> It is normal to often only have one hand on the wheel. Much of Europe loves manual transmissions, and I do too, and it is perfectly, and completely safe.
We're talking about maximizing safety, not just reinforcing something that is already done. What is safer: one hand on the wheel or two?
> What isn't safe is to be looking away from the road ahead of you. At 80mph, common freeways speeds, it's insane to do so.
At some point in time, I will consult my navigation. Being able to quickly glance and understand the map is important, and a display that's easier to read translates to it being safer. Which is easier to read, a smaller screen with small graphics and small text, or a large one with larger text and graphics?
> No current automated controls fix the heat/AC needing to be adjusted, specifically defrosting the windows.
I forgot that the physics of when a window fogs up is completely unknowable. I guess its impossible for us to figure out the conditions for when a window fogs and make a system to automatically defog them. Oh wait, never mind, this isn't the stone ages, cars can easily know when their windows have the possibility of fogging. There's really zero reason why all cars can't have extremely reliable defoggers; you should really complain to your car maker that you don't have it as I'd say having your car automatically defog improves safety. I have it on my most recent car, once again I never have to press the defog button. My car is already defogged by the time I get to it, and the auto climate makes sure the conditions for a foggy windshield never happens. I don't get why you'd choose to have a car which requires you to manually intervene with the defogger, once again that just seems like yet another distraction making your car less safe.
That said, I will agree things related to critical safety should still have a physical button. On my car with a giant screen, there's still a button over by the headlight control for max defog, in the rare case it somehow gets this wrong. Which has never happened, but OK, I'll agree automation isn't always perfect and this is a safety critical feature.
That draws me to something that is still almost always manual when it really should never be. Headlights! My car does have a manual headlight control with an automatic setting that it never leaves. Sure, you'd say, we need to make sure headlights remain a manual control, its a safety feature! I'd argue the other way. There's practically zero reason for any passenger car to need to turn off their headlights while driving, giving people that control makes us less safe. I see tons of people driving around at night without headlights all because they get a manual say in whether their lights are on or not. Letting people turn their headlights off while driving makes us less safe.
I will agree additional lighting like fog lights should still be a manual control. Once again, critical safety components should still have a physical control.
> temps need to be changed
They really don't though, not while you're driving. The climate conditions in your car probably didn't radically change since you put your car into gear, you're not really going to be noticeably different at 71F vs 72F. Its an additional distraction. I maybe kick the temp up a few degrees in the winter and bring it back down in the spring/summer time, and this happens before the car gets put into gear. Probably four adjustments to the temperature a year, and I say that leaving my house at ~50F right now and it'll be >90F when I leave the office. All the rest of the time, its wasted space on my dashboard. I'm not constantly adjusting the thermostat in my house, I programmed it how I like my house and it dutifully carries it out. Why would I want to constantly be fiddling with the AC when it could be automated? Thermostats are a solved problem. Good auto climate controls have existed since the late 90s, there's little excuse for needing a lot of intervention in your climate control. Let the system do its job and quit getting distracted trying to micromanage it.
> Automated wipers suck, and often get it wrong. Mud splashes, must be washed away.
Here I completely agree with you, and mention so in my last comment. The rules on when and how fast wipers should go on are much harder to automate than the climate or the defrosters or the headlights. While I do use and enjoy my auto-wipers on my cars, they're still not perfect. That said, I prefer for these controls to be on the stalks and not the center console where the touch screen we're talking about is. I wouldn't want to have to reach to the center console to adjust my wipers, that's a regression from the current state of affairs.
> hazard lights engaged to alert traffic around you
Isn't this a legal thing in the US? Kind of worthless to bring up this point as every car in the US is guaranteed to have it regardless of if its got a large touchscreen or not. But once again, I do agree, critical safety features should have physical controls.
That said, there really aren't that many critical safety controls. We've identified what, maybe a handful of them? Wipers, defogger, hazard lights, parking brake, door locks, door levers/handles, window controls, gear selector, maybe mirror adjustment, maybe fog lights if equipped on your car? And even then a lot of those controls shouldn't be in the center console, almost all of those are better placed in other areas. In which case there being a giant touchscreen in the center console makes zero difference about whether those controls are physical or not, as they're not affected by the center console at all.
> based upon the horrid state of current UI design
You know what's horrid UI design? Having to type an address with a wheel. Having a ton of buttons which never get pressed. Needing to read the next turn name in braille or on a tiny screen.
Here's the center console on my car with a lot of buttons[0]. Bluelink? Setup? INFO? C'mon, these buttons get pressed a few times in the entire life of the car. Giant "Climate" button when there's already a lot of physical climate controls wasting space? A huge fan speed selector knob which never gets turned, because once again, auto climate controls, why would I want to micromanage it? Why should I need to manually turn the A/C compressor on or off, the defogger should just know how to control the humidity without me manually intervening. Practically the entire bottom half of this whole button area is darn near worthless to me, it essentially never gets touched.
I do prefer a physical volume knob even though as the driver I don't use it as I've got volume on my steering controls, its nice for the passenger versus some touch slider. That "TUNE" knob though? Its probably only been turned a few times the entire time I've owned the car. I set the presets for the radio stations I listen to and can change those with the steering controls. SEEK? Well, once again I've got steering wheel controls, why do I need that on the center console?
Meanwhile the thing I actually do use on the center console, navigation, suffers from having all these physical buttons that never get pressed. The maps are much smaller and harder to read while driving. Putting in the destination before I get going is far more annoying. Planning out a complex route is way more frustrating than it should be. Changing settings in the car while not driving is more annoying with the smaller screen and a bunch of worthless buttons. Overall the center console is worse for having a lot of buttons, not better.
[0] https://paulgeorgedaniel.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/santa7.jpg https://paulgeorgedaniel.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/santa7....
If you read this, sorry I couldn't reply, been travelling, and just too busy right now as a result.
It is hard to express how much I disagree with you, but I'll take a stab:
> What is safer: one hand on the wheel or two?
Unless you are riding in a derby, in high wind conditions, or on ice, this is a bad argument. In those conditions, incidentally you want as little distraction as possible, the fact I can't turn what tiny center console I have off is a source of endless frustration...
One hand is fine in most situations, and you need to be able to operate the car, not have your hands glued to the steering wheel.
> They really don't though, not while you're driving.
They really do, though. THERE ARE MORE USES FOR HEATING AND COOLING THAN JUST CLIMATE CONTROL, DEAR BRAINDEAF ELON MUSK.
And I don't mean just fogging windows, although like you admit at least that's almost impossible to automate well in all conditions.
> That draws me to something that is still almost always manual when it really should never be. Headlights!
Completely disagree - most sane implementations are keep them on automatically, with the option to force them on. I'll keep mine on a slightly overcast day just because its more safe, while the automatic setting completely fails to turn them on.
And, flip side, there are numerous situations where you want to keep your lights off not on - I can agree there should be maybe be some alert to the driver if the system detects, say, driving over 5 mph and no lights on, but that's about all the automation I want.
> We've identified what, maybe a handful of them? Wipers, defogger, hazard lights, parking brake, door locks, door levers/handles, window controls, gear selector, maybe mirror adjustment, maybe fog lights if equipped on your car?
Lol that's more than a handful. I'll add some - seat control (for crashes, sun in the eyes), heat/cooling override controls, brakes, pedal, disabling/enabling cruise and lane keep (it breaks, gets obstructed, driver gets tired or bored, or just wants to change their driving style to be safer, or more aggressive as traffic may require), audio/call controls on the steering wheel (or dash, whichever you prefer), so you can take or make emergency calls, or turn off the loud music you were using to stay awake to focus on traffic. Throw one in I haven't seen - a bluetooth pair button would be nice.
> Meanwhile the thing I actually do use on the center console, navigation, suffers from having all these physical buttons that never get pressed.
I can agree center consoles are poorly designed, the ones that have just enough for operation and nothing else (analog radio control or scroll equiv) are better than the touchscreens which always are awkward to operate, smudge, break, and/or eventually just die.
> That "TUNE" knob though? Its probably only been turned a few times the entire time I've owned the car. I set the presets for the radio stations I listen to and can change those with the steering controls.
I guess you have never crossed a state boundary and gone channel hunting. Seek is useful, but you can't configure the amplitude filtering - I can contiue to listen to a station half coming in or I can lose that completely with seek, get whatever nonsense local popular music channel.
Then there's your whole attitude that only a machine can make you more safe. Humans have lapses in judgement, sure, but when machines do, nobody can tell it to "snap out of it". Automatic things are nice, but I should always be able to EASILY override them, otherwise its like I stuck my hand in a blender with no way to stop the proverbial blade, except managing to smash through the glass and rip out the plug with my now mangled hand.
Either you just don't have much realworld experience, or you spent too much money on e.g. a Tesla and can't admit that despite the conveniences, they are horrible designs.