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Hyundai promises to keep buttons in cars

765 points by nixass 4y ago

iamalchemist 4y ago
Saw Porsche Taycan with weird AC controls hidden deep inside the touch screen and a very un-intuitive UI. Honda did the same mistake and now have changed their decision and gone back to physical buttons. Hyundai realises it. Hope others follow the lead
Arrath 4y ago
A good start, now for more manufacturers to follow suit.
- MavisBacon 4y ago
  This is such good news, I was planning on keeping my used Volvo for decades as I love my buttons so much
blakesterz 4y ago
That's great! I hope all new Hyundai's buttons are more readable than the darn things in mine. I thought it was just me, but nope, it's a common complaint. I can not make out a single word on my buttons, it's super annoying. https://www.palisadeforum.com/threads/cant-see-buttons-in-bright-daylight.3032/ https://www.palisadeforum.com/threads/cant-see-buttons-in-br... I much prefer buttons over a touch screen, but designers need to remember to make them readable.
mavu 4y ago
I bought a Peugeot over a VW because it has actual physical buttons. Keep pushing touch controls, I keep not buying your shit.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  My wife has an ID.4, and they really have gone overboard with touch controls. You have only 2 sets of window controls (driver-side and passenger); you have to use a touch control to switch between front and back.
- ladberg 4y ago
  Which VW? Except for the ID4, all recent models I've driven have physical buttons for everything I'd need to touch while driving.
  - izacus 4y ago
    I don't think it's fair to call the capacitive touch panels they've put in all new models "buttons". Especially with those crappy tiny touch areas.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      Audis and Skodas (same group, basically same cars) have the regular physical controls AFAIK. I'm driving a 2021 Audi A1 and it has nice click-y buttons for everything
- EiZei 4y ago
  I just drove a brand new rented Peugeot 208 and even the manual A/C was touchscreen only so that's ruined too.
- sandgiant 4y ago
  I bought a used 2019 VW instead of a new model for this exact reason. I'm afraid it's the last VW I'll own unless they roll back touch controls.
- dybber 4y ago
  Physical buttons will become a premium feature.
gnicholas 4y ago
This is good news, though some (mostly higher-end) carmakers are addressing this by having high-quality natural language voice commands. I look forward to having a vehicle like this someday, but in the meantime I'm glad that there are mainstream carmakers that are keeping physical buttons.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  My experience with Siri when I've lost a remote has been more than enough to tell me that trying to control volume with voice is just a pain in the ass.
- mataug 4y ago
  I personally don't enjoy voice commands, they require all passengers to stop talking, and it interrupts the radio, podcast, or music, and generally it's awkward to use voice commands during a phone call. Well placed physical interfaces are unbeatable for their input reliability, which translates to less time spent distracted from the road.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    They don't have multiple mics to triangulate on the driver's voice? What you describe does sound annoying!
    - mataug 4y ago
      I don't have a high-end luxury car, I've only used Android Auto / Apple CarPlay through the car's microphone system. Even if we assume a sophisticated system that can triangulate your voice, trying to talk to the car while driving, and having other passengers talking seems like a recipe for distraction.
      - gnicholas 4y ago
        Perhaps! I was imagining that it would work at least as well as a HomePod, which can pick up very quiet talking even when music is playing. Since the car knows where your head is located, I assumed that it would perform even better. I don't have a problem talking while there are others in the car — I often have kids in the car and use an AirPod to ask Siri to send text messages. I find it to be less distracting than reaching for knobs (and I've driven knobby cars since the 90s, so am well-practiced at that). I find steering-wheel controls to be the best, but anything that makes me reach into the center stack is less preferable (compared to voice interface) for me.
MobileVet 4y ago
I bought a Chevy Bolt vs a Model 3 for this and CarPlay. It is so well designed and every time I need something it is right where I expect it. Could I learn the touch interface? Of course, but driving is often done subconsciously and touch is not amenable to that type of automatic interaction. I wanted a car, not a toy. (I am aware of the irony regarding the unfortunate proportions of the Bolt making it look like a toy car… lol)
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  The Chevy Bolt also costs over $10k less than the Model 3.
  - MobileVet 4y ago
    Yep. I had my eyes set on the Genesis GV60, but that car’s entry model (if you can find it) is $60k. The Bolt was $33k - 7.5k in tax rebates. It is an enormous value. It isn’t the Genesis for sure… but it’s 80% of that car for 40% the money.
    - DangitBobby 4y ago
      I bought mine about 30 days too soon to qualify for the tax rebate. Pretty salty about that.
    - bdcravens 4y ago
      The GV60 is the same platform as the Ioniq 5 and EV6. Ioniq is hard to find, but EV6's are relatively available.
      - saagarjha 4y ago
        Is it? We walked into our local Hyundai and they had several models they were selling at MSRP.
        bdcravens 4y ago
bityard 4y ago
Wow, talk about missing the point. Four grids of uniform buttons, they think that's an improvement over a touchscreen? There is zero practical distinction between taking your eyes off the road to see which button you're pushing vs taking your eyes of the road to see which part of the screen you're touching. GOOD HVAC/radio design means you can perform ALL essential functions WITHOUT taking your eyes off the road AT ALL, once you've spent five seconds learning what's where. The controls should be in locations where it's hard to mistake one thing for another. The controls should also be differently shaped and different types. Give us knobs and sliders! Is anyone even awake in car design depts anymore?
- layer8 4y ago
  It could certainly be improved, but it still looks much more usable than a touchscreen to me.
- FPGAhacker 4y ago
  [flagged]
- jonathankoren 4y ago
  I’m pretty sure you regularly use a piece of plastic with 104 near identical buttons without looking at any of them.
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    Not identical: they typically have raised markers on two of the home row keys precisely to help with orientation. And, well, your hands are already positioned over them much of the time, so relative identification is much easier. Not so with these buttons.
    - mulletbum 4y ago
      I am 37 and have felt for these raised markers precisely zero times.
mataug 4y ago
That's wonderful, I hope other car makers realize how distracting and dangerous touch controls are for a driver's ability to focus on driving. My car has physical controls for most things, and I use CarPlay for music/podcasts and navigation, and even for that purpose it's extremely distracting to use it while driving when compared to the physical interfaces for A/C, seat heaters, mirror adjustment etc. I generally avoid as much of the CarPlay interface as possible while driving. Voice commands are not the silver bullet solution here, they have a lot of problems such as requiring all passengers to stop talking, and it interrupts the radio, podcast, or music, and generally it's awkward to use voice commands during a phone call. Voice commands are probably fine for some low stakes input like asking to call someone, changing music tracks etc.
- wilg 4y ago
  Hardly fair to compare navigation and selecting music to adjusting temperature and seat heaters. Very different tasks with very different requirements for looking at them.
themitigating 4y ago
I have a 2022 VW Golf GTI. It has no buttons for the climate control and haptic buttons for the steering wheel controls. I think there's some assumptions the designers might have made about how people would use the system: The first is how HVAC systems work in a house, old cars, and new cars. - Home window and central ACs (at least all the ones I've seen) can't adjust the temperate of the air that comes out, it's tied to external values like whether the air recirculation is on, the temperature of the outside air, wind, etc. For example if it's 90f out and you turn on the AC and the desired temp is below that it will output 70f. There's many variables, size of the system whatever, point is YOU CAN'T CONTROL THE TEMPERATURE OF THE AIR COMING OUT OF THE SYSTEM : You set a desired temperature : If that temperature is above (AC) or below (heat) the compressor and fan turn on : The system outputs a fixed air temperature, as cold as possible for all the variables BUT NOT your desired temperature : When the desired temperature is reached (or a few degrees in either direction to prevent rapid cycling) the compressor turns off. The fan may also turn off or continue to run depending on the settings. Cars: In older cars and newer cars when automatic climate control is off or unavailable the system outputs the TEMPERATURE YOU CONTROL. You aren't setting a desired temperature but an output temperature. One exception to this is cars that turn off the compressor when your interior air is below the desired. Many newer cars have automatic climate control. You set the desired temperature and it adjusts both the air temperature, fan speed, and position until you reach the desired temperature. That means if it's 90F in the car and you want 69F the initial output air temperature will as cold as possible, possibly lower than your desired to assist in getting to your desired. This is accomplished via air mixing with the heater core. *It's more complex than this but for the sake of simplicity I believe the goal was that you would set a fixed temperature, turn on auto, and rarely touch the system. This is even more possible in my car because there's dedicated defrost buttons that override the system when on and return it to the previous setting when you turn it off. This means there's less interaction with the system and therefore less need for dedicated buttons and less distraction, assuming that's how it's used. Steering wheel: The steering wheel has a volume control: https://www.topgear.com/sites/default/files/2022/02/TopGear%20-%20Speedweek%20-%20Golf%20R%20%20-%20010.jpg https://www.topgear.com/sites/default/files/2022/02/TopGear%... Both + and - are on one long strip with no gap between other buttons. When you press it there's a small amount of movement and haptic feedback. It does not respond to touch unless you slide. The operation is as follows: Press + and the volume increases by 1 Press - and the volume decreases by 1 Slide your finger from left to right the volume increases multiple values depending on the amount of contact and speed of the swipe Slide your finger from right to left .... Again, the sliding action mimics the operation of a phone. I don't think it's unreasonable for the designers to assume the operation would be natural for people. Overall there's a greater learning curve however a learning curve for a car isn't important in most situations since you usually keep a car for a few years. I've gotten used to it and I would have liked real buttons I don't see a problem. Taking my eyes off the road can happen for many things, like GPS, text messages, etc. That's something I need to known not to do because simply reduces the reasons doesn't seem like the ideal solution.
dahwolf 4y ago
Please do remove the 72 trillion buttons plastered over the steering wheel.
- poly_morphis 4y ago
  Agreed. Interestingly, only on higher end vehicles have I seen more appealing/simpler steering wheels (Audi, in my experience).
  - pornel 4y ago
    The wheel is for driving, not an art piece. It is a good place for additional controls that the driver may need to use, without taking hands off the steering wheel.
gorjusborg 4y ago
I've never owned a Hyundai, but stuff like this makes me want to look at them. I recently bought what I thought was a car, only to find it is a tech-ridden abomination. I want a vehicle that is reliable. I want a vehicle that is simple. I do not want a rolling AI/touchscreen. Even just from a security standpoint I want minimal software in my car.
- maztaim 4y ago
  I can’t speak for their EV line, but no media is talking about how crappy their engines are. I won’t touch a KIA or Hyundai and I have zero qualms speaking up about it. My brother and I both needed new engines after 50,000 miles with normal wear and maintenance. If you read up on oil consumption you will discover they have had problem’s continually since 2014. Last I checked the 2021 +models are still affected. Getting the engine replaced is getting harder as they can’t keep up with engine demand. It’s a 4000 mile set of tests and BS. KEEP ALL YOUR SERVICE RECORDS and keep your maintenance schedule, or you will be paying anywhere from $16,000 USD to fix it on your own dime.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    They do have a history of cheaping on parts. When we had a KIA, all sorts of problems with CV joints, and power steering components, all expiring around 130,000km or so. Just lower quality seals & parts on drivetrain components, that lasted just until out of drivetrain warranty, if I recall. Their EVs seem well built, from watching Sandy Munro videos, anyways. (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igFytqIMp0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igFytqIMp0A) But they're also so-far all in the upper tier of price ranges. Nobody is really making a 'budget' EV yet, apart from maybe GM with the Bolt.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Expiring at 130k KM seems sort of reasonable? How long do you expect those parts to last?
encryptluks2 4y ago
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wilg 4y ago
I miss my Prius, which had a large dedicated button on the dashboard to switch the speedometer from MPH to km/h. (US model) I don’t know why it was there but I did like to push it.
- pif 4y ago
  Your Prius? I thought we were talking about cars, here!
- aendruk 4y ago
  Good to hear it was made that easy. Last Prius I rented there was no way to display km/h and Toyota’s official response was “just buy next year’s model”.
- dyno12345 4y ago
  maybe it was intended for the rental market
deleted 4y ago
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wilg 4y ago
1) Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe. You might imagine having to briefly glance at a screen is less safe, but that's not evidence. The only thing I've ever seen people cite is some unscientific magazine article that claimed touchscreens take slightly longer to operate for certain strangely-chosen controls, which is not at all the same thing as measuring safety. 2) People never have a very good answer for which physical buttons cars like Teslas are missing. There's physical controls for all driving functions, volume, music play/pause, music next/previous. Adjusting climate is in a muscle-memoryable fixed position, not in some menu. You certainly aren't supposed to be adjusting your mirrors or something while driving.
- karaterobot 4y ago
  Here you go: https://exchange.aaa.com/safety/distracted-driving/ https://exchange.aaa.com/safety/distracted-driving/
  - wilg 4y ago
    This is not particularly relevant, the tested features are not really available as no-look controls in any car, nor are they the driving critical controls people imagine these touchscreens replace. > Participants were required to use voice commands, touch screens and other interactive technologies to make a call, send a text message, program audio entertainment or program navigation, all while driving down the road.
- meatmanek 4y ago
  > Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe. That's a bit like the old joke that the efficacy of parachutes at preventing free-fall deaths has never been proven scientifically. (Well, until this 2003 study[1]) Some chains of causality are so obvious that we don't need to prove them scientifically: Many people find touchscreens hard to use without taking their eyes off the road. Taking your eyes off the road can lead to crashes. 1. https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094
stevenjgarner 4y ago
The difference between a car company with a software department and a software company with a car department.
havblue 4y ago
The cabin controls are okay on Hyundais, I guess. I remember having to use the touchscreen to set the rear temperature controls. This is confusing when the main screen is occupied by Android auto. So it isn't like you have button control over everything. I'd recommend Mazda for getting pushbutton controls right.
- peeters 4y ago
  I'm a big fan of the Commander knob on my Mazda (despite absolutely everything else about their infotainment being hot garbage). It's so easy to use without being distracted, more so even than physical buttons. But unfortunately, it seems like Android Auto is going more and more away from supporting non-touchscreen inputs. First they added forced "look at the road" breaks when you were scrolling a large list, which actually made it more dangerous when scrolling with the knob in a Mazda since it would just take longer. And their new layout is pretty terrible for a rotary input as it has no clear tab flow.
avmich 4y ago
For long time I wondered why UI in spacecrafts is so inconvenient. Apollo computer UI seems to be lacking. Soyuz UI, while seems to improve over years (ha, it would be strange, over so many years...), still looks clunky. And then - Crew Dragon comes with touch screens. Don't they understand it's a big step back? There are benefits of "fluid" interfaces, but where is the attention to important features, ability to use "main" tools without re-learning where they are and how they look like, while having the tactile feedback?
- ironmagma 4y ago
  The Space Shuttle has some of the most advanced-looking UI I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame there isn’t more information about it.
- bmitc 4y ago
  I have been in the room, so to speak, when the design of a fusion reactor control room was being discussed. I feel the answer is simply: because engineers "design" these things. I feel like the design of spaces is simply not considered very well if at all. I get the feeling that maybe aircraft do it best? Or at least that's the impression that I have had.
  - cidergal 4y ago
    Agreed. These systems tend to be designed by engineers without a lot of input from designers.
  - anon7725 4y ago
    Did engineers really design the touch screens on Dragon? I feel like those were in the first mock-ups that came out. I assumed that it was just a “concept car” type detail and they would have MFDs in the real spacecraft. Touchscreens seem like a very marketing/design feature.
    - deleted 4y ago
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- 4y ago
jdminhbg 4y ago
I have owned a Hyundai, and I have zero idea why everyone is so convinced that their physical buttons reduce driver distraction. In the six years I had it, I never managed to totally figure out where the HVAC buttons were and in what order they cycled the different modes.
- Beached 4y ago
  I have zero issues with my 2018 Elantra buttons. the whole experience is perfectly normal.
cactusplant7374 4y ago
I love buttons but you don't really need them with a properly designed climate control system. Yet many cars are fitted without climate control so the driver is always fiddling the buttons or subjecting passengers to cruel temperatures.
ExMachina73 4y ago
Real pushable buttons. Not the capacitive crap VW has ruined their interiors with.
cdepman 4y ago
Wonderful. I recently rented a model 3 and found it incredibly frustrating that it required multiple touches to adjust settings that would be a single button press on a more traditional car. Don’t even get me started on the windshield wipers - a total nightmare in winter storms and located on the left stalk? These are safety concerns. As long as humans are operating these dangerous vehicles, I vote for fewer driver distractions.
- redindian75 4y ago
  model 3 has voice control "turn on wipers" "set AC to 68" "drive home" - at the press of a button, the music fades and it listens like "hey Siri"
  - Slava_Propanei 4y ago
    [dead]
  - biofox 4y ago
    That sounds like a poor solution to a problem of their own making
    - colordrops 4y ago
      As an owner it works great. Windshield wipers have a sensor for automatic control, and if you want to manually adjust, voice recognition is highly accurate these days. I switch between my Prius and Tesla all the time as my wife shares the vehicles, and I much prefer the Tesla controls. But I'll get off of your lawn if you'd like.
      - wlesieutre 4y ago
        Anecdotally the owner I’ve asked about it said it sucks. And he’s a native English speaker. How’s it do with accents? Maybe it’s been improved with hardware upgrades? His is around a 2017 I think.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
Perhaps people thought cars would be self-driving so people could ignore the road while playing with touchscreens. Of course Tesla's 2016 demo video of its self-driving feature was faked^1. There were several crashes, some fatal, resulting from Tesla's alleged self-driving feature. The company is being sued by multiple parties for breach of warranty.^2 Stay tuned. 1. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/tesla-staged-2016-self-driving-demo-says-senior-autopilot-engineer/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/tesla-staged-2016-self-... 2. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.400427/gov.uscourts.cand.400427.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.40...
monstertank 4y ago
Can we get them back on phones too please?
xwdv 4y ago
Not wonderful. People are comfortable with buttons but with this comfort comes a loss of innovation on new ideas that are better than buttons. Audi is working on advanced technology where by simply pinching the air in front of your infotainment and moving your hand left or right, you can control volume as if you were moving an analog slider widget. You can also grab the air and rotate your hand left and right to control climate temperatures.
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  So the innovation over buttons is gestures. Sort of like pushing buttons. "Advanced technology". Touchscreens while driving can be finicky and dangerous for removing attention from traffic. Who's to say this advanced technology is going to be as seamless as you imagine, instead of requiring my hand to be located just-so before it reads? Never understood why "if it isn't broken don't fix it" is such a horrible idea to people like you.
user3939382 4y ago
This should be a government regulation rather than a promise. I have a lot of sympathy for laissez faire (in the absence of regulatory capture) but we don’t want market forces being shaped by death.
miketery 4y ago
Good on Hyundai! Other cars will go back to this, or will the NTSB make them? Aviation has figured this out long ago. Look at any "glass" cockpit. They all have buttons around the screen. For example see linked [1] Garmin 1000 panel, common in General Aviation. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin_G1000#/media/File:Garmin_G1000_Diamond_DA-42.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin_G1000#/media/File:Garmi...
qwerty456127 4y ago
Nice! I want a car to be as analog as possible. Touchscreen controls looked cool to me as I was a child, now I understand that's all bullshit.
tastysandwich 4y ago
When researching family cars recently, I literally avoided the Honda CR-V just because the AC was controlled via the touch screen. There's a "Climate" button, which brings up a screen on the display where you can turn the aircon on/off, up/down, etc. It's just horrendous. Give me my dials. My worst gripe - which all modern cars have - is the aggressive bluetooth auto-connect. If my wife takes the car, it will automatically connect to my phone in the house and start playing whatever was last playing. If I'm using headphones, it will just pinch the audio from them. I cannot disable this. Drives me absolutely nuts (no pun intended).
- joshtgreenwood 4y ago
  FWIW - just bought a 23 CRV for my wife because of the abundance of analog controls. Not sure what on screen display you were seeing, we use the knobs exclusively.
  - tastysandwich 4y ago
    Nice! I guess they fixed it up This review is for their 2021 model. > Plus, while there is a climate button and fan speed button, as well as dials for the temperature settings, you still have to go through the screen to control whether the air conditioner is on or off, and also which ventilation is active. Odd. https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-reviews/honda-cr-v-81488 https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-reviews/honda-cr-v-81488 And a demonstration, though it's for an even older model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99WLw0pQc8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99WLw0pQc8w
    - gregmac 4y ago
      I have a 2016 Civic, it's almost identical to the video. All I can say is this is such a non-issue: The "auto" mode they implemented works really well. I use the temperature knob pretty much exclusively. If it's hot, the A/C comes on. If it's cold, it doesn't. If the windshield needs defrosting, you press that button and.. it defrosts, then press "auto" to get back. I've literally never manually changed the A/C setting, and once or maybe twice in 5 years of ownership have I manually adjusted vents. The (physical) recirculate button is occasionally useful to manually if you're driving through dust/smoke/smell. But I'll also note the use of this with A/C is automatic: if it's really hot out or you turn the temp down really low, it'll automatically turn on recirculate (so it's cooling the already-cool inside air), but if it's able to use outside fresh air it'll do that instead. This is another thing that Just Works and I basically don't have to think about. Remote start is similarly smart: When it's cold out, it turns on the defrost and heats the seats up. When it's hot, it runs the A/C. Either way when you get in it's usually already comfortable and it resumes whatever mode and temperature it was set to last time you drove -- and on only a mildly warm day, that might mean A/C isn't on. Manual control of A/C is just something you never need to do. Sorry, but Honda absolutely nailed it on their climate control. The lack of a physical volume knob, on the other hand...
freitzkriesler2 4y ago
Amazing. Now can we promise to keep instrument cluster dials as needles? I don't have a repeat of the Aston Martin Lagonda when the LCDs undoubtedly become dated.
cyberax 4y ago
I wish automakers would make buttons with small programmable OLED displays, so that I could bind custom actions to them. I hated button layout in ALL of the cars I've owned. I usually needed only a couple of buttons, with the rest being unused.
- zmeden 4y ago
  That would be nice but very expensive and not so robust as moulded parts without any display/electronic on the surface. I wonder if there is a cheaper way of customizing the button icons than with OLED displays.
  - cyberax 4y ago
    Heck, I'd be OK if the automakers went old school with replaceable stickers/panels. Hm. Should I patent it? Off to USPTO!
ar9av 4y ago
They're right, and touchscreens also inconvenient, annoying, and not universally useful. For an entertainment center and navigation a touchscreen is great, but for basic functions I want switches so I don't have to look away from the road. Please.
ngcc_hk 4y ago
That is the criteria I used in selection of car. Tesla is off
polishdude20 4y ago
I mean, do I care about a promise for this? If I'm in the market for a car and they're important enough to me, I'll just buy a car that does have buttons. If they break their promise, it's not like I'm screwed. My current button-full car still has them. Next time I need another car I'll buy one that does have buttons.
jerkstate 4y ago
I fully support this for basic environmental controls and audio, but there is a limit. I test drove a Kia EV6 GT recently and it has, IIRC, 4 up-down levers and about 8 or 10 other buttons on the steering wheel, flappy paddles, and stalks. Compared to Tesla (which I also test-drove), which has only two pushbutton scroll wheels and two stalks, and a big screen. the polar opposite. I think neither gets it exactly right. physical controls of things that can get obtrusive - wind and noise - are appropriate. But it's ridiculous and distracting to have too many buttons for features that are not really necessary to drive. I think that a common one like rear view mirror adjustment, or even seat adjustment, should not be physical buttons, but menu items.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  I've had an EV6 for 6 months, and I don't find them counterintuitive.
  - jerkstate 4y ago
    be honest - how many of the 30 or 40 physical controls do you actually use on a regular basis?
    - bdcravens 4y ago
      I frequently switch mode between Eco and Sport, always switch to level 4 regen, and use both cruise control and the volume controls daily. So just on the steering wheel, I use probably 75% of the levers and buttons daily. Maybe I'm the rare power user. :-)
bdcravens 4y ago
Will this translate to their Kia brand? My EV6 has touch controls for the climate control, and the same "toolbar" flips between climate and radio controls. (it does have 2 circular knobs). On the next level trim, the controls for heating/cooling seats are touch and are notoriously easy to accidentally hit (though on mine they are buttons)
WirelessGigabit 4y ago
Well, I wish BMW did the same. Wanted to go for the new BMW M2. But now instead of a well-integrated speedometer & central display they shaved it off of the dash and put in place this monstrosity of a wide screen. It's just bolted on with no sense of cohesion. And with that the buttons for climate control are gone. Want to turn on heated seats? Touch the screen. Change fan speed? Touch the screen. All things that I can do blindly (eyes on the road, not eyes closed, but you get it), which now require looking AND finesse, because if I mis press who knows where the GPS will send me next...
- ilikehurdles 4y ago
  It's such a bummer because I think the last 2-3 generations of BMW's iDrive system have been absolute rockstars among autos. Sad to see them go backwards with iDrive 8 where you have to navigate nested menus to toggle heated seat controls.
abledon 4y ago
ioniq5 has some beautiful buttons mixed with screens
UberFly 4y ago
As far as the console goes, I would gravitate to the most basic I possibly could. I don't want to spend an extra 6k for stuff I'd rather do on my phone anyway.
zenlikethat 4y ago
Thank goodness. I FAR prefer tactile instruments.
OnionBlender 4y ago
I've been looking for a commuter car and right now the Mazda3 is at the top of my list because it doesn't has a touch screen.
tanto 4y ago
Amazing! When I bought my last car, I ensured there were physical buttons for everything I regularly use. While driving, most things happen without much thinking, and touch screens feel like the antithesis of that idea. I recently had to drive a car with a touch screen for, e.g. AC and radio control. I failed miserably to turn off the radio for 3 hours on the highway. I usually expect these things to be intuitive enough to do without reading the manual of a car.
tedk-42 4y ago
Reading the comments here remind me of the days when the iPhone was first released to the masses and everyone was like 'oh no i want my physical keyboard it feels good'. Good times looking back. Any button not on the steering wheel will require you to look away from the road, even for a split second. In that split second something can jump out in front of you. You can blame the touch screen or other things, shoot maybe even if you were looking straight ahead your mind might have drifted (as is the case with long distance, boring driving after hours without a break). No amount of UI will fix that. Best we can hope for is better tech in the car for obstacle detection and avoidance.
- Peanuts99 4y ago
  As multiple people here have pointed out, they can operate the button interfaces on their cars by touch alone. My car only has knobs and buttons and I can operate the heating, radio, cabin lighting and hazards just by knowing what the control feels like.
j16sdiz 4y ago
> Lee hinted that while this is a priority for Hyundai today, things may change in future. In particular, the company will likely look at using touch controls more heavily when autonomous driving becomes mainstream. “When it comes to Level 4 autonomous driving, then we’ll have everything soft key," said Lee. Hell, no. When it comes to level 4 autonomous driving, I want a hardware one key override, not everything soft key.
bottlepalm 4y ago
I drive a Tesla. Love having no buttons. Love having no HUD in front of my face. So clean, so simple. There's a couple buttons on the steering wheel for music and cruise control. Haven't needed anything more than that.
manmal 4y ago
I have a Hyundai Ioniq 1st gen, and the main reason I didn’t go for the 2nd gen was the touch-only controls (capacitive buttons). I’m happy that Hyundai reconsidered this - I love the build quality of their cars and this decision will make it way easier to be a repeat customer.
teekert 4y ago
Like Samsung "promised" (advertised) keeping the headphone jack? https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-mock-ads-apple-headphone-jack-removed/ https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-mock-ads-apple-headph...
2bitlobster 4y ago
Not sure why peripheral vision UIs never took off for cars. It solves the safety issue of taking your eyes off the road with while still enjoying the benefits of a touch screen. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sT33BPUQaHg&feature=youtu.be https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sT33BPUQaHg&feature=youtu.be
DeathArrow 4y ago
At least we still have a real wheel and not just some arrows to push on a touchscreen. :)
senko 4y ago
Curiously, most of the ac/nav/media controls in my Hyundai Tucson are touch (big touchscreen with the usual suspects, and a row of buttons that aren't part of the screen and could've been normal buttons, but are instead capacitive ones that don't provide any tactile feedback). I am grateful they've decided to at least stop there.
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Can we have both? Magnetic adhering buttons to touch screens? Could even make the touch screen configureable, so its something new for every driver and different in every car. If you are a UX designer. How did we get here?
alessioalex 4y ago
Interesting as they just removed almost all buttons in Hyunday Tucson at least. Good thing they're bringing them back.
smaudet 4y ago
I think there's an old joke somewhere in here about designers being unable to resist re-inventing perfectly good buttons for the nth time, so that they can cleanly "style" them.
serpix 4y ago
Well they just got a (repeat) customer for life.
gorpovitch 4y ago
Not only the buttons but also a lot of parts which are electric when they really don't have to. My brother, who has three kids, tried out a SUV which had an electric hatchback, where you have to trigger the trunk closing with a button. With a manual hatchback he could fill all the luggage in the trunk and just slam the door, without any problem. But now the electric hatchback would not close if the car felt there was a luggage in the way. In the end they had to remove the luggage, close the trunk and fill the trunk from the side doors.
Kaotique 4y ago
Standardised physical controls are one of the best things car designers have ever done. When I did not own a car I rented them on a regular basis. It is amazing that you can just step into a car that you have never driven before, flip some familiar switches, turn some knobs and press some pedals and be on your way. Throwing all that away for some fancy touch screens is just a waste.
moss2 4y ago
Finally some reasonable people
654wak654 4y ago
Had my eye on the Hyundai i20 for my next car, this definitely helps that decision.
maxehmookau 4y ago
I love my Skoda Enyaq, but the fact that I have to look at a screen to change some very basic settings (temperature, auto stop breaking, etc.) I hate.
stanete 4y ago
Maybe what's dangerous is awful UI/UX; not touchscreens
bengale 4y ago
I think my current BMW is probably going to be peak design for me. All of the driving and climate controls are physical click-y buttons. It still has a touch screen for ancillary stuff that I don't need when driving which is fine, but I don't have to use the touch screen at all when driving. Sadly it seems they are following the crowd on the new versions, it looks like climate controls have moved onto the touch screen. I won't be glad to "upgrade" to that.
herbcso 4y ago
I love it! I've been ranting about touchscreen-mania in cars for years now! Good on ya, Hyundai!
erwinator 4y ago
Imo, a large number of people grew up with tablets. Even my own kids, in the back of the car finishing games while driving. In 10-20 years most buttons will be gone in cars. Because the new generation is so used to using touchscreens.
- hnarn 4y ago
  I think that’s beside the point. There’s probably professional pilots active today that “grew up with tablets” but I don’t think anyone wants cockpits to replace knobs and levers with touchscreens. In a car you can get away with this kind of compromise because there’s an idea that it’s what people “want”, but my personal opinion is that car makers have a responsibility to ensure that design changes they make do not impact the safety of drivers, and I have a hard time thinking that isn’t a problem with touchscreens, because you simply cannot interface with the car anymore without averting your eyes the same way you can with actual buttons.
- LastTrain 4y ago
  My kid, who grew up with tablets and is now just old enough to drive, hates touch screens in cars for non nav/infotainment functions. Now, he’s been taught to drive in a car with buttons, so he’s bitten the apple so to speak. If he didn’t know any better you’d probably be right.
dillz 4y ago
One of the main reasons why I decided to buy a Hyundai (i30) last year is the good cockpit design. Physical buttons for the essential controls, touchscreen for nav, some extras and settings. The UX in some car brands is so horrible I really struggle to unterstand how anyone would ever build/buy those atrocities.
jwr 4y ago
So happy to see this. My VW ID.4 is extremely frustrating, because I never know if touching a control will do something or not. Many buttons are also touch-sensitive. Endless confusion, and additionally you can't "feel" for the button, you have to look and touch carefully, because otherwise touching might trigger something else. Just a couple of days ago I wanted to feel the temperature of the air being blown into the cabin. I put my hand near the vent and inadvertently turned off the headlights and turned on rear windshield heating — just by touching. Took a while to set everything back to sane settings.
- MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
  I use Miles car sharing a lot, and I now actively avoid the VW ID cars. The user experience is just so much better in the Polo, everything just works and is intuitive. In the ID, figuring out how to activate the hot air while driving when the windshield starts to go blind is no fun. Parallel parking sucks because you have very little feel for when the car is bumping against something vs just needing a bit more power to move. The interior looks like it was designed to be cheap above all. Adjusting the mirrors is a frustrating experience.
alkonaut 4y ago
The killer invention would be a device that is as easy to replace/maintain/configure/adapt as the glass/ipad interface, but as easy to do blindly as an 80's knobs-and-buttons interface. I'm sure automakers have plowed money into all kinds of cool haptic inventions, and there are lots of past examples of UX innovation (BMW control wheel, modern HUDs). I hope we'll figure this one out eventually, because the Tesla solution sure isn't the end of the story.
- OOPMan 4y ago
  You really think screens and integrated electronics are easier to maintain and cheaper to replace than plastic buttons and copper wire?
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    Yes, absolutely and of course. It’s not even close. It’s basically 1 cable to install. And you can use the same hardware for all models and all trims. By “maintain” I mean “adapt to new models and features”. But it’s likely often cheaper to repair as well since labor is the majority of the cost.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Both buttons and touchscreens have a place in a car... especially ergonomic buttons in just the right place and a well made touchscreen gui. All the things that the driver might ever do during driving (blinkers, lights, radio, ac,...) should always be controlled by a physical button, that is easy to find by touch only, even in the dark. On the other hand, reseting TPMS (air pressure system) sensors, looking at service history, internal error display, setting "welcome home" interval (delay with turning the lights off when parking), etc, are much easier done on a touchscreen with a nice menu with all the settings. Somehow car manufacturers like the extremes... either you use a touchscreen to turn on the ac, with a few popups first, maybe even an autoplaying ad before you can change the temperature... or you have to press six random buttons at the same time and count the number of blinks of a random led on the dashboard to navigate the "menu" to change a not-everyday setting on the car.
- jagged-chisel 4y ago
  IMHO, it has everything to do with old-school executives absolutely beside themselves that the expert labor they should be hiring (for UI/UX) requires wages several times higher than their line workers.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    I expect executives to be absolutely beside themselves that they can spend a fraction of money on a few UX designers and coders and eliminate an entire class of parts and steps in a production line. It’ll be an absolute steal. Executive level usually doesn’t think much about individual salaries and instead thinks about budgets, complexity, and risk.
    - jagged-chisel 4y ago
      > … eliminate an entire class of parts and steps in a production line. What would they be eliminating?
- nsgi 4y ago
  Auto-playing ads on car touchscreens? Is that really a thing?! I drive pretty old used cars so I don't know what newer ones are like
robofanatic 4y ago
For many of these UI designers the inspiration for a physical buttonless control panel might have come from the famous Steve Jobs iPhone launch keynote. In that speech he convinced the world why having physical buttons is a bad design choice. Obviously he was talking about just phones.
- sn_master 4y ago
  Yup, if you're browsing or using an app, your eyes are already on the phone screen. That shouldn't be true when you're driving.
markus_zhang 4y ago
I own a Hyundai Tucson 2020 and it's your basic family vehicle with a lot of small quirks but no big issue. It doesn't accelerate fast enough, the passenger door locks behave inconsistently, and Android auto occasionally doesn't work, etc. But overall I think it's solid car so I bought it when the lease ends. After all nowadays it takes too long to get a car and interest rate is approaching 7% - too scary.
efields 4y ago
I have one of those cars that’s mostly touchscreen and it doesn’t bother me. The most important actions for driving have analog controls around the steering column or on the wheel. I set the cabin temp once and don’t touch it because climate control is a very easy task for car computers. I can pause the audio and change volume from the wheel. This is fine. The car designers do get paid to think about this stuff, and they mostly do a good job. It’s only a debate because the internet has opinions.
- helipad 4y ago
  SO is car button designer for Tier 1 supplier. It's not only a debate on the internet.
andrew-dc 4y ago
Honestly, the move to soft keys and touchscreen UIs for basic vehicle operations was one of the worst trade-off decisions. Touch UI makes sense for complicated device interactions, such as a navigation systems. But these are typically supplemental features to driving. Replacing basic functions like climate, or volume controls, etc was insanely foolish in my view. Imagine if you had to look at the steering wheel or gas pedal to confirm you interacted with them... We are gifted with highly precise and sensitive devices (hands) for manipulating objects which can detect even the slightest interaction by feeling alone, and to replace that with something that requires visual or auditory feedback..in a car...was a reckless move.
drtz 4y ago
After test driving a Model Y, I have to admit the touch screen-only interface wasn't _as_ bad as I thought it was going to be. That being said, mechanical controls are superior for tasks that need to be done while driving: I'm thinking wiper and A/C controls in particular, with mirror and seat adjustments being slightly less important. I fully expect Tesla to start adding a few more hardware controls as other manufacturers learn to market this as a value add over Tesla.
recursivequine 4y ago
People seem to miss the most critical point. Physical buttons aren't needed when you can focus on the input, such as when a vehicle is driving itself. Physical controls are needed for all non tesla's / vehicles that require attention
RobKohr 4y ago
While we are at it can we get back the sliders to control heat and a/c output. The whole "set your section of the car to a specific temperature" is a fantasy.
smsm42 4y ago
Finally, a dose of sanity. I was thinking everybody in auto industry went crazy with those touch screen control. I would never buy a car without physical controls, at least as long as I am supposed to drive it, it is refreshing to see somebody understands it.

765 points by nixass 4y ago

Saw Porsche Taycan with weird AC controls hidden deep inside the touch screen and a very un-intuitive UI. Honda did the same mistake and now have changed their decision and gone back to physical buttons. Hyundai realises it. Hope others follow the lead

Arrath 4y ago

A good start, now for more manufacturers to follow suit.

MavisBacon 4y ago
This is such good news, I was planning on keeping my used Volvo for decades as I love my buttons so much

blakesterz 4y ago

That's great! I hope all new Hyundai's buttons are more readable than the darn things in mine. I thought it was just me, but nope, it's a common complaint. I can not make out a single word on my buttons, it's super annoying. https://www.palisadeforum.com/threads/cant-see-buttons-in-bright-daylight.3032/ https://www.palisadeforum.com/threads/cant-see-buttons-in-br... I much prefer buttons over a touch screen, but designers need to remember to make them readable.

mavu 4y ago

I bought a Peugeot over a VW because it has actual physical buttons. Keep pushing touch controls, I keep not buying your shit.

bdcravens 4y ago
My wife has an ID.4, and they really have gone overboard with touch controls. You have only 2 sets of window controls (driver-side and passenger); you have to use a touch control to switch between front and back.
ladberg 4y ago
Which VW? Except for the ID4, all recent models I've driven have physical buttons for everything I'd need to touch while driving.
- izacus 4y ago
  I don't think it's fair to call the capacitive touch panels they've put in all new models "buttons". Especially with those crappy tiny touch areas.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    Audis and Skodas (same group, basically same cars) have the regular physical controls AFAIK. I'm driving a 2021 Audi A1 and it has nice click-y buttons for everything
EiZei 4y ago
I just drove a brand new rented Peugeot 208 and even the manual A/C was touchscreen only so that's ruined too.
sandgiant 4y ago
I bought a used 2019 VW instead of a new model for this exact reason. I'm afraid it's the last VW I'll own unless they roll back touch controls.
dybber 4y ago
Physical buttons will become a premium feature.

gnicholas 4y ago

This is good news, though some (mostly higher-end) carmakers are addressing this by having high-quality natural language voice commands. I look forward to having a vehicle like this someday, but in the meantime I'm glad that there are mainstream carmakers that are keeping physical buttons.

crooked-v 4y ago
My experience with Siri when I've lost a remote has been more than enough to tell me that trying to control volume with voice is just a pain in the ass.
mataug 4y ago
I personally don't enjoy voice commands, they require all passengers to stop talking, and it interrupts the radio, podcast, or music, and generally it's awkward to use voice commands during a phone call. Well placed physical interfaces are unbeatable for their input reliability, which translates to less time spent distracted from the road.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  They don't have multiple mics to triangulate on the driver's voice? What you describe does sound annoying!
  - mataug 4y ago
    I don't have a high-end luxury car, I've only used Android Auto / Apple CarPlay through the car's microphone system. Even if we assume a sophisticated system that can triangulate your voice, trying to talk to the car while driving, and having other passengers talking seems like a recipe for distraction.
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      Perhaps! I was imagining that it would work at least as well as a HomePod, which can pick up very quiet talking even when music is playing. Since the car knows where your head is located, I assumed that it would perform even better. I don't have a problem talking while there are others in the car — I often have kids in the car and use an AirPod to ask Siri to send text messages. I find it to be less distracting than reaching for knobs (and I've driven knobby cars since the 90s, so am well-practiced at that). I find steering-wheel controls to be the best, but anything that makes me reach into the center stack is less preferable (compared to voice interface) for me.

MobileVet 4y ago

I bought a Chevy Bolt vs a Model 3 for this and CarPlay. It is so well designed and every time I need something it is right where I expect it. Could I learn the touch interface? Of course, but driving is often done subconsciously and touch is not amenable to that type of automatic interaction. I wanted a car, not a toy. (I am aware of the irony regarding the unfortunate proportions of the Bolt making it look like a toy car… lol)

DangitBobby 4y ago
The Chevy Bolt also costs over $10k less than the Model 3.
- MobileVet 4y ago
  Yep. I had my eyes set on the Genesis GV60, but that car’s entry model (if you can find it) is $60k. The Bolt was $33k - 7.5k in tax rebates. It is an enormous value. It isn’t the Genesis for sure… but it’s 80% of that car for 40% the money.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    I bought mine about 30 days too soon to qualify for the tax rebate. Pretty salty about that.
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    The GV60 is the same platform as the Ioniq 5 and EV6. Ioniq is hard to find, but EV6's are relatively available.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      Is it? We walked into our local Hyundai and they had several models they were selling at MSRP.
      - bdcravens 4y ago

bityard 4y ago

Wow, talk about missing the point. Four grids of uniform buttons, they think that's an improvement over a touchscreen? There is zero practical distinction between taking your eyes off the road to see which button you're pushing vs taking your eyes of the road to see which part of the screen you're touching. GOOD HVAC/radio design means you can perform ALL essential functions WITHOUT taking your eyes off the road AT ALL, once you've spent five seconds learning what's where. The controls should be in locations where it's hard to mistake one thing for another. The controls should also be differently shaped and different types. Give us knobs and sliders! Is anyone even awake in car design depts anymore?

layer8 4y ago
It could certainly be improved, but it still looks much more usable than a touchscreen to me.
FPGAhacker 4y ago
[flagged]
jonathankoren 4y ago
I’m pretty sure you regularly use a piece of plastic with 104 near identical buttons without looking at any of them.
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  Not identical: they typically have raised markers on two of the home row keys precisely to help with orientation. And, well, your hands are already positioned over them much of the time, so relative identification is much easier. Not so with these buttons.
  - mulletbum 4y ago
    I am 37 and have felt for these raised markers precisely zero times.

mataug 4y ago

That's wonderful, I hope other car makers realize how distracting and dangerous touch controls are for a driver's ability to focus on driving. My car has physical controls for most things, and I use CarPlay for music/podcasts and navigation, and even for that purpose it's extremely distracting to use it while driving when compared to the physical interfaces for A/C, seat heaters, mirror adjustment etc. I generally avoid as much of the CarPlay interface as possible while driving. Voice commands are not the silver bullet solution here, they have a lot of problems such as requiring all passengers to stop talking, and it interrupts the radio, podcast, or music, and generally it's awkward to use voice commands during a phone call. Voice commands are probably fine for some low stakes input like asking to call someone, changing music tracks etc.

wilg 4y ago
Hardly fair to compare navigation and selecting music to adjusting temperature and seat heaters. Very different tasks with very different requirements for looking at them.

themitigating 4y ago

I have a 2022 VW Golf GTI. It has no buttons for the climate control and haptic buttons for the steering wheel controls. I think there's some assumptions the designers might have made about how people would use the system: The first is how HVAC systems work in a house, old cars, and new cars. - Home window and central ACs (at least all the ones I've seen) can't adjust the temperate of the air that comes out, it's tied to external values like whether the air recirculation is on, the temperature of the outside air, wind, etc. For example if it's 90f out and you turn on the AC and the desired temp is below that it will output 70f. There's many variables, size of the system whatever, point is YOU CAN'T CONTROL THE TEMPERATURE OF THE AIR COMING OUT OF THE SYSTEM : You set a desired temperature : If that temperature is above (AC) or below (heat) the compressor and fan turn on : The system outputs a fixed air temperature, as cold as possible for all the variables BUT NOT your desired temperature : When the desired temperature is reached (or a few degrees in either direction to prevent rapid cycling) the compressor turns off. The fan may also turn off or continue to run depending on the settings. Cars: In older cars and newer cars when automatic climate control is off or unavailable the system outputs the TEMPERATURE YOU CONTROL. You aren't setting a desired temperature but an output temperature. One exception to this is cars that turn off the compressor when your interior air is below the desired. Many newer cars have automatic climate control. You set the desired temperature and it adjusts both the air temperature, fan speed, and position until you reach the desired temperature. That means if it's 90F in the car and you want 69F the initial output air temperature will as cold as possible, possibly lower than your desired to assist in getting to your desired. This is accomplished via air mixing with the heater core. *It's more complex than this but for the sake of simplicity I believe the goal was that you would set a fixed temperature, turn on auto, and rarely touch the system. This is even more possible in my car because there's dedicated defrost buttons that override the system when on and return it to the previous setting when you turn it off. This means there's less interaction with the system and therefore less need for dedicated buttons and less distraction, assuming that's how it's used. Steering wheel: The steering wheel has a volume control: https://www.topgear.com/sites/default/files/2022/02/TopGear%20-%20Speedweek%20-%20Golf%20R%20%20-%20010.jpg https://www.topgear.com/sites/default/files/2022/02/TopGear%... Both + and - are on one long strip with no gap between other buttons. When you press it there's a small amount of movement and haptic feedback. It does not respond to touch unless you slide. The operation is as follows: Press + and the volume increases by 1 Press - and the volume decreases by 1 Slide your finger from left to right the volume increases multiple values depending on the amount of contact and speed of the swipe Slide your finger from right to left .... Again, the sliding action mimics the operation of a phone. I don't think it's unreasonable for the designers to assume the operation would be natural for people. Overall there's a greater learning curve however a learning curve for a car isn't important in most situations since you usually keep a car for a few years. I've gotten used to it and I would have liked real buttons I don't see a problem. Taking my eyes off the road can happen for many things, like GPS, text messages, etc. That's something I need to known not to do because simply reduces the reasons doesn't seem like the ideal solution.

dahwolf 4y ago

Please do remove the 72 trillion buttons plastered over the steering wheel.

poly_morphis 4y ago
Agreed. Interestingly, only on higher end vehicles have I seen more appealing/simpler steering wheels (Audi, in my experience).
- pornel 4y ago
  The wheel is for driving, not an art piece. It is a good place for additional controls that the driver may need to use, without taking hands off the steering wheel.

gorjusborg 4y ago

I've never owned a Hyundai, but stuff like this makes me want to look at them. I recently bought what I thought was a car, only to find it is a tech-ridden abomination. I want a vehicle that is reliable. I want a vehicle that is simple. I do not want a rolling AI/touchscreen. Even just from a security standpoint I want minimal software in my car.

maztaim 4y ago
I can’t speak for their EV line, but no media is talking about how crappy their engines are. I won’t touch a KIA or Hyundai and I have zero qualms speaking up about it. My brother and I both needed new engines after 50,000 miles with normal wear and maintenance. If you read up on oil consumption you will discover they have had problem’s continually since 2014. Last I checked the 2021 +models are still affected. Getting the engine replaced is getting harder as they can’t keep up with engine demand. It’s a 4000 mile set of tests and BS. KEEP ALL YOUR SERVICE RECORDS and keep your maintenance schedule, or you will be paying anywhere from $16,000 USD to fix it on your own dime.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  They do have a history of cheaping on parts. When we had a KIA, all sorts of problems with CV joints, and power steering components, all expiring around 130,000km or so. Just lower quality seals & parts on drivetrain components, that lasted just until out of drivetrain warranty, if I recall. Their EVs seem well built, from watching Sandy Munro videos, anyways. (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igFytqIMp0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igFytqIMp0A) But they're also so-far all in the upper tier of price ranges. Nobody is really making a 'budget' EV yet, apart from maybe GM with the Bolt.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Expiring at 130k KM seems sort of reasonable? How long do you expect those parts to last?

encryptluks2 4y ago

[dead]

wilg 4y ago

I miss my Prius, which had a large dedicated button on the dashboard to switch the speedometer from MPH to km/h. (US model) I don’t know why it was there but I did like to push it.

pif 4y ago
Your Prius? I thought we were talking about cars, here!
aendruk 4y ago
Good to hear it was made that easy. Last Prius I rented there was no way to display km/h and Toyota’s official response was “just buy next year’s model”.
dyno12345 4y ago
maybe it was intended for the rental market

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wilg 4y ago

1) Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe. You might imagine having to briefly glance at a screen is less safe, but that's not evidence. The only thing I've ever seen people cite is some unscientific magazine article that claimed touchscreens take slightly longer to operate for certain strangely-chosen controls, which is not at all the same thing as measuring safety. 2) People never have a very good answer for which physical buttons cars like Teslas are missing. There's physical controls for all driving functions, volume, music play/pause, music next/previous. Adjusting climate is in a muscle-memoryable fixed position, not in some menu. You certainly aren't supposed to be adjusting your mirrors or something while driving.

karaterobot 4y ago
Here you go: https://exchange.aaa.com/safety/distracted-driving/ https://exchange.aaa.com/safety/distracted-driving/
- wilg 4y ago
  This is not particularly relevant, the tested features are not really available as no-look controls in any car, nor are they the driving critical controls people imagine these touchscreens replace. > Participants were required to use voice commands, touch screens and other interactive technologies to make a call, send a text message, program audio entertainment or program navigation, all while driving down the road.
meatmanek 4y ago
> Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe. That's a bit like the old joke that the efficacy of parachutes at preventing free-fall deaths has never been proven scientifically. (Well, until this 2003 study[1]) Some chains of causality are so obvious that we don't need to prove them scientifically: Many people find touchscreens hard to use without taking their eyes off the road. Taking your eyes off the road can lead to crashes. 1. https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

stevenjgarner 4y ago

The difference between a car company with a software department and a software company with a car department.

havblue 4y ago

The cabin controls are okay on Hyundais, I guess. I remember having to use the touchscreen to set the rear temperature controls. This is confusing when the main screen is occupied by Android auto. So it isn't like you have button control over everything. I'd recommend Mazda for getting pushbutton controls right.

peeters 4y ago
I'm a big fan of the Commander knob on my Mazda (despite absolutely everything else about their infotainment being hot garbage). It's so easy to use without being distracted, more so even than physical buttons. But unfortunately, it seems like Android Auto is going more and more away from supporting non-touchscreen inputs. First they added forced "look at the road" breaks when you were scrolling a large list, which actually made it more dangerous when scrolling with the knob in a Mazda since it would just take longer. And their new layout is pretty terrible for a rotary input as it has no clear tab flow.

avmich 4y ago

For long time I wondered why UI in spacecrafts is so inconvenient. Apollo computer UI seems to be lacking. Soyuz UI, while seems to improve over years (ha, it would be strange, over so many years...), still looks clunky. And then - Crew Dragon comes with touch screens. Don't they understand it's a big step back? There are benefits of "fluid" interfaces, but where is the attention to important features, ability to use "main" tools without re-learning where they are and how they look like, while having the tactile feedback?

ironmagma 4y ago
The Space Shuttle has some of the most advanced-looking UI I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame there isn’t more information about it.
bmitc 4y ago
I have been in the room, so to speak, when the design of a fusion reactor control room was being discussed. I feel the answer is simply: because engineers "design" these things. I feel like the design of spaces is simply not considered very well if at all. I get the feeling that maybe aircraft do it best? Or at least that's the impression that I have had.
- cidergal 4y ago
  Agreed. These systems tend to be designed by engineers without a lot of input from designers.
- anon7725 4y ago
  Did engineers really design the touch screens on Dragon? I feel like those were in the first mock-ups that came out. I assumed that it was just a “concept car” type detail and they would have MFDs in the real spacecraft. Touchscreens seem like a very marketing/design feature.
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4y ago

jdminhbg 4y ago

I have owned a Hyundai, and I have zero idea why everyone is so convinced that their physical buttons reduce driver distraction. In the six years I had it, I never managed to totally figure out where the HVAC buttons were and in what order they cycled the different modes.

Beached 4y ago
I have zero issues with my 2018 Elantra buttons. the whole experience is perfectly normal.

cactusplant7374 4y ago

I love buttons but you don't really need them with a properly designed climate control system. Yet many cars are fitted without climate control so the driver is always fiddling the buttons or subjecting passengers to cruel temperatures.

ExMachina73 4y ago

Real pushable buttons. Not the capacitive crap VW has ruined their interiors with.

cdepman 4y ago

Wonderful. I recently rented a model 3 and found it incredibly frustrating that it required multiple touches to adjust settings that would be a single button press on a more traditional car. Don’t even get me started on the windshield wipers - a total nightmare in winter storms and located on the left stalk? These are safety concerns. As long as humans are operating these dangerous vehicles, I vote for fewer driver distractions.

redindian75 4y ago
model 3 has voice control "turn on wipers" "set AC to 68" "drive home" - at the press of a button, the music fades and it listens like "hey Siri"
- Slava_Propanei 4y ago
  [dead]
- biofox 4y ago
  That sounds like a poor solution to a problem of their own making
  - colordrops 4y ago
    As an owner it works great. Windshield wipers have a sensor for automatic control, and if you want to manually adjust, voice recognition is highly accurate these days. I switch between my Prius and Tesla all the time as my wife shares the vehicles, and I much prefer the Tesla controls. But I'll get off of your lawn if you'd like.
    - wlesieutre 4y ago
      Anecdotally the owner I’ve asked about it said it sucks. And he’s a native English speaker. How’s it do with accents? Maybe it’s been improved with hardware upgrades? His is around a 2017 I think.

1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago

Perhaps people thought cars would be self-driving so people could ignore the road while playing with touchscreens. Of course Tesla's 2016 demo video of its self-driving feature was faked^1. There were several crashes, some fatal, resulting from Tesla's alleged self-driving feature. The company is being sued by multiple parties for breach of warranty.^2 Stay tuned. 1. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/tesla-staged-2016-self-driving-demo-says-senior-autopilot-engineer/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/tesla-staged-2016-self-... 2. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.400427/gov.uscourts.cand.400427.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

monstertank 4y ago

Can we get them back on phones too please?

xwdv 4y ago

Not wonderful. People are comfortable with buttons but with this comfort comes a loss of innovation on new ideas that are better than buttons. Audi is working on advanced technology where by simply pinching the air in front of your infotainment and moving your hand left or right, you can control volume as if you were moving an analog slider widget. You can also grab the air and rotate your hand left and right to control climate temperatures.

CatWChainsaw 4y ago
So the innovation over buttons is gestures. Sort of like pushing buttons. "Advanced technology". Touchscreens while driving can be finicky and dangerous for removing attention from traffic. Who's to say this advanced technology is going to be as seamless as you imagine, instead of requiring my hand to be located just-so before it reads? Never understood why "if it isn't broken don't fix it" is such a horrible idea to people like you.

user3939382 4y ago

This should be a government regulation rather than a promise. I have a lot of sympathy for laissez faire (in the absence of regulatory capture) but we don’t want market forces being shaped by death.

miketery 4y ago

Good on Hyundai! Other cars will go back to this, or will the NTSB make them? Aviation has figured this out long ago. Look at any "glass" cockpit. They all have buttons around the screen. For example see linked [1] Garmin 1000 panel, common in General Aviation. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin_G1000#/media/File:Garmin_G1000_Diamond_DA-42.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin_G1000#/media/File:Garmi...

qwerty456127 4y ago

Nice! I want a car to be as analog as possible. Touchscreen controls looked cool to me as I was a child, now I understand that's all bullshit.

tastysandwich 4y ago

When researching family cars recently, I literally avoided the Honda CR-V just because the AC was controlled via the touch screen. There's a "Climate" button, which brings up a screen on the display where you can turn the aircon on/off, up/down, etc. It's just horrendous. Give me my dials. My worst gripe - which all modern cars have - is the aggressive bluetooth auto-connect. If my wife takes the car, it will automatically connect to my phone in the house and start playing whatever was last playing. If I'm using headphones, it will just pinch the audio from them. I cannot disable this. Drives me absolutely nuts (no pun intended).

joshtgreenwood 4y ago
FWIW - just bought a 23 CRV for my wife because of the abundance of analog controls. Not sure what on screen display you were seeing, we use the knobs exclusively.
- tastysandwich 4y ago
  Nice! I guess they fixed it up This review is for their 2021 model. > Plus, while there is a climate button and fan speed button, as well as dials for the temperature settings, you still have to go through the screen to control whether the air conditioner is on or off, and also which ventilation is active. Odd. https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-reviews/honda-cr-v-81488 https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-reviews/honda-cr-v-81488 And a demonstration, though it's for an even older model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99WLw0pQc8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99WLw0pQc8w
  - gregmac 4y ago
    I have a 2016 Civic, it's almost identical to the video. All I can say is this is such a non-issue: The "auto" mode they implemented works really well. I use the temperature knob pretty much exclusively. If it's hot, the A/C comes on. If it's cold, it doesn't. If the windshield needs defrosting, you press that button and.. it defrosts, then press "auto" to get back. I've literally never manually changed the A/C setting, and once or maybe twice in 5 years of ownership have I manually adjusted vents. The (physical) recirculate button is occasionally useful to manually if you're driving through dust/smoke/smell. But I'll also note the use of this with A/C is automatic: if it's really hot out or you turn the temp down really low, it'll automatically turn on recirculate (so it's cooling the already-cool inside air), but if it's able to use outside fresh air it'll do that instead. This is another thing that Just Works and I basically don't have to think about. Remote start is similarly smart: When it's cold out, it turns on the defrost and heats the seats up. When it's hot, it runs the A/C. Either way when you get in it's usually already comfortable and it resumes whatever mode and temperature it was set to last time you drove -- and on only a mildly warm day, that might mean A/C isn't on. Manual control of A/C is just something you never need to do. Sorry, but Honda absolutely nailed it on their climate control. The lack of a physical volume knob, on the other hand...

freitzkriesler2 4y ago

Amazing. Now can we promise to keep instrument cluster dials as needles? I don't have a repeat of the Aston Martin Lagonda when the LCDs undoubtedly become dated.

cyberax 4y ago

I wish automakers would make buttons with small programmable OLED displays, so that I could bind custom actions to them. I hated button layout in ALL of the cars I've owned. I usually needed only a couple of buttons, with the rest being unused.

zmeden 4y ago
That would be nice but very expensive and not so robust as moulded parts without any display/electronic on the surface. I wonder if there is a cheaper way of customizing the button icons than with OLED displays.
- cyberax 4y ago
  Heck, I'd be OK if the automakers went old school with replaceable stickers/panels. Hm. Should I patent it? Off to USPTO!

ar9av 4y ago

They're right, and touchscreens also inconvenient, annoying, and not universally useful. For an entertainment center and navigation a touchscreen is great, but for basic functions I want switches so I don't have to look away from the road. Please.

ngcc_hk 4y ago

That is the criteria I used in selection of car. Tesla is off

polishdude20 4y ago

I mean, do I care about a promise for this? If I'm in the market for a car and they're important enough to me, I'll just buy a car that does have buttons. If they break their promise, it's not like I'm screwed. My current button-full car still has them. Next time I need another car I'll buy one that does have buttons.

jerkstate 4y ago

I fully support this for basic environmental controls and audio, but there is a limit. I test drove a Kia EV6 GT recently and it has, IIRC, 4 up-down levers and about 8 or 10 other buttons on the steering wheel, flappy paddles, and stalks. Compared to Tesla (which I also test-drove), which has only two pushbutton scroll wheels and two stalks, and a big screen. the polar opposite. I think neither gets it exactly right. physical controls of things that can get obtrusive - wind and noise - are appropriate. But it's ridiculous and distracting to have too many buttons for features that are not really necessary to drive. I think that a common one like rear view mirror adjustment, or even seat adjustment, should not be physical buttons, but menu items.

bdcravens 4y ago
I've had an EV6 for 6 months, and I don't find them counterintuitive.
- jerkstate 4y ago
  be honest - how many of the 30 or 40 physical controls do you actually use on a regular basis?
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    I frequently switch mode between Eco and Sport, always switch to level 4 regen, and use both cruise control and the volume controls daily. So just on the steering wheel, I use probably 75% of the levers and buttons daily. Maybe I'm the rare power user. :-)

bdcravens 4y ago

Will this translate to their Kia brand? My EV6 has touch controls for the climate control, and the same "toolbar" flips between climate and radio controls. (it does have 2 circular knobs). On the next level trim, the controls for heating/cooling seats are touch and are notoriously easy to accidentally hit (though on mine they are buttons)

WirelessGigabit 4y ago

Well, I wish BMW did the same. Wanted to go for the new BMW M2. But now instead of a well-integrated speedometer & central display they shaved it off of the dash and put in place this monstrosity of a wide screen. It's just bolted on with no sense of cohesion. And with that the buttons for climate control are gone. Want to turn on heated seats? Touch the screen. Change fan speed? Touch the screen. All things that I can do blindly (eyes on the road, not eyes closed, but you get it), which now require looking AND finesse, because if I mis press who knows where the GPS will send me next...

ilikehurdles 4y ago
It's such a bummer because I think the last 2-3 generations of BMW's iDrive system have been absolute rockstars among autos. Sad to see them go backwards with iDrive 8 where you have to navigate nested menus to toggle heated seat controls.

abledon 4y ago

ioniq5 has some beautiful buttons mixed with screens

UberFly 4y ago

As far as the console goes, I would gravitate to the most basic I possibly could. I don't want to spend an extra 6k for stuff I'd rather do on my phone anyway.

zenlikethat 4y ago

Thank goodness. I FAR prefer tactile instruments.

OnionBlender 4y ago

I've been looking for a commuter car and right now the Mazda3 is at the top of my list because it doesn't has a touch screen.

tanto 4y ago

Amazing! When I bought my last car, I ensured there were physical buttons for everything I regularly use. While driving, most things happen without much thinking, and touch screens feel like the antithesis of that idea. I recently had to drive a car with a touch screen for, e.g. AC and radio control. I failed miserably to turn off the radio for 3 hours on the highway. I usually expect these things to be intuitive enough to do without reading the manual of a car.

tedk-42 4y ago

Reading the comments here remind me of the days when the iPhone was first released to the masses and everyone was like 'oh no i want my physical keyboard it feels good'. Good times looking back. Any button not on the steering wheel will require you to look away from the road, even for a split second. In that split second something can jump out in front of you. You can blame the touch screen or other things, shoot maybe even if you were looking straight ahead your mind might have drifted (as is the case with long distance, boring driving after hours without a break). No amount of UI will fix that. Best we can hope for is better tech in the car for obstacle detection and avoidance.

Peanuts99 4y ago
As multiple people here have pointed out, they can operate the button interfaces on their cars by touch alone. My car only has knobs and buttons and I can operate the heating, radio, cabin lighting and hazards just by knowing what the control feels like.

j16sdiz 4y ago

> Lee hinted that while this is a priority for Hyundai today, things may change in future. In particular, the company will likely look at using touch controls more heavily when autonomous driving becomes mainstream. “When it comes to Level 4 autonomous driving, then we’ll have everything soft key," said Lee. Hell, no. When it comes to level 4 autonomous driving, I want a hardware one key override, not everything soft key.

bottlepalm 4y ago

I drive a Tesla. Love having no buttons. Love having no HUD in front of my face. So clean, so simple. There's a couple buttons on the steering wheel for music and cruise control. Haven't needed anything more than that.

manmal 4y ago

I have a Hyundai Ioniq 1st gen, and the main reason I didn’t go for the 2nd gen was the touch-only controls (capacitive buttons). I’m happy that Hyundai reconsidered this - I love the build quality of their cars and this decision will make it way easier to be a repeat customer.

teekert 4y ago

Like Samsung "promised" (advertised) keeping the headphone jack? https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-mock-ads-apple-headphone-jack-removed/ https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-mock-ads-apple-headph...

2bitlobster 4y ago

Not sure why peripheral vision UIs never took off for cars. It solves the safety issue of taking your eyes off the road with while still enjoying the benefits of a touch screen. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sT33BPUQaHg&feature=youtu.be https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sT33BPUQaHg&feature=youtu.be

DeathArrow 4y ago

At least we still have a real wheel and not just some arrows to push on a touchscreen. :)

senko 4y ago

Curiously, most of the ac/nav/media controls in my Hyundai Tucson are touch (big touchscreen with the usual suspects, and a row of buttons that aren't part of the screen and could've been normal buttons, but are instead capacitive ones that don't provide any tactile feedback). I am grateful they've decided to at least stop there.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago

Can we have both? Magnetic adhering buttons to touch screens? Could even make the touch screen configureable, so its something new for every driver and different in every car. If you are a UX designer. How did we get here?

alessioalex 4y ago

Interesting as they just removed almost all buttons in Hyunday Tucson at least. Good thing they're bringing them back.

smaudet 4y ago

I think there's an old joke somewhere in here about designers being unable to resist re-inventing perfectly good buttons for the nth time, so that they can cleanly "style" them.

serpix 4y ago

Well they just got a (repeat) customer for life.

gorpovitch 4y ago

Not only the buttons but also a lot of parts which are electric when they really don't have to. My brother, who has three kids, tried out a SUV which had an electric hatchback, where you have to trigger the trunk closing with a button. With a manual hatchback he could fill all the luggage in the trunk and just slam the door, without any problem. But now the electric hatchback would not close if the car felt there was a luggage in the way. In the end they had to remove the luggage, close the trunk and fill the trunk from the side doors.

Kaotique 4y ago

Standardised physical controls are one of the best things car designers have ever done. When I did not own a car I rented them on a regular basis. It is amazing that you can just step into a car that you have never driven before, flip some familiar switches, turn some knobs and press some pedals and be on your way. Throwing all that away for some fancy touch screens is just a waste.

moss2 4y ago

Finally some reasonable people

654wak654 4y ago

Had my eye on the Hyundai i20 for my next car, this definitely helps that decision.

maxehmookau 4y ago

I love my Skoda Enyaq, but the fact that I have to look at a screen to change some very basic settings (temperature, auto stop breaking, etc.) I hate.

stanete 4y ago

Maybe what's dangerous is awful UI/UX; not touchscreens

bengale 4y ago

I think my current BMW is probably going to be peak design for me. All of the driving and climate controls are physical click-y buttons. It still has a touch screen for ancillary stuff that I don't need when driving which is fine, but I don't have to use the touch screen at all when driving. Sadly it seems they are following the crowd on the new versions, it looks like climate controls have moved onto the touch screen. I won't be glad to "upgrade" to that.

herbcso 4y ago

I love it! I've been ranting about touchscreen-mania in cars for years now! Good on ya, Hyundai!

erwinator 4y ago

Imo, a large number of people grew up with tablets. Even my own kids, in the back of the car finishing games while driving. In 10-20 years most buttons will be gone in cars. Because the new generation is so used to using touchscreens.

hnarn 4y ago
I think that’s beside the point. There’s probably professional pilots active today that “grew up with tablets” but I don’t think anyone wants cockpits to replace knobs and levers with touchscreens. In a car you can get away with this kind of compromise because there’s an idea that it’s what people “want”, but my personal opinion is that car makers have a responsibility to ensure that design changes they make do not impact the safety of drivers, and I have a hard time thinking that isn’t a problem with touchscreens, because you simply cannot interface with the car anymore without averting your eyes the same way you can with actual buttons.
LastTrain 4y ago
My kid, who grew up with tablets and is now just old enough to drive, hates touch screens in cars for non nav/infotainment functions. Now, he’s been taught to drive in a car with buttons, so he’s bitten the apple so to speak. If he didn’t know any better you’d probably be right.

dillz 4y ago

One of the main reasons why I decided to buy a Hyundai (i30) last year is the good cockpit design. Physical buttons for the essential controls, touchscreen for nav, some extras and settings. The UX in some car brands is so horrible I really struggle to unterstand how anyone would ever build/buy those atrocities.

jwr 4y ago

So happy to see this. My VW ID.4 is extremely frustrating, because I never know if touching a control will do something or not. Many buttons are also touch-sensitive. Endless confusion, and additionally you can't "feel" for the button, you have to look and touch carefully, because otherwise touching might trigger something else. Just a couple of days ago I wanted to feel the temperature of the air being blown into the cabin. I put my hand near the vent and inadvertently turned off the headlights and turned on rear windshield heating — just by touching. Took a while to set everything back to sane settings.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
I use Miles car sharing a lot, and I now actively avoid the VW ID cars. The user experience is just so much better in the Polo, everything just works and is intuitive. In the ID, figuring out how to activate the hot air while driving when the windshield starts to go blind is no fun. Parallel parking sucks because you have very little feel for when the car is bumping against something vs just needing a bit more power to move. The interior looks like it was designed to be cheap above all. Adjusting the mirrors is a frustrating experience.

alkonaut 4y ago

The killer invention would be a device that is as easy to replace/maintain/configure/adapt as the glass/ipad interface, but as easy to do blindly as an 80's knobs-and-buttons interface. I'm sure automakers have plowed money into all kinds of cool haptic inventions, and there are lots of past examples of UX innovation (BMW control wheel, modern HUDs). I hope we'll figure this one out eventually, because the Tesla solution sure isn't the end of the story.

OOPMan 4y ago
You really think screens and integrated electronics are easier to maintain and cheaper to replace than plastic buttons and copper wire?
- alkonaut 4y ago
  Yes, absolutely and of course. It’s not even close. It’s basically 1 cable to install. And you can use the same hardware for all models and all trims. By “maintain” I mean “adapt to new models and features”. But it’s likely often cheaper to repair as well since labor is the majority of the cost.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

Both buttons and touchscreens have a place in a car... especially ergonomic buttons in just the right place and a well made touchscreen gui. All the things that the driver might ever do during driving (blinkers, lights, radio, ac,...) should always be controlled by a physical button, that is easy to find by touch only, even in the dark. On the other hand, reseting TPMS (air pressure system) sensors, looking at service history, internal error display, setting "welcome home" interval (delay with turning the lights off when parking), etc, are much easier done on a touchscreen with a nice menu with all the settings. Somehow car manufacturers like the extremes... either you use a touchscreen to turn on the ac, with a few popups first, maybe even an autoplaying ad before you can change the temperature... or you have to press six random buttons at the same time and count the number of blinks of a random led on the dashboard to navigate the "menu" to change a not-everyday setting on the car.

jagged-chisel 4y ago
IMHO, it has everything to do with old-school executives absolutely beside themselves that the expert labor they should be hiring (for UI/UX) requires wages several times higher than their line workers.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  I expect executives to be absolutely beside themselves that they can spend a fraction of money on a few UX designers and coders and eliminate an entire class of parts and steps in a production line. It’ll be an absolute steal. Executive level usually doesn’t think much about individual salaries and instead thinks about budgets, complexity, and risk.
  - jagged-chisel 4y ago
    > … eliminate an entire class of parts and steps in a production line. What would they be eliminating?
nsgi 4y ago
Auto-playing ads on car touchscreens? Is that really a thing?! I drive pretty old used cars so I don't know what newer ones are like

robofanatic 4y ago

For many of these UI designers the inspiration for a physical buttonless control panel might have come from the famous Steve Jobs iPhone launch keynote. In that speech he convinced the world why having physical buttons is a bad design choice. Obviously he was talking about just phones.

sn_master 4y ago
Yup, if you're browsing or using an app, your eyes are already on the phone screen. That shouldn't be true when you're driving.

markus_zhang 4y ago

I own a Hyundai Tucson 2020 and it's your basic family vehicle with a lot of small quirks but no big issue. It doesn't accelerate fast enough, the passenger door locks behave inconsistently, and Android auto occasionally doesn't work, etc. But overall I think it's solid car so I bought it when the lease ends. After all nowadays it takes too long to get a car and interest rate is approaching 7% - too scary.

efields 4y ago

I have one of those cars that’s mostly touchscreen and it doesn’t bother me. The most important actions for driving have analog controls around the steering column or on the wheel. I set the cabin temp once and don’t touch it because climate control is a very easy task for car computers. I can pause the audio and change volume from the wheel. This is fine. The car designers do get paid to think about this stuff, and they mostly do a good job. It’s only a debate because the internet has opinions.

helipad 4y ago
SO is car button designer for Tier 1 supplier. It's not only a debate on the internet.

andrew-dc 4y ago

Honestly, the move to soft keys and touchscreen UIs for basic vehicle operations was one of the worst trade-off decisions. Touch UI makes sense for complicated device interactions, such as a navigation systems. But these are typically supplemental features to driving. Replacing basic functions like climate, or volume controls, etc was insanely foolish in my view. Imagine if you had to look at the steering wheel or gas pedal to confirm you interacted with them... We are gifted with highly precise and sensitive devices (hands) for manipulating objects which can detect even the slightest interaction by feeling alone, and to replace that with something that requires visual or auditory feedback..in a car...was a reckless move.

drtz 4y ago

After test driving a Model Y, I have to admit the touch screen-only interface wasn't _as_ bad as I thought it was going to be. That being said, mechanical controls are superior for tasks that need to be done while driving: I'm thinking wiper and A/C controls in particular, with mirror and seat adjustments being slightly less important. I fully expect Tesla to start adding a few more hardware controls as other manufacturers learn to market this as a value add over Tesla.

recursivequine 4y ago

People seem to miss the most critical point. Physical buttons aren't needed when you can focus on the input, such as when a vehicle is driving itself. Physical controls are needed for all non tesla's / vehicles that require attention

RobKohr 4y ago

While we are at it can we get back the sliders to control heat and a/c output. The whole "set your section of the car to a specific temperature" is a fantasy.

smsm42 4y ago

Finally, a dose of sanity. I was thinking everybody in auto industry went crazy with those touch screen control. I would never buy a car without physical controls, at least as long as I am supposed to drive it, it is refreshing to see somebody understands it.