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There's another reason why touchscreens are used. It breaks up one of the "long poles" in the project schedule. Hardware buttons and switches have to be desig

There's another reason why touchscreens are used. It breaks up one of the "long poles" in the project schedule. Hardware buttons and switches have to be designed, tested, re-designed, and validated very early in the process of designing a new model so that there is time to figure out how to manufacture / source all the parts, how they integrate with the rest of the car's systems, and how they'll be wired and assembled. Just imagine what the impact would be if late in the process a new feature needs to be added! Pretty much forget about it, add it in the next major model refresh. With a touchscreen all those dependencies go away. The hardware team just says "there's going to be an iPad sized capacitive touch screen here for climate/infotainment, and another custom sized display here for the instrument cluster". The software guys can independently do the design of the UI, changing things down to the very last moment, or even after the last moment if the car can be updated.

trey-jones 4y ago
Because this paradigm has been working so well for the software industry. Physical buttons being better (and safer!) for a driver is so obvious it's almost not even worth testing. No science required!
- falcolas 4y ago
  Cost and driver safety are orthoganal. You can't increase driver safety without increasing the cost. And given how we treat companies which don't grow their profits yearly, it's (sadly) an unsurprising output.
ISL 4y ago
It is almost as if there is a market for a touchscreen that can reconfigure itself to present arbitrary tactile physical buttons.....
- comicjk 4y ago
  As long as the design team has the discipline to freeze the button layout for any given car, so the driver doesn't have to deal with moving or disappearing buttons.
- incrudible 4y ago
  No, the problem is that a car interface isn't supposed to reconfigure itself. You're supposed to be able to learn to use it blindly. Designers need to be able to make decisions and stick to them. If they can't do that, it means they suck at their job.
packetlost 4y ago
I've long had the belief that a handful of multi-function buttons below a touch-screen headunit or something would be ideal. Give me physical buttons and a very clear and easy way to tell what "mode" they're in (and switch it if necessary). As long as you don't have too many functions and have glance-able labeling (perhaps with small OLEDs on the buttons themselves) you'll get the best of both worlds edit: hire me VW, I'll fix your awful infotainment lol
- unwiredben 4y ago
  Effectively an ATM-style interface?
  - packetlost 4y ago
    Yeah, actually. But maybe a bit nicer. Think like 2-4 dials that have multiple functions (adjust temp, volume, seat warmer, etc.) with a small OLED to indicate which, then like 4-6 buttons above the dials (but below the screen) that have ATM style multi-function with the infotainment screen (or themselves have small OLEDs).
khy 4y ago
I had a car that had a single physical input: a dial that you could press. The dial would move the focus around the screen, and you'd press the dial to click. This was, in my opinion, a far superior experience than regular touch screens, and it probably doesn't suffer from the problem you're describing.
- Tagbert 4y ago
  No but it converts the action into a multi-step process. A button is a single-step process. Multi-step is fine for infrequent configuration-type actions that happen when you are not actively driving but are a distraction while driving.
  - jdvh 4y ago
    It’s also a multistep process with a touch screen: 1) find the button on the screen 2) lean over to reach it 3) touch it and look at it while doing so to confirm you did it right. In a clickwheel car the wheel moves the focus rect. You twist it blindly to approximately the right spot. Then you look at the screen and adjust one or two clicks and press to confirm. You won’t trigger the wrong action by accident and the focus rect makes the operation async: you don’t have to look while you turn the wheel, you can look at the screen when it suits you.
- dmead 4y ago
  cars that support android auto try to do this. theres a button on the steering wheel that turns on the voice assistant like a phone. you can do a lot an definitely not take your eyes off the road.
- someguy5344523 4y ago
  Really? That sounds like the worst of both worlds to me; you still have to look at the screen to see what you're selecting, but you also can't just click the thing you want directly.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    > you still have to look at the screen to see what you're selecting Asynchronously, yes. And since there's physical feedback (detents in the turning), you can do it by feel eventually. > you also can't just click the thing you want directly. If it's off screen, you still have to do some kind of scrolling, and hope you don't inadvertently select something while trying to scroll. I do this ALL THE TIME with the touch screen I have.
mLuby 4y ago
That makes sense. Do aftermarket physical panels exist for consumers to replace their touch dashboard with physical buttons linked to the same functionality? That'd sidestep the long pole issue and give drivers the ability to customize their cars. If they don't, I imagine the Devil's in the "linked to the same functionality" details. It could be that carmakers make doing this legally or technically impossible or maybe just that there isn't demand for aftermarket adaptor software.
- dublin 4y ago
  No, we lost what little ability we had to do that when manufacturers abandoned the globally used single and double DIN radios for tightly coupled and proprietary systems tied to each individual car. NOTHING on current cars control and "infotainment" systems is upgradeable or changeable by the buyer anymore. Oh, and a reminder: Stand for freedom and NEVER buy a car that has a data connection (Internet or private radio) back to the manufacturer. I want my car talking to its manufacturer (and by invisible proxy, the big ad tech corps, governments, and insurance companies) exactly never.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    Can one still buy those? (I think it is not trivial to buy a dumb TV set that doesn't phone home… that'll soon hold for cars as well, I'm afraid.)
dr_orpheus 4y ago
Yes, but a lot of car manufacturers got around this by making a relatively common control suite for all of their cars. There are car-specific items, and luxury versions of a brand tended to change it up from the standard, but most manufacturers seemed to have an identical set of buttons/knobs for climate control in each of their cars.
- katbyte 4y ago
  I am pretty sure my 2022 tacoma has the exact same clutch start cancel button as my 1998 4Runner did. But then that’s a very Toyota thing to do.
  - ghostpepper 4y ago
    I had to look up what a "clutch start cancel" button even does. For anyone else curious, "allows the truck to be started without the clutch pedal depressed". This generally causes the vehicle to lurch forward as the engine starts with first gear already engaged. I am curious if you've ever had to use that button?
    - dghlsakjg 4y ago
      Not the OP, but I used to use it while off-roading. If you are in 4-lo it means you can start the car in gear on a tricky section and not have to worry about using the clutch or rolling backwards while the clutch is disengaged. Part of this is probably to do with the unconventional parking brake that toyota trucks use. They have a t-handle under the steering wheel, so it is harder to use the parking brake as a hill-holder than it would be with a truck with a traditional lever style brake handle. It has a very limited use case, but its handy when you need it.
      - katbyte 4y ago
        whoa t-handle under the steering wheel? which truck (or year?) is this? my 4runners and tacoma's all had what I thought was the standard the pull up handle in the centre between the seats! will say with the newer one has hill assisted breaking, makes starting on hills while off-roading quite a bit easier :) wasn't sure I'd like it, ended up liking it quite a bit
incrudible 4y ago
I get it, but how much more crap must you pack into the interface of a car, to the point where you can't decide ahead of time, like with all of the other physical components? This is lazy design and the results are terrible. Is this really what people want, or what the car design echo chamber believes people must want, because Tesla is somewhat successful with it?
potamic 4y ago
The obvious solution is to use a touchscreen with cheap plastic buttons that sit on the touchscreen and emulate touch.
titzer 4y ago
The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too, and then you can make everything still programmable in software. I have no idea why you absolutely need to put buttons in the middle of the screen to be touched. It's one thing to put items or whatever that can be selected, or allow pinch/zoom, but in reality almost all interaction just boils down to picking between a limited set of options at any given time. With a decent response time and hierarchical menus, it's easy to make a system that is navigable without looking. Throw in some (hopefully non-annoying) audio feedback, and it is extremely accessible--even by a blind passenger! In fact, that's a good benchmark. If a blind passenger could operate the thing, then the driver should be able to as well.
- snowbrook 4y ago
  Just like every gasoline pump I've used in the last decade.
- Angostura 4y ago
  Put physical buttons and knobs on and allow configuration of the image displayed on the button - like programmable keyboards.
- jlkuester7 4y ago
  This. %100 this. The airline industry figured this out years ago with some of the cockpit controls. (admittedly there are a lot of other buttons and switches for the pilot to worry about too, but it seems like the digital display panels always are flanked by rows of buttons which were used for interacting with the panel. Works great even with gloves on and does not lock you into a single feature set.
  - NittLion78 4y ago
    I was going to cite the example of the Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. Even moving a cursor around a map requires pushing a physical knob in 360° to guide it.
    - 4y ago
jfoster 4y ago
I've heard it's also cheaper from a hardware perspective, because ultimately any modern car was going to have some kind of screen anyway, so you get the screen to replace every instrument cluster. It might then mean using a better screen for usability reasons, but all of the other instrument cluster parts no longer exist; they cost $0.
- minutillo 4y ago
  I worked on a project (not cars, phones) where we replaced an older model that was operated through buttons and LEDs with a newer model that was just a giant multitouch screen. Surprisingly to me, it was way, way cheaper! And cheaper in multiple dimensions: the hardware buttons and LEDs weren't just more expensive, they implied a multi-step manufacturing and testing process on every unit. The touch screen was relatively standard and just came as an integrated assembly from a supplier. We also went through a phase where we had a hybrid interface, the most common interactions done through hardware controls, everything else on the touch screen. There was always some level of regret associated with the hardware stuff, like we had some extra LED we never actually needed or just one more button would have been nice.
the__alchemist 4y ago
An MPD (screen with buttons around the edges) gets you best of both worlds.
giantg2 4y ago
"Hardware buttons and switches have to be designed, tested, re-designed, and validated very early in the process of designing a new model" To be fair though, the buttons should be pretty standard from the previous model or other models. Vehicle design is generally iterative, building off the prior models.
- otikik 4y ago
  Hi, I am the guy who was going to buy a house in the countryside and who might need to talk to you about killing hornets. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32149932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32149932) I'm contacting you to tell you that I bought the house, and I have finally moved, and I love it here. But guess wha? We have hornets. And I already hate them. 10 minutes ago I removed my first nest. It was a small one, inside our mailbox! Highly inconvenient and disgusting. There must be some other nest nearby, those buggers keep coming to pester us while we eat. Do you have any pointers about how to find where a hornet's nest is?
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Well, not really. They do make traps for different types of hornets. That can help, especially if you place them in April to catch the queens. You might be able to try "bee lining", but I'm not sure how well that will work for hornets as it's traditionally done with honey bees.
ec109685 4y ago
The Tesla Model S/X did this right. All commonly used functions are on the steering wheel, with customizable rocker knobs, and voice control works.
- rstupek 4y ago
  Agreed. I never need to look at my screen to change volume, skip songs, adjust the A/C.
- powerbroker 4y ago
  In 3 Tesla's I've owned, voice commands are only 80% accurate. This is with a male midwestern accented (U.S.) English. I can talk with a Texas drawl... if that is necessary, to see if the car gets my speech better. My wife, on the other hand, thinks voice recognition is a joke, and doesn't even bother trying. Its hard to call voice recognition redundant or helpful to the touch screen.
albertopv 4y ago
For their front car doors Vw, Audi, Seat have been using same design for years. Touchscreens are just an easy way to cut costs.
toss1 4y ago
Yes, that is definitely a key reason touchscreens are used. This does NOT mean that it is a good reason. The design team saves time & project risk once, and every user for decades (the car is supposed to live that long, right?) pays for the entire life of the car, a few pay with their own lives or the lives of a random pedestrian/cyclist because they are distracted by a bad UI at just the wrong moment and end up in a preventable accident. Plus the test in the article is GREAT! It should be enhanced and required as a manufacturing standard. The test should also include blindfolded trials, or with a screen blocking the dashboard — it's not rare to have to operate the controls without looking at the dashboard — rainy, cool, dark, in 2-way traffic, and your windshield is fogging fast... that should require 1.5sec blindfolded for a person new to the car.
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nopenopenopeno 4y ago
How hard could it be to have physical buttons with miniature lcds in them so that their labels could be programmed as well? In fact my 2022 Honda Civic has climate controls with dynamic labels like this, with LCDs in them. I see no reason why these couldn’t be programmable. Also the left half of the gauge cluster in my Civic (behind the steering wheel) is an LCD that can almost perfectly imitate a physical needle gauge one moment and or be a settings menu the next, and a fully customizable output the next.
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ortusdux 4y ago
It is really common for $1mil+ super-cars to have OEM turn signals, window toggles, etc. from budget cars for this reason.
PontifexMinimus 4y ago
> Hardware buttons and switches have to be designed, tested, re-designed, and validated very early in the process of designing a new model No they don't, just use the same ones as the previous model.
systemvoltage 4y ago
Yes, but the most important reason is cost. Alps catalog for switches has been diminishing and they are becoming more expensive. Development/schedule impact is NRE, but any addition to COGS impacts the bottom line in every car.
tomxor 4y ago
> if late in the process a new feature needs to be added! Pretty much forget about it This is a feature of the physical process... can you imagine how annoying it would be if the dial for your aircon or volume control kept changing it's position! If they can't plan the feature properly, I don't want it, I don't want a buggy piece of software with UI that changes every week. In a way I wish this was true for modern software as well... no more updates at any time, at least try to get it right the first time rather than just rushing any old shit out of the door "because you can fix it later AKA never". I understand there is a balance to be struck with these manufacturing decisions and quality - sometimes it's worth sacrificing some things so that other areas can benefit and the overall quality can improve or the reach that a product has is greater - but this is nuts, touchscreens in cars is just dangerous and annoying.
SoftTalker 4y ago
> if late in the process a new feature needs to be added! Pretty much forget about it What are you going to need to do while driving? Operate the headlights. Operate the wipers. Operate the climate control fan speeds, mode, and temperature. Operate the windows. There are not an endless number of essential operations that cannot be foreseen at design time. These are the ones that should have single-purpose, fixed context physical controls.
screye 4y ago
Genuine question, why do buttons take so long when keyboards are so standardized ? Mechanical keyboards have mastered haptics, replaceability and reliability over high repetitions. They could easily iterate over a mechanical keyboard housing that's custom, but the individual components within it stay completely interchangeable. Also, why is it so hard to understand that touchscreens can be good if they've got haptics ? Is a mac-book-sized haptic-trigger motor THAT HARD to facilitate in a vehicle ? Is a blackberry like physically moving touchscreen a complete no-go ? Lastly, I wonder if touchscreens can be used as a large capacitive backend to put physical buttons on top of. That way the UI can be designed independently, and the independently tested buttons get added last minute onto whichever grounding spot on the touchscreen is agreed upon by the designers.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Or, and hear me out on this, just standardize and keep it as modular as possible. Competition is said to require innovation, but we're all familiar with how this tips into planned obsolescence and just pushing out a new model with largely cosmetic changes every year for marketing purposes. It's not so uncommon to see excellent overall designs acquire incongruous and thus ugly chrome for no other reason than to distinguish this years' model from last.
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pkz 4y ago
Maybe a button cluster for cars could be standardized? Everything relating to AC, heat, etc could work with similar symbols and placement. Everything else had to go below or above this module?
itslennysfault 4y ago
Sometimes "long poles" are good. Having a touch screen means they can (and will) half ass the UI/UX because they can update it later. Also, this isn't just a car problem. You can see it all over the web and mobile apps. I'm a huge fan of rapid iteration, but it has the unintended side effect of allowing people to ship half baked products because they "will iterate on it over time"
- neogodless 4y ago
  Yeah I'm starting to notice how pre-release slowness is hand-waved away... but the reality is that they may not actually fix it in time for production (or ever).
NonNefarious 4y ago
That's the rationale, for sure; but for mechanical features physically built into the car that can't be altered by software, there should be physical buttons. I don't even like electronic climate controls. I drove a minivan last week that had a click-wheel for the blower speed, which inexplicably suffered from a several-second lag. Yes, multiple seconds before the fan speed changed, making the selection of one a ridiculous pain in the ass. And any UI that makes you poke at a button or twiddle a dial to iterate through a list one item at a time, without showing the whole list at once, is a monumental failure. You see this blunder way too often, when there should simply be a drop-down list for a finite number of options.
dottedmag 4y ago
In the world I'd love to live we as a humanity would conduct an experiment: design two cars differing only in touchscreen/regular controls, produce, sell them and collect accident history. Let's say touchscreen version would end up having a bit more accidents, say, one death more per 10000 machines sold. And then the critical step: for every other touchscreen car ever designed by anyone, charge a manager who signed off the touchscreen with one manslaughter for every 10000 machines produced.
oliwarner 4y ago
> With a touchscreen all those dependencies go away Not quite. You need a rough idea of where the controls are going to be so you can make sure that the user can reach them. The placement of that "iPad sized capacitive touch screen" is incredibly important, especially if the user has to search for the control. That's no less true with hardware controls, and I'm probably splitting hairs, but it's not as simple as just allowing for it. There is still hardware to consider early on. And when manufacturers do forget to plan for it, and shovel a touchscreen into an old-design cockpit, it's super-obvious, and awful.
HellDunkel 4y ago
Games are fine with simple controllers which provide 2 analog sticks and a few buttons. Why can’t cars do the same? They have even put touch displays on steering wheels!
mralexc 4y ago
Clearly! One more dependecy gone away, phew! On the cost of what? Driver safety?

trey-jones 4y ago

Because this paradigm has been working so well for the software industry. Physical buttons being better (and safer!) for a driver is so obvious it's almost not even worth testing. No science required!

falcolas 4y ago
Cost and driver safety are orthoganal. You can't increase driver safety without increasing the cost. And given how we treat companies which don't grow their profits yearly, it's (sadly) an unsurprising output.

ISL 4y ago

It is almost as if there is a market for a touchscreen that can reconfigure itself to present arbitrary tactile physical buttons.....

comicjk 4y ago
As long as the design team has the discipline to freeze the button layout for any given car, so the driver doesn't have to deal with moving or disappearing buttons.
incrudible 4y ago
No, the problem is that a car interface isn't supposed to reconfigure itself. You're supposed to be able to learn to use it blindly. Designers need to be able to make decisions and stick to them. If they can't do that, it means they suck at their job.

packetlost 4y ago

I've long had the belief that a handful of multi-function buttons below a touch-screen headunit or something would be ideal. Give me physical buttons and a very clear and easy way to tell what "mode" they're in (and switch it if necessary). As long as you don't have too many functions and have glance-able labeling (perhaps with small OLEDs on the buttons themselves) you'll get the best of both worlds edit: hire me VW, I'll fix your awful infotainment lol

unwiredben 4y ago
Effectively an ATM-style interface?
- packetlost 4y ago
  Yeah, actually. But maybe a bit nicer. Think like 2-4 dials that have multiple functions (adjust temp, volume, seat warmer, etc.) with a small OLED to indicate which, then like 4-6 buttons above the dials (but below the screen) that have ATM style multi-function with the infotainment screen (or themselves have small OLEDs).

khy 4y ago

I had a car that had a single physical input: a dial that you could press. The dial would move the focus around the screen, and you'd press the dial to click. This was, in my opinion, a far superior experience than regular touch screens, and it probably doesn't suffer from the problem you're describing.

Tagbert 4y ago
No but it converts the action into a multi-step process. A button is a single-step process. Multi-step is fine for infrequent configuration-type actions that happen when you are not actively driving but are a distraction while driving.
- jdvh 4y ago
  It’s also a multistep process with a touch screen: 1) find the button on the screen 2) lean over to reach it 3) touch it and look at it while doing so to confirm you did it right. In a clickwheel car the wheel moves the focus rect. You twist it blindly to approximately the right spot. Then you look at the screen and adjust one or two clicks and press to confirm. You won’t trigger the wrong action by accident and the focus rect makes the operation async: you don’t have to look while you turn the wheel, you can look at the screen when it suits you.
dmead 4y ago
cars that support android auto try to do this. theres a button on the steering wheel that turns on the voice assistant like a phone. you can do a lot an definitely not take your eyes off the road.
someguy5344523 4y ago
Really? That sounds like the worst of both worlds to me; you still have to look at the screen to see what you're selecting, but you also can't just click the thing you want directly.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > you still have to look at the screen to see what you're selecting Asynchronously, yes. And since there's physical feedback (detents in the turning), you can do it by feel eventually. > you also can't just click the thing you want directly. If it's off screen, you still have to do some kind of scrolling, and hope you don't inadvertently select something while trying to scroll. I do this ALL THE TIME with the touch screen I have.

mLuby 4y ago

That makes sense. Do aftermarket physical panels exist for consumers to replace their touch dashboard with physical buttons linked to the same functionality? That'd sidestep the long pole issue and give drivers the ability to customize their cars. If they don't, I imagine the Devil's in the "linked to the same functionality" details. It could be that carmakers make doing this legally or technically impossible or maybe just that there isn't demand for aftermarket adaptor software.

dublin 4y ago
No, we lost what little ability we had to do that when manufacturers abandoned the globally used single and double DIN radios for tightly coupled and proprietary systems tied to each individual car. NOTHING on current cars control and "infotainment" systems is upgradeable or changeable by the buyer anymore. Oh, and a reminder: Stand for freedom and NEVER buy a car that has a data connection (Internet or private radio) back to the manufacturer. I want my car talking to its manufacturer (and by invisible proxy, the big ad tech corps, governments, and insurance companies) exactly never.
- FabHK 4y ago
  Can one still buy those? (I think it is not trivial to buy a dumb TV set that doesn't phone home… that'll soon hold for cars as well, I'm afraid.)

dr_orpheus 4y ago

Yes, but a lot of car manufacturers got around this by making a relatively common control suite for all of their cars. There are car-specific items, and luxury versions of a brand tended to change it up from the standard, but most manufacturers seemed to have an identical set of buttons/knobs for climate control in each of their cars.

katbyte 4y ago
I am pretty sure my 2022 tacoma has the exact same clutch start cancel button as my 1998 4Runner did. But then that’s a very Toyota thing to do.
- ghostpepper 4y ago
  I had to look up what a "clutch start cancel" button even does. For anyone else curious, "allows the truck to be started without the clutch pedal depressed". This generally causes the vehicle to lurch forward as the engine starts with first gear already engaged. I am curious if you've ever had to use that button?
  - dghlsakjg 4y ago
    Not the OP, but I used to use it while off-roading. If you are in 4-lo it means you can start the car in gear on a tricky section and not have to worry about using the clutch or rolling backwards while the clutch is disengaged. Part of this is probably to do with the unconventional parking brake that toyota trucks use. They have a t-handle under the steering wheel, so it is harder to use the parking brake as a hill-holder than it would be with a truck with a traditional lever style brake handle. It has a very limited use case, but its handy when you need it.
    - katbyte 4y ago
      whoa t-handle under the steering wheel? which truck (or year?) is this? my 4runners and tacoma's all had what I thought was the standard the pull up handle in the centre between the seats! will say with the newer one has hill assisted breaking, makes starting on hills while off-roading quite a bit easier :) wasn't sure I'd like it, ended up liking it quite a bit

incrudible 4y ago

I get it, but how much more crap must you pack into the interface of a car, to the point where you can't decide ahead of time, like with all of the other physical components? This is lazy design and the results are terrible. Is this really what people want, or what the car design echo chamber believes people must want, because Tesla is somewhat successful with it?

potamic 4y ago

The obvious solution is to use a touchscreen with cheap plastic buttons that sit on the touchscreen and emulate touch.

titzer 4y ago

The solution to that is simple. Put four/five physical buttons down each side of the screen, maybe along the bottom too, and then you can make everything still programmable in software. I have no idea why you absolutely need to put buttons in the middle of the screen to be touched. It's one thing to put items or whatever that can be selected, or allow pinch/zoom, but in reality almost all interaction just boils down to picking between a limited set of options at any given time. With a decent response time and hierarchical menus, it's easy to make a system that is navigable without looking. Throw in some (hopefully non-annoying) audio feedback, and it is extremely accessible--even by a blind passenger! In fact, that's a good benchmark. If a blind passenger could operate the thing, then the driver should be able to as well.

snowbrook 4y ago
Just like every gasoline pump I've used in the last decade.
Angostura 4y ago
Put physical buttons and knobs on and allow configuration of the image displayed on the button - like programmable keyboards.
jlkuester7 4y ago
This. %100 this. The airline industry figured this out years ago with some of the cockpit controls. (admittedly there are a lot of other buttons and switches for the pilot to worry about too, but it seems like the digital display panels always are flanked by rows of buttons which were used for interacting with the panel. Works great even with gloves on and does not lock you into a single feature set.
- NittLion78 4y ago
  I was going to cite the example of the Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. Even moving a cursor around a map requires pushing a physical knob in 360° to guide it.
  - 4y ago

jfoster 4y ago

I've heard it's also cheaper from a hardware perspective, because ultimately any modern car was going to have some kind of screen anyway, so you get the screen to replace every instrument cluster. It might then mean using a better screen for usability reasons, but all of the other instrument cluster parts no longer exist; they cost $0.

minutillo 4y ago
I worked on a project (not cars, phones) where we replaced an older model that was operated through buttons and LEDs with a newer model that was just a giant multitouch screen. Surprisingly to me, it was way, way cheaper! And cheaper in multiple dimensions: the hardware buttons and LEDs weren't just more expensive, they implied a multi-step manufacturing and testing process on every unit. The touch screen was relatively standard and just came as an integrated assembly from a supplier. We also went through a phase where we had a hybrid interface, the most common interactions done through hardware controls, everything else on the touch screen. There was always some level of regret associated with the hardware stuff, like we had some extra LED we never actually needed or just one more button would have been nice.

the__alchemist 4y ago

An MPD (screen with buttons around the edges) gets you best of both worlds.

giantg2 4y ago

"Hardware buttons and switches have to be designed, tested, re-designed, and validated very early in the process of designing a new model" To be fair though, the buttons should be pretty standard from the previous model or other models. Vehicle design is generally iterative, building off the prior models.

otikik 4y ago
Hi, I am the guy who was going to buy a house in the countryside and who might need to talk to you about killing hornets. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32149932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32149932) I'm contacting you to tell you that I bought the house, and I have finally moved, and I love it here. But guess wha? We have hornets. And I already hate them. 10 minutes ago I removed my first nest. It was a small one, inside our mailbox! Highly inconvenient and disgusting. There must be some other nest nearby, those buggers keep coming to pester us while we eat. Do you have any pointers about how to find where a hornet's nest is?
- giantg2 4y ago
  Well, not really. They do make traps for different types of hornets. That can help, especially if you place them in April to catch the queens. You might be able to try "bee lining", but I'm not sure how well that will work for hornets as it's traditionally done with honey bees.

ec109685 4y ago

The Tesla Model S/X did this right. All commonly used functions are on the steering wheel, with customizable rocker knobs, and voice control works.

rstupek 4y ago
Agreed. I never need to look at my screen to change volume, skip songs, adjust the A/C.
powerbroker 4y ago
In 3 Tesla's I've owned, voice commands are only 80% accurate. This is with a male midwestern accented (U.S.) English. I can talk with a Texas drawl... if that is necessary, to see if the car gets my speech better. My wife, on the other hand, thinks voice recognition is a joke, and doesn't even bother trying. Its hard to call voice recognition redundant or helpful to the touch screen.

albertopv 4y ago

For their front car doors Vw, Audi, Seat have been using same design for years. Touchscreens are just an easy way to cut costs.

toss1 4y ago

Yes, that is definitely a key reason touchscreens are used. This does NOT mean that it is a good reason. The design team saves time & project risk once, and every user for decades (the car is supposed to live that long, right?) pays for the entire life of the car, a few pay with their own lives or the lives of a random pedestrian/cyclist because they are distracted by a bad UI at just the wrong moment and end up in a preventable accident. Plus the test in the article is GREAT! It should be enhanced and required as a manufacturing standard. The test should also include blindfolded trials, or with a screen blocking the dashboard — it's not rare to have to operate the controls without looking at the dashboard — rainy, cool, dark, in 2-way traffic, and your windshield is fogging fast... that should require 1.5sec blindfolded for a person new to the car.

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nopenopenopeno 4y ago

How hard could it be to have physical buttons with miniature lcds in them so that their labels could be programmed as well? In fact my 2022 Honda Civic has climate controls with dynamic labels like this, with LCDs in them. I see no reason why these couldn’t be programmable. Also the left half of the gauge cluster in my Civic (behind the steering wheel) is an LCD that can almost perfectly imitate a physical needle gauge one moment and or be a settings menu the next, and a fully customizable output the next.

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ortusdux 4y ago

It is really common for $1mil+ super-cars to have OEM turn signals, window toggles, etc. from budget cars for this reason.

PontifexMinimus 4y ago

> Hardware buttons and switches have to be designed, tested, re-designed, and validated very early in the process of designing a new model No they don't, just use the same ones as the previous model.

systemvoltage 4y ago

Yes, but the most important reason is cost. Alps catalog for switches has been diminishing and they are becoming more expensive. Development/schedule impact is NRE, but any addition to COGS impacts the bottom line in every car.

tomxor 4y ago

> if late in the process a new feature needs to be added! Pretty much forget about it This is a feature of the physical process... can you imagine how annoying it would be if the dial for your aircon or volume control kept changing it's position! If they can't plan the feature properly, I don't want it, I don't want a buggy piece of software with UI that changes every week. In a way I wish this was true for modern software as well... no more updates at any time, at least try to get it right the first time rather than just rushing any old shit out of the door "because you can fix it later AKA never". I understand there is a balance to be struck with these manufacturing decisions and quality - sometimes it's worth sacrificing some things so that other areas can benefit and the overall quality can improve or the reach that a product has is greater - but this is nuts, touchscreens in cars is just dangerous and annoying.

SoftTalker 4y ago

> if late in the process a new feature needs to be added! Pretty much forget about it What are you going to need to do while driving? Operate the headlights. Operate the wipers. Operate the climate control fan speeds, mode, and temperature. Operate the windows. There are not an endless number of essential operations that cannot be foreseen at design time. These are the ones that should have single-purpose, fixed context physical controls.

screye 4y ago

Genuine question, why do buttons take so long when keyboards are so standardized ? Mechanical keyboards have mastered haptics, replaceability and reliability over high repetitions. They could easily iterate over a mechanical keyboard housing that's custom, but the individual components within it stay completely interchangeable. Also, why is it so hard to understand that touchscreens can be good if they've got haptics ? Is a mac-book-sized haptic-trigger motor THAT HARD to facilitate in a vehicle ? Is a blackberry like physically moving touchscreen a complete no-go ? Lastly, I wonder if touchscreens can be used as a large capacitive backend to put physical buttons on top of. That way the UI can be designed independently, and the independently tested buttons get added last minute onto whichever grounding spot on the touchscreen is agreed upon by the designers.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Or, and hear me out on this, just standardize and keep it as modular as possible. Competition is said to require innovation, but we're all familiar with how this tips into planned obsolescence and just pushing out a new model with largely cosmetic changes every year for marketing purposes. It's not so uncommon to see excellent overall designs acquire incongruous and thus ugly chrome for no other reason than to distinguish this years' model from last.

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pkz 4y ago

Maybe a button cluster for cars could be standardized? Everything relating to AC, heat, etc could work with similar symbols and placement. Everything else had to go below or above this module?

itslennysfault 4y ago

Sometimes "long poles" are good. Having a touch screen means they can (and will) half ass the UI/UX because they can update it later. Also, this isn't just a car problem. You can see it all over the web and mobile apps. I'm a huge fan of rapid iteration, but it has the unintended side effect of allowing people to ship half baked products because they "will iterate on it over time"

neogodless 4y ago
Yeah I'm starting to notice how pre-release slowness is hand-waved away... but the reality is that they may not actually fix it in time for production (or ever).

NonNefarious 4y ago

That's the rationale, for sure; but for mechanical features physically built into the car that can't be altered by software, there should be physical buttons. I don't even like electronic climate controls. I drove a minivan last week that had a click-wheel for the blower speed, which inexplicably suffered from a several-second lag. Yes, multiple seconds before the fan speed changed, making the selection of one a ridiculous pain in the ass. And any UI that makes you poke at a button or twiddle a dial to iterate through a list one item at a time, without showing the whole list at once, is a monumental failure. You see this blunder way too often, when there should simply be a drop-down list for a finite number of options.

dottedmag 4y ago

In the world I'd love to live we as a humanity would conduct an experiment: design two cars differing only in touchscreen/regular controls, produce, sell them and collect accident history. Let's say touchscreen version would end up having a bit more accidents, say, one death more per 10000 machines sold. And then the critical step: for every other touchscreen car ever designed by anyone, charge a manager who signed off the touchscreen with one manslaughter for every 10000 machines produced.

oliwarner 4y ago

> With a touchscreen all those dependencies go away Not quite. You need a rough idea of where the controls are going to be so you can make sure that the user can reach them. The placement of that "iPad sized capacitive touch screen" is incredibly important, especially if the user has to search for the control. That's no less true with hardware controls, and I'm probably splitting hairs, but it's not as simple as just allowing for it. There is still hardware to consider early on. And when manufacturers do forget to plan for it, and shovel a touchscreen into an old-design cockpit, it's super-obvious, and awful.

HellDunkel 4y ago

Games are fine with simple controllers which provide 2 analog sticks and a few buttons. Why can’t cars do the same? They have even put touch displays on steering wheels!

mralexc 4y ago

Clearly! One more dependecy gone away, phew! On the cost of what? Driver safety?