Touch screen's in Cars Yes/No?

[Fab Foodie]

The press wording tends to be blaming the car design rather than the idiot in charge of the car.



It's a red herring. I've said it several times. There is no need to use a multilevel touchscreen when driving a Tesla.
So therefore as you don't have to use them, there isn't a problem. It isn't that a stick control is better. It's just different and it would be a retrograde step for a device that is trying to change the way people use vehicles. The end point is important.

Try and forget Tesla specifically as we’re not arguing about that....it’s about TOUCHSCREENS vs. Knobs and buttons....

 

[Deleted member 26715]

The press wording tends to be blaming the car design rather than the idiot in charge of the car.

But are they not interlinked, is the car not designed with the idiot in mind?

@I like Skol's analogy is quite apt, car designers spend Millions if not Billions, they are supposed to know their target market, yet they design something which they know will be abused?

 

[I like Skol]

Try and forget Tesla specifically as we’re not arguing about that....it’s about TOUCHSCREENS vs. Knobs and buttons....

Not even touchscreen v's knobs. It's the interactive bit that is the danger. My wife's 2015 Audi has a pretty large screen and various menu levels controlled by a series of button presses and knob twists. No touchscreen but still a distracting and complicated set-up if you allow yourself to be dragged in. Even adjusting the fan speed is a trial: press the fan button on the dash to put the fan speed mode on screen then twist the adjustment knob down by where the handbrake usually lives. No, NOT THAT KNOB, that is the radio volume, the one next to it! and hurry up because after a few seconds the fan mode disappears and the screen reverts back to the previous mode. Why can't that fan button just be a twist knob or a +/- rocker?
It is danger by design, design by marketeers and IMO tantamount to corporate murder. I don't know how the vehicle approval authorities have allowed themselves to be bullied into allowing half this stuff onto the road? The current thing is 'directectional lighting'! Not content with dazzling everyone with DRLs that have to outperform the rest, they now switch them on and off as the steering is turned. How the heck does this help anyone? What is it supposed to achieve? You don't know if the car coming towards you has a faulty light, has just come round a corner, is turning into a sidestreet, is going to indicate, can't be bothered to indicate because the DRLs are doing it for them or the driver doesn't have a clue what the car is doing because the driver doesn't have a degree in English and engineering and besides, when did anyone read a book that thick?

 

[icowden]

But are they not interlinked, is the car not designed with the idiot in mind?

The car is designed with the intention of removing the idiot from the equation altogether. To create the most sustainable transport possible. Hence their mission to achieve level 5 autonomous driving where the car drives more safely than any human can.

 

[vickster]

No touchscreen in my Skoda...even has keep fit windows in the back. I don't even have to change gear, the DSG does that ( could distract myself with the flappy paddles if I so desired). I do have to manually change the CD though which could be a distraction I guess!

 

[icowden]

Try and forget Tesla specifically as we’re not arguing about that....it’s about TOUCHSCREENS vs. Knobs and buttons....

Fair enough. On that front I agree with you. Unless the user interface is incredibly well designed, it is always going to be a novelty feature and a lot of these companies have very little experience in computing. Most EVs are just conversions of ICE cars, so they are still working from a standard car pattern and trying to reuse stock components, then to fit functions into an app on a touchscreen.

Companies like Tesla deliberately started out by not looking at standard cars but at how transport should work.

 

[HMS_Dave]

The car is designed with the intention of removing the idiot from the equation altogether. To create the most sustainable transport possible. Hence their mission to achieve level 5 autonomous driving where the car drives more safely than any human can.

If that is so, why then when all the evidence is pointing towards touchscreens in cars aiding distractions are they continuing to ignore that? (With the exception of Mazda)

 

[winjim]

The current thing is 'directectional lighting'! Not content with dazzling everyone with DRLs that have to outperform the rest, they now switch them on and off as the steering is turned. How the heck does this help anyone? What is it supposed to achieve? You don't know if the car coming towards you has a faulty light, has just come round a corner, is turning into a sidestreet, is going to indicate, can't be bothered to indicate because the DRLs are doing it for them or the driver doesn't have a clue what the car is doing because the driver doesn't have a degree in English and engineering and besides, when did anyone read a book that thick?

I hate those lights with a passion usually reserved for the love of my children. I also hate those chase sequence indicators and people who maneouvre with hazard lights on*. All it's doing is either removing information or making the information that is available so complex that it takes my brain too much time to process it.

*Honestly, there is a special place in hell for these people. The utter arrogance of it, they're basically saying 'I could move anywhere at any time and I've removed my ability to warn you so stay the fark away from me'. I'm not blind, I can see your (often illegally positioned) vehicle, I just want to know if, when and in what direction it may be about to move. Lighting it up like a Christmas tree achieves none of that.

 

[Archie_tect]

My Seat has a to/uchscreen and it is definitely more distracting to operate compared to intuitive controls on the steering wheel.

Driving a car shouldn't require you to take your eyes off the road to operate the controls.... it's the equivalent of my children looking down at the gear lever to select the right gear when they started to learn to drive!

 

[Rusty Nails]

The car is designed with the intention of removing the idiot from the equation altogether. To create the most sustainable transport possible. Hence their mission to achieve level 5 autonomous driving where the car drives more safely than any human can.

Perhaps they ought to limit their sales to idiots then and keep the roads safer.

Does it suggest that in their promotional guff?

"To boldly go where no man idiot will go again"

 

[gzoom]

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.

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.

 

[gzoom]

You're actually more or less correct for fan speed. It requires considerable interaction - and therefore attention and time - to locate it in the menus adjust it, and then look back at the road and require the sight-picture. Tesla is much the same.

Actually you don't on a Tesla. Fan speed, even turning on climate control can be done on steering wheel controls. As can volume adjustment, taking calls, music selection. I rarely if ever need to touch the touch screen when actually driving. It does display alot of useful info which you can configure how you like.

I personally have music and map on, but on road trips have the rear view camera and navigation/car charge status on .

 

[gzoom]

2483

I do not want to sub contract those skills to a pile of electronic junk neither do I want a load of high tech gadgets that are only there for the sake of it and cost the earth when they go wrong.

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'.

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

 

[Drago]

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.

Blatant copies? You may do well to recall that Volvo put touchscreens in a car 2 years before Tesla before you accuse anyone of copying. Peugeot, of all people, also beat Tesla to the touch screen punch,

And of course, changing the nature of the "real estate" is what causes the danger. A button that has but a single function is the most efficient, least distracting and therefore safest method. A touchscreen that requires you to flip between menus or screen formats requires both more attention and time, both if which are valuable safety commodities when in motion.

Every time I get in a Tesla with it's dangerous touchscreen and inability to travel 900 miles without stopping to refill with electrons I feel like I've gone back in time.

But i'll yell you the biggest problem with Tesla - the smug, self satisfied attitude of the people that buy them. I cant wait until mrs D's Polestar 2 arrives - now that has been unleashed suddenly none is interested in the overpriced, ageing, low tech Tesla rubbish. Who wants a car made in a tent by a man who calls people he falls out with a "Pedo"?

 

[gzoom]

Every time I get in a Tesla with it's dangerous touchscreen and inability to travel 900 miles without stopping to refill with electrons I feel like I've gone back in time.

But i'll yell you the biggest problem with Tesla - the smug, self satisfied attitude of the people that buy them. I cant wait until mrs D's Polestar 2 arrives - now that has been unleashed suddenly none is interested in the overpriced, ageing, low tech Tesla rubbish. Who wants a car made in a tent by a man who calls people he falls out with a "Pedo"?

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

Enjoy the Polestar am sure its a nice car, am currently saving up for a Taycan with its touch screens.