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It's amazing how car manufacturers have captured the frustration of navigating through your locked mobile device to do something arbitrary while driving and emb

It's amazing how car manufacturers have captured the frustration of navigating through your locked mobile device to do something arbitrary while driving and embedded that experience directly into the dashboard.

elzbardico 3y ago
We have laws against using phones while driving for very good reasons everyone understands. And then car manufacturers decide to make turning Air Condition on and off into a experience as much distracting as using a smartphones, so they can save a couple hundred dollars in a 30.000 dollars vehicle. And because accidents caused by stupid car UIs are not as obvious an newsworthy as texting and driving, no politician has decided out that pushing for legislation for tactile controls can give him votes, so, nothing is done, legislation-wise, to curb this practice.
- tivert 3y ago
  > And then car manufacturers decide to make turning Air Condition on and off into a experience as much distracting as using a smartphones, so they can save a couple hundred dollars in a 30.000 dollars vehicle. Do they really save "a couple of hundred dollars" by replacing physical controls with touchscreens? I would guess they'd save less than a hundred per car. Making serious user compromises to save a few pennies is totally something companies do, but I think they touchscreen fad is a bit more complicated than that. I think there's also an aesthetic factor, where they're chasing a "minimalist" and "high tech" look--which in recent years has meant flat surfaces and screens. IMHO, it would help a lot of buttons and knobs start to be seen as a kind of desirable luxury feature instead of "old fashioned."
  - toast0 3y ago
    I'd guess it's closer to one hundred than multiple hundreds, but if you fully replace the HVAC controls with touchscreen controls, you save money on a bunch of things: hvac controller has fewer pins; you don't need to supply the buttons / knobs; you don't need to design, build, and install the wiring, harness and connectors for the buttons; you don't need to provide a hole for the buttons and mounting facilities behind the hole for them; you don't need to provide a trim for around the buttons; etc, etc. Buttons cost money for each unit sold, stuffing the functionality into a touch screen interface that you're almost certainly going to have anyway only costs R&D money (and owner frustration, but if everyone is doing it....). My favorite though is buttons that only work when the touch screen feels like it; my Fiat Chrysler van has those for HVAC, you can press the temperature up or down buttons, and it'll queue the keypresses until it's ready to use them; sometimes many seconds later.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Cars never bought the cheap buttons as they wear out too quick. So each button is $.50 each for a good button. Then the have $3 of wire added to the wiring harness. Add $.20 for the connectors (they use the more expensive sealed connectors now). Each button is installed by hand on the car, so add some cost for labor. It all adds up. Note that while I don't know the actual costs of the above, I think the above numbers are reasonable. A touch screen is $100 or less in the quantity they buy, and it comes as an assembly that replaces the radio they have to install anyway. GM sold 6 million cars last year. If they can save one dollar on each that is $6 million dollars to the bottom line.
    - zamnos 3y ago
      Which is oft repeated refrain, but if GM sells $6 million fewer in cars, (which, $6mm/$50k is 120 cars,) then they've lost money on the transaction. GM dumping carplay is going to cost them way more than $6mm, and going to cost them way more than 120 sales.
      - bluGill 3y ago
        That remains you be seen, but the math works out.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  (nonfatal) accidents sell more cars I suppose
- boredumb 3y ago
  I think the, maybe contrarian, argument for this is that while a lot of the previously physical controls are now obnoxious to find there are a lot of features involving music, phone and maps that if they weren't on the dash people would be go ahead and just be using their arguably more dangerous phone to control. There needs to be both dashboard screens and physical controls and knobs, if done right it would even look more "sleek" than the pure touch screen dash displays they're producing now.

elzbardico 3y ago

We have laws against using phones while driving for very good reasons everyone understands. And then car manufacturers decide to make turning Air Condition on and off into a experience as much distracting as using a smartphones, so they can save a couple hundred dollars in a 30.000 dollars vehicle. And because accidents caused by stupid car UIs are not as obvious an newsworthy as texting and driving, no politician has decided out that pushing for legislation for tactile controls can give him votes, so, nothing is done, legislation-wise, to curb this practice.

tivert 3y ago
> And then car manufacturers decide to make turning Air Condition on and off into a experience as much distracting as using a smartphones, so they can save a couple hundred dollars in a 30.000 dollars vehicle. Do they really save "a couple of hundred dollars" by replacing physical controls with touchscreens? I would guess they'd save less than a hundred per car. Making serious user compromises to save a few pennies is totally something companies do, but I think they touchscreen fad is a bit more complicated than that. I think there's also an aesthetic factor, where they're chasing a "minimalist" and "high tech" look--which in recent years has meant flat surfaces and screens. IMHO, it would help a lot of buttons and knobs start to be seen as a kind of desirable luxury feature instead of "old fashioned."
- toast0 3y ago
  I'd guess it's closer to one hundred than multiple hundreds, but if you fully replace the HVAC controls with touchscreen controls, you save money on a bunch of things: hvac controller has fewer pins; you don't need to supply the buttons / knobs; you don't need to design, build, and install the wiring, harness and connectors for the buttons; you don't need to provide a hole for the buttons and mounting facilities behind the hole for them; you don't need to provide a trim for around the buttons; etc, etc. Buttons cost money for each unit sold, stuffing the functionality into a touch screen interface that you're almost certainly going to have anyway only costs R&D money (and owner frustration, but if everyone is doing it....). My favorite though is buttons that only work when the touch screen feels like it; my Fiat Chrysler van has those for HVAC, you can press the temperature up or down buttons, and it'll queue the keypresses until it's ready to use them; sometimes many seconds later.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- bluGill 3y ago
  Cars never bought the cheap buttons as they wear out too quick. So each button is $.50 each for a good button. Then the have $3 of wire added to the wiring harness. Add $.20 for the connectors (they use the more expensive sealed connectors now). Each button is installed by hand on the car, so add some cost for labor. It all adds up. Note that while I don't know the actual costs of the above, I think the above numbers are reasonable. A touch screen is $100 or less in the quantity they buy, and it comes as an assembly that replaces the radio they have to install anyway. GM sold 6 million cars last year. If they can save one dollar on each that is $6 million dollars to the bottom line.
  - zamnos 3y ago
    Which is oft repeated refrain, but if GM sells $6 million fewer in cars, (which, $6mm/$50k is 120 cars,) then they've lost money on the transaction. GM dumping carplay is going to cost them way more than $6mm, and going to cost them way more than 120 sales.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      That remains you be seen, but the math works out.
pcthrowaway 3y ago
(nonfatal) accidents sell more cars I suppose
boredumb 3y ago
I think the, maybe contrarian, argument for this is that while a lot of the previously physical controls are now obnoxious to find there are a lot of features involving music, phone and maps that if they weren't on the dash people would be go ahead and just be using their arguably more dangerous phone to control. There needs to be both dashboard screens and physical controls and knobs, if done right it would even look more "sleek" than the pure touch screen dash displays they're producing now.