miskCars will need fewer screens and more buttons to earn five-star safety rating in Europe
JASN_DEGood.
My exact comment.
My car is pretty old and doesn’t have any screens. I was using a rental car last week for a few and I was definitely missing my physical buttons. I had to ask the guy in the passenger seat to change things for me because whenever I tried to without taking my eyes off the road I’d almost never hit the right buttons. Especially when I was going over bumps on the road.
Ford, in their infinite wisdom, decided to make the touchscreen pressure-sensitive, but the flat physical buttons capacitive. Which means that it's super easy to accidentally turn on the driver's seat heater if you dare use the volume knob, impossible to use any of the physical buttons if you have normal gloves on, and very inaccurate to use the touchscreen with those same gloves on.
They know it, too, because when I had a 2013 Fusion, the overhead console with the dome light buttons was the same capacitive bullshit, and my 2015 Fusion has a regular button. (Apart from these design flaws, I love the car, which is why I replaced one with the other.)
idegenszavakAt least you had a volume knob. Last week I drove a new Renault Clio via local carsharing, and it had a touchscreen, where you had to click a button on the screen to pop up a slider next to it, where you could change the volume. It had like 5 buttons on the steering wheel, some of them even looked like they could be used for controlling the volume, but no, they were for cruise control or whatever, the only way to change the volume was via the touchscreen with two taps.
We had a Civic with that kind of weird slidy up/down volume control, total garbage.
A knob for volume control has been the standard for car audio since there was car audio. If you're going to change that, why not put the clutch pedal all the way on the right?
John Richardwhy not put the clutch pedal all the way on the right?
Have you driven a clutch?
whoosh
I looked it up as as I typed it sounded too stupid to me. It was a 2024 Clio. It doesn’t have a knob, but it has a separate control rod below the steering wheel on the bottom right side, and that has volume buttons. According to the car sharing app I drove it for 15 minutes, and I remember I was looking for that and couldn’t find it. Is it possible it’s not a standard feature, and they didn’t have it in that car? Or it just places so badly that you can’t see it from the drivers position?
Control rod? Like an extra stalk off the side? Totally possible for that to be invisible from the driver's position, either from being behind a steering wheel spoke, or by blending in to the rest of the car, while being a thing you would not even be looking for, especially for something like volume controls.
It's also possible, being a "rental" car, that it had as few options as possible, including not having that control.
Yeah, I don’t know what is the correct English term for that thingies. As it was a rental car maybe the seat was not at the perfect height, I usually just move the the seat back and forth, you don’t start to change it vertically just for a 15 minute ride.
Ah here it is (timestamped):
https://youtu.be/V8xarINsqDg?t=245
It is invisible from the driver's seating position. And it looks like a complete afterthought. It wouldn't surprise me if it was an option that not all Clios have.
New Renault Clio | Controls
offendiculaI'd say it was placed badly. These days when I rent a car I always read the owners manual. At least the sections that explain the infotainment system, steering wheel, and stalks, which always have a huge number of buttons and dials with inscrutable graphic labels that don't explain what they do. Yet ironically despite all these physical controls plenty of important controls are not accessible physically.
It’s short range car rental, and they have a lot of different models from different manufacturers, so you can’t even know which one you will ride next tine. Open the app, see where is the closest car and what it’s type. Book the car than you have 30 minutes to reach the car and start your trip. That’s not enough time to look up manuals.
bdonvrI’m renting a Mazda and it seems really tame on that front. Buttons for everything… There’s one screen that can do Android Auto/Carplay but it’s NOT touchscreen. You have a big knob down with the gear selector that you can rotate and push in/up/down/left/right to use it. But no car controls except radio tuning on it. There’s a separate knob for volume (and on-wheel controls).
Controlling everything in a car through screens is a safety hazard. It’s insane that’s even allowed.
metaStaticThere are very few core controls and they should absolutely be physical.
I hate screens as much as anyone but I honestly don't think there's much that can't be put behind one.
Climate controls need to be physical, though.
They are safety critical when your windscreen fogs over.
Radio, too. For emergency broadcasts.
And obviously any driving controls, like lights, indicators, cruise control, wipers, …
Basically, anything that was present in a car 30 years ago needs to have physical buttons.
Climate controls need to be physical, though.
I had an 02 Peugot with automated climate controls. Shits not new. it's one of the few cases where I will not go back to the caveman way. automated headlights are another.
a case can be made for demister buttons but I haven't owned a car made this century that would fog up so that's a pull over and figure this shit out for the first time affair not a take your eyes off the road and dick around with controls physical or otherwise affair.
Any car will fog up when you get in with 4 people in wet clothes while it rains.
again that's not something you should be dealing with doing 110 on the freeway while steering with your knees and eating cup ramen.
I think my “peak American” was that time many years ago when I went driving down the I35 interstate in rural Kansas…eating a plate of chicken fettuccine alfredo.
It’s OK. The statute of limitations has long passed.
Although, now that I think of it, this might be my peak Italian moment, though I’m not of Italian ancestry…
Anyway, it was delicious.
Absolutely not. Italians may drive like madmen, but they drive well and are focussed.
Also why the hell would you add chicken to butter and parmigiano.
Why not? The world is in chaos anyway (e.g. the icon for taco looks like some Taco Bell creation 🌮), might as well enjoy the simple things in life.
Do you live somewhere not humid? My 2016 fiesta fogs up pretty badly.
We have a 2015 Toyota Highlander with automatic climate controls. Except when it’s 72° outside and 110° inside the car when I get in, I don’t want it lazily blowing 72° air at me (which it does sometimes), I want it to blow ice cold air for several minutes so I don’t sweat my balls off. Having physical controls is quite nice for that. I can set it back to 72 or 69^^nice^^ or whatever after the fact.
Both of my cars have automatic headlights, so 95% of the time we don’t really touch those controls. Every once in a while I’ll turn them on during a storm, when the light level isn’t quite low enough to trigger the headlights.
automated headlights are another.
Automated headlights should be banned. Whenever I pull up next to someone with their lights off and talk to them, the answer is always the same “I thought they were on automatic!”, and then they fumble about madly for a minute trying to find where the switch is at.
It takes one bump and you’re driving without lights for days. It’s even worse with DRLs since your “headlights” are always on, there is no major visual impact to the driver when their lights are off, but the safety aspects of DRLs I think out weight the risks here.
For the record, I’m not saying automatic headlights are useless. They’re great if you are driving in an area that has a lot of light levels variations, like tunnels, or intermittent storms. They also are nice if you are driving during dawn or dusk. But… Automatic lights should be something you manually turn on and off, not a set-it-and-forget-it behavior.
Disagree about radio (if it’s really that urgent to receive an emergency broadcast you can pull over for a moment), but yeah the rest seem like it’s best to have physical controls for everything else.
The volume down is important.
That’s usually on the steering wheel for a while now. I do agree with more physical buttons though.
just because it is doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be regulated to be
Also, it tends to be easier to find the volume knob or dedicated volume keys than trying to see if the label on the steering wheel is for volume, skip tracks or cruise control. Not as important on your car, but it comes into play for rentals and/or borrowed cars.
That’s theoretically correct, however, when picking safety standards you should go by how most people would be expected to act, not by ideal scenarios. Is someone commuting to work going to pull over to change the media source or radio station? Probably not. So the controls should minimize how long the driver will look at the console and have their hand off the steering wheel. Media buttons on the steering wheel can seem superfluous, but it helps keep people less distracted.
HidingUnderHatsI just bought a newish car and would not even consider any without physical buttons for climate. It really helped narrow the options, haha.
I don’t know how they are now but a couple of years back Mazda was on the other extreme for me. I don’t want to fiddle with a dial when all I would need is one tap. I don’t want to squit at a tiny screen to descipher the map. I don’t want to jiggle the knob for half an hour to write in 3 words in a search bar.
Having both a decent infotainment and also physical buttons for the most important functions is possible and there have been others that have done it better.
I have been fortunate to stumble into Mazda ownership a couple times in my life. I had a 1989 MX-6 coupe with a 5-speed manual ~25 years ago, and currently drive a 2012 mazda3. They have been doing a lot of great design for many years, and I think flying under the radar for many people. And the enjoyment of driving has always been on their radar. Hell, consider that they still make the MX-5 Miata! I think I wanna get me a fun little RWD zoom zoom with a soft top and a 6-speed.
If you look up the 2025 mazda3 interior, you see buttons and gauges, with a small central infotainment screen. Plus you can get that car in AWD with a turbo these days.
Went with a Hyundai Kona Electric 🤷♀️
I don’t disagree, but what’s up with climate? Of all the things I change during a drive, climate is probably the least used one. IMO, if the car has a decent HVAC system, it should be set and forget (less the defroster and A/C max in summer).
It might be that manufacturers see in their data that most people use it set and forget nowadays anyways, which made the cost cutting decision easier.
You’ve obviously never been in the same car as my mom. “ooh it’s cold in here, can you turn up the heating? A bit more? It’s still cold, a bit more?” “oh wow, now it’s really warm, can you turn down the heat?”
Idk, I probably have autism or something. In more extreme temps I like it blasting on me until I reach a tipping point at which it is completely overwhelming and I need it turned off or pointing away, haha. It could also be the fact that I am upgrading from a 2000. And I got an electric, so if I don’t need climate control using battery I want it off, which may change when I am on the highway. Other factors include not having a garage and doing a lot of outdoor activities that can leave one very hot/cold/moist for the drive home.
The thing that radicalized me on this issue was driving in a Tesla. You couldn’t even change the direction of the vents manually.
Kilgore TroutIt’s insane that as of now it’s up to manufacturers to self-regulate.
Thank fuck. I’m still keeping my 2013 civic forever.
Europe wins again.
Fuck I hope this gets brought to North America.
Spoiler: it won’t. Tariffs are gonna make it cost prohibitive to buy anything abroad so Americans will have American cars, Europeans will have European cars. Expect quite a bit of divergence.
up side: divergence isn’t so bad… divergence leads to problems being solved differently rather then homogeneously because it’s cheaper to copy than to solve
I don’t know. They tend to standardize pieces across countries to reduce costs. And we might just end up with European cars up here in Canada in the end. Who knows. 🤞
Europe rules!
I remember back in the mid 2000s with my flip phone a T9 texting. Could text and drive without looking away from the road because of muscle memory. Once I got a touch screen I realized that wasn’t the case anymore. So imagine this anecdote with car buttons to touch screens.
Touch screens are basically buttons. Maybe they just need physical buttons to get to the essential parts on the touch screen. My car the buttons are on a touch screen panel already.
Screens are not basically buttons. I cannot reach at the screen without looking and find a toggle and know that I pressed it successfully.
Yes you can, you could have it announce or provide auditory feedback. You could have a mounted remote with physical buttons if that is what you need. Wait until one of your integrated buttons fails and then you find out it will cost $1k to replace it.
go to your home screen, close your eyes, and then open your lemmy app
you can absolutely not get feedback from a touch screen about which control you’re groping around blind for: this leads to people looking at the screen while hunting and pecking for buttons
you can absolutely not get feedback from a touch screen about which control you’re groping around blind for: this leads to people looking at the screen while hunting and pecking for buttons, and that’s incredibly dangerous
Go tell that to a blind person. I’m actually surprised you’ve never heard about this.
I want to be able to replace my infotainment system without hassle or loss of functionality
ObiThe good old days when the first thing you did when buying that old beater was change the radio to one with CDs or even MP3s… Of course if you didn’t have the budget for that you could always get one of these cassettes with a jack cable to plug into your disc man, the only issue is it would skip when you hit a pothole.
Unless you had a fancy discman with the anti-skip feature. Reminds me of high school haha
Good old days? I did that with my minivan barely three years ago with an Alpine ILX-407… But that one doesn’t have a CD player because I don’t use CDs anymore. I haven’t used CDs in a car since high school, now that I think about it… I just kept my iPod connected to that car, hidden from view.
Zero is the correct number of touchscreens for a car. This has seemed obvious to me since the first time I saw one and I've never understood how anybody could think otherwise.
talIf you want an in-car navigation system, that seems like a good application for touchscreens.