Touch screen's in Cars Yes/No?

[Deleted member 26715]

I hate to think what you guys makes of 'remote summon', a 3 ton SUV with about 400bhp been controlled via a smart phone with no humans inside

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To put it politely it scares the crap out of me, we do not have reliable/intelligent enough technology yet, coupled with irresponsible owners it's a disaster waiting to happen, one day soon one of these vehicles is going to plough into a crowd of people as it misreads the situation. This is not aimed at Tesla or any specific make, but it is going to happen.

 

[vickster]

I've done 46k in our Tesla, the infotainment system is head and shoulders above the systems from Lexus/BMW/Mercedes, and presumably thats why Volvo and now Mercedes is doing blatant copies.

Anything can distract a driver, kids, codrivers, phones, day dreaming etc. Don't blame the car for human error.

The benefits of a giant touch screen is huge, you can use that screen real estate to show anything beyond lossing massive amounts of surface area to fixed function buttons that do just one thing. For example you can choose to display a cheesboard or keep an eye on the bike, a change that takes seconds to display.

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Everytime I get into a non Tesla car these days it feels like travelling back in time. Am glad the S class is following Tesla's lead as hopefully all brands will catch on soon. Given Tesla have been using this infotainment system since 2012 its about time others brands reacted.

I see pawns and rooks... not Stilton, Cheddar, Brie and Comte

 

[Rusty Nails]

I've done 46k in our Tesla, the infotainment system is head and shoulders above the systems from Lexus/BMW/Mercedes, and presumably thats why Volvo and now Mercedes is doing blatant copies.
Anything can distract a driver, kids, codrivers, phones, day dreaming etc. Don't blame the car for human error.

The benefits of a giant touch screen is huge, you can use that screen real estate to show anything beyond lossing massive amounts of surface area to fixed function buttons that do just one thing. For example you can choose to display a cheesboard or keep an eye on the bike, a change that takes seconds to display.

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Everytime I get into a non Tesla car these days it feels like travelling back in time. Am glad the S class is following Tesla's lead as hopefully all brands will catch on soon. Given Tesla have been using this infotainment system since 2012 its about time others brands reacted.

As an antediluvian I have no issue with your post, improved technology in cars, or with Tesla as a make. I used to work in IT so I appreciate the benefits it has brought......Other than the highlighted sentence.
Not everyone is a paragon of virtue and common-sense when driving and such a broad range of possibilities on a screen (real estate, cheese board, bike watching, lossing surface area????) means that many people will be tempted to take their eyes off the road for longer periods. This clearly does not include you, but, believe me, not enough people are as sensible as you. If people have a toy to play with they will do so.

 

[tyred]

2483




Gosh some of you guys must hate living in a world of tech!


Last winter my wife was driving the car by her self but she didn't know how to turn the heated steering wheel on, so she called me via hands free to ask. But rather than try to explain I simply login in to the Tesla app on the phone and turned on the heated seats 'remotely'.

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I hate to think what you guys makes of 'remote summon', a 3 ton SUV with about 400bhp been controlled via a smart phone with no humans inside

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For me, and I suspect many others, the driving enjoyment comes from driving a well engineered car with well tuned suspension with good ride/handling balance, well-weighted steering with good feel and feedback, a slick gearchange and a responsive engine.

Electronic gadgets take a away driver enjoyment for me and I can happily survive without all the rubbish put in modern cars which cause unnecessary distraction and make the driving experience feel very remote and distanced. If people like that sort of thing, fine, but I definitely prefer simple.

Also, if the controls and the touchscreen were as brilliant as you say they are, you would not have needed to connect remotely to set the heated seats or whatever as a well-engineered design would be logical and easy to use. Dare I say it, a simple button with perhaps a rotary dial to control temperature mounted somewhere clearly visible and clearly marked would be more intuitive and also safer and less distracting for the driver?

 

[Drago]

Reading around, I see Honda have also announced a partial move away from touch screens, starting with the new Jazz. They're not binning them off entirely, but they're ensuring that all controls that relate to the operation of the vehicle itself are physical controls, leaving only nav, music, phone and cameras on the screen.

And they're doing this in the name of safety.

Mazda, Honda...little cracks are starting to appear in the dam wall.

 

[gzoom]

Dare I say it, a simple button with perhaps a rotary dial to control temperature mounted somewhere clearly visible and clearly marked would be more intuitive and also safer and less distracting for the driver?

Have you tired to look for the heated steering button in a car you have not driven much in, and whilst you are already driving?

Its actually located within 1 press but she just didn't where it was, and correctly didn't want to take her eyes off the road to look for it - which would be same for a physical button. Instead me turning it on remotely worked much better .

 

[Milkfloat]

To put it politely it scares the crap out of me, we do not have reliable/intelligent enough technology yet, coupled with irresponsible owners it's a disaster waiting to happen, one day soon one of these vehicles is going to plough into a crowd of people as it misreads the situation. This is not aimed at Tesla or any specific make, but it is going to happen.

I work in the industry so have some insight into this, Although I do have issues with the way Tesla beta test their product with paying customers we need to remember that the safety features are working - quite simply machines are better than people. The graph below is quite telling.

 

[gzoom]

To put it politely it scares the crap out of me, we do not have reliable/intelligent enough technology yet, coupled with irresponsible owners it's a disaster waiting to happen, one day soon one of these vehicles is going to plough into a crowd of people as it misreads the situation. This is not aimed at Tesla or any specific make, but it is going to happen.

Ofcourse its going to happen, but cars with humans driving plow into other cars, people, cyclists every day and yet we don't ban humans from driving?

Incidentally when I activate 'autopilot' on car it will physically go over 30mph in a 30mph zone regardless what buttons/speed limit I set. Where as how many cars with human drivers passed you today on your bike travelling at more than 30mph in a 30 zone??

Potential if technology can remove the biggest danger on the roads, human drivers, that will be much better for road safety.

Our car already can 'see' cyclists clearly and reliably, but it doesn't know how to overtake a cyclists instead just slows down to what ever speed the cyclists is without getting too close. Once they sort out the programing to overtake safely would you much rather an autopilot enabled car would patiently behind you and wait for a safe overtake rather than pull off a 'close pass' which we all know human drivers love to do rather than wait 10 seconds for a clear gap?

Yes there is a way to go, but it'll get there.

 

[tyred]

Have you tired to look the heated steering button in a car you have not driven much in, and whilst you are already driving?

Its actually located within 1 press but she just didn't where it was, and correctly didn't want to take her eyes off the road to look for it - which would be same for a physical button. Instead me turning it on remotely worked much better .

No because my car doesn't have a heated steering wheel. I don't consider it necessary.

Nor would I phone someone while driving to ask where a control for something is as I would consider it dangerous to chat on the phone while driving. I think studies back this up, with or without handsfree kit. This just verifies my point about too much tech and distraction in modern cars. If I need to phone someone I pull over so I don't get distracted and risk an accident. If I am driving a strange car, I will familiarise myself with the important controls before venturing on to the road. If I really couldn't find something easily that I needed, I would pull over when safe to do so as it is the safer option.

Nice to know that when I cycle down the road I am sharing it with people in control of several tons of metal who are phoning people and playing around with non-essential controls when they would be better paying attention to the road.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I work in the industry so have some insight into this, Although I do have issues with the way Tesla beta test their product with paying customers we need to remember that the safety features are working - quite simply machines are better than people. The graph below is quite telling.

Can you provide some context to the graph, to me it looks like Tesla Autopilot is the most dangerous which I'm sure is not the point you are trying to make, but as there is no legend I don't know what the scales mean

Yes there is a way to go, but it'll get there.

That is my issue, we're a long way off, in the meantime the car designers/manufacturers are playing with people's lives, unnecessarily

 

[gzoom]

Nice to know that when I cycle down the road I am sharing it with people in control of several tons of metal who are phoning people and playing around with non-essential controls when they would be better paying attention to the road.

You also share the road with people who will drink and drive, take drugs and drive, ignore all speed limit, run red lights, txt on their phones, watch football on their phones etc.

The only ture way to be 'safe' on our roads is to stop humans from driving, its as simple as that. The only way to do is if companies like Tesla keep on pushing the tech boundaries, otherwise your be forever doomed and exposed to human drivers.

 

[tyred]

You also share the road with people who will drink and drive, take drugs and drive, ignore all speed limit, run red lights, txt on their phones, watch football on their phones etc.

The only ture way to be 'safe' on our roads is to stop humans from driving, its as simple as that. The only way to do is if companies like Tesla keep on pushing the tech boundaries, otherwise your be forever doomed and exposed to human drivers.

So is it okay to do dangerous things whilst driving because other people do it too?

It is irresponsible of Tesla to let their customers do their testing for them. It should be done by people who know what they are doing in a controlled environment.

In the meantime while cars continue to be driven by humans, we need to try and educate drivers, review laws and increase policing to apprehend and punish the dangerous ones. There will always be idiots but most only take selfish risks because they either don't realise the danger of what they are doing or they know perfectly well but also know the chances of being caught and punished are basically nil in most situations.

 

[Milkfloat]

Can you provide some context to the graph, to me it looks like Tesla Autopilot is the most dangerous which I'm sure is not the point you are trying to make, but as there is no legend I don't know what the scales mean
That is my issue, we're a long way off, in the meantime the car designers/manufacturers are playing with people's lives, unnecessarily

The graph shows the number of miles you can drive before being involved in an accident - so in Q4 2019 you could drive over 3 million miles on autopilot in a Tesla before you had an accident, whilst in a 'normal' car you would only be able to drive 500k before the accident. Basically Telsa on autopilot is considerably safer that a human in a normal car. However, the real figures are somewhere inbetween as autopilot does not work on all roads, only the easier/safest roads. So therefore reality is somewhere between the green line of active safety and the yellow of autopilot.

 

[Drago]

What about the accidents actually caused by autopilot, where it has wrested control from the driver? Obviously, cars not fitted with such a system aren't subject to that failure mode, so the correlation there is a solid - one needs to examine the minutiae, because something as simple as the typical buyer of that brand being a more mature, cautious driver (as the is the case with Honda) can have a more significant effect which can be wrongfully attributed to car systems.

 

[gzoom]

So is it okay to do dangerous things whilst driving because other people do it too?

It is irresponsible of Tesla to let their customers do their testing for them. It should be done by people who know what they are doing in a controlled environment.

As the graph shows Tesla's approach isn't more dangerous.

You also have to realise the only way to 'test' any system in the real world is with dealing with real world conditions you can never mimic in controlled situations.

If all drivers followed the rules on the road even the current Tesla Autopilot system is 90% of the way there for city driving. The problem is humans don't follow rules, so unless you see a situation where you ban all humans drivers overnight what ever system you develop has to work in the real world.

I suspect what will happen is as automated driving system become more prevalent insurance costs of cars with these systems will fall. At some point insurance companies will see human drivers as a massive risk for claims versus automated systems, so market forces will deliver the change needed.

We are a long way away yet, but its closer than what people think.