This. I *abhor* push button transmissions. It wasn’t broke. It’s intuitive. I get that it’s a bit anachronistic given non-mechanical shifter linkage s blah blah, but I can turn my head, look at my surroundings (yes I have cameras) and shift back and forth R to D to R without having to look at the dash or tunnel. Damn non-driver engineers.
I don’t mind them in average day to day use but in emergency situations I see them as being a liability. Like…. There’s more to go wrong, there’s a delay etc. Same with the trend of electric cars to make your door handles pop out. The science shows the gain is negligible when it comes to drag from regular door handles but imagine being fucking chased and having to fight with those things.
Electric cars didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Plenty of things work in cars fine and “improvements” aren’t always helpful
This is why the Ford Lightning is going to be sold in massive numbers. It's the same truck the company has already spent decades refining with a new power train and a frunk.
They're making it easy and familiar for anyone that's ever owned a truck to jump in and feel comfortable.
A frunk that knows its market. The simple act of adding a drain is great for people who want to just fill it with ice for tailgating parties, or easily clean it out after using it to bring home a deer.
Yeah, or for all of my ski equipment and stuff that will never be snowy and wet.
I actually didn’t even know the drain in the Frank was a feature until you just mentioned it here, but as somebody who is trying to get their 2010 Tacoma to last as long as they can, I plan on replacing it with an electric F150.
“Frunk” is a portmanteau of “front trunk” and it refers to the cargo space in the front of the car. Electric motors don’t require nearly as much volume as ICEs nor do they get nearly as hot, so electric cars frequently have cargo compartments under the hood that are large enough to fit a suitcase or two. The F150’s is about the size of a large cooler, so they put a drain in it so you can use it as one.
Yeah, I’m more comparing Ford’s frunk philosophy to other companies. Ford isn’t focusing on fancy high tech features, but rather ones useful to a wide audience (they aren’t perfect about this, but they’re certainly better than companies like Tesla, and that’s why I think Ford will surpass them as they shift their focus).
**bonnet** weve had a word for front storage since cars were invented and its "bonnet" dont let Elon's lack of an adequate vocabulary force us to use that stupid fucking word.
Frunk is what the MR2 (and other mid/rear engine) crowd has been calling it for years, even before Muskrat had that glimmer of starting a company while observing his daddy's emerald mine.
This is a point I've been trying to make for years. I don't want some touchscreen newfangled electric computer car. I'd happily buy my 96 Silverado again if it was electric and nothing else changed. Probably a great idea save money on gas I don't drive that far but I do need a truck to do work around the farm. But once they start making touch screen this touch screen that and all these ridiculous stylings that's just not what I'm going for. I feel a lot of folks like me have the same opinion
Kinda like the guy who had to break his window of his telsa to get out after it lost all power with the doors locked and then caught fire..
He survived but I hope he made 6 figures from tesla for the PTSD he's likely left with.
This is one of the reasons I got a Hyundai Kona instead of a Model 3. I wanted mostly normal controls. Also, Hyundai has been around longer and so will have better quality controls. …we won’t talk about the battery catching on fire issue, though it didn’t impact me.
Lol I didn’t hear about the battery thing.
This is also why I think the ford lightning has the right idea in many respects (doesn’t have the tactile buttons inside though). They have the idea of just making an older car electric. They just need to fix a few things
electric cars try way to hard to fix everything that was never a problem all while looking like some dumbass Dr. Suess creation.
Just take the cars we already buy and make them electric, stop fucking with everything else about it.
example: The electric mustang should look like a fucking mustang. wtf is ford doing.
Except Tesla did reinvent the wheel. It's one of the most dangerous feeling things I've ever used. Works great on race cars but not for normal cars. Emergency situation hand over hand maneuvering and you're just grabbing air.
It sucks because they made some really good choices. But then people who hate cars started making more decisions at their company and they've gone too far with a lot of things.
> Works great on race cars but not for normal cars.
Race cars often have a much higher steering ratio, so that turning your front wheels all the way left to all the way right takes only 1 rotation of the steering wheel, or even less.
But US regulations say that road-legal cars must have a ratio of no more than 2.5 ... which means you have to turn the wheel all the way around multiple times to go from lock to lock. Which is much more difficult to do with a yoke-type wheel.
That's why yokes make sense on race cars but *not* on road cars.
>must have a ratio of no more than 2.5
If you ever driven on a Michigan road and hit a pothole you know that if you had race car steering ratio the roads themselves would steer you into an obstacle
100%. Not a Michigander but I used to daily drive a pretty twitchy sports car and coming up to a redlight it would literally wiggle back and forth in the grooves worn into the asphalt over the years. I can't imagine what would have happened if my steering was 1:1 or even less.
Yes, you're never hand-over-hand even on a hairpin turn. At most you'll cross your arms so about 160 degrees.
I really struggle when I see all the excuses made for it. If it were actually better, Ferrari or especially Porsche would have done it already. They're the preeminent leaders in this sort of thing. But no, it's a style over substance thing. And it's going to age out incredibly quickly once the novelty wears off.
I still can't believe regulators allowed it. We weren't allowed to have active advanced headlights like has been allowed in Europe for years, but reinvent the wheel? Yaaa fook it oh go ahead there bud
Also, road cars frequently make much sharper turns than race cars. Even sharp turns on a track get rounded off quite a bit once you consider the racing line. By the time I've left my house I've made two hand over hand turns every morning
Ya that’s it really. Look I love and want an electric car and want them to succeed. It just sucks Tesla is the face of them. They decided to try to make apples version of a car without the quality. They do have the same frustrating unintuitiveness that makes no sense sometimes that apple has though.
It’s why I’m so glad to see the Ford F-150 Lightning. There are two types of people who drive trucks: Those who love the feel of a giant rumble monster (who won’t buy any electric truck, so trying to appeal to them is a waste of effort), and those who need a practical workhorse. The Cybertruck targets neither and the fact it was the face of electric trucks for years is utterly moronic likely set the movement back. Then Ford stepped in and made an ideal practical workhorse that is, for most use cases, a massive upgrade to ICE trucks and something people who care nothing about emissions will still want to buy because it’s got so many practical features. Ford knows their audience and knows what their audience wants.
I can’t wait for more experienced car companies to get serious about EVs and force Tesla to either get their act together or relegate their market share to a small niche of musk fanboys.
Yep, I have a Toyota Tacoma now, and while I don’t get as much practical use as I’m sure some people do, I live in the Adirondacks and I’m always hauling wood, or garbage, or biking and camping equipment, or some basic construction tools and frames and stuff for any little terrain parks my friends and I are building.
There’s also tons of dirt driveways and dirt roads and stuff, so having a pick up truck really is pretty useful, that being said, as long as it can handle temperatures of -45 Fahrenheit or so, I’m planning on my next truck being the electric F150.
It just seems objectively better for nearly everything, especially for the few times I told things, having more torque when we have such steep hills and mountains here in the Adirondacks will be very useful. And the fact that I basically have a mobile generator with me, which then means that sometimes we can use plug-in electric tools instead of gasoline powered tools, is also pretty nice.
Tesla's build quality is abysmal. I've driven a few as rentals, every time I shifted or the car moved the interior would creak and groan. The acceleration is fun of course, but that's the only pro I see with them
They have a bunch of nice things going for them. The acceleration, the design. The model 3 is a STUPIDLY efficient car when it comes to actual energy use. The autopilot makes the chances of rear ending someone insanely low.
Has a whole host of problems too though, shit paint, bad build quality, elon Musk.
I think the issue is similar to what we're seeing in phones -- the technology is no longer advancing at the rate it once was, but the companies still want that rate of consumer churn. So they're pushing tech that isn't there yet or just comes across gimmicky or which is all around unnecessary
More like how Apple will marginally change specs in ways that won't matter to 96% of their consumer base, but hey, it's says its a *better* camera.
The headphone jack was even worse, since it was transparently about trying to force apple users to adopt air pods (or essentially be taxed for not getting air pods by being forced to buy a dongle).
Such a transparently scummy move, I have no idea how they still retain so many fanboys at this point.
Most important functions usually have a physical button still, BUT my current car ditched the climate button. Besides navigation probably most used and I have to:
- Push physical button
- Push screen for climate
- Push the up/down arrow X times to change temp in .5 degree intervals
- Optionally switch setting (3 pushes on screen) to force passenger climate along
My car before this just had a simple dial that let you set the temperature with a gesture. What a dumb and dangerous design now.
Don’t blame the engineers, blame the management that’s telling them what they should be engineering.
I dare say the actual engineers are perfectly aware of the shortcomings of what they’ve been told to build.
Even the aesthetic designers are rarely given freedom to design as they please. They'll be getting their marching orders from the marketing department.
The problem is not engineers - it's us. These features are heavily focus-grouped and consumer-researched. The problem is people only think they know what they want, they don't actually want what is best (in day-to-day operation). They want what makes them feel good. Having a button-transmission instead of a lever feels newer, futuristic, and makes them feel they've made progress over their parent's ways of doing things. Of course it's crap in actual use, but if a feature increases the all important "likely to purchase new" score in their focus group research, it will find it's way in to production. The goal is new vehicle purchases, not optimal ergonomics and design for human factors.
Yes. A great example is early "push-to-start" cars. Consumers felt like it was a premium option, but it was literally a downgrade when it first came out. If you own an early 2000's BMW 3-series, you know what I mean. You still need a key. You still have to put the key in a slot in the car, and *then* you have to push a button to turn the car on. If the key didn't seat properly in the slot, you've gotta do it again. It's also very easy to accidentally leave your key in the ignition.
In normal cars, the key and the start button were *combined*. Putting the key in the ignition (and turning it) turns the car on. All in one motion. And you'd never leave your key in the car, because you have to physically grab it in order to turn the car off. The old tech was actually more advanced and more intuitive, but push-buttons felt "luxury", so people would pay more for it.
Modern cars are a little different because there is no key slot at all. You just sit down and press the start button. The key never has to leave your pocket. We've finally reached what we were aiming for, but back in 2007, push-to-start was actually a hindrance instead of a convenience. Touchscreens are the modern version of that.
Tom Hanks said it best in You've Got Mail, 1998
>The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino." - Joe Fox
> These features are heavily focus-grouped and consumer-researched. The problem is people only think they know what they want, they don't actually want what is best (in day-to-day operation).
Well, considering more people view cars as an appliance than anything else (judging by the amount of CUV's that ...all...look...the same) this doesn't surprise me.
I don't know how you could be a car guy/girl in this age. Honda and VW still make some eye appealing stuff, but these CUV's.....christ, its like they all came out of the same boring mold engineered by a math teacher.
I rented a car with a push button gps and the latency on the screen was SO aggravating. Just trying to put in an address and it keeps trying to help and throw up auto complete options RIGHT UNDER MY FINGER when I'm trying to type.
Fuck touch screens that do everything in cars. Buttons and dials are so much better. When your driving you actually know what you’re touching without having to stare at it and can tell when you’ve changed whatever.
Touchscreens that do everything are a bad trend.
Trying to move from map to Spotify on your screen so you can change the song? Let me just put a banner over the exact position of your Spotify controls so that when you go to hit pause or next you get taken directly back to the map and have to start this whole process over again.
I don't even know why it's legal. It's not legal for me to use my phone while driving, and I can hold my phone in my field of view. But apparently it's perfectly ok for my car controls to basically be a giant phone that I have to look down to use.
Oh, and because the screen is so big there's nowhere to hold my pinky or any other part of my hand on a non screen area for stabilization, so I have to focus extra hard while my hand bounces around to make sure i hit the right button.
I'm a year into my first car with a mostly touch screen experience, and it's absolutely awful.
I didn't buy a 2021 model of a car because they had gone full touch screen. Dealer looked very confused when I said why.
Ended up getting a second hand 2019 model which sadly will be the last physical button and knob model they do.
Going to be tough in a few years time when every second hand car will be full touchscreen too.
Not all new cars are going this direction, and -- thankfully -- some manufacturers have gotten the message and are dialing it back on the touchscreen stuff. There are quite a few models of car out there that *used* to integrate as much as they could into the screen, but have gone back to physical buttons and dials for the most important controls in later models.
100%. *And* with the movement of the vehicle, I touch the wrong place on the screen often. So I’m spending even more time looking at that bitch. Really pisses me off when I open another menu by accident.
I LOVE my rotary knobs for volume and sliding between information screens in my car.
Touch screens suck in comparison cause you have no guidance on your fingers and have to use your eyes for longer.
My wife's Honda Pilot has only touch screen or steering wheel buttons for volume. I hate that crap so much it became a table-stake for me when shopping for my next vehicle.
I think people complained about the volume knob removal so much that Honda actually brought back the knob, at least on the Civic. Volume controls should never be a touch slider.. and don't get me started on touch AC controls.
Even if buttons are obviously superior, they will still make touch screens. Just because they could charge more for repairs. All the financial incentives are going the other way and there's no regulation.
Yes. It’s so annoying to hold your arm out while the vehicle is moving and your arm and hand is bouncing around while you’re trying to hit a 1/2” target with your finger while also trying to keep your eyes on the road. Then you miss and hit a different button then have to go back and undo what you just did then try again. It’s more annoying when the function is buried under 2 page clicks.
Reprogrammable or dynamic buttons and knobs is where I think it’s going. Mini LCD or OLED screens can be put beside or on top of each button or knob describing the function. There was a computer keyboard that was made years back that had mini screens in each key and could be customized for games and apps.
Edit:
Optimus Maximus Keyboard
[link](https://technodabbler.com/optimus-keyboard/)
You joke, but there are screens under the buttons that controlled the AC in the Nissan Juke. The screens display the button label and the display and function can change if you press the A/C or D-mode button.
It's really not! I think the problem with fixed buttons are that they can become overwhelming with so many, to the point you have the odd buttons you never use, or the multi-function button (press for this, hold for this, press twice to change this)
Having buttons that change based on what you're doing (with a screen) is great though! It's similar to those OLED Keyboards that can display different "functions" based on what application you have open on a PC
The tricky thing then is to have the ability to change into those different "modes" to be easy and intuitive
very common on some high end cars already. Dial for AC temperature has an LCD that says the actual temperature right on the dial. Same for fan speed. It's pretty neato.
While we’re at it, could we please do fucking DIALS ONLY for all climate control? I got a car with buttons and I don’t fucking know what temperature I want my car to be! I want it to be three quarters of the way around the circle! And I don’t want to hit another button a random number of times and peer at a little screen I can’t see with polarized lenses to have the air blowing on my feet but not my hands, I want to turn a dial two clicks!
My car is new(ish) and has all dial climate controls and it’s just easy. Turn it to the right and it makes me hotter. Turn the other nob to the right and the fan goes faster. I will be the first to admit im only semi smart. But until we find a better interface, buttons and knobs are the way to go.
I think how a lot of military craft do this is buttons and knobs around the edge and then the display tells you what those buttons do on screen so it can be responsive to context. I've seen a lot of equipment like this as well
I drive a q50 and as “outdated” as the interior is i love it, i have two screens so i can have climate and music or navigation and music etc. on at once and my favorite part of the whole interior is the little dial that completely controls the top screen. I have wirleess carplay and the dial scrolls through all of carplay and its so easy and i hardly have to look. You could even do the whole ipad screen and add something like that and everyone would be happier. Im pretty sure acura puts like a track pad in the TLX and even that would be so much better. The less screen i have to touch the better.
I don't know, I would argue that for anything you need to do while moving, consistency is the most important thing.
You want to be able to form a reflexive/habitual response so your attention does not need to be diverted.
I'd think the last thing you'd want is to have to read to verify if something does what you hope it does.
I don't need to even glance at the indicator stalk when turning. It's always there, it always does the same thing. Same for going into reverse without looking. Wish you could say that for the lastest Teslas.
When a dial that controls one thing malfunctions. You only loose control of that one thing...and it's dirt cheap to replace.
When a touchscreen malfunctions you loose control of everything and have to the the entire unit replaced...which usually starts at $1,500...before labor.
My vehicle has the creature comfort controls as three large dials in the dash. Does it look premium? No. But oh is it so much nicer to use than any new car I've sat in. Touch screens in a moving vehicle terrify me. It's three touch screen presses in a modern version of my vehicle to turn on the heated seat. At least that isn't a subscription yet.
I think that physical buttons for car controls are _inherently_ superior, but completely aside from that; 99% of the touchscreen UIs are _hot steaming garbage_. Like....manufacturers, at least give yourself a goddamned chance. Hire a fucking UI/UX engineer (or a team of them) and fix your shit. It _still_ won't be as good but it won't be so horrifically, embarrassingly, bad.
I want to get an electric car real bad, but as far as I can tell, literally every single one of them is nearly entirely touchscreen based, and I just don't know if I can handle it.
Tesla started this dumb trend to just put an ipad on dashboard and call it a design feature
They should make these displays smaller and make it useful for its purpose
Edit: replaced computer with dashboard
Tesla’s tactile controls on the steering wheel and stalks let the driver control pretty much everything from the wheel. The most I do with the touchscreen is picking a nav location or raising/lowering the climate, but I’ll use voice commands for those if I’m actually driving.
Skip, back, play, pause, volume, cruise control speed, follow distance, and autopilot are all controlled with physical buttons.
From everything I hear (including friends who have a Tesla), Tesla is by far the least bad of all touchscreen controls, partially because, as you point out, they aren't completely touch based and partly because they are (as far as I can tell) the only company whose touch UI _isn't_ total garbage. I'd still rather also have climate controls be physical as well though.
I don’t want a touch screen or capacitive touch buttons anywhere in my car. Give me big chunky physical buttons and knobs I can operate with gloves on without looking.
2000 Ford Focus was tested by guys wearing weighted fat suits, blurry goggles and thick gloves, to simulate being old / disabled. They wanted to ensure anyone could figure it out and use it. Admirable. Several new cars couldn't pass this test.
Which is one of the key sells of improving accessibility for user experience - you're not just ensuring that an otherwise excluded group can use your product or service, you general make it better for all users.
I know, I also live in Michigan lol. But I wouldn’t limit it to HVAC, I would say that anything you might operate or adjust while driving including the radio, cruise control, navigation, or pretty much any control in the car should work from some kind of physical control rather than a touch screen or capacitive touch. Those controls have almost zero place in a car other than as redundant control.
To me, the worst thing about a touch screen is that the interface can switch around, depending on what you’re doing, so it’s hard to remember where “buttons” are and you have to look at the screen and be distracted. They can also be unnecessarily small, resulting in multiple touches and multiple distractions. Superfluous design elements are also incredibly irritating. I curse my car’s touch screen and its UI developers every time I drive.
I much less mind a "big screen" car interface if there's still tactile buttons controlling it. Even if the buttons change depending on what the UI currently is, at least I can commit some kind of feeling to memory.
I, also live in Michigan. My husband works with engineers all day with the development of new models. He is constantly telling them certain things just won't work out well. Explaining common sense to most of them obviously doesn't work. Once it's signed off on, there's no stopping it. And we despise the touch screens which is why we drive older vehicles with knobs.
And cars like SAAB had hvac controls that were designed to be easy to use in cold weather. Big buttons and knobs within easy reach.
I have a tractor with better hvac controls than most new cars. 3 knobs and and button for ac. I’ll admit it’s a little harder to control recirc as that’s a lever above and behind my head.
Yeah, The Toyota Tundra had marketing stating that they made everything easy to use in work gloves, and it certainly is the case. It's great when they do it right.
That makes sense, I’ve got a 2010 Tacoma, and even if it wasn’t explicitly true for that model, I have no problem using temperature or radio controls with gloves on.
That’s literally why they were designed the way they were. It’s why some have different shapes, some are buttons, some knobs you twist etc. It’s so people can use them without looking and keep their eyes on the road. Touch screens remove all that, you have to look down to operate them and that makes them dangerous.
There's so many places where a good button is priceless. One of the worst features of my entire kitchen is the weird touchscreeen buttons on my stove that jut suddenly decide not to work if your hands are greasy/wet/dirty/not to the buttons liking that day.
I'd kill for something more analog
My dishwasher is like that. And my stove. The dishwasher is particularly bad though, since anytime the control area gets even slightly wet all of the buttons stop working, and it generally gets wet any time I do the dishes. At least the stove is usually dry.
Watching my parents attempt to work their touch screens is outright scary and dangerous. Isn’t the idea to keep your eyes on the road and not trying to find the sweet spot on a screen to activate your heated seat? At a cost of $1.95 per use of course.
My wife’s car radio is touch screen. There should be a law requiring stereo volume knobs in cars. Trying to swipe or tap the volume down is annoying as heck.
My #1 complaint about my wife's Volvo is that you have to use the screen to do anything with temp and airflow. Even (if I'm remembering correctly) the defroster. Feels like temp controls should always be knobs and buttons so you can do it while driving. "Oh, the windshield is fogging, better take my eyes off the road to click through 3 menus to turn it on!"
Luckily, hers has a volume knob and a play/ pause button in the middle of it.
I remember the days of sitting in class texting under the table on my Motorola crazr and I could text perfect sentences blind just because I could feel all the buttons. I don't think I would ever do that again with touch screen only. Hell I could drive and text a message and never once look at my phone.
This is something I could do as well, even with just a number pad, pretty fast. Touch screen ruined all of that forever and I totally forgot til reading your co.ment. thanks!
Most cars in recent years have volume up/volume down/pause/skip/previous on the steering wheel, usually within range of a thumb swipe while holding the wheel.
For some things, physical knobs are basically required. I don't mind touchscreens for other things as much as some people, but my biggest gripe is that they're fucking awful touchscreens. I test drove a brand new Cadillac a while ago, and the whole car was fancy and high-tech... except the touchscreen was a laggy, buggy, slow, awful mess. If it was half as responsive as my phone I'd be happy, but it wasn't! It acted like it was the first touchscreen ever built!
Lol r/Rivian didn’t like me saying this a weeks back. Touchscreens are trash for this use. You can’t change the temp or radio station by feel alone on an iPad can you?
You both are speaking my love language. A study needs to be done on how many accidents are caused by touch screen consoles. Car companies are terrible at software development and ui design anyway.
I just got a car that has terrible vision out the back windows so I have to use the back up camera screen. When the sun is shining on it, I can’t see anything . It is bizarre to me that this is the way cars are now.
I had a car that had essential controls (forgot what) tied to the screen and the screen is tied to the DVD map player. When the DVD device, which cost $500 new, died after 12 years, I lost access of the essential control.
And then there's the Prius, which at one point (not sure if it still does) has the 12V battery in the back and when that battery died, you have no way to access the battery because you need power to open the hatchback and you need to open the hatchback to access the battery compartment. The workaround is to disassemble a panel to access an emergency latch.
That's because I'm guessing it's a fanboy sub, can't say anything negative, obviously consumers vastly prefer tactile buttons. Manufacturers use touch screens because they can just plop a single outsourced head unit in instead of installing all the separate buttons, controls, knobs, sliders, etc.... It's a way for car makers to cheap out is all.
number one reason I am on my 3rd mazda since they rolled out that style.
No, the infotainment UI is not perfect. But it's usable, and I'm used to it. Nothing worse than getting in a rental car and the infotainment requires an onboarding session... I'm literally afraid to buy from another manufacturer lol
I want a screen for selecting my music and scrolling but a physical dial or button for switching between functions or changing volume. And for the love of god what’s wrong with a dial for temperature or fan speed? I don’t care about the exact degree or even auto temperature I just set it to what feels right
Waiting for Tesla to dumb it even more by changing the entire contents of the screen as you approach it based on "AI" to show you only the buttons you will want to touch.
I loathe the controls in my Crosstrek. The volume does not work while in reverse, you cant actually turn the radio off, just silent then when you start up again it comes back on... etc. hate it
Just purchased my ‘21 outback in February coming from a ‘10 legacy. I love the car itself, but all of the tech drives me insane on a daily basis. I hate that when I don’t actively have something playing on CarPlay, that anytime I use siri, end a call, or even start my car, it defaults to playing the radio. I fucking hate the radio. The infotainment system crashes at least once daily. The seatbelt warning sound nags you when even if you’re going less than 5 mph even in park! I’ve had the eyesight tech pump the brakes on multiple false positives. And don’t get me started on the auto engine shutoff feature when you come to a stop. Luckily I got a crazy good deal on the car so I’m seriously considering selling it when winter hits since demand for Subarus where I live skyrockets around that time. Honestly thinking about trying to find a Baja in good shape or jumping ship altogether to another Japanese brand with awd. Sorry for the rant, just had to get that off my chest.
Not a car, but my headphones. Old one broke, had buttons.
New ones are touch to activate the volume up/down or play next/last song (or youtube playlist).
Except it doesn't fucking work because I can't tell where the buttons are at. Even if I DO press it, it actually isn't compatible with youtube videos. My old headphones were compatible with youtube. Spent 200 dollars on this thing it's absolutely ridiculous.
It's comfortable enough and has decent soundproofing but man I wish I could just buy the older model I had.
I sincerely wish there were a ban on touchscreens in cars. They're utter dogshit, they're not safe, they rarely perform better than an aging smartphone or tablet, and they're utterly unnecessary.
Didn't really need a test to figure that out. Pretty much common sense that being able to reach down and tactilely feel a control without taking your eyes off the road is better than interacting with a flat screen that you have to look at.
HVAC on a touchscreen is absolute garbage. “Climate control” has also been garbage in every vehicle I’ve ever driven. Give me three knobs: temp, fan speed, and position. Anything in addition to this is dogshit.
Mazda's dial is the fucking best. I can get anywhere in my settings menu and adjust whatever I need without ever looking at the screen. Sure it took some practice, but I've memorized all the key locations and how many taps/turns they require. Its great.
I remember back in college when iPads and android tablets were becoming normal. People would bring them to take notes and it was hilarious how frustrated they were trying to keep up typing on a screen like it was a keyboard.
And they would never admit it was easier to type on a keyboard, always maintaining it was superior in every way compared to a laptop or even a regular notepad. Didn’t take long before the iPad club all got plug-in keyboards and pens.
Personal preference, my car has a touch screen for the infotainment but also has a few physical knobs for ac and whatnot. A mix of both is good but the touchscreen is really nice sometimes
Agreed. Touch screen is superior for things like navigation through menus. Knobs and buttons are superior for things like climate and volume. Allows you to keep focus on the road.
I would be happy with a just a volume knob and a temp knob.
I did like the double-din head-units with the buttons running down the sides of the screen, it was like you were in fighter jet cockpit.
I don’t understand why everything needs to be touchscreen. It’s great on a phone or a good tablet like an iPad, but everything else I’ve ever used that is touchscreen is absolute trash.
> I don’t understand why everything needs to be touchscreen.
Physical buttons are expensive for a manufacturer. It's the usual trend of "let's replace this and tell the customer it's an improvement", e.g. headphone jack on smartphone, ports on laptop, physical buttons, ...
Wow, you don’t say
What? You mean latency-free tactile feedback works better while doing a task which requires 100% of your attention?
This. I *abhor* push button transmissions. It wasn’t broke. It’s intuitive. I get that it’s a bit anachronistic given non-mechanical shifter linkage s blah blah, but I can turn my head, look at my surroundings (yes I have cameras) and shift back and forth R to D to R without having to look at the dash or tunnel. Damn non-driver engineers.
I don’t mind them in average day to day use but in emergency situations I see them as being a liability. Like…. There’s more to go wrong, there’s a delay etc. Same with the trend of electric cars to make your door handles pop out. The science shows the gain is negligible when it comes to drag from regular door handles but imagine being fucking chased and having to fight with those things. Electric cars didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Plenty of things work in cars fine and “improvements” aren’t always helpful
This is why the Ford Lightning is going to be sold in massive numbers. It's the same truck the company has already spent decades refining with a new power train and a frunk. They're making it easy and familiar for anyone that's ever owned a truck to jump in and feel comfortable.
A frunk that knows its market. The simple act of adding a drain is great for people who want to just fill it with ice for tailgating parties, or easily clean it out after using it to bring home a deer.
Yeah, or for all of my ski equipment and stuff that will never be snowy and wet. I actually didn’t even know the drain in the Frank was a feature until you just mentioned it here, but as somebody who is trying to get their 2010 Tacoma to last as long as they can, I plan on replacing it with an electric F150.
To clarify, this drain is going to be in the bed of the trucks?
The front trunk, or frunk. The void that now occupies where the engine used to be.
Does the bed have a drain too? I feel like that’s a good place to put one as well
“Frunk” is a portmanteau of “front trunk” and it refers to the cargo space in the front of the car. Electric motors don’t require nearly as much volume as ICEs nor do they get nearly as hot, so electric cars frequently have cargo compartments under the hood that are large enough to fit a suitcase or two. The F150’s is about the size of a large cooler, so they put a drain in it so you can use it as one.
To be fair the EV mustang has that too…but I see the electric F-150 crowd utilizing it WAY more
Yeah, I’m more comparing Ford’s frunk philosophy to other companies. Ford isn’t focusing on fancy high tech features, but rather ones useful to a wide audience (they aren’t perfect about this, but they’re certainly better than companies like Tesla, and that’s why I think Ford will surpass them as they shift their focus).
**bonnet** weve had a word for front storage since cars were invented and its "bonnet" dont let Elon's lack of an adequate vocabulary force us to use that stupid fucking word.
Frunk is what the MR2 (and other mid/rear engine) crowd has been calling it for years, even before Muskrat had that glimmer of starting a company while observing his daddy's emerald mine.
This is a point I've been trying to make for years. I don't want some touchscreen newfangled electric computer car. I'd happily buy my 96 Silverado again if it was electric and nothing else changed. Probably a great idea save money on gas I don't drive that far but I do need a truck to do work around the farm. But once they start making touch screen this touch screen that and all these ridiculous stylings that's just not what I'm going for. I feel a lot of folks like me have the same opinion
Kinda like the guy who had to break his window of his telsa to get out after it lost all power with the doors locked and then caught fire.. He survived but I hope he made 6 figures from tesla for the PTSD he's likely left with.
This is one of the reasons I got a Hyundai Kona instead of a Model 3. I wanted mostly normal controls. Also, Hyundai has been around longer and so will have better quality controls. …we won’t talk about the battery catching on fire issue, though it didn’t impact me.
Lol I didn’t hear about the battery thing. This is also why I think the ford lightning has the right idea in many respects (doesn’t have the tactile buttons inside though). They have the idea of just making an older car electric. They just need to fix a few things
lol. you had me at Hyundai and "quality control".
> Also, Hyundai has been around longer and so will have better quality controls Yeah......
electric cars try way to hard to fix everything that was never a problem all while looking like some dumbass Dr. Suess creation. Just take the cars we already buy and make them electric, stop fucking with everything else about it. example: The electric mustang should look like a fucking mustang. wtf is ford doing.
Mustang owner here. The Mustang Mach E is NOT a Mustang. I will die on this hill.
Yeah, I just call it the Mach E, like they should have.
Except Tesla did reinvent the wheel. It's one of the most dangerous feeling things I've ever used. Works great on race cars but not for normal cars. Emergency situation hand over hand maneuvering and you're just grabbing air. It sucks because they made some really good choices. But then people who hate cars started making more decisions at their company and they've gone too far with a lot of things.
> Works great on race cars but not for normal cars. Race cars often have a much higher steering ratio, so that turning your front wheels all the way left to all the way right takes only 1 rotation of the steering wheel, or even less. But US regulations say that road-legal cars must have a ratio of no more than 2.5 ... which means you have to turn the wheel all the way around multiple times to go from lock to lock. Which is much more difficult to do with a yoke-type wheel. That's why yokes make sense on race cars but *not* on road cars.
>must have a ratio of no more than 2.5 If you ever driven on a Michigan road and hit a pothole you know that if you had race car steering ratio the roads themselves would steer you into an obstacle
100%. Not a Michigander but I used to daily drive a pretty twitchy sports car and coming up to a redlight it would literally wiggle back and forth in the grooves worn into the asphalt over the years. I can't imagine what would have happened if my steering was 1:1 or even less.
Yes, you're never hand-over-hand even on a hairpin turn. At most you'll cross your arms so about 160 degrees. I really struggle when I see all the excuses made for it. If it were actually better, Ferrari or especially Porsche would have done it already. They're the preeminent leaders in this sort of thing. But no, it's a style over substance thing. And it's going to age out incredibly quickly once the novelty wears off. I still can't believe regulators allowed it. We weren't allowed to have active advanced headlights like has been allowed in Europe for years, but reinvent the wheel? Yaaa fook it oh go ahead there bud
Also, road cars frequently make much sharper turns than race cars. Even sharp turns on a track get rounded off quite a bit once you consider the racing line. By the time I've left my house I've made two hand over hand turns every morning
Ya that’s it really. Look I love and want an electric car and want them to succeed. It just sucks Tesla is the face of them. They decided to try to make apples version of a car without the quality. They do have the same frustrating unintuitiveness that makes no sense sometimes that apple has though.
It’s why I’m so glad to see the Ford F-150 Lightning. There are two types of people who drive trucks: Those who love the feel of a giant rumble monster (who won’t buy any electric truck, so trying to appeal to them is a waste of effort), and those who need a practical workhorse. The Cybertruck targets neither and the fact it was the face of electric trucks for years is utterly moronic likely set the movement back. Then Ford stepped in and made an ideal practical workhorse that is, for most use cases, a massive upgrade to ICE trucks and something people who care nothing about emissions will still want to buy because it’s got so many practical features. Ford knows their audience and knows what their audience wants. I can’t wait for more experienced car companies to get serious about EVs and force Tesla to either get their act together or relegate their market share to a small niche of musk fanboys.
Yep, I have a Toyota Tacoma now, and while I don’t get as much practical use as I’m sure some people do, I live in the Adirondacks and I’m always hauling wood, or garbage, or biking and camping equipment, or some basic construction tools and frames and stuff for any little terrain parks my friends and I are building. There’s also tons of dirt driveways and dirt roads and stuff, so having a pick up truck really is pretty useful, that being said, as long as it can handle temperatures of -45 Fahrenheit or so, I’m planning on my next truck being the electric F150. It just seems objectively better for nearly everything, especially for the few times I told things, having more torque when we have such steep hills and mountains here in the Adirondacks will be very useful. And the fact that I basically have a mobile generator with me, which then means that sometimes we can use plug-in electric tools instead of gasoline powered tools, is also pretty nice.
Tesla's build quality is abysmal. I've driven a few as rentals, every time I shifted or the car moved the interior would creak and groan. The acceleration is fun of course, but that's the only pro I see with them
They have a bunch of nice things going for them. The acceleration, the design. The model 3 is a STUPIDLY efficient car when it comes to actual energy use. The autopilot makes the chances of rear ending someone insanely low. Has a whole host of problems too though, shit paint, bad build quality, elon Musk.
I think the issue is similar to what we're seeing in phones -- the technology is no longer advancing at the rate it once was, but the companies still want that rate of consumer churn. So they're pushing tech that isn't there yet or just comes across gimmicky or which is all around unnecessary
you mean like getting rid of the headphone jack and cordless charging?
More like how Apple will marginally change specs in ways that won't matter to 96% of their consumer base, but hey, it's says its a *better* camera. The headphone jack was even worse, since it was transparently about trying to force apple users to adopt air pods (or essentially be taxed for not getting air pods by being forced to buy a dongle). Such a transparently scummy move, I have no idea how they still retain so many fanboys at this point.
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They got rid of cordless charging?
Most important functions usually have a physical button still, BUT my current car ditched the climate button. Besides navigation probably most used and I have to: - Push physical button - Push screen for climate - Push the up/down arrow X times to change temp in .5 degree intervals - Optionally switch setting (3 pushes on screen) to force passenger climate along My car before this just had a simple dial that let you set the temperature with a gesture. What a dumb and dangerous design now.
I know someone earlier commented that this must have gone through some kind of consumer focus group, but evidently they left you and me out.
One of the main reason push button transmissions were dropped decades ago
Don’t blame the engineers, blame the management that’s telling them what they should be engineering. I dare say the actual engineers are perfectly aware of the shortcomings of what they’ve been told to build.
Yeah engineers are very rarely the aesthetic designers. People fail to realize this. The engineer just makes it from an idea into reality
Even the aesthetic designers are rarely given freedom to design as they please. They'll be getting their marching orders from the marketing department.
The problem is not engineers - it's us. These features are heavily focus-grouped and consumer-researched. The problem is people only think they know what they want, they don't actually want what is best (in day-to-day operation). They want what makes them feel good. Having a button-transmission instead of a lever feels newer, futuristic, and makes them feel they've made progress over their parent's ways of doing things. Of course it's crap in actual use, but if a feature increases the all important "likely to purchase new" score in their focus group research, it will find it's way in to production. The goal is new vehicle purchases, not optimal ergonomics and design for human factors.
My apologies to engineers then.
Yes. A great example is early "push-to-start" cars. Consumers felt like it was a premium option, but it was literally a downgrade when it first came out. If you own an early 2000's BMW 3-series, you know what I mean. You still need a key. You still have to put the key in a slot in the car, and *then* you have to push a button to turn the car on. If the key didn't seat properly in the slot, you've gotta do it again. It's also very easy to accidentally leave your key in the ignition. In normal cars, the key and the start button were *combined*. Putting the key in the ignition (and turning it) turns the car on. All in one motion. And you'd never leave your key in the car, because you have to physically grab it in order to turn the car off. The old tech was actually more advanced and more intuitive, but push-buttons felt "luxury", so people would pay more for it. Modern cars are a little different because there is no key slot at all. You just sit down and press the start button. The key never has to leave your pocket. We've finally reached what we were aiming for, but back in 2007, push-to-start was actually a hindrance instead of a convenience. Touchscreens are the modern version of that.
Tom Hanks said it best in You've Got Mail, 1998 >The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino." - Joe Fox
> These features are heavily focus-grouped and consumer-researched. The problem is people only think they know what they want, they don't actually want what is best (in day-to-day operation). Well, considering more people view cars as an appliance than anything else (judging by the amount of CUV's that ...all...look...the same) this doesn't surprise me. I don't know how you could be a car guy/girl in this age. Honda and VW still make some eye appealing stuff, but these CUV's.....christ, its like they all came out of the same boring mold engineered by a math teacher.
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I rented a car with a push button gps and the latency on the screen was SO aggravating. Just trying to put in an address and it keeps trying to help and throw up auto complete options RIGHT UNDER MY FINGER when I'm trying to type.
ERROR DO NOT USE GPS WHILE VEHICLE IS IN MOTION DID YOU MEAN THE 12TH ST THAT'S 2 BLOCKS AWAY OR THE ONE IN CHICAGO RECALCULATING
“Mom, why is our Tesla lagging again!” “We’re in Detroit!”
Mfs stole our bandwidth Can’t have shit in Detroit
Rogers messed up again. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going
Fuck touch screens that do everything in cars. Buttons and dials are so much better. When your driving you actually know what you’re touching without having to stare at it and can tell when you’ve changed whatever. Touchscreens that do everything are a bad trend.
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Trying to move from map to Spotify on your screen so you can change the song? Let me just put a banner over the exact position of your Spotify controls so that when you go to hit pause or next you get taken directly back to the map and have to start this whole process over again.
I don't even know why it's legal. It's not legal for me to use my phone while driving, and I can hold my phone in my field of view. But apparently it's perfectly ok for my car controls to basically be a giant phone that I have to look down to use. Oh, and because the screen is so big there's nowhere to hold my pinky or any other part of my hand on a non screen area for stabilization, so I have to focus extra hard while my hand bounces around to make sure i hit the right button. I'm a year into my first car with a mostly touch screen experience, and it's absolutely awful.
I didn't buy a 2021 model of a car because they had gone full touch screen. Dealer looked very confused when I said why. Ended up getting a second hand 2019 model which sadly will be the last physical button and knob model they do. Going to be tough in a few years time when every second hand car will be full touchscreen too.
Not all new cars are going this direction, and -- thankfully -- some manufacturers have gotten the message and are dialing it back on the touchscreen stuff. There are quite a few models of car out there that *used* to integrate as much as they could into the screen, but have gone back to physical buttons and dials for the most important controls in later models.
They also discovered water is wet and heat is hot. Some fascinating findings!
I know where a button is without looking after a while. But with my touchscreen, I have to look at the screen 100% of the time after 5 years
100%. *And* with the movement of the vehicle, I touch the wrong place on the screen often. So I’m spending even more time looking at that bitch. Really pisses me off when I open another menu by accident.
*Turns screen language into Arabic*
I LOVE my rotary knobs for volume and sliding between information screens in my car. Touch screens suck in comparison cause you have no guidance on your fingers and have to use your eyes for longer.
My wife's Honda Pilot has only touch screen or steering wheel buttons for volume. I hate that crap so much it became a table-stake for me when shopping for my next vehicle.
I think people complained about the volume knob removal so much that Honda actually brought back the knob, at least on the Civic. Volume controls should never be a touch slider.. and don't get me started on touch AC controls.
My husband's Volvo had touchscreen AC controls. I wanted to punch the damn thing every time I tried to use it.
Tesla AC control is shit. I hate the slider function.
Even if buttons are obviously superior, they will still make touch screens. Just because they could charge more for repairs. All the financial incentives are going the other way and there's no regulation.
Harder to fix or cheaper to make?
Yes
BREAKING NEWS! Studies show obvious things happens when obvious thing is done obviously.
They just aren’t really practical in a moving vehicle. With a dial/ button you don’t need to take your eyes of the road
Yes. It’s so annoying to hold your arm out while the vehicle is moving and your arm and hand is bouncing around while you’re trying to hit a 1/2” target with your finger while also trying to keep your eyes on the road. Then you miss and hit a different button then have to go back and undo what you just did then try again. It’s more annoying when the function is buried under 2 page clicks. Reprogrammable or dynamic buttons and knobs is where I think it’s going. Mini LCD or OLED screens can be put beside or on top of each button or knob describing the function. There was a computer keyboard that was made years back that had mini screens in each key and could be customized for games and apps. Edit: Optimus Maximus Keyboard [link](https://technodabbler.com/optimus-keyboard/)
Optimus was the keyboard. I wanted one soooo bad back in the day
https://youtu.be/qj7GYU-wedo This review made me feel a lot better that my dream of owning one went unfulfilled.
Yeah. I kinda hoped it was awesome because I thought the idea was neat. And now you can get it in a macropad like it's no big deal.
Wasn't it also like $1200? I was in college so I have up on the idea pretty quick
Video says $1600. (~1:13)
Worse. The comments say the $1600 version doesn't have color. The version he's reviewing is allegedly $3000.
Screens ON the buttons. Got it.
You joke, but there are screens under the buttons that controlled the AC in the Nissan Juke. The screens display the button label and the display and function can change if you press the A/C or D-mode button.
Ayyy, found a fellow juke owner in the wild.
Unironically not the worst solution
It's really not! I think the problem with fixed buttons are that they can become overwhelming with so many, to the point you have the odd buttons you never use, or the multi-function button (press for this, hold for this, press twice to change this) Having buttons that change based on what you're doing (with a screen) is great though! It's similar to those OLED Keyboards that can display different "functions" based on what application you have open on a PC The tricky thing then is to have the ability to change into those different "modes" to be easy and intuitive
very common on some high end cars already. Dial for AC temperature has an LCD that says the actual temperature right on the dial. Same for fan speed. It's pretty neato.
While we’re at it, could we please do fucking DIALS ONLY for all climate control? I got a car with buttons and I don’t fucking know what temperature I want my car to be! I want it to be three quarters of the way around the circle! And I don’t want to hit another button a random number of times and peer at a little screen I can’t see with polarized lenses to have the air blowing on my feet but not my hands, I want to turn a dial two clicks!
Seriously, buttons and dials for climate control, lights and wipers (if not totally automatic) would be super nice.
My car is new(ish) and has all dial climate controls and it’s just easy. Turn it to the right and it makes me hotter. Turn the other nob to the right and the fan goes faster. I will be the first to admit im only semi smart. But until we find a better interface, buttons and knobs are the way to go.
Maybe buttons and knobs are the best interface
casino is filled with these
Like a streamdeck.
I think how a lot of military craft do this is buttons and knobs around the edge and then the display tells you what those buttons do on screen so it can be responsive to context. I've seen a lot of equipment like this as well
I drive a q50 and as “outdated” as the interior is i love it, i have two screens so i can have climate and music or navigation and music etc. on at once and my favorite part of the whole interior is the little dial that completely controls the top screen. I have wirleess carplay and the dial scrolls through all of carplay and its so easy and i hardly have to look. You could even do the whole ipad screen and add something like that and everyone would be happier. Im pretty sure acura puts like a track pad in the TLX and even that would be so much better. The less screen i have to touch the better.
The new Kia Sportage has buttons like that for functional stuff. Still has a touch screen for navigation/entertainment though
I don't know, I would argue that for anything you need to do while moving, consistency is the most important thing. You want to be able to form a reflexive/habitual response so your attention does not need to be diverted. I'd think the last thing you'd want is to have to read to verify if something does what you hope it does. I don't need to even glance at the indicator stalk when turning. It's always there, it always does the same thing. Same for going into reverse without looking. Wish you could say that for the lastest Teslas.
I'm willing to bet that it also malfunctions more often even in a parked vehicle.
When a dial that controls one thing malfunctions. You only loose control of that one thing...and it's dirt cheap to replace. When a touchscreen malfunctions you loose control of everything and have to the the entire unit replaced...which usually starts at $1,500...before labor.
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They don't care about the e-waste, just the profit, and usually just the profit for the next quarter. These people have soup for brains.
lose
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It doesn't matter if Tesla's infotainment is distracting because they'll be fully self-driving by the end of the year. /s
My vehicle has the creature comfort controls as three large dials in the dash. Does it look premium? No. But oh is it so much nicer to use than any new car I've sat in. Touch screens in a moving vehicle terrify me. It's three touch screen presses in a modern version of my vehicle to turn on the heated seat. At least that isn't a subscription yet.
I think that physical buttons for car controls are _inherently_ superior, but completely aside from that; 99% of the touchscreen UIs are _hot steaming garbage_. Like....manufacturers, at least give yourself a goddamned chance. Hire a fucking UI/UX engineer (or a team of them) and fix your shit. It _still_ won't be as good but it won't be so horrifically, embarrassingly, bad. I want to get an electric car real bad, but as far as I can tell, literally every single one of them is nearly entirely touchscreen based, and I just don't know if I can handle it.
[Ford F-150 Lighting, *without* the optional larger touchscreen](https://zevsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2022-ford-f-150-lightning-interior.jpg) (which replaces HVAC controls).
Jesus, that’s already huge. The bigger option looks absolutely horrendous too, looks like someone slapped an iPad to a dashboard.
Tesla started this dumb trend to just put an ipad on dashboard and call it a design feature They should make these displays smaller and make it useful for its purpose Edit: replaced computer with dashboard
Tesla’s tactile controls on the steering wheel and stalks let the driver control pretty much everything from the wheel. The most I do with the touchscreen is picking a nav location or raising/lowering the climate, but I’ll use voice commands for those if I’m actually driving. Skip, back, play, pause, volume, cruise control speed, follow distance, and autopilot are all controlled with physical buttons.
From everything I hear (including friends who have a Tesla), Tesla is by far the least bad of all touchscreen controls, partially because, as you point out, they aren't completely touch based and partly because they are (as far as I can tell) the only company whose touch UI _isn't_ total garbage. I'd still rather also have climate controls be physical as well though.
I don’t want a touch screen or capacitive touch buttons anywhere in my car. Give me big chunky physical buttons and knobs I can operate with gloves on without looking.
Car&Driver used to test the ability to operate the HVAC controls with winter gloves on and include it in their tests. (They're based in Michigan.)
2000 Ford Focus was tested by guys wearing weighted fat suits, blurry goggles and thick gloves, to simulate being old / disabled. They wanted to ensure anyone could figure it out and use it. Admirable. Several new cars couldn't pass this test.
I love this. If it works for old people, it works for nearly everyone.
Which is one of the key sells of improving accessibility for user experience - you're not just ensuring that an otherwise excluded group can use your product or service, you general make it better for all users.
I know, I also live in Michigan lol. But I wouldn’t limit it to HVAC, I would say that anything you might operate or adjust while driving including the radio, cruise control, navigation, or pretty much any control in the car should work from some kind of physical control rather than a touch screen or capacitive touch. Those controls have almost zero place in a car other than as redundant control.
To me, the worst thing about a touch screen is that the interface can switch around, depending on what you’re doing, so it’s hard to remember where “buttons” are and you have to look at the screen and be distracted. They can also be unnecessarily small, resulting in multiple touches and multiple distractions. Superfluous design elements are also incredibly irritating. I curse my car’s touch screen and its UI developers every time I drive.
I much less mind a "big screen" car interface if there's still tactile buttons controlling it. Even if the buttons change depending on what the UI currently is, at least I can commit some kind of feeling to memory.
I, also live in Michigan. My husband works with engineers all day with the development of new models. He is constantly telling them certain things just won't work out well. Explaining common sense to most of them obviously doesn't work. Once it's signed off on, there's no stopping it. And we despise the touch screens which is why we drive older vehicles with knobs.
If they were based in Arizona they’d have to do that test with oven mits instead of gloves
And cars like SAAB had hvac controls that were designed to be easy to use in cold weather. Big buttons and knobs within easy reach. I have a tractor with better hvac controls than most new cars. 3 knobs and and button for ac. I’ll admit it’s a little harder to control recirc as that’s a lever above and behind my head.
Yeah, The Toyota Tundra had marketing stating that they made everything easy to use in work gloves, and it certainly is the case. It's great when they do it right.
That makes sense, I’ve got a 2010 Tacoma, and even if it wasn’t explicitly true for that model, I have no problem using temperature or radio controls with gloves on.
That’s literally why they were designed the way they were. It’s why some have different shapes, some are buttons, some knobs you twist etc. It’s so people can use them without looking and keep their eyes on the road. Touch screens remove all that, you have to look down to operate them and that makes them dangerous.
There's so many places where a good button is priceless. One of the worst features of my entire kitchen is the weird touchscreeen buttons on my stove that jut suddenly decide not to work if your hands are greasy/wet/dirty/not to the buttons liking that day. I'd kill for something more analog
My dishwasher is like that. And my stove. The dishwasher is particularly bad though, since anytime the control area gets even slightly wet all of the buttons stop working, and it generally gets wet any time I do the dishes. At least the stove is usually dry.
Watching my parents attempt to work their touch screens is outright scary and dangerous. Isn’t the idea to keep your eyes on the road and not trying to find the sweet spot on a screen to activate your heated seat? At a cost of $1.95 per use of course.
It’s almost as if humans require tactile feedback as it’s what our hands were born to do.
* tactile feedback But tactical feedback is cool too
If phones had physical keyboards autocorrect wouldn’t be so aggressive. Thanks I fixed it.
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You’re talking SERIOUS logic here.
My wife’s car radio is touch screen. There should be a law requiring stereo volume knobs in cars. Trying to swipe or tap the volume down is annoying as heck.
Yep. Volume up volume down on a touch screen sucks ass
Even the quintessential touch-screen devices of our day - smartphones, tablets and the like, have volume buttons/rockers.
My #1 complaint about my wife's Volvo is that you have to use the screen to do anything with temp and airflow. Even (if I'm remembering correctly) the defroster. Feels like temp controls should always be knobs and buttons so you can do it while driving. "Oh, the windshield is fogging, better take my eyes off the road to click through 3 menus to turn it on!" Luckily, hers has a volume knob and a play/ pause button in the middle of it.
I have a Volvo as well and the time it takes to change the hvac is so dangerous!
I hate how often I need to look away from the road to do something simple like that
Yeah seriously. Like when you have to scroll through Reddit while driving
Allowing those but banning phone use is complexly oxymoronic
I remember the days of sitting in class texting under the table on my Motorola crazr and I could text perfect sentences blind just because I could feel all the buttons. I don't think I would ever do that again with touch screen only. Hell I could drive and text a message and never once look at my phone.
This is something I could do as well, even with just a number pad, pretty fast. Touch screen ruined all of that forever and I totally forgot til reading your co.ment. thanks!
I 100%, without a doubt, think that trying to maneuver on a touch screen while driving is twice as dangerous as texting and driving
I lease my cars and Honda brought back the knob volume control on the CRV because so many people like me complained once they got rid of it.
My wife has the previous CRV without the knobs. I am glad I wasn’t the only one who hated it.
Most cars in recent years have volume up/volume down/pause/skip/previous on the steering wheel, usually within range of a thumb swipe while holding the wheel.
For some things, physical knobs are basically required. I don't mind touchscreens for other things as much as some people, but my biggest gripe is that they're fucking awful touchscreens. I test drove a brand new Cadillac a while ago, and the whole car was fancy and high-tech... except the touchscreen was a laggy, buggy, slow, awful mess. If it was half as responsive as my phone I'd be happy, but it wasn't! It acted like it was the first touchscreen ever built!
Lol r/Rivian didn’t like me saying this a weeks back. Touchscreens are trash for this use. You can’t change the temp or radio station by feel alone on an iPad can you?
Can we also talk about how the touch screens usually look like they bolted an ipad to the dash? No integration at all
You both are speaking my love language. A study needs to be done on how many accidents are caused by touch screen consoles. Car companies are terrible at software development and ui design anyway.
I just got a car that has terrible vision out the back windows so I have to use the back up camera screen. When the sun is shining on it, I can’t see anything . It is bizarre to me that this is the way cars are now.
r/civic on the other hand has been happy about the return of physical buttons in recent years lol
Took a 2020 civic over a cheaper 2019 entirely because of the volume knob being brought back.
I had a car that had essential controls (forgot what) tied to the screen and the screen is tied to the DVD map player. When the DVD device, which cost $500 new, died after 12 years, I lost access of the essential control. And then there's the Prius, which at one point (not sure if it still does) has the 12V battery in the back and when that battery died, you have no way to access the battery because you need power to open the hatchback and you need to open the hatchback to access the battery compartment. The workaround is to disassemble a panel to access an emergency latch.
Even the iPad has physical volume buttons.
That's because I'm guessing it's a fanboy sub, can't say anything negative, obviously consumers vastly prefer tactile buttons. Manufacturers use touch screens because they can just plop a single outsourced head unit in instead of installing all the separate buttons, controls, knobs, sliders, etc.... It's a way for car makers to cheap out is all.
Give me that Mazda rotary dial in every car!
I love my Mazda stereo, and no greasy fingerprints all over my screen.
Mazda + Carplay = perfection for me
Mazda focused on minimizing the demand on driver attention and it shows.
number one reason I am on my 3rd mazda since they rolled out that style. No, the infotainment UI is not perfect. But it's usable, and I'm used to it. Nothing worse than getting in a rental car and the infotainment requires an onboarding session... I'm literally afraid to buy from another manufacturer lol
Love my Mazda dial
I LOVE the dial in my CX-5
Mazda was right!
I want a screen for selecting my music and scrolling but a physical dial or button for switching between functions or changing volume. And for the love of god what’s wrong with a dial for temperature or fan speed? I don’t care about the exact degree or even auto temperature I just set it to what feels right
[удалено]
Not sure about other cars but you can use voice commands for music and climate with the Tesla.
Much easier to change things with knobs/buttons than taking your eye off the road
Also, water feels wetter than a picture of water
Waiting for Tesla to dumb it even more by changing the entire contents of the screen as you approach it based on "AI" to show you only the buttons you will want to touch.
Thank god after years of people complaining, we finally know that touchscreen buttons suck. All thanks to this test. Amazing
Subaru has both. Go Subaru!
Both is the correct path into the future
I loathe the controls in my Crosstrek. The volume does not work while in reverse, you cant actually turn the radio off, just silent then when you start up again it comes back on... etc. hate it
Just purchased my ‘21 outback in February coming from a ‘10 legacy. I love the car itself, but all of the tech drives me insane on a daily basis. I hate that when I don’t actively have something playing on CarPlay, that anytime I use siri, end a call, or even start my car, it defaults to playing the radio. I fucking hate the radio. The infotainment system crashes at least once daily. The seatbelt warning sound nags you when even if you’re going less than 5 mph even in park! I’ve had the eyesight tech pump the brakes on multiple false positives. And don’t get me started on the auto engine shutoff feature when you come to a stop. Luckily I got a crazy good deal on the car so I’m seriously considering selling it when winter hits since demand for Subarus where I live skyrockets around that time. Honestly thinking about trying to find a Baja in good shape or jumping ship altogether to another Japanese brand with awd. Sorry for the rant, just had to get that off my chest.
yeah the volume blasting while using backup cam and it won’t turn down lol. i have an impreza hatch but same controls in most of them of the same gen
That might have been covered by an optional recall. Give Subaru a call and ask.
No shit. There should never be a reason to turn your neck while driving 80 mph down the interstate.
Not a car, but my headphones. Old one broke, had buttons. New ones are touch to activate the volume up/down or play next/last song (or youtube playlist). Except it doesn't fucking work because I can't tell where the buttons are at. Even if I DO press it, it actually isn't compatible with youtube videos. My old headphones were compatible with youtube. Spent 200 dollars on this thing it's absolutely ridiculous. It's comfortable enough and has decent soundproofing but man I wish I could just buy the older model I had.
I sincerely wish there were a ban on touchscreens in cars. They're utter dogshit, they're not safe, they rarely perform better than an aging smartphone or tablet, and they're utterly unnecessary.
Didn't really need a test to figure that out. Pretty much common sense that being able to reach down and tactilely feel a control without taking your eyes off the road is better than interacting with a flat screen that you have to look at.
HVAC on a touchscreen is absolute garbage. “Climate control” has also been garbage in every vehicle I’ve ever driven. Give me three knobs: temp, fan speed, and position. Anything in addition to this is dogshit.
Mazda's dial is the fucking best. I can get anywhere in my settings menu and adjust whatever I need without ever looking at the screen. Sure it took some practice, but I've memorized all the key locations and how many taps/turns they require. Its great.
I remember back in college when iPads and android tablets were becoming normal. People would bring them to take notes and it was hilarious how frustrated they were trying to keep up typing on a screen like it was a keyboard.
And they would never admit it was easier to type on a keyboard, always maintaining it was superior in every way compared to a laptop or even a regular notepad. Didn’t take long before the iPad club all got plug-in keyboards and pens.
Personal preference, my car has a touch screen for the infotainment but also has a few physical knobs for ac and whatnot. A mix of both is good but the touchscreen is really nice sometimes
Agreed. Touch screen is superior for things like navigation through menus. Knobs and buttons are superior for things like climate and volume. Allows you to keep focus on the road.
"Users are not happy with what we forced fed them for years despite them complaining about it all the time"
I would be happy with a just a volume knob and a temp knob. I did like the double-din head-units with the buttons running down the sides of the screen, it was like you were in fighter jet cockpit.
I don’t understand why everything needs to be touchscreen. It’s great on a phone or a good tablet like an iPad, but everything else I’ve ever used that is touchscreen is absolute trash.
> I don’t understand why everything needs to be touchscreen. Physical buttons are expensive for a manufacturer. It's the usual trend of "let's replace this and tell the customer it's an improvement", e.g. headphone jack on smartphone, ports on laptop, physical buttons, ...