted a reservoir tank, such a terrible design I never looked at another one!!

They should need forced to make dipsticks but the EU doesn't care when it's a European company. The EU is more anti American companies than actually caring.

parchley
1 replies
4h32m

I took and ID3 for a test drive, an accidentally activated the speed limiter on the highway. That got quite scary, and it took ages to realize I had to swipe on one of the fake buttons to disable it.

Compared to ID4, ID3 has another epic cost saving measure: They removed the two switches for the rear windows from the driver door, and replaced it with a toggle switch that decides whether the switches for the front windows really control the front windows, or the rear ones. So in total they saved one physical switch, but made the user experience much worse.

I also skipped the entire ID-family due to that. At least the Enyaq (Skoda's ID4) has a much better setup with physical buttons on the steering wheel, and more physical buttons for the console.

matsemann
0 replies
3h52m

Same. Rented an ID3 for a weekend. Will never drive one again. Almost lethal design decisions on that car.

jval43
1 replies
2h42m

I was in the market for a car, and initially really wanted a Tesla or VW / ID, but with no buttons, no dials, and on the Tesla additionally no parking sensors, wonky rain sensors combined with missing stalks and no straight-on speedometer, it quickly became clear to me these were all potential usability and safety issues.

I found a nice Toyota instead with a button for every function, and everything just works.

helij
0 replies
1h49m

May I ask which Toyota. Did you go with their EV model?

maxerickson
0 replies
6h24m

I bet you get bad controls even with a rigid prescription.

And then your rigid rule would prevent something like having a touch menu for a setup function that you would never have good reason to adjust while driving. Likely making it worse.

marginalien
0 replies
1h59m

I have been driving an ID.4 for almost three years by now. I consider much of what others criticize here in terms of UI, touch-sensitive buttons etc. to be „not great“ either but it did work for me. I didn’t really care to be honest.

What did not work for me was the re-charging experience on longer trips. I do not want to „subscribe“ to anything just to recharge my car in a reasonable amount of time. But even with a hypercharger it still takes way too long and without the „right“ subscription you feel like they steal your money from you. This is the worst from my POV when it comes to EVs, this is where they felt like inferior technology and business model to me as a consumer. Guess what, even though I was always a fan of EVs and hybrids (even drove three different models of Toyota Prius prior to my ID.4) my next car will be a traditional one (Hyundai Tucson to be precise).

btown
0 replies
4h23m

An ability to turn volume up to the max, unintentionally, is a safety issue, IMO. And more generally, I wonder how many “took my eye off the road for the radio” accident reports are actually a result of bad physical UX.

andix
0 replies
2h33m

I think it’s really hard to get good UX by setting up some simple rules. In the end we need good UX, however this is done.

For things like lights or wipers the solutions from the past are quite good I would say.

For things like the Tesla turn signal buttons I would actually prefer to have both buttons and the traditional stalk. Depending on the situation one is superior of the other.

aurareturn
24 replies
17h5m

Around 10 years ago, I started looking into buying a new car. I couldn't believe the number of cars that switched to touch controls even 10 years ago. It boggles my mind just how car makers thought it was safer/easier to have touch in a car while one is driving. I refused to buy any car that replaced physical buttons with touch controls 10 years ago and I still have this rule today.

Then again, it also boggles my mind how car makers in the US continue to use flashing red lights as the turn signal instead of yellow lights. You can barely see the red light in sunlight and it's harder to tell the red light from brake lights. Furthermore, the same car will have yellow signal lights in the front and side. So yellow signal lights in front and side, red in the back. Just make it all yellow for turn signal!

branko_d
6 replies
14h21m

Then again, it also boggles my mind how car makers in the US continue to use flashing red lights as the turn signal instead of yellow lights.

Technology Connections channel had a video about that a while back:

https://youtu.be/O1lZ9n2bxWA?si=xKRgMFK1DFBrB3i0

donatj
2 replies
8h5m

I know Technology Connections complains about it all the time, but I don’t feel like he’s even made a case, he just asserts over and over “and we ALL agree it’s awful” as if he asserts it strongly enough it will become true.

Why is it a problem? How is a red blinker actually measurably worse than an amber one?

I have never had any sort of issue interpreting a blinking red taillight as turning? With red, you can more easily tell the direction of travel and the aesthetics of a single color are far nicer. I frankly don’t see the problem.

Commenter a couple levels up says you can’t see red blinkers in the sunlight? I don’t think that’s true on any measurable level, amber is a far closer match in hue to sunlight than red.

dchest
1 replies
6h50m

"A 2008 US study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests vehicles with amber rear signals rather than red ones are up to 28% less likely to be involved in certain kinds of collisions,[81] a followup 2009 NHTSA study determined there to be a significant overall safety benefit to amber rather than red rear turn signals,[82] US studies in the early 1990s demonstrated improvements in the speed and accuracy of drivers' reactions to the stop lights of vehicles ahead when the turn signals were amber rather than red,[76][83][84][85][86]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_lighting#Turn_signa...

donatj
0 replies
6h11m

Whoever wrote that section of the Wikipedia page either didn’t read the cited documents or heavily cherry-picked.

The cited document for that “up to 28%” actually states that a first analysis found amber lights leading to a reduction in being struck “between 3 and 28%” Quite a range of uncertainty.

The very same document also states that in their second analysis they found no correlation between signal color and odds of being struck.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120712231313/http://www.nhtsa....

Another one of the cited documents goes so far as to say

Richard Van Iderstine: We have studied the crash involvement of vehicles having yellow rear turn signal lights versus red ones. With our data, we have found it challenging to prove that yellow is better than red.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37484-2004No...

And yet another of the cited sources states

Analyses revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in rear-end accident rates between the red and amber turn-signal systems.

https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/81...

—-

Based on the actual text of the citations I’m inclined to believe there’s very little difference.

And I don’t see how there could be. The only practical difference I see between a red signal and amber signal is that the signal might ever so briefly interpreted as a brake light activating before the first cycle completes. The course of action of the driver behind in either case is to slow down, so it’s a distinction without a difference in action.

userbinator
1 replies
12h47m

Flashing red = car is pointed away from you

Flashing yellow = car is pointed towards you

It's the same reason why headlights are white and taillights are not (unless reversing, in which case the tail becomes the head temporarily, and thus white reversing lights.)

knorker
0 replies
9h52m

That's what tail lights are for.

aurareturn
0 replies
12h36m

It boggles my mind. It really does. I refuse to buy a car that uses red turn signals.

pwg
5 replies
16h43m

It boggles my mind just how car makers thought it was safer/easier to have touch in a car while one is driving.

It is likely that neither safety nor ease of use were part of the automaker's "thought process".

It is much more likely that a first misguided "designer" created the first touch panel control and somehow sold it to "management" as being "futuristic" and/or "ahead of the competition". And once the first car model arrived with one, the rest, like firefox to chrome, felt the need to play the imitation game for fear of being seen as not as "trendy" or "futuristic" as that other guy. I.e., purely the "fashion trend" aspect.

Then, as they proliferated, the reduced BOM costs from removing every other previous mechanical control was reverse justified as the reason for continuing to add them to ever more car models.

drc500free
1 replies
11h39m

My understanding is that the real driver is in being able to decouple the design of the controls from the rest of the interior design. I read somewhere that being able to design those in parallel with fewer dependencies makes a significant different in getting the car into production on time.

ryukoposting
0 replies
4h45m

Yep. Putting as much of your UX as possible in one place makes product development a LOT more efficient. It doesn't always make the product better, though.

userbinator
0 replies
13h33m

Safety was part of the thought process --- just enough to get by whatever regulations are currently in effect.

lelanthran
0 replies
13h21m

Well, yes, that's the main reason - it's cheaper.

There are other reasons of course - planned obsolesence is a big one. Why would they want cars to work after the primary owner is done with it? With software-everything they can lock the car to the first 3 or 4 owners, and then remotely kill it.

It doesn't even have to be actively disabled, just stop providing the replacement head unit as a part because "we don't have that software anymore".

hnbad
0 replies
8h18m

There's a simple selling point to touch panels that most people here seem to be missing: it decouples the software/firmware from the hardware.

Car manufacturers want to be able to change cars after they are sold. This can be in the positive via OTA updates that fix firmware issues or in the negative by providing "subscription" features that provide a passive income beyond the initial sale. Tesla has been paving a path here with its grandiose claims of "full self-driving" and industrial manufacturers like John Deere have been experimenting with bringing smartphone-style DRM and rent-seeking to motor vehicles. Replacing as many "hardcoded" physical controls with flexible and fungible virtual controls is a logical part of the transition.

Why bother producing five different physical "editions" if you can just produce one and then downgrade it in four different ways by gimping the firmware or disabling controls in the UI? This way you can also upsell the features later or put them in a subscription model.

bolasanibk
2 replies
17h2m

I would the main driver was economics. It would be easier and cheaper to manufacture one big screen in the middle compared to a bunch of physical controls with wiring.

Also makes it easier to change things later in the design if you do not have a bunch of physical controls to move.

aurareturn
0 replies
17h1m

I get the cheaper and the ability to update thing.

But if any car makers had done any proper UX testing, they'd quickly find out that physical buttons in a car is a non-negotiable.

ahartmetz
0 replies
16h41m

Do not forget the massive "tablets are the future of computing" hype because Apple released a thing. Touchscreens were super cool by association. It was all pretty stupid. I say that as someone who creates mostly software for touchscreens... using keyboard and mouse because they are much better input devices. You just need the space and the budget for them.

tpmoney
1 replies
16h56m

It boggles my mind just how car makers thought it was safer/easier to have touch in a car while one is driving.

Does anyone actually think that though? Or was it considered “good enough” in light of its other benefits like reducing costs, reducing BOM, eliminating part design work, reducing wiring complexity, adding flexibility and customizability, (potentially) increased reliability, making it easier to jam the multitudes of controls and options a modern car has into a more usable and understandable interface, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, when I bought a new car, one of the selling points was the manufacturer was one of the few to still offer physical control and navigation of the touch screens (in fact the touch functionality is completely disabled at any speed faster than 5 mph). But I don’t think “safer and easier to use while driving” has ever been the driver for touch interfaces in cars.

aurareturn
0 replies
16h52m

Yes yes I get the cheaper/update factor of touch controls. And I don't mind a touch screen for complicated functionality.

I mainly gripe about losing physical buttons for main functions such as temperature control, radio/music control, lights, windshield wipers, etc.

PH95VuimJjqBqy
1 replies
7h30m

are you me? I did the exact same thing in roughly the same timeframe. Went to a toyota dealership, when I realized all the vehicles were touch I asked if I could get one without and they told me they don't do that anymore.

I walked out and just continued driving the corolla I had (still have it to this day). When I needed a minivan I purchased an older honda odyssey and fixed it up.

serpix
0 replies
7h25m

Hyundai and Kia has buttons.

2143
1 replies
13h3m

Then again, it also boggles my mind how car makers in the US continue to use flashing red lights as the turn signal instead of yellow lights.

This is probably a US government regulation thing. Because those same cars sold elsewhere in the world does have flashing yellow lights as indicators.

kevin_thibedeau
0 replies
12h21m

It's an allowance not a requirement. Some models that used to have amber indicators have been switched over to red for the cost savings.

ceejayoz
0 replies
16h59m

Then again, it also boggles my mind how car makers in the US continue to use flashing red lights as the turn signal instead of yellow lights. You can barely see the red light in sunlight and it's harder to tell the red light from brake lights.

I'm also starting to see really thin - single narrow LED strip - turn signals that are barely visible next to the much larger headlight nearby.

Aloisius
0 replies
14h20m

You can barely see the red light in sunlight and it's harder to tell the red light from brake lights

I can't say that I've ever had trouble seeing the red turn signals in the sun. Being able to see them in the sun from a few hundred feet away is legally required in most, if not all, states.

Do you have trouble seeing brake lights too?

breadwinner
19 replies
16h56m

Couldn't agree more. Tesla is the biggest violator. In new Teslas, they are removing physical stalks, so if you want to reverse the car, you have to use on-screen controls!

izzydata
10 replies
16h23m

Everything I ever hear about Tesla's keeps getting worse and worse. How are they still in business and why does anyone buy one?

nunez
3 replies
15h19m

best electric cars in the business, though that gap is shrinking. their automotive infotainment ux is second to none. it's miles better than carplay.

Vespasian
1 replies
13h6m

Never having driven a Tesla, I'm legitimately curious how much of a difference the infotainment makes.

The onboard system of my Chinese BEV is not great to be honest (rest of the car works well) but it has Android Auto so it navigates and plays my media.

Since as a sole driver I have to keep my eyes on the road at all times, it seems possible that passengers could benefit but I would like to have some first hand reports.

Or is it common for some people to sit in the car and use the infotainment just for fun?

(I swear that I'm asking in good faith)

nunez
0 replies
3h59m

i've rented electric cars for the last three years and own a Model 3. massive difference.

yes, the tesla doesn't have buttons. however, basically every common operation you'll do can be done in five actions or less.

if i want to navigate somewhere with our tesla, i simply tap the navigation search bar, enter the destination like I would on Google Maps, select and drive. Or i can share the destination with the Tesla app from Google or Apple Maps.

It's at least four taps with CarPlay to do this...and you're hoping that it doesn't crash mid-drive (like it's done to me so many times before). Google Automotive actually does a really great job here, but that's only shipped with select cars.

i can swipe left or right on the cabin temp to adjust upwards or downwards. many cars have dedicated controls for them, but some, like the Kia EV6, use that strip for multiple uses, so you think you're changing cabin temp, but you're actually adjusting sound volume.

ADAS (Lane Keep Assist, Autosteer, adaptive cruise, etc) is where the Tesla experience shines most brightly. On EVERY OTHER CAR, configuring ADAS involves navigating a labyrinthine maze of menus, guessing what a bunch of acronyms mean (LKA, HDA, VCC, etc. Toyotas are the worst at this), and, when it's on, figuring out if it's actually on (autosteer is the worst about this) and hoping you'll develop muscle memory in changing speed and stuff from the steering wheel.

On Teslas, you single- or double-tap the gear stalk or press a button on the steering wheel. To configure, tap the car, tap "Autopilot," go nuts. The only acronym in this menu is FSD, and it's spelled out (full self-driving). the small speed indicator turns blue if traffic-aware cruise control is on; the wheel on the display turns blue if autosteer is on; and the display shows you its view of the world at all times.

hankman86
0 replies
7h56m

What makes you say that? An EV is more than the drivetrain (where Tesla’s are said to be more efficient). EVs from other manufacturers have batter suspension, noise insulation, steering etc.

Have never seen their infotainment system. My BMW i4 has CarPlay - what else would I want?

infotainment
3 replies
16h20m

Have you seen the other BEVs available in America? There really isn't much choice if you don't want an SUV -- your options are basically a Tesla or a Chevy Bolt.

bengale
0 replies
5h52m

Great car. Suffers from some of the touchscreen-itis but nowhere near the Tesla nonsense. Not even in the same ballpark.

delecti
0 replies
1h16m

I just got a Mercedes EQB and it's great. Depending on trim it's either about the same price or somewhat cheaper than a Model X. There are physical controls for damn near everything too. The voice assistant isn't terrible, but Carplay/Android Auto is standard anyway so who cares.

Disclaimer: mine is a subsidized employee lease.

jbm
0 replies
16h12m

I bought a used Model 3 that has the stalk and works fine. (The lack of wiper controls is absolutely ridiculous and is part of the Jonny Ive-ification of cars)

As for why they are in business, it is because they were first to market with Electric cars, and as a consumer I trust they are better at battery management than other companies that are not all-in on electric. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that the degenerate billionaires that run other car companies are not better than the degenerate billionaire who runs Tesla.

(I would not buy the new models wo/ physical controls, my next electric car will probably be something Chinese in 10 years)

breadwinner
0 replies
15h37m

Tesla's keeps getting worse and worse.

Oh, and they replaced ultrasonic sensors with cameras in newer cars.

ggreer
3 replies
13h0m

Is someone forcing you to drive a Tesla?

Yes, many people find these touch screens annoying, and they’ll tend to buy cars with physical controls. But just like people who prefer physical keyboards on their phones, these consumers are a vocal minority who aren’t big enough to cater to.

If touch screens make cars less safe, then we should see higher liability insurance rates for such cars. So far that doesn’t seem to be the case.

devsda
1 replies
12h22m

Is someone forcing you to drive a Tesla?

The same argument can be made about other products too but it only distracts from the real problem.

Bad practises and products do stick around regardless of their actual usefulness and benefits.

For example take headphone jack. Nobody forced anyone to buy an Apple phone without a headphone jack, yet it is a challenge now to find a good premium/mid-range phone with a headphone jack. Other OEMs are simply copying Apple and people too get along with the new trend.

The same is happening with touch controls too. Once a popular desirable brand introduces an (anti)feature, its competitors misunderstand the feature as a contributing factor for its desirability and blindly copy it without getting into actual merits.

ggreer
0 replies
11h54m

You overestimate how much people want headphone jacks. Most people today use Bluetooth headphones and don’t miss their headphone jacks at all. I honestly forgot that my phone lacked a headphone jack until you pointed it out. That is how little I use wired headphones.

Moreover, why would every manufacturer copy a design that consumers don’t want? If the feature is so widely desired, it would only take one manufacturer not removing the headphone jack to win market share. Your model of the world requires every manufacturer to be incompetent in the same way. A much simpler explanation is that phones are a very competitive market and the manufacturers have calculated that, like physical keyboards, headphone jacks are not a feature most people care about. They prefer the headphone jack be sacrificed for better water resistance, better battery life, and lower cost.

kabes
0 replies
11h54m

No but because so many people still buy tesla because they're cheap and despite the lack of controls, suits at other manufacturers think they now have to get rid of physical controls as well.

piotrkaminski
1 replies
15h41m

if you want to reverse the car, you have to use on-screen controls!

So? If you're switching to reverse then by definition you're stopped (or nearly so) and can afford to take your eyes off the road. The control is no further than most cars' center tunnel-mounted gear levers. Plus it only has the two common drive/reverse settings accessible via the swiping action, rather than all the rarely-used options. (Do you know how many times I've shifted into Neutral or Low by mistake in an unfamiliar car...?)

What exactly is the risk?

culopatin
0 replies
15h25m

That you can still look at your surroundings with the stalk and keep a tab on what people around you are doing. Without the stalk someone can walk into a blind spot and you didn’t catch them because you were finding reverse on the screen. The person next to you is getting ready to open their door. Or simply you want to make a 3 point turn quickly without being stopped in the middle of the street fiddling with a screen

illumin8
1 replies
16h54m

There are still physical P, R, N, D controls right below the phone chargers. They aren't exactly easy to use, though.

dkjaudyeqooe
0 replies
16h18m

On some models they are above the windscreen.

Ergonomic design at its finest.

tristor
15 replies
15h43m

This was the primary reason I bought my 2024 Mazda3, instead of alternatives in market. The Mazda was the only option that had physical controls for everything. In fact it disables the touch screen altogether when you exceed 10mph, forcing the use of physical controls. It works flawlessly with wireless carplay

culopatin
11 replies
15h30m

The Mazda 3 is such a pretty car in and out. I wish there was an AWD turbo manual or a fully electric one. Either one will make me replace the Prius.

noirbot
7 replies
13h15m

I've owned one for so long and it makes me so upset that Mazda doesn't have an EV yet. I just want my current car as an EV and I'd be happy.

speedgoose
5 replies
13h0m

They do sell en EV in some places, the MX-30. It’s a terrible EV that was outdated before its release, so that’s perhaps why they don’t try to sell it more. We are talking about the company that still invest in internal combustion engines so don’t have too high hopes.

freeAgent
2 replies
9h1m

They are partnering with Toyota on future EVs, not that Toyota has been a leader there either…

ProllyInfamous
1 replies
8m

Toyota has not been a leader in full-EVs because they believe that most customers want a non-charging hybrid solution — one they "just put gas in to" and forget about anything else.

IMHO, this is the correct solution for all but a handful of commuters (e.g. a WFH citydweller could probably enjoy a full EV, but not for vacations).

freeAgent
0 replies
4m

Yeah, I know it’s an intentional strategy. I’m just commenting that I wouldn’t have particularly high hopes in the near term for Mazda EVs due to the Toyota partnership. Toyota are one of the leading companies researching solid state batteries, though (or so it seems), so that could be a game changer.

izacus
0 replies
10h20m

Yeah, that car was only made to satisfy EV quotas for offsets :/

culopatin
0 replies
7m

But that’s a quasi suv. I want a car.

izacus
0 replies
10h21m

Yeah, I was hoping to replace mine with something like a modern 6 PHEV but they went full on SUV these days. A pity, their interior and UX design is still second to none

ProllyInfamous
1 replies
10m

I test drove a Prius, then bought a Camry Hybrid (2021).

It has physical buttons for everything except the radio... much better vehicle.

culopatin
0 replies
7m

Completely different category too. It’s too long and drives like a boat for what I like.

tristor
0 replies
15h28m

I wish the Turbo AWD (which is what I have) was available as a manual as well, but I will say the transmission in it is pretty decent.

benhurmarcel
2 replies
8h54m

It's a shame that Mazda is so late on electric cars. They were a great option.

hankman86
0 replies
8h15m

Agree. Mazda has the best design among Japanese carmakers. They will probably end up as a sub brand of some Chinese EV maker.

coldpie
0 replies
3h59m

Yep. My 2011 Mazda3 is great but getting on in age and we'd like to switch to an EV. Sadly Mazda's not in the running at all :( Probably will get either the Ioniq 5 or Kia EV6, whichever has fewer touch screen controls.

cfr2023
14 replies
15h26m

The trend of touch screens replacing physical controls in domains where muscle memory is an advantage is an utter atrocity.

No amount of interface versatility/flexibility can come close to touching the utility of not having to take your eyes off your subject. NONE.

thepasswordis
11 replies
15h0m

Not to mention that on cars like Tesla, UI updates will change the location of these buttons.

This drives me INSANE. The other one: some of the Tesla UIs feel like they were made with "minimalism" in mind. For instance the rear defroster vs the windshield defroster. I still, 3 years into my model Y, have no idea which is which, and every time I need to defrost the front windshield it's like a fight against the HVAC system and buttons and touchscreens to make it do anything.

I love my tesla, probably to the point of being annoying, but I **HATE** the ridiculous "minimalist" UI stuff, and I absolutely hate it when they push a UI update which moves things around.

lelanthran
9 replies
13h18m

How is it possible to love a car that does things you hate when there are other cars at the same price that does everything the object of your love does, and doesn't do the things you hate?

It sounds like an irrational love for the car.

Dylan16807
5 replies
11h20m

What's your list of other cars that have the same charging network access and self-driving capabilities?

lelanthran
3 replies
10h12m

What's your list of other cars that have the same charging network access and self-driving capabilities?

Well, the list of other cars that will kill you if you take your hands of the wheels is ... just about anything, right?

And then you're dead, so have no use for a charging network anyway, too.

So, basically, for just that one feature, you can use just about any other car.

The list is, essentially, everything else!

bboygravity
0 replies
9h15m

Somebody read too much CNBC and/or NYT.

Dylan16807
0 replies
8h15m

What if I don't take my hands off.

Biganon
0 replies
1h3m

And yet we drove those cars for 100 years, with our hands on the effin wheel.

Vespasian
0 replies
6h31m

In part Europe thew answer for the first is "all of them".

(And yes that works. I recently finished a 2k+ road trip in Germany and had no issues at all. Plug and charge worked flawlessly on every DC fast charger I visited. AC charging worked by swiping my RFID card).

thepasswordis
0 replies
3h57m

other cars at the same price that does everything the object of your love does

Because there aren't? My tesla has FSD which I use for the majority of my driving, it looks cool, it's really fast, I really like the in dash display (just don't like UI updates, and some very specific parts of the HVAC controls).

This is such a funny question to me. Do you love your city? Is there *nothing* you dislike about it?

speedgoose
0 replies
12h54m

Which other car in the similar price range can fart on demand from the mobile app?

rsynnott
0 replies
7h20m

It is legally required for all complaints about Tesla to start with "I love my car, but..."

(This is so near-universal that I vaguely suspect that there's a non-disparagement agreement you have to sign when you buy one).

teruakohatu
0 replies
13h49m

Why do you love a car with anti-features that annoy you so much? I am genuinely curious, as I have only driven a Tesla once or twice.

lizard
0 replies
13h34m

I don't have a problem so much with the touch screen itself. It's a waste for a lot a things and I frequently just turn my screen off, but it is nice to be able to bring up a map with directions and arrival estimates.

But I am constantly disappointed by just how awful and useless the software is.

Need some directions? Sorry, I can auto-play this music station you haven't used in a week, but if you want those directions you looked up on your way out the best I can do is (maybe) have the address in your recent search history.

Want to resume the music you were streaming from your phone through your media center? Yeah, just give me a few minutes to load up this other UI and...Are you sure you have a music app on your phone? Maybe you just need to add it to the car app? Here, let me bring that up on your phone screen. Hold up. There's some audio coming through the bluetooth, I'll just play that.

Want to see why the "Check Engine" light came on? Oh, well for that you need to buy a $50 dongle with Bluetooth and install an app on your phone.

globular-toast
0 replies
8h28m

I hate them in all applications that don't benefit from touch and even in many that do. For example, electric cookers. Despite being easier to clean I still find them absolutely infuriating to interact with, plus cats can activate them.

Most of the time, though, they are implemented simply because it's cheaper. There's no benefit to speak of. In fact, I think the only device for which a touch interface works is a smartphone. I can't think of any others.

oidar
8 replies
16h44m

If I was buying a new car in the US today, which automakers are doing a better job wrt physical controls?

binarymax
4 replies
15h35m

Another vote for Mazda here. But I’m not sure about 2023/2024 models

cyphereal
2 replies
14h40m

I have a Mazda 2020 CX30. The display is not a touch screen and using CarPlay with the physical selector drives me nuts (it's also dangerous).

I like physical controls for everything else, but please make displays for e.g. CarPlay touch screens.

noirbot
0 replies
13h10m

Yea, I generally agree with that. At least in my '14 model, it also has some weird internal gate where it won't let you scroll through more than 5-10 items in a list while you're going more than 5 MPH. And if you're stopped, and scrolling further than that, it resets you to the start of the list if you start moving. It's infuriating when I'm just trying to play an album that doesn't start with A-D.

I can understand disabling touchscreen scrolling while driving, but at least save my place in the list.

iakov
0 replies
8h32m

In my 2016 Mazda 3 the physical selector is superb - rotating it scrolls through on-screen CarPlay buttons, pressing it activates the highlighted item. Way less dangerous IMO than reaching to the screen, trying to touch it with some degree of precision.

tass
0 replies
14h52m

Mazda have taken physical controls as a core part of their design philosophy. I don’t see them going away any time soon.

xyzelement
0 replies
16h11m

I have a 2021 Toyota Highlander and always fail to relate to these threads. Everything that matters is a physical control.

freeAgent
0 replies
8h56m

Mazda, and there is no close second.

Rebelgecko
0 replies
16h22m

I really like Mazda's setup. Honda CRV setup is pretty good too. It seems like a lot of manufacturers are moving towards at least restoring physical controls for climate.

evanjrowley
7 replies
14h19m

I am waiting for the day when mechanical keyboard enthusiasts finally put kailh hot swap sockets into a car's controls. Then we can have debates about whether car controls should be tactile, linear, or clicky. GMK keycaps for German cars. Japanese cars with Topre switches. Anime dye-sub keycaps on ricers. QMK firmware forked and re-written in MISRA-C. It would be grand.

golergka
4 replies
14h16m

Some people should be chiming in to say how annoying the click sounds are to the passengers.

evanjrowley
1 replies
14h12m

I wonder if RGB backlighting would increase or decrease safety.

masklinn
0 replies
8h17m

Modern cars already have a ton of unnecessary RGB backlighting and I hate it so much. It’s really distracting at night to have trim LEDs reflect in every glass surface.

asyx
1 replies
11h13m

I guess the passengers can take the bus then

onetom
0 replies
11h2m

Which bus? The CAN bus? :)

llm_trw
1 replies
8h7m

Obviously clicky, you want to know when actuation has actually happened. Just like keyboards.

delecti
0 replies
1h29m

I hate clicky keyboards, because there's usually a pretty quick on-screen result from hitting the button, and you might press keys tens of thousands of times in a day. Love me some tactile.

But in a car when you might interact with controls a couple dozen times per trip? Absolutely clicky.

throwaway22032
4 replies
16h43m

The idea that a touch screen is cheaper than buttons and that this is the driving factor I find hilarious. It's some top tier bean counter shit.

I mean, yeah, sure. It'd be cheaper for my tyres to be made of wood. I don't give a toss, a new vehicle costs tens of thousands, what's $50 for a few buttons?

edit: Top tier bean counter replies! Is it contagious?

lelanthran
0 replies
13h5m

I don't give a toss, a new vehicle costs tens of thousands, what's $50 for a few buttons?

I don't think you've ever worked in manufacturing.

It's not just the cost of the buttons.

A larger cost is the fabrication of the housing for all the buttons: design the housing that goes into the dashboard/console, create a jig/die, continue creating new jigs/dies as the old ones wear out, keep the factory floorspace available even after the car has gone out of production, etc. This has to be done for each car model (yeah, even if you're using blanks).

Another cost that dwarves the cost of buying buttons is the fitment: the fitment robots have to be purchased, programmed and maintained just to put those $50 buttons in. It has to be done for each car model.

And, of course, design changes late in the process cause the manufacturer to spend all that money all over again.

Spread over the lifetime of the car (how long they keep providing parts for it), a minimum of around 5 years, that $50 is negligible compared to the tens of millions of dollars poured into fabricating and fitting of those $50 buttons.

Compared to a touchscreen, all that's done is to ensure that the dashboard design has a housing for the touchscreen. Done, and works for all models from baseline to top-end with no more money needed.

icegreentea2
0 replies
16h25m

I just randomly picked Ford for this. Ford had like 176 billion in revenue last year, but their cost of goods was like 150 billion and their final net income was 4.35 billion. Ford sells on the order of 5 million vehicles per year.

If you can generate $50 dollars of COGs reduction in a car, that's 250 million per year. Yes, that's basically nothing in terms of their COGs, but that's like 5% increase in net income (if they can channel all of the savings into the net income anyways). Alternatively, if you want to be less cynical, Ford's R&D budget comes from that ~20 billion dollar slice between their revenue, COGs and final net income. 250 million is still a pretty ~1% slice of their R&D budget.

dzhiurgis
0 replies
14h24m

Buttons are cheap to manufacture. Their design, testing, installation and support - not so much.

danparsonson
0 replies
16h36m

Across ten thousand units? Half a million dollars. Not much in the grand scheme of things but not nothing.

fransje26
1 replies
8h39m

I did not watch the video linked in the previous post (yet!), but a fun fact is that for the F-35, they decided it was a great idea to use touchscreens instead of push buttons, and they are finding out the hard way it was.. ..not the best of choices.

It turns out that not having tactile feedback means that pilots are pressing the wrong button about 20% of the time. Even more so under g-loads..

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/technical-difficult...

ChrisMarshallNY
0 replies
8h2m

In the first version of The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman, he has a photo of the control panel for a nuclear reactor.

There are two large levers, that, if I remember correctly, actuated the control rods. They were right next each other.

The engineers replaced the two identical knobs, with handles from beer taps (Michelob and Heineken, IIRC). This differentiated the two controls.

ChrisMarshallNY
0 replies
15h55m

Awesome!

wnevets
3 replies
15h41m

In 2026, Euro NCAP points will be deducted if some controls aren't physical.

Euro NCAP is not a government regulator, so it has no power to mandate carmakers use physical controls for those functions.

Why isn't this headline clickbait, what am I missing?

edit: the headline used to have the word Regulator in it.

magicalhippo
0 replies
15h36m

That some consumers, maybe even many, pay attention to NCAP ratings before buying a car.

culopatin
0 replies
15h31m

Car manufacturers still like their cars to look good and some people do look at those ratings when buying a car. Or you think people bought the old Volvo 240 because it’s sexy?

arlort
0 replies
12h26m

Not too familiar with this specific sector, but I can see two reasons why this could be more than nothing

1. If the evaluator is well established it's likely companies would be negatively impacted if they get lower scores even if it just means lower sales rather than an outright ban

2. It seems that while Euro NCAP is not a regulator it is pretty involved with national agencies, so this might be a signal that things are starting to move towards official rules. Of the "self-regulate or you will be regulated" variety

switch007
3 replies
11h6m

My Ford has no physical buttons for climate control (except “Max”). If I want to direct the air at the windscreen and my feet full blast, I have to:

- Tap the fan direction button

- wait 2 seconds for it to load

- tap windscreen and feet. Each selection lags at least 1 second

- tap fan speed

- drag a narrow, laggy slider up/down to the desired position

I hate it. The auto setting doesn’t blow the feet hard enough when it’s wet, to dry your feet. It’s wet about 9 months of the year here.

Another bad UX is to change the drive mode:

- press the physical button

- tap the screen to select the desired mode

- tap a tiny back button (there is no timeout to auto go back to previous screen)

You would think the physical button would toggle through the modes, but no !

filcuk
1 replies
8h27m

MG4, when I turn on A/C or defog, the navigation is overlayed by an A/C controls screen, which must be tapped in a specific small area to get rid of it. I still fumble with it every damn time after six months of use.

dTP90pN
0 replies
6h56m

You can "wipe"/"drag" upwards to exit the A/C overlay (just like, for example, android quick settings/notifications).

Of course, you have to do this the "correct way", which in and of itself requires a bit of experimentation to learn.

seydor
0 replies
6h57m

The most important thing is that, all this time, your attention is on the screen and not on the road

adwf
3 replies
16h59m

Good. My Tesla doesn't have a stalk for wiper control and it's just awful UX. The auto function is erratic (often triggers on a sunny day, doesn't pick the right level in the rain). Might be fine for sunny California infrequent use, but terrible for England.

I'd much rather have easy full control at my fingertips than have to faff about with scroll wheels or the touch screen.

croes
2 replies
13h13m

How about buying an other car?

speedgoose
1 replies
12h50m

The challenge is that other cars are either worse or more expensive.

A Tesla with some aftermarket modes (the sexy buttons for example) is still interesting despite its shortcomings. The perfect product doesn’t exists.

adwf
0 replies
43m

Exactly. I love the car in so many other ways that it just really makes some decisions stand out as ridiculous. Why try and skimp $50 manufacturing cost on stalks and sensors in a $50k vehicle when it's otherwise such a great car?

Ultimately poor wiper controls and fixed headrests are hardly the end of the world, but they could trivially make it so much better...

Kwpolska
3 replies
11h1m

Tesla is probably at greatest risk here, having recently ditched physical stalks that instead move the turn signal functions to haptic buttons on the steering wheel.

What the actual fuck? Who thought that replacing such a common function with the least reliable input method possible (capacitive "buttons") was a good idea?

Also, if I get into a rental car or whatever, I don't need to learn basic controls with sane manufacturers, because they're fairly standard. If I get into a rental Tesla, do I need to read the owner's manual first?

iforgotpassword
2 replies
10h52m

I'm confused now. I haven't been in a current Tesla, but what do we refer to when we say haptic button nowadays? To me that's synonymous to tactile button = physical button, but you talk about capacitive buttons. Did Apple's introduction of haptic feedback for touch somehow shift the meaning?

masklinn
0 replies
8h14m

To me that's synonymous to tactile button = physical button

Why would we need a synonym for a perfectly working word? A physical button is a physical button, to me a haptic button necessarily means some sort of virtual button as otherwise the haptic properties don’t have to be specified.

izacus
0 replies
10h18m

As far as I know the latest refresh of 3 brought back physical buttons. Did you test that one?

Capacitive buttons are the ones that don't physically move and give no feedback.

valtism
2 replies
13h30m

What car models are a good example of dashboard controls done right?

kfarr
0 replies
13h28m

Those made in the late 90s

aembleton
0 replies
9h40m

Dacia Sandero

teeray
2 replies
14h21m

The worst is when the touchscreen freezes and there is no master breaker switch to throw to reboot it “in flight.” You have to pull over, shut the car off, open the door, close the door, then start the car to reboot it.

ggreer
1 replies
12h53m

What car do you have that does this?

a-french-anon
0 replies
4h2m

My parents' Mercedes-Benz SUV (GLC I think) has (had?) that problem.

techdmn
2 replies
16h50m

Touchscreen controls are the feature on my Tesla I dislike most. Try poking a small icon an arms length away while bouncing over typical Midwest roads and you'll see that it's impossible to do while keeping your eyes on the road. Physical controls would be fantastic, but at the very least they could:

* Radically improve the ability to control the car with the scroll wheels on the steering wheel. I don't mean assigning certain functions to the buttons, I mean having a cursor I could glance at, then put my eyes back on the road while I click right twice, up once, click again and then scroll to change whatever.

* For the love of all that is holy, ANCHOR controls to the top or bottom of the screen where you can brace your hand on the bezel while trying to poke the buttons. Pretty much the opposite of the fan control that is right in the center of the screen.

modeless
1 replies
12h4m

I mean having a cursor I could glance at, then put my eyes back on the road while I click right twice, up once, click again and then scroll to change whatever.

They added a menu kind of like this in a recent update. Long press the left scroll wheel and then you can control a bunch of things using a menu that's controlled entirely by the wheel, no touchscreen.

techdmn
0 replies
4h51m

On my car I can assign one specific function to the left scroll wheel, like the fan speed. What I want is something like the experience of using Windows without a mouse. I should be able to navigate the entire UI without touching the screen.

squarefoot
2 replies
9h0m

I couldn't agree more. Touch screen aren't cool, they're a necessary inconvenience where there's no room for physical controls (ie, phones and tablets) and can have some uses in multimedia systems, but using them for driving related or critical controls in cars is both stupid and dangerous: latency and lack of feedback could distract the driver attention away from the road, then a single hit on the screen and the user loses all controls at the same time.

berkes
1 replies
3h26m

they're a necessary inconvenience where there's no room for physical controls

Hear, hear!

and yet, SpaceX thought it was a good idea to make the controls in their space ships mostly touchscreens as well. Utterly insane, IMHO.

squarefoot
0 replies
2h22m

It was already stated (possibly here or a space related blog) that they have all critical controls replicated on mechanical switches.

quitit
2 replies
3h3m

It is mind-boggling that we are at this point.

I understand that reducing buttons has a cost-saving and reliability benefit, but it's unfathomable that core and frequently used controls are reduced to touch screens while emphatically stating that a driver must not be distracted by the screen while driving. I've lost all trust in car manufacturers that do this, it's not just wrong, it's obviously dangerous.

jolmg
1 replies
3h2m

Reliability benefit?

quitit
0 replies
2h32m

Physical buttons can break and be permanently affected by moisture.

nabla9
2 replies
16h56m

Touch screens are cheaper but step backwards in UX and ergonomics.

If you need to look at the screen and your finger for basic functions, that's not different from using mobile phone while driving.

nicce
1 replies
15h27m

Touch screens are cheaper

How I feel like that this price is not considered for the end user, at all…

nabla9
0 replies
4h32m

For cheap cars, of course.

But using touch screens for any mid-level or luxury car is a bad choice from every aspect.

maxdo
2 replies
14h25m

Windshield wipers should be 100% automated for majority of the cars

aembleton
1 replies
9h40m

Do any cars have 100% reliable rain detection?

freeAgent
0 replies
8h49m

Most are pretty good in my experience, with the exception of Tesla. Tesla’s auto-wipers are comically bad. They NEVER work well because they try to use a tiny camera mounted to the top of the windshield to determine when to trigger them. The camera is probably unable to actually focus on the windshield itself, especially since it is also used for the driver assistance features and has to be focused at road-distance, so my guess is they’re using some kind of algorithm to try and detect distortion caused by rain drops on the windshield for an image captured with focus significantly further away than the windshield surface itself. And that challenge has so far remained unsolved. Tesla just pretend to have working auto-wipers.

mannycalavera42
2 replies
10h7m

say their names: all the "UX experts" who pushed for their removal

rsynnott
0 replies
7h4m

I'd assume that the car touchscreens were driven more by cost cutting than input from UX experts.

mrweasel
0 replies
9h0m

If any UX testing had been done on these cars it would have been noticed that the drivers eyes drift from the road for far to long while operating auxiliary features. These large glass interfaces are meant as eye candy and/or cost saving.

It's really sad that companies no longer care to do any type of UX research, we need it more than ever. There are so few good product left in pretty much all product categories. It seems that with the introduction of the iPhone even Apple has opted to just stop doing any type of research and experimentation into UX.

erulabs
2 replies
13h25m

Eh. Let the market decide. Yes Tesla overdid the touch controls - but they were also the first company to put a touch screen that isn’t awful into a car. Yes, removing the stalks a going too far imo, but I can’t imagine how narrow my awareness of the world must be for that to register outrage.

I almost got hit by a porche 911 gt2 today. That car is completely mechanical - but it was being driven by an aggressive idiot; who gives a crap what the wiper button looks like. The controls haptic feedback must be at least on the 20 thousandth page of important things about a car.

The market doesn’t solve all problems - but if the touch controls are so awful, there are only two answer: either they’re not that awful, or tons of people are idiots and you’re really smart. You know, the fount of all bad legislation.

freeAgent
0 replies
8h45m

You can take comfort in the fact that the idiot’s repair costs will be ridiculously high. If you’re going to drive super aggressively on public roads, at least do it in a cheap car!

arrrg
0 replies
10h55m

Euro NCAP is not a regulator. It tests the safety of cars and scores them in a way that‘s readable to potential buyers of cars.

Since potential buyers of cars can’t themselves test the safety of cars (they have neither the expertise nor the resources) this is pretty much the only way that exists to independently test the safety of cars in markets.

marzipanWhale
1 replies
9h11m

I got rid of my last car many years ago when cars still had casette players. What kind of controls do you really need in a car? I realize that a lot of cars have built in GPS now, but in my opinion all controls that require typing or looking at a screen should be disabled until the car is stopped.

globular-toast
0 replies
3h53m

These people basically live in their cars. Imagine just sitting on your bicycle without actually going somewhere on it. Seems weird, but that's what they do. These controls are all for the mobile living room aspect. Nothing to do with driving.

illumin8
1 replies
16h55m

Tesla is probably at greatest risk here, having recently ditched physical stalks that instead move the turn signal functions to haptic buttons on the steering wheel.

I hate to break it to the article writer, but a haptic button on the steering wheel, while absolutely not easy to use, is a physical control.

dzhiurgis
0 replies
14h27m

while absolutely not easy to use

Absolute majority would like to disagree.

gnegggh
1 replies
10h0m

I’ve had the model 3 highland since it came out and still not used to it. Definitely a safety issue.

Turn signals and vipers including speed should be physical and not a non tactile button.

Love the car otherwise but kinda just want it with a screen that’s 1/3rd the size, CarPlay and speed and such in front of the wheel.

Never used Netflix or any of that stuff. Controlling music via your phone app is easier anyway, since you’re used to that interface.

hankman86
0 replies
8h8m

Poor usability and the generally spartan interior are the reasons why I did not even look at Tesla and ordered a BMW i4 instead. Sadly, they too have moved functions like the aircon into the touch screen.

But at least you still get a driver dash with head up display, proper indicator stalks, real leather seats and quality materials throughout.

doubloon
1 replies
16h16m

more evidence that a used Nissan Leaf is the ultimate driving machine.

culopatin
0 replies
15h21m

That won’t for a round trip in most driver centric cities. Lucky for me my gf lived 25mi away and had a Leaf so whenever she came home after work or school she would have to charge it again before leaving. Who wants to do that in winter in the rain? Just stay the night!

bloopernova
1 replies
17h7m

I haven't looked at new cars in a while. Do most USA or European cars use touchscreens now, or do they still have physical controls?

aembleton
0 replies
9h41m

They have both physical controls and touchscreens

wintorez
0 replies
2h31m

I test drove a 2024 Tesla Model 3. It was a perfect car except for one thing: No turn signal stalk. That's basically a no-go for me.

whitehexagon
0 replies
11h12m

I never want to see a car with any kind of monitor/touchscreen, I see enough of those at work.

If it is about cost savings, why do I see a new plague of animated flashing indicator lights, horrible! And the number of small towns I drove through on my last big road trip that had flashing LEDs dotted all over road signs, crazy. Reminds me of the old flashing web adverts. Just another annoying distraction from driving safely.

I'd like to see some rules like, no change is speed limit within certain distance of previous sign. Because suddenly we have a plague of signs, e.g. every 100m reducing the speed for a roundabout in 10km/h steps! are we allowing drivers on the roads that dont know to slow down in advance of a junction. And the best part, the roundabout has 'go around arrows' flashing in blue (the colour of police lights here) so straight away you assume a major traffic incident ahead, and then probably quickly learn to ignore blue flashing lights...

So physical buttons need to be the start of a bigger push-back against needless technology based on 'because we can'.

seydor
0 replies
12h46m

This is why i m not buying the ex30, dear volvo

What's the cost difference between touchscreen vs controls?

seydor
0 replies
7h1m

I wonder if there should be criminal liabilities against designers and engineers who create such monstrosities, especially now that every EV refuses to have any physical buttons. This can end up being life-threatening

rmnwski
0 replies
2h4m

This vivid discussion really makes me want to see what Apple did come up with for the UI. I doubt they made it all touch screens. But Apple might have had one of the biggest influences on car UIs. After the iPhone came out all the car makers wanted to be cool as well and put them in?

rareitem
0 replies
4h21m

The European union is really taking big positive initiatives recently (usb-c, removable batteries, physical controls, etc)

plaidfuji
0 replies
6h37m

Preach. Very little further “innovation” required for turn signals, lights, wipers, windows, mirrors, seat heaters, horn (?!), gear shifter, HVAC, radio.

I love the direction of recent Toyotas that have actually made the driver and passenger side temp. controls even larger knobs than before, with rubberized grips. Also generally pleased with BMW’s iDrive knob to control the center screen for more complex menu-based controls.

Maps/Nav is the only thing that should require a touch screen, and the best interface for that is to delegate to the driver’s phone via CarPlay. Yes, having to lean over and use an index finger to interact with a touch screen while moving is unsafe. Hope the US follows suit.

penguin_booze
0 replies
2h6m

Good. Now ban SUVs and other aircraft carriers on wheels, or tax them at 100% rate, every year.

moogly
0 replies
6h4m

This is absolutely wonderful. As someone who has only had a driver's license for about a year, it feels beyond scary to start fiddling with a touch screen to do anything of import while driving.

mihaaly
0 replies
8h45m

Apart from the logical notion of fix location tactile feedback physical buttons are much much better (reliable!) in mission critical systems than pleasuring a glass with the strokes of you finger in heist discovery what is what and where (that the US navy also discovered through bitter and tragic experience [1]) as a complicating factor the user hostile software engineering practices where The Product is in the focus and drawing lots of additional attention, requiring constant self training - ironically presented as 'intuitive' or 'simple' - additional frequent maintenance and care, more than necessary (updates, settings, confirmations, feature promotions, suggestions, configurations, customizations), not to mention the manipulation of the user into something as the main focus in making apps nowadays instead of serving in the background, also not to mention the constant spying for their own sake only, also the constant f ups making the system dangerously fragile through complexity that additional steps and even more user attentions is essential(!) to preserve the integrity against intruders - making it even more complex and so, fragile -, and that this became a totally accepted treat of software from a huge set of users as well - several times arguing aginst themselves by praising and 'explaining' (no, citing a particular viewpoint is not an explanation alone) - but at least not condemned beyond private audience or leading to refusal, therefore when we talk about our next car an older model (likely used) with traditional dashboard is an overwhelmingly dominant choice with my wife. After our current 'old' and traditional one. The irony is that I make software for living, I am supposed to love using software. No, I do not. In general, regrettably. Should be pushed out of many places it got into along undigested rush (and many times dumb) ideas. Like this, like the dashboard of a car, replacing well known and familiar ways with something else. Should I instead be greateful that we still have steering wheel and pedals instead of a gamepad?....

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49319450

michaelteter
0 replies
4h18m

Bumpy roads are the bane of touch sensitive interfaces.

Without any doubt, a driver will spend more time and attention trying to operate a touch sensitive interface than a physical knob or button if the car is bouncing or shaking at all due to road surface irregularities.

Not all roads are smooth highways (and some highways are in a horrible state of repair), so managing car systems without physical controls is almost as dangerous as operating a mobile phone.

mancerayder
0 replies
16h4m

Is a normal steering wheel pushed horn so expensive for an automaker selling a 35k+ USD car that they had to put a button?

The new Teslas have button turning signal - caveat emptor.

lupusreal
0 replies
7h34m

Apparently "physical controls" in new cars now work almost as badly as touch screens. Turn the fan speed knob then wait two agonizing seconds before the fan speed changes. Gods know what kind of telemetry they stuck in the middle of that operation to gum up the works.

knorker
0 replies
9h55m

I rented a fully specced out Tesla Model S, once. That's not a cheap car. But the turn signal controls were shitty no-feedback buttons.

I don't understand how anyone plowing six digits into a car finds that acceptable. It's a dealbreaker for me.

On top of that there were other "virtualizations" of controls, that just made the car feel like a cheap shitty plastic toy.

jameshart
0 replies
12h54m

When they win that fight can we also get back analog speed gauges instead of numeric readouts?

It can be a digitally displayed graphic on a screen, but please give me a moving needle, not just some numbers that update twice a second.

jacktribe
0 replies
2h17m

Self driving will largely make this topic irrelevant soon, however in the meantime, their time would be better spent developing a measurement of intuitiveness for touchscreens.

With a few exceptions that they've since corrected, in a Tesla operating most functions comes naturally, it's similar to using an iPhone. Even the lack of gear shifter in the Cybertruck isn't throwing me off (though they did put an additional touch control for it by the rear view mirror).

i_am_proteus
0 replies
6h13m

Will the physical controls still route through the infotainment system- and will that solve the responsiveness problem?

gkfasdfasdf
0 replies
3h26m

The voice commands on my Tesla are pretty handy and I prefer to use them over the touch screen when possible. 'Set wipers to auto', 'Set temperature to <NUM>', and 'Open glovebox' are my go-tos. Main downside is that it requires cellular/internet connectivity.

fecker
0 replies
10h4m

Physical controls and warm white lights

You piss about with the touchscreen to change the temperature and lookup to be blinded by an oncoming 4x4 with low beam led's

exabrial
0 replies
5h10m

I would look at aviation like displays, buttons on side, but based upon paging.

Tactile feedback is important.

eterevsky
0 replies
8h10m

I'm generally sympathetic to this (I have a Tesla and I wish they used traditional turn signal stalks). But is the set of prescriptive rules really the way to evaluate the safety of the car? Wouldn't some statistics like the number of crashes per 1m km be more informative?

dzhiurgis
0 replies
15h27m

Having been driving Tesla for nearly a year went on a trip last week and got 2015 Toyota. Air con wasn't easier to control even after 6 days of driving. Still had to look at 10+ buttons all crammed up in 6cm diameter ring and figure out what is what.

With Tesla 99% of time I just flip temperature slider at bottom corner. For rest - open larger menu for very intuitive extra controls.

Kinda insane how mass media is picking up worst implementations from legacy auto and extrapolate that to a car that has best UX. It's literally 180 degree turn disinformation.

dukeofdoom
0 replies
15h27m

Reminds me of the adidas run tracking app. I need to go forward and back in the menu to even start a run. Then it does a countdown. So you start, because why wait until the end of the countdown. Once your phone is in the pocket. Then it decides that you need confirm something like (GPS signal is weak) through a popup. Of course you have no idea it did that. So you pull out your phone once you get back to your car, only to realize it wasn't tracing anything at all. On the opposite end, it's never smart enough to realize that you're no longer running and you got in your car and started driving. So it will happily add tens of kms. Then to correct it you somehow need to change the distance, time and km separately.

It's like it's an incredible combination of both smart and stupid at the same time. You have to tap, double tap, slide, and press and hold at different places in the UI too.

drooopy
0 replies
5h46m

Systems that are vital to the operation of a moving vehicle should never under any circumstances force the driver to take their eyes off the road even for a split second to interact with them. It's mindblowing that this was even allowed to happen in the first place.

dorukane
0 replies
2h26m

It is like a 2+2=4 equation that touchscreen blocks more time out of the road to carry out simple controls over the car.

Mazda in 2019: “And of course with a touchscreen you have to be looking at the screen while you’re touching...so for that reason we were comfortable removing the touch-screen functionality,” And still to this day, Mazda has minimum controls over a touchscreen.

https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...

camillomiller
0 replies
16h57m

While I agree completely, I would expect that the suggestion should be backed by more actual crash data.

bloomingeek
0 replies
5h12m

I have a 2021 Ram Classic 1500 "plain Jane" truck. The only option it has is the tow package and the medium size touch screen. To adjust the HVAC air flow, you have to go to the touch screen! (you can adjust the fan speed with a dial.) The cab on this truck is pretty large, so adjusting from the lower vent to the defroster vent is quite risky while going down the road.

On my wife's Pacifica, the fan speed dial is also a button that can be used to change the vent settings, which is much more safer. Why Mopar didn't include this on my truck is anybodies guess.

bengale
0 replies
5h56m

I think my BMW X5 has the best middle ground for buttons vs touchscreen. I think in the new one they've moved more towards my i4 setup though which is too far on the touch screen.

The X5 has nice push buttons on the steering wheel for media control and stuff like cruise and lanekeep functions. Then it also has heating controls, a volume knob, and some shortcut buttons I can control. All the other gubbins is in the touch screen which works fine.

My i4 moved heating controls to the touchscreen too and dropped the shortcut buttons which is annoying. It still has the nice steering wheel buttons though and a volume knob but it's heading the wrong way IMHO.

bamboozled
0 replies
5h41m

Is the actual reason for getting rid of physical buttons because screens are actually easier to implement ?

badgersnake
0 replies
10h8m

If a touchscreen is on a phone it’s illegal and dangerous but if it’s stuck to the dash it’s not. That never made any sense.

axegon_
0 replies
10h4m

Yes, please. I drive an early 2010's BMW with an aftermarket android head unit. The headunit was not a big deal for me but it was useful since maps were wildly out of date and upgrading them was a pain in the ass and having music, live traffic and all that is appreciated but that's all it is. Now... There one or two things I hate about the car. First one is not having a temperature gauge. Instead BMW added this fuel consumption gauge which couldn't be more useless. The second thing I hate is the way the indicator switch works. I got used to it but holy hell, why were BMW so keen on fixing a problem no one had. Keeping this in mind, the whole touchscreen control from everything from fan speed to driving mode is ridiculous: you actually have to turn your head and look at the screen, whereas in my car I can do that without looking at the buttons at all: I more or less know where the button is and it's size, shape and texture. Modern cars are the exact indicator switch problem BMW was trying to solve, but cranked up to 11.

amelius
0 replies
3h58m

They would have known this way sooner if they had just read HN ...

amai
0 replies
2h10m

Too bad we don‘t have crash testers in the IT industry.

ajmurmann
0 replies
2h28m

The ideal car control has the following: Everything that was in the car twenty years ago needs to have physical buttons. This includes the controls for the audio system that were there twenty years ago. The touch screen should be exclusively be exclusively reserved for CarPlay or Android Auto, no overlays or pop ups or anything from the car manufacturer. Ideally there is a second screen, maybe in the mirror like some BMWs hav, to be used for the backup camera. Car companies should stick to what they are strong at and what they have perfected and not mess with it while they leave the fun software stuff to SV companies.

Zenst
0 replies
9h6m

It is somewhat crazy that the shift to a touch screen, which for some, is hard to use and for all, lacks tactile feedback. You can't beat a button or a dial-in in that respect or even replicate that fully on the limitations of a touchscreen.

It almost feels like there is an untapped market for after-market physical controls that can interface with the car that is begging to be tapped. Equally, shudder if somebody patented the ability to add physical controls to augment touch interfaces.

Wolfenstein98k
0 replies
13h11m

I am instinctively opposed to the European way of regulation, but boy so I agree with this.

Toorkit
0 replies
6h48m

And fuck off with the Lane assist nonsense, it doesn't work in the hilly backwaters of Europe. It actively tries to pull you into on-coming traffic.

Nemi
0 replies
1h32m

This is totally off topic and will likely get downvoted, but the topic of whether physical controls in a vehicle is a non-issue or critically important is the kind of conversation I want to have when interviewing a prospective employee. It conveys so much in so relatively little. It shows:

* Empathy for others

* The ability to place oneself in an imaginary situation when using something and project what it might be like for you and others using that thing in all kinds of situations

* Evaluate something objectively even when you have sunk costs (say if someone spent a lot of money on a Tesla or something)

* most importantly, the persons judgement. How they view this topic of whether physical controls are important or not shows basic judgement, or lack thereof. That translates over into SO many other areas of life. As an employer, it tells you everything you need to know about whether this person is going to be a good decision maker or someone you have to micro-manage their every decision.

KomoD
0 replies
3h5m

Yes, please. It's just so much better.

Franzeus
0 replies
9h59m

I am so tired of seeing touch everywhere in general. Not just in cars, but putting the touch buttons on the stove is such a fail. Water spills out of the pot and locks the stove or you can't even touch the buttons because they are too hot.

DrScientist
0 replies
3h41m

What I can't understand is why, when so much money is spent on the design of new car models, such bad decisions were ever made in the first place.

Did not one person say- "you know this is a really bad idea?"

'Touch screen' in this context an oxymoron - as it can't be operated solely by touch - you need to be looking at it.

0x_rs
0 replies
15h44m

Touchscreens tend to be a plague in cars—the last place you want sluggish non-responsive visual attention magnets. What's worse, a poorly engineered and implemented one may render your vehicle inoperable (safety-wise) and thus force you to expend exorbitant amount of money to get them replaced. Physical buttons are high availability and do not depend on absurd amounts of complexity to perform basic functions. It's impossible not to pay attention to this after being burned once by it. Even if a car may offer some limited physical buttons (such as defrosting) for the least ease of access, it may happen that you're unable to revert its secondary effects until you get it fixed.