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Volume is on the steering wheel. A/C is automatic and I don't need to touch it the vast majority of the time. While driving the most I might want to do is adju

Volume is on the steering wheel. A/C is automatic and I don't need to touch it the vast majority of the time. While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. It's at the bottom of the screen so it is easy to do by grabbing behind the bezel and only requires a quick glance to align your thumb. In practice I glance at physical A/C controls when adjusting them too, so I don't see a big difference here. If you really need to adjust the temperature so often and can't stand the thought of using the touchscreen, you can assign that function to the left scroll wheel.

generic92034 3y ago
> While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. That is good reasoning, but are you sure a high number of drivers are also waiting with adjustments, instead of fumbling on the screen while continuing to drive?
- otherme123 3y ago
  A lot of people send and read phone messages while driving. I highly doubt that same people gives a second thought before playing with the screen while driving, unless they are under a real stressing situation (pouring and twisted road at 2 AM).
  - generic92034 3y ago
    Exactly. That is why physical buttons you can use without looking are so much better. For the perfect driver it does not matter so much, but that is a rare species.
  - RHSeeger 3y ago
    If the choice is between 1. Physical controls that you can interact with without the need to take your eyes off the road 2. Touch screen that you need to look almost every time, much of the time while actually interacting with it. But you can mitigate that by using it more responsibly, waiting until you are at a stop, our out of range of anything you might need to react to (which might not happen for 10 minutes or even longer) Then #1 is clearly the winner. Because 2 is more dangerous for everyone on the road (not just you with your own behavior, but everyone else that might act irresponsibly and hit you). We specifically craft laws to make people interact with their phones less (hands free only, etc) because "people must act more responsibly" is not a reliable solution.
franga2000 3y ago
It seems like you have a more sensible car than many. I was recently in one with really dumb automatic AC that needed adjustment very often, the AC settings were in a menu behing two clicks, there was no convenient landmark to orient my hand without looking, the temperature slider was very small and dense needing high precision and the temperature text was rather small. And the steering wheel buttons are, of course, not remappable. I drive about a dozen different modern electric cars on a regular basis (carsharing) and all of them have at least a few of the above flaws (if not for AC then for something else that needs adjusting while driving).
- l33tman 3y ago
  Avoiding to get into a "which car brand is best", I'll just say that I think there is simply a difference in the "DNA" of the car brands for how they approach the driving experience. It takes many many years and iterations and care about driving a car to produce a good car UX and some brands you can just immediately conclude that the CEO or the product managers don't care about driving and probably have never driven the specific model themselves, while in some brands you really feel they are a "driver's car". This goes for tech in general and not just cars btw :)
- PcChip 3y ago
  What is carsharing, and how does it work insurance-wise?
  - netsharc 3y ago
    Like rental, but per minute. Look up car2go, although maybe they're no longer in business in the US, i. Europe they changed their brand name. It's like those scooters you can hire and leave (almost) anywhere, the benefit with a car is, if you park it idiotically, they can check that you were the last driver and forward the parking ticket to you.
    - seltzered_ 3y ago
      Car2Go and Reachnow both ended in the US around 2020. There are some other carsharing services in the US in some major cities (e.g. gig car share in sf/seattle), but I would argue overall there's less carsharing now compared to 8-9 years ago. Partly the age demographics have changed, ridesharing (uber/lyft) rose in popularity, and carsharing in the us has had its share of profitability issues. Peak carsharing in the US to me was around 2017-2018 (car2go, reachnow, limepod, maven, ...)
deleted 3y ago
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egorfine 3y ago
> grabbing behind the bezel so, physical control.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  This is presumably one of those models with the screen that's not integrated in the dashboard and looks like an afterthought. Those usually have some kind of bezel you can grab to stabilize your hand, but the actual control is still touch-based and on the screen.
vladvasiliu 3y ago
It may depend on the car. In my car, I basically never change the A/C. My dad used to have a same-vintage car for a while, but a different make, and it absolutely needed adjustment depending on whether the sun was shining on you or not, and possibly other parameters. They both had "automatic" A/C. Now these cars are ~20 years old, maybe things have improved. I haven't ridden in my dad's ~2yo car for any long stretch during the summer to compare.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Automatic climate control is one of those things that sounds good and is nice when it works but never works properly in all situations. I much prefer manual controls.
  - crote 3y ago
    The "smarter" they get, the worse they are to use. Modern cars are always blasting air into your face, at temperatures which deviate enough from the current temperature to be incredibly distracting. I just want a gentle breeze of slightly warmer or slightly colder air, damn it!
litoE 3y ago
My mother-in-law has had a Mercedes for four years. It has a self-parking feature. She still doesn't know how to use it and probably never will. She couldn't possibly assign a function to the left scroll wheel either. And she's Mercedes Benz's target market.
gspencley 3y ago
> While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. I'm not sure how much I agree that temperature is not safety critical. It's relative for sure, less safety critical than breaks or transmission, but it can still impact safety in certain situations. In the city when you have a lot of red lights and stop signs, it's not a big deal to wait for the next stop. But on a free-way when you've got a ways to go before you can make a stop then uncomfortable temperature can create a distracted or nervous driver situation. I suppose you could pull over on the shoulder if it were that big of a deal, but even that isn't the safest thing to do on freeways and it's recommended to only do that if you're making an emergency stop. In my opinion this shouldn't even have to be a big deal. The only reason we're even discussing it is because car manufacturers are moving from tactile buttons to touch screens. People are accustomed to working these types of auxiliary systems without stopping and historically have been able to do so without taking their eyes off of the road. People aren't going to stop doing those things because now they have to use a touch-screen.
- dingnuts 3y ago
  Purely from a consumer standpoint, why on Earth would I EVER choose a vehicle that expects me to pull over to change the AC or to take my eyes off the road to control it, if there are competitors on the market that allow me to do so without doing those things? Can you imagine actually pulling over off the interstate to change your AC? Absurd. Totally absurd and disconnected from reality. Nobody would do it, they would take their eyes off the road and then it doesn't matter AT ALL whether the function they're trying to perform has to do with safety or even operating the vehicle -- it's a distraction, and that's sufficiently bad. Can we stop putting distractions in front of drivers, in general? Please? I'll forgive Android Auto and Apple's thing because people won't stop looking at their phones otherwise but the driver should be able to control the vehicle and everything they might want to do in it without looking away from the road.
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
No. Ventilated and heated seats are something I want to control easily. And when driving in the sun I have the AC set to 64. When driving at night it's set to 72. And it's different if I drive with the top down depending on weather. I don't need to look at the buttons to do that now.
daniel_reetz 3y ago
I think this is missing something fundamental. If it's too hot or cold, folks are distracted - from driving. Perhaps you are less distracted than most. Yes, they can reassign buttons. But the core problem is distraction, which causes users to go to the touchscreen, which creates even further distraction by capturing their visual attention.
thsksbd 3y ago
The HVAC controls are a safety critical control because they are what dehumidifies your windshield screen. And quick changes of T or RH needing the user to crank up the heat, turn on the AC and direct the air to the windshield at full speed are very possible depending on where you are. Imagine crossing a miles long tunnel under a mountain separating two weather zones. Hands off my HVAC controls.
- ianleighton 3y ago
  A sensible approach I saw in the BMW i4 was to keep the defrost buttons around, among relatively few buttons. (I forget if the climate temp controls were physical too though.)

generic92034 3y ago

> While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. That is good reasoning, but are you sure a high number of drivers are also waiting with adjustments, instead of fumbling on the screen while continuing to drive?

otherme123 3y ago
A lot of people send and read phone messages while driving. I highly doubt that same people gives a second thought before playing with the screen while driving, unless they are under a real stressing situation (pouring and twisted road at 2 AM).
- generic92034 3y ago
  Exactly. That is why physical buttons you can use without looking are so much better. For the perfect driver it does not matter so much, but that is a rare species.
- RHSeeger 3y ago
  If the choice is between 1. Physical controls that you can interact with without the need to take your eyes off the road 2. Touch screen that you need to look almost every time, much of the time while actually interacting with it. But you can mitigate that by using it more responsibly, waiting until you are at a stop, our out of range of anything you might need to react to (which might not happen for 10 minutes or even longer) Then #1 is clearly the winner. Because 2 is more dangerous for everyone on the road (not just you with your own behavior, but everyone else that might act irresponsibly and hit you). We specifically craft laws to make people interact with their phones less (hands free only, etc) because "people must act more responsibly" is not a reliable solution.

franga2000 3y ago

It seems like you have a more sensible car than many. I was recently in one with really dumb automatic AC that needed adjustment very often, the AC settings were in a menu behing two clicks, there was no convenient landmark to orient my hand without looking, the temperature slider was very small and dense needing high precision and the temperature text was rather small. And the steering wheel buttons are, of course, not remappable. I drive about a dozen different modern electric cars on a regular basis (carsharing) and all of them have at least a few of the above flaws (if not for AC then for something else that needs adjusting while driving).

l33tman 3y ago
Avoiding to get into a "which car brand is best", I'll just say that I think there is simply a difference in the "DNA" of the car brands for how they approach the driving experience. It takes many many years and iterations and care about driving a car to produce a good car UX and some brands you can just immediately conclude that the CEO or the product managers don't care about driving and probably have never driven the specific model themselves, while in some brands you really feel they are a "driver's car". This goes for tech in general and not just cars btw :)
PcChip 3y ago
What is carsharing, and how does it work insurance-wise?
- netsharc 3y ago
  Like rental, but per minute. Look up car2go, although maybe they're no longer in business in the US, i. Europe they changed their brand name. It's like those scooters you can hire and leave (almost) anywhere, the benefit with a car is, if you park it idiotically, they can check that you were the last driver and forward the parking ticket to you.
  - seltzered_ 3y ago
    Car2Go and Reachnow both ended in the US around 2020. There are some other carsharing services in the US in some major cities (e.g. gig car share in sf/seattle), but I would argue overall there's less carsharing now compared to 8-9 years ago. Partly the age demographics have changed, ridesharing (uber/lyft) rose in popularity, and carsharing in the us has had its share of profitability issues. Peak carsharing in the US to me was around 2017-2018 (car2go, reachnow, limepod, maven, ...)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

egorfine 3y ago

> grabbing behind the bezel so, physical control.

vladvasiliu 3y ago
This is presumably one of those models with the screen that's not integrated in the dashboard and looks like an afterthought. Those usually have some kind of bezel you can grab to stabilize your hand, but the actual control is still touch-based and on the screen.

vladvasiliu 3y ago

It may depend on the car. In my car, I basically never change the A/C. My dad used to have a same-vintage car for a while, but a different make, and it absolutely needed adjustment depending on whether the sun was shining on you or not, and possibly other parameters. They both had "automatic" A/C. Now these cars are ~20 years old, maybe things have improved. I haven't ridden in my dad's ~2yo car for any long stretch during the summer to compare.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Automatic climate control is one of those things that sounds good and is nice when it works but never works properly in all situations. I much prefer manual controls.
- crote 3y ago
  The "smarter" they get, the worse they are to use. Modern cars are always blasting air into your face, at temperatures which deviate enough from the current temperature to be incredibly distracting. I just want a gentle breeze of slightly warmer or slightly colder air, damn it!

litoE 3y ago

My mother-in-law has had a Mercedes for four years. It has a self-parking feature. She still doesn't know how to use it and probably never will. She couldn't possibly assign a function to the left scroll wheel either. And she's Mercedes Benz's target market.

gspencley 3y ago

> While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. I'm not sure how much I agree that temperature is not safety critical. It's relative for sure, less safety critical than breaks or transmission, but it can still impact safety in certain situations. In the city when you have a lot of red lights and stop signs, it's not a big deal to wait for the next stop. But on a free-way when you've got a ways to go before you can make a stop then uncomfortable temperature can create a distracted or nervous driver situation. I suppose you could pull over on the shoulder if it were that big of a deal, but even that isn't the safest thing to do on freeways and it's recommended to only do that if you're making an emergency stop. In my opinion this shouldn't even have to be a big deal. The only reason we're even discussing it is because car manufacturers are moving from tactile buttons to touch screens. People are accustomed to working these types of auxiliary systems without stopping and historically have been able to do so without taking their eyes off of the road. People aren't going to stop doing those things because now they have to use a touch-screen.

dingnuts 3y ago
Purely from a consumer standpoint, why on Earth would I EVER choose a vehicle that expects me to pull over to change the AC or to take my eyes off the road to control it, if there are competitors on the market that allow me to do so without doing those things? Can you imagine actually pulling over off the interstate to change your AC? Absurd. Totally absurd and disconnected from reality. Nobody would do it, they would take their eyes off the road and then it doesn't matter AT ALL whether the function they're trying to perform has to do with safety or even operating the vehicle -- it's a distraction, and that's sufficiently bad. Can we stop putting distractions in front of drivers, in general? Please? I'll forgive Android Auto and Apple's thing because people won't stop looking at their phones otherwise but the driver should be able to control the vehicle and everything they might want to do in it without looking away from the road.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago

No. Ventilated and heated seats are something I want to control easily. And when driving in the sun I have the AC set to 64. When driving at night it's set to 72. And it's different if I drive with the top down depending on weather. I don't need to look at the buttons to do that now.

daniel_reetz 3y ago

I think this is missing something fundamental. If it's too hot or cold, folks are distracted - from driving. Perhaps you are less distracted than most. Yes, they can reassign buttons. But the core problem is distraction, which causes users to go to the touchscreen, which creates even further distraction by capturing their visual attention.

thsksbd 3y ago

The HVAC controls are a safety critical control because they are what dehumidifies your windshield screen. And quick changes of T or RH needing the user to crank up the heat, turn on the AC and direct the air to the windshield at full speed are very possible depending on where you are. Imagine crossing a miles long tunnel under a mountain separating two weather zones. Hands off my HVAC controls.

ianleighton 3y ago
A sensible approach I saw in the BMW i4 was to keep the defrost buttons around, among relatively few buttons. (I forget if the climate temp controls were physical too though.)