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Interestingly, almost all designers know that touch screens in cars are bad idea. They always knew it. Bit for some reason, the designers in automotive industry

• seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Cost. They put them in to save money. It’s not a mystery at all. Plumbing wires for a bunch of analog switches is more expensive than one databus, and then there is the simplicity of turning your hardware problem into a software one.
  • jsd1982 2y ago
    A touchscreen with an entire software engineering department behind its software is cheaper than buttons?
    • lomase 2y ago
      The hardware buttons need a system, microcontroller with software or whatever, to manage its state just like the screen.
    • MostlyStable 2y ago
      Evidence suggests that their engineering teams are either not that big or not that good given how garbage most vehicle UI/software is, and it's a price you pay (mostly) once per touchscreen software design, which will span several models, where as the component + install cost needs to be paid for every vehicle in perpetuity.
      • daniel_reetz 2y ago
        It's a little deeper than this, software for each module is typically provided by a tier 1 or tier 2 supplier according to a spec provided by the OEM. Sometimes the tier 1 or tier 2 supplier is also subbing out the software or stuck with some system on chip that sucks. So for a made-up example, GM wants to build a smart dash in the latest SUV, maybe Bosch or Continental has one with a SoC inside and their own software hell. OEM works with supplier to integrate, bugfix, skin, and customize. But they don't write it from scratch.
        • caskstrength 2y ago
          Yes, and suppliers outsource the actual development and testing to cut costs even further.
          • ahartmetz 2y ago
            AFAIK, car manufacturers want to bring more software in house as a core competency, which is probably good because the "Tier 1"s are generally even worse at software than them and have worse aligned incentives.
      • ahartmetz 2y ago
        If you haven't been there, you cannot imagine how bad most car manufacturer's software departments are. They are big, expensive, and crawling with bad practices. Management usually doesn't have a clue about software, so there's a lot of maneuvering with goals being anything but producing good software quickly and cheaply.
        • cmrdporcupine 2y ago
          Yep symptom of an org that sees software as a very expensive cost centre rather than a key engineering asset.
      • tikhonj 2y ago
        The fact that software is bad is not evidence that it was built by a small team or had a low budget. A depressing amount of high-budget, large-team software is awful.
        • cmrdporcupine 2y ago
          This is absolutely true, but if you scratch the surface of teams like that what you'll usually find is terrible management more interested in shuffling paperwork and CYA than in quality and excellence.
    • Gare 2y ago
      Given economies of scale, yes
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • BurningFrog 2y ago
      If there are enough buttons, yes. Toyota makes 10 million cars a year. Another angle is that you can add/remove/relabel software buttons later. Hardware decisions are much more final.
      • dwelch91 2y ago
        When I worked at Toyota (well, NUMMI) in the '90s, the engineers from Toyota Japan that told me: "I'd kill my mother to save $1 on each car produced." Yes, at Toyota's scale, $1/car is a lot of money.
    • izacus 2y ago
      Remember that someone needs to manufacture those buttons, install them in the factory, stock them for replacement and keep them around several countries in the world in warehouses for when they break. Now replace all that with a single screen and suddenly costs savings everywhere \o/
    • Triphibian 2y ago
      Let's not forget you can charge a mint to replace the half-assed Ipad you have jammed into the dashboard when it goes bad.
      • robocat 2y ago
        Why do people think this? Can you find any annual report from a car manufacturer that shows parts sales contributing significantly to profit? Yes, dealerships make money from servicing and parts: "the service and parts department, which accounts for the other 49.6% of the dealership's gross profits". But a car manufacturer doesn't capture that, so a manufacturer has no financial incentive to increase profits for dealerships.
        • Triphibian 2y ago
          Well, I hope to god AC Delco makes at least some profit from selling parts.
          • robocat 2y ago
            ACDelco is an American automotive parts brand owned by General Motors It isn't clear that AC Delco would have any incentive to supply bad parts so that AC Delco could sell replacements and profit. FYI Toyota owns an equivalent parts supplier called Denso.
    • dghlsakjg 2y ago
      Yes. The buttons still need to be programmed to do something so the cost savings isn't really on the software team. Having a standard touchscreen that you can slap into any of your cars, and update OTA is huge.
    • vel0city 2y ago
      You make the software button once and it's there for the many millions of cars. You have to actually manufacture and stick in the many millions of buttons otherwise. Besides the actual action was going to be software on the bus anyways. Your window switch hasn't been directly connected to a motor in decades. It's sending a "window down" message to the bus that goes to the window actuator unit that then drives the motor. You're still paying someone to make it computerized anyways, you were going to pay a team of designers to draw it up and make the plans for the physical switch as well. The screen was going to be there anyways due to backup camera requirements and because consumers want AA/Carplay.
      • collinmanderson 2y ago
        > The screen was going to be there anyways due to backup camera requirements This. Backup camera requires a large screen leaving little room for buttons.
        • zerd 2y ago
          My car has buttons and a big enough screen for back up camera.
        • 71bw 2y ago
          >This. Backup camera requires a large screen leaving little room for buttons. ?????? A Chrysler Town & Country has a 6-ish inch screen and still easily runs a backup camera feed which is more than clear enough for anybody.
    • nomel 2y ago
      This makes the incorrect assumption that the infotainment system would be removed, reducing the cost of the engineering. Adding a virtual button in an infotainment system is much cheaper than a physical button. Especially since the most cost effective routing of those physical buttons would be to the infotainment system that is going to be there regardless.
  • HideousKojima 2y ago
    Soft keys don't require any significant wire plumbing, the keys are less than an inch from the screen. And they've been used for decades in ATMs and gas pumps: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key
  • bob1029 2y ago
    Couldn't you still run a digital bus all the way and then have some conversion to/from analog controls at the end? Keep the computer but lose the screen? The interface is the problem, not the underlying information representation or communication.
    • karaterobot 2y ago
      That's a good idea, but I think at least part of the reason it's more complicated is that you have to design and fabricate a new face plate for the dashboard, and get a new set of controls every time you want to change something on it. Say you wanted to add a new button on a particular trim level only, because it has a feature that the other levels don't. You'd need to either redesign that whole part of the console for just that trim level, or else sell everyone at a lower trim level a console with an extra button that does nothing. Multiply that by N, for every tiny feature you want to sell on the higher trim levels. If you've got a digital display, of course, you can just go crazy and add all the UI elements (and features) you want.
      • miki123211 2y ago
        This actually makes sense. If you want the car to be fully customer configurable, you basically need a custom dashboard for every single car. You also need to think about what happens when the customer does an upgrade.
        • marcosdumay 2y ago
          Somebody could invent a device that creates plastic boards with custom-designed shapes.
      • Rumudiez 2y ago
        I have a couple 15-20 year old base trim level cars and they use the exact same dashboards as their premium siblings. The unused button spots are still there they just haven’t been punched out yet
      • akira2501 2y ago
  • kemiller 2y ago
    There is truth to that, but it’s also true that cars simply have way more functionality than they did 20 years ago and it’s effectively impossible to assign a button to every thing.
    • James_K 2y ago
      I think the added complexity is in areas where it doesn't really matter. The stuff the driver actually cares about is still the same as it was then. You can just put the rest in a bluetooth phone app. If it is more complicated than a button press, people probably shouldn't be messing with it while driving anyway.
      • tpmoney 2y ago
        I definitely don't want my car controls tied to a phone app. No matter what I should be able to configure my car's functions long after the company stops distributing their app. But there's no reason why we can't have a "best of both worlds" sort of deal. I have a modern Mazda with a touch screen that comes with a center control knob and has physical controls for a good chunk of the settings you'd ever want to change while driving. So I don't have to go through menus to change my air conditioning from low to high, but I also don't have to use a tiny character led display and a "push 3 times, then hold for 5 seconds then pull twice and rotate 37.8 degrees" multi function button to find and access settings outside of those physical controls. In fact, the touch screen disables touch input at speed, so the control cluster MUST be able to access any functionality without relying on the touch display. It works pretty darn well. In fact the only thing I'd argue it could do better is be more responsive and have a decent set of distinct tones for navigating the screens without sight. It's not often I want a setting in the menus while driving, but it would be a lot nicer if each menu screen had a distinct set of sounds so that by ear I could know where I am and memorize those controls if I needed to.
        • James_K 2y ago
          > long after the company stops distributing their app There is a cool idea called open source, but I suppose something as radical as giving users ownership of software for their car isn't something companies would be willing to consider. Much better when you get to charge a subscription for heated seats.
  • kjkjadksj 2y ago
    My old head unit was all buttons and slipped into the dashboard in one piece with one plug too. In the custom stereo world having a touch screen interface always carried a premium over good old buttons. I’m not sure why that should change. Screens are much larger and full color on touch screen cars too compared to basic lcd alphanumeric screens.
  • qwertox 2y ago
    These buttons are usually located so close to each other, that one PCB can hold many of them. Then you need just one set of wires which connects the ECU to the controller on the PCB.
  • nuancebydefault 2y ago
    Cost and durability as well. Physical knobs wear out because of friction and dust.
    • dredmorbius 2y ago
      In well over five decades of experience with automobiles I have never once had a physical nob wear out. In my own vehicle, or those of anyone I've encountered. I'm not saying it never happens, but it would be an exceptional outlier circumstance.
  • kragen 2y ago
    You can connect a bunch of analog switches to one LINbus microcontroller; then you only need one databus.
  • hyperadvanced 2y ago
    That isn’t really true when you factor in the cost of engineering new parts/systems compared to just doing it like you’ve always done. I know a guy who worked at GM and apparently they got bit by the “digital transformation” bug and decided that the army of iPhone app developers and ex Silicon Valley folks was what they needed to stay relevant. Hence the omnipresent touch screen.
  • conductr 2y ago
    It’s cost for sure, but they were also able to sell the tech packages so it was also fulfilling a demand too.
    • seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      Ya, cheaper design/production costs plus a tech feel for being new, but I bet in the future you’ll be able to buy analog buttons as a premium upgrade.
  • globular-toast 2y ago
    This is it. I don't know why so many people think touch controls are a misguided attempt to be better. They are a definite attempt to be cheaper, that's all. This is why most electronics made in China these days have touch buttons. They are cheaper and they are almost always worse.
  • hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    Cost is a big thing, but also configurability. While you can assign different functionality to different buttons, it's easier to add features after the fact to a touch screen. While this can be both a blessing and a curse, I own a new model vehicle from a startup car company, and the interface has improved significantly in the past 2 years with OTA updates.
    • Shawnj2 2y ago
      Sure but there’s a handful of things people actually want physical controls for (shockingly all of the exact same things cars from 20 years ago have physical controls for) and I think having Eg AC controls and basic music controls with hard buttons and the rest with a screen is the logical result here.
  • consteval 2y ago
    I would think, however, that a lot of these car companies already had assemblies for analog switches. I don't know the cost analysis, but maybe switching from analog to touchscreen and now back to analog is more expensive than if they just stuck with analog. Also this is a safety problem. IMO, this should be regulated. In the US we kind of do - we require a physical button for the hazard lights. That's why in modern Teslas that's the only physical button.
  • stubish 2y ago
    If that is the deciding factor, you can put the buttons and knobs on a face plate mounted on top of a touch screen, with the unpowered buttons just acting as fingers. But I don't think manufacturing cost is the real issue.
• MostlyStable 2y ago
  I've been relatively convinced that it was a cost savings measure. Both in cost of components and, probably more importantly, cost in labor of install, since touchscreens are cheaper on both regards. Everyone knew it was worse, but it saved money, and, at least for a while, it could be marketed as "premium".
• layer8 2y ago
  The designers are not the ones who decided on that. It’s cost reduction, feature flexibility (you can decide later what exactly to provide in the software), and the marketing semblance of a cool modern interface.
• amelius 2y ago
  Of course they knew it. But they __also__ knew that buyers wouldn't figure it out until after buying the car. Fast forward a decade, and now buyers want buttons.
  • jiri 2y ago
    Yes - people also would prefer to buy car with fancy big screen to buying car with lot of old school buttons. Because of fashion. After while, when big screen is not that fancy anymore, design can return to be functional again ... using physical controls.
  • GuB-42 2y ago
    And now, they know they can charge a premium for buttons. Isn't marketing wonderful?
• xyst 2y ago
  Probably cost and the rise of touch screen mobile phones (ie, og iPhone of 2007-2008)
• Laremere 2y ago
  In addition to what others are saying, US law requires new cars to have back up cameras and the related screen. So everything else immediately becomes "so we add it to the screen we already have to have, or add a new physical control?" On another note, I do like my (getting older) Mazda's screen. It has touch, but I honestly forget it does because the control knob is so much better for use while driving. Nice and tactile. Additionally all of the important controls have physical buttons. Only major problem I have with it is that if it can't connect to Bluetooth (which is stupidly often), it decides to switch back to radio, blasting that at me. Then I have to sit there going through multiple menus to get Bluetooth reconnected.
  • gaudystead 2y ago
    One of the deciding factors for me going for a Mazda (currently being shipped!) over other brands is because they still use a real gearbox (and not a CVT), and because their media system controls are physical buttons and not a touch screen. I hate taking my eyes off the road and the Mazda seemed like the safest option to reduce that as much as possible.
    • AlexAndScripts 2y ago
      I'm new to cars - I haven't passed my test yet. I also live in the UK, where manuals are the norm (and that's what I'm learning on). What is it that you dislike about CVTs? When you say a real gearbox, is it manual or automatic?
      • vel0city 2y ago
        Not the person you're replying to, but I know what they're talking about. CVTs work by a "belt" riding on "cones". These cones can slide in and out and change the size of each side, meaning they can change their gear ratio dynamically. This is great in many ways: the vehicle can always get exactly the gearing it wants for a given situation and there's no shift lag or shudder or whatever. Just nice, smooth, continuous adjustment of the gear ratio. However, that belt riding on the cones depends on a good bit of friction to work. Friction means wear and tear. For a car level CVT, they make it out of a lot of little metal wedges on a metal band instead of what you'd normally think of a belt. However, it'll still constantly wear out leaving lots of tiny metal shavings. Owners are typically pretty bad about actually maintaining their cars, so transmission fluids and belt replacements often go long or skipped entirely leading to early deaths for these transmissions. Plus, you typically can't put as much power through them without risking damage. They probably mean a real transmission as in one with actual interlocking gears whether that be automatic or manual.
• tikhonj 2y ago
  I'm sure the designers in the automotive industry knew. The move to touch screens just reeks of management and marketing interference: chasing trends and shiny technology as well as prioritizing cost savings/uniformity/flexibility/etc over the final product experience.
• StephenAmar 2y ago
  I vividly remember a discussion with designer colleague in the early 2010s that used to work at BMW. They convinced me that touch buttons in car were awful. They totally knew.
  • seb1204 2y ago
    I always like the centre console round knob in BMW, Audi and Mercedes. Clicky wheel type of haptic feedback and some buttons around it. They worked intuitively for me and you could pair them with a touch screen. I think a big issue with having a touch screen AND physical buttons is that it requires a lot more coordination between the teams to make it work well.
• creesch 2y ago
  They probably know, but don't have the ultimate say in the matter. As others have said, having one screen as opposed to a variety of buttons and knobs that need to be wired is likely cheaper (even more when you don't really invest in proper software development).
  • josefrichter 2y ago
    I am not sure about the cost reasoning. The cars were equipped with all the buttons and knobs before the touchscreens. Then they started adding touchscreens - and it was the screens that were expensive, not the buttons that were already there. But they went too far and moved everything to the screens. It's fine for big portion of the controls, but it's a big no-no for the controls you need to use while driving. And that's just a few buttons, to be honest. Anyway, a decent design process would figure out. Seems like inner politics won instead.
    • creesch 2y ago
      > and it was the screens that were expensive, not the buttons that were already there. The combination of a screen AND buttons is still more expensive than just a screen. If you are introducing a new component that is going to otherwise raise the cost of production, you will be looking for ways to reduce cost or, maybe more aptly, offset the cost of the new component. With touch screens, you are presented with a unique option where the thing you introduce can be used to move all sorts of functionality to that would otherwise need its own hardware. You also need to keep in mind that the physical buttons on older cars didn't need to be tied into a computer system as much as modern buttons. > Seems like inner politics won instead. Yeah, that's exactly my point.
• steveoscaro 2y ago
  I know I’m going against general internet sentiment here, but having used a touch screen in a car (Tesla) for a couple years, going back to driving a more standard vehicle with 50+ inputs spread all over the car is not pleasant.
  • drag00n 2y ago
    Also have Tesla (Model 3), I love the touch screen, but still would prefer physical control elements for heating/cooling/air flow control, and maybe also one to play next song. Basically what I use the most.
• matthewdgreen 2y ago
  The flip side: every time I run into a car that has a screen-based UI and doesn't support touch controls, it is absolutely miserable. There is such a thing as too many tactile controls.