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I’ve just rented a toyota and it’s comical. How people keep buying this??? Car is perfectly fine (despite being an anaemic ICE), but damn fix your UX. People

I’ve just rented a toyota and it’s comical. How people keep buying this??? Car is perfectly fine (despite being an anaemic ICE), but damn fix your UX. People shit on Teslas touchscreen, but buttons on your Toyotas are worse - smaller, crowded and hard to discern. Audio connectivity feels designed by lawyers who wish you to crash car as quickly as possible (thinking about this loud - maybe it’s a good thing, like the tullock spike?)

taneq 2y ago
The last Toyota rental I drove (think it was a ‘22 or so?) sure had a smaller, less ‘app-like’ touchscreen and a lot of physical buttons, but I could use those buttons while driving. I’m giving this one to the Toyota. Edit: Your not meant to try and pair your phone while driving on any car.
lotsofpulp 2y ago
All cars I’ve rented in the last 5+ years have CarPlay/Android Auto, so it is all the same UX. Connect the phone via usb or Bluetooth, and I’m good to go. Can’t say that for Teslas.
- phinnaeus 2y ago
  CarPlay is a handy crutch for cars with terrible software. Teslas have had generally good software.
- ianbooker 2y ago
  This is exactly the Volvo / Polestar philosophy. There is a Decoder podcast with their CEO about just this sentiment.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  Except most cars I've tried had shite carplay connectivity.
beowulfey 2y ago
My 2019 Toyota has terrible UX. The higher end cars, particularly newer ones, are a little better (comparing Camry vs Corolla e.g.) but overall pretty bad. Would love to hear people's opinions on car UX though. The Tesla is terrible too, as are most newer car brands. I haven't minded Hyundai cars, and I recently drove a new Nissan that was decent.
- room4 2y ago
  I drove a Hyundai that wanted to sync contacts from my phone when I connected it to Bluetooth to play music. I declined for privacy reasons, and the car then had this loud booming audio request to sync contacts every single time I turned on the car and then I had to wait 30 seconds for the car to timeout/fail after my phone denied the request, and then I had to click on a touchscreen to skip the sync rather than retry. I ended up just not using Bluetooth while I drove that car because it was such a nuisance. I'm not sure whether it was so bad because of incompetence (they never considered users not wanting to share contacts) or out of malice (they know they can wear people down through harassment and hassle to eventually share their data).
  - emsign 2y ago
    That's a reason for me to return the car and get my money back.
  - jaredhallen 2y ago
    You could get one of those bluetooth things that plugs in to your cigarette lighter and broadcasts music on a free FM channel. We have a couple and they work pretty well.
    - soco 2y ago
      They are only useful in areas without FM stations. I had one and threw it away, because every 5 km there would be a station on the same frequency interfering so the copilot had to change the frequency... useless. What a "luck" that Switzerland is shutting down FM. Ah, and you can't do phone calls with it either.
mattmaroon 2y ago
I've got a Stellantis vehicle (admittedly, a higher trim one) and my girlfriend has a Model Y. I absolutely HATE driving the Model Y. Tesla's UX is far, far worse. The main thing I interact with in my car is CarPlay. Simple things CarPlay does well (making and receiving calls, providing directions, voice to text, playing music/podcasts, etc.) Tesla fails at and that's most of what a car UX is for these days. I will literally never get a car without CarPlay. But even excepting that, Tesla's UI mostly sucks. The answer to shitty buttons isn't shove it all 3 layers deep in a touch screen menu, it's better buttons.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  I haven't tried Stellantis (though MB I've drove 2 years ago was awful), but CarPlay has nothing against Tesla. Maybe you are not used to it, but after a while craplay feels like a joke. Sure, Siri and custom apps is nice, but maps and its UX is just unbelievably behind.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    Im very used to both, can’t stand Tesla. I’ll take my RAM any day. It was funny watching my girlfriend use CarPlay, I had to show her “honey just say Siri call mom” as she was looking for some menu on the screen. She’s just used to doing everything the hard way. Siri is how I interact with my car while driving. Tesla’s voice recognition is straight out of a 2005 flip phone. I can’t just call someone or play the music I want to hear without touching screens. I can’t just tell the GPS where to take me because it doesn’t understand proper nouns. It’s maps routinely don’t have things or have inaccurate data. (I do love that you’ll be driving through a neighborhood and it shows you every goofy home-based business in the DB though.) The last thing I want when driving is distraction and their UI seems designed to do it as much as possible, probably so you’ll give up and pay them for self-driving. Or you can drive at highway speeds while digging through a convoluted touch screen just to control your HVAC. I use tons of apps on CarPlay that don’t exist on Tesla. Tesla supports very few. Apple maps is bad, luckily you can use others easily. Tesla’s UI is so bad I honestly thought you must be trolling for a second.

taneq 2y ago

The last Toyota rental I drove (think it was a ‘22 or so?) sure had a smaller, less ‘app-like’ touchscreen and a lot of physical buttons, but I could use those buttons while driving. I’m giving this one to the Toyota. Edit: Your not meant to try and pair your phone while driving on any car.

lotsofpulp 2y ago

All cars I’ve rented in the last 5+ years have CarPlay/Android Auto, so it is all the same UX. Connect the phone via usb or Bluetooth, and I’m good to go. Can’t say that for Teslas.

phinnaeus 2y ago
CarPlay is a handy crutch for cars with terrible software. Teslas have had generally good software.
ianbooker 2y ago
This is exactly the Volvo / Polestar philosophy. There is a Decoder podcast with their CEO about just this sentiment.
dzhiurgis 2y ago
Except most cars I've tried had shite carplay connectivity.

beowulfey 2y ago

My 2019 Toyota has terrible UX. The higher end cars, particularly newer ones, are a little better (comparing Camry vs Corolla e.g.) but overall pretty bad. Would love to hear people's opinions on car UX though. The Tesla is terrible too, as are most newer car brands. I haven't minded Hyundai cars, and I recently drove a new Nissan that was decent.

room4 2y ago
I drove a Hyundai that wanted to sync contacts from my phone when I connected it to Bluetooth to play music. I declined for privacy reasons, and the car then had this loud booming audio request to sync contacts every single time I turned on the car and then I had to wait 30 seconds for the car to timeout/fail after my phone denied the request, and then I had to click on a touchscreen to skip the sync rather than retry. I ended up just not using Bluetooth while I drove that car because it was such a nuisance. I'm not sure whether it was so bad because of incompetence (they never considered users not wanting to share contacts) or out of malice (they know they can wear people down through harassment and hassle to eventually share their data).
- emsign 2y ago
  That's a reason for me to return the car and get my money back.
- jaredhallen 2y ago
  You could get one of those bluetooth things that plugs in to your cigarette lighter and broadcasts music on a free FM channel. We have a couple and they work pretty well.
  - soco 2y ago
    They are only useful in areas without FM stations. I had one and threw it away, because every 5 km there would be a station on the same frequency interfering so the copilot had to change the frequency... useless. What a "luck" that Switzerland is shutting down FM. Ah, and you can't do phone calls with it either.

mattmaroon 2y ago

I've got a Stellantis vehicle (admittedly, a higher trim one) and my girlfriend has a Model Y. I absolutely HATE driving the Model Y. Tesla's UX is far, far worse. The main thing I interact with in my car is CarPlay. Simple things CarPlay does well (making and receiving calls, providing directions, voice to text, playing music/podcasts, etc.) Tesla fails at and that's most of what a car UX is for these days. I will literally never get a car without CarPlay. But even excepting that, Tesla's UI mostly sucks. The answer to shitty buttons isn't shove it all 3 layers deep in a touch screen menu, it's better buttons.

dzhiurgis 2y ago
I haven't tried Stellantis (though MB I've drove 2 years ago was awful), but CarPlay has nothing against Tesla. Maybe you are not used to it, but after a while craplay feels like a joke. Sure, Siri and custom apps is nice, but maps and its UX is just unbelievably behind.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  Im very used to both, can’t stand Tesla. I’ll take my RAM any day. It was funny watching my girlfriend use CarPlay, I had to show her “honey just say Siri call mom” as she was looking for some menu on the screen. She’s just used to doing everything the hard way. Siri is how I interact with my car while driving. Tesla’s voice recognition is straight out of a 2005 flip phone. I can’t just call someone or play the music I want to hear without touching screens. I can’t just tell the GPS where to take me because it doesn’t understand proper nouns. It’s maps routinely don’t have things or have inaccurate data. (I do love that you’ll be driving through a neighborhood and it shows you every goofy home-based business in the DB though.) The last thing I want when driving is distraction and their UI seems designed to do it as much as possible, probably so you’ll give up and pay them for self-driving. Or you can drive at highway speeds while digging through a convoluted touch screen just to control your HVAC. I use tons of apps on CarPlay that don’t exist on Tesla. Tesla supports very few. Apple maps is bad, luckily you can use others easily. Tesla’s UI is so bad I honestly thought you must be trolling for a second.