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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 ther
by 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 agoA touchscreen with an entire software engineering department behind its software is cheaper than buttons?
- lomase 2y agoThe hardware buttons need a system, microcontroller with software or whatever, to manage its state just like the screen.
- MostlyStable 2y agoEvidence 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 agoIt'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 agoYes, and suppliers outsource the actual development and testing to cut costs even further.
- ahartmetz 2y agoAFAIK, 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 agoIf 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 agoYep symptom of an org that sees software as a very expensive cost centre rather than a key engineering asset.
- tikhonj 2y agoThe 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 agoThis 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 agoGiven economies of scale, yes
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- BurningFrog 2y agoIf 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 agoWhen 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 agoRemember 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 agoLet'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 agoWhy 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 agoWell, I hope to god AC Delco makes at least some profit from selling parts.
- robocat 2y agoACDelco 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 agoYes. 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 agoYou 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 agoMy 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 agoThis 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 agoSoft 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 agoCouldn'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 agoThat'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 agoThis 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 agoSomebody could invent a device that creates plastic boards with custom-designed shapes.
- Rumudiez 2y agoI 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 agoThere 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 agoI 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 agoI 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 agoMy 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 agoThese 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 agoCost and durability as well. Physical knobs wear out because of friction and dust.
- dredmorbius 2y agoIn 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 agoYou can connect a bunch of analog switches to one LINbus microcontroller; then you only need one databus.
- hyperadvanced 2y agoThat 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 agoIt’s cost for sure, but they were also able to sell the tech packages so it was also fulfilling a demand too.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoYa, 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 agoThis 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 agoCost 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 agoSure 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 agoI 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 agoIf 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.