Digital Cockpits Will Become the Norm This Decade, Research Says 187
Future cars will, by and large, say goodbye to analog gauges as digital clusters and more screens become mainstream. CNET reports: Big screens at least 12 inches large, virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence and both video and game streaming will all trickle down to hundreds of millions of cars by 2030, ABI Research believes. We don't want to know what this will do the average cost of a new vehicle. With the advanced technologies, cars will become even more like rolling computers, the researchers believe. A single ECU will, in the future, control everything from front and rear seat infotainment, advanced driver assist functions, the digital instrument cluster and more. ABI Research named a few companies, Nvidia, Qualcomm and others, that will likely shine as automakers tap them for powerful processors to handle so many tasks. And not only that, but they'll have reserves to ensure there's extra computing power for features rolled out via over-the-air software updates.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
The scientists drove a Tesla for a couple of miles.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
And Tesla (plus other manufacturers) starts getting told by courts to roll back this touchscreen crap for anything used by the driver when non-stopped. I'd like a blanket ban on driver-side touchscreen working at all when the car is moving.
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It's why the in-car virtual assistant is important. Touchscreens are ridiculous [for driver UI] on a car because they draw the eye from the road to the display.
Sure, if self-driving actually ever happens to a reasonable quality standard (and it should happen, but not on the aggressive timescales previously imagined), this is less of a worry.
But "Car, increase volume", "Car, lower the temperature please" and "Car, play Cars by Gary Numan" are far better, although prone to hijacking by the kids in the backsea
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
It's why the in-car virtual assistant is important.
Because reaching out and using your hand to touch the temperature control or volume knob is so difficult we have to create thousands of lines of code which will, mark my words, fail and take the entire car down with it.
KISS is dead. Long live complex obfuscation!
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
Talking about KISS, walkability and cars will be an upcoming battle. A greater mix of retail, commercial and residential in the same larger building will push walkability, especially when you get many very large structures clustering togethor, the roads between them will be closed off except for deliveries, as much as possible to further enhance walkability. Many people without cars, quite large numbers considering population density possible in a small footprint. That smaller footprint really driving walkability. The ability to access all the resource you need, from medical, to eduction, to retail, to commercial, to government, to entertainment and with many varied choices, all in walking distance. Well patrolled and safe, all in safe intoxication distance, no need to drive, ever, live work and play all in walking distance for those who can afford it and you a hire a car a few times a month or year sort of thing, just when you need it for the day.
Very social, those that want to live there, want to interact with people more and computers less.
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Well, while I have heard of a few of these complexes being built in NEW areas, it isn't exactly widespread and common.
I don't see this as being something that will sweep the nation anytime soon, as that people still li
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Most people I know, don't like to live together stacked up like rats.
It usually doesn't end well for the rats [smithsonianmag.com]. As much as some have written off the studies as not applicable to humans, it doesn't take a genius to see that urban areas do have bigger problems with social unrest.
I'd take the problems of "car culture" any day over the problems inherent in urban dwelling.
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Talking about KISS, walkability and cars will be an upcoming battle. A greater mix of retail, commercial and residential in the same larger building will push walkability, especially when you get many very large structures clustering togethor, the roads between them will be closed off except for deliveries, as much as possible to further enhance walkability. Many people without cars, quite large numbers considering population density possible in a small footprint. That smaller footprint really driving walkability. The ability to access all the resource you need, from medical, to eduction, to retail, to commercial, to government, to entertainment and with many varied choices, all in walking distance. Well patrolled and safe, all in safe intoxication distance, no need to drive, ever, live work and play all in walking distance for those who can afford it and you a hire a car a few times a month or year sort of thing, just when you need it for the day.
Very social, those that want to live there, want to interact with people more and computers less.
That may be one future, but, there are a few huge assumptions in it. Even for those with the means, who live in areas with sufficient population density to live that way, it would still require
- people working where they live, or accepting the jobs available where they live. Not only reduces/eliminates employment opportunities, there are still many
professions and occupations where a person has to be physically present to do the work.
- people accepting
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KISS is dead.
Good. KISS has killed too many people. By its nature it relies on a human to get involved, a human with a limited attention span. You touch the temperature control in your car? Why? The Thermostat was invented in the 1880s, controlling temperature manually is archaic and a distraction. Let a computer handle it. Volume control? Your volume doesn't change with environmental noise, my car did that 15 years ago. Now I only turn down volume to answer my phone, or I would if that didn't happen automatically.
As fo
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Why do you think that "By its nature it relies on a human to get involved, a human with a limited attention span."?
Do you think that instead of Keep It Stupid Simple, you should Keep It Stupid Complex?
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Same on my Tesla. If I want to chang the volume muscle memory moves my finger to the volume control on the touchscreen (or to the left side steering thumbwheel). Same for the fan speed. My finger magically knows just where to tap the screen. Same for a bunch of other functions. Is your hand not capable of learning the location of these controls "magically".
Hating my dumb ass car computer this week (Score:3)
I spent a number of hours (and $175) last week dealing with the fact that my car wouldn't turn off, so it drained the battery to 6V and I had to replace the battery. Then with the new battery, try to figure out why the car was staying on, with a 3 amp draw.
After several hours f*cking with it, I determined that the car wouldn't turn off because a wheel speed sensor was disconnected. Nice. This is the connection that's next to the wheel, in the fender. Hit a rock or dirt clod whatever and knock the connecto
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Sounds like you have a stupid car. Most ICE cars have incompetent software since the "major" manufacturers are generally clueless about automation.
My Tesla gives very precise messages about error conditions. Tesla service can also access the information remotely. Never had a problem like yours.
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I actually HAVE an OBD reader. It's just f*cking stupid that a disconnected wheel speed sensor makes the car refuse to turn off. Which means you have to disconnect the car's battery until the sensor arrives.
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You seem to be entirely missing the point.
The OBD reader tells you that the computer destroyed the battery after the ABS sensor got loose.
It doesn't make it cool for the car to destroy the battery any time any random connector gets loose.
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KISS is for engineers not for the customers.
Having a component that you attach a data/power cable to all from one source is way simpler to design and implement then having a bunch of cables with different power requirements and signals.
Back in the old days I had a 1985 Chevy Pickup truck. The Blinker broke. I had to replace a Capacitor for one blinker. That Capacitor wasn't quite in spec, so it blinked faster than it should.
Vs. code like
while ( Blinker.inuse() ) {
sleep (500)
if
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because I would definitely like to use voice recognition instead of just turning a knob or pushing a button. I mean voice recognition is perfect, it can handle noise (say, the radio turned up or passengers talking loudly), it can even work if I have an accent or cannot speak clearly. Yep. Perfection.
No, a knob or a button is better than voice recognition. Touchscreen is worse though.
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What's the difference between twisting a knob and tapping the screen? Is this really so hard?
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Voice commands are not that better. (Score:2)
Potential conflict when talking on the car phone (is that a command "Car, louder", or part conversation? "Carl, louder").
Passengers sleeping in the car.
Language issues. American English is the most worked on, other languages not so much) What if I rent a "voice-improved" car in a country but do not speak the local language?
Speech impairment/mute people.
Also screen brightness impairs night vision, even in reverse/night/dark display mode. Lighting of the traditional dashboard can be usually turned down very l
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"Car, increase volume"
CAR DECREASE VOLUME
* unintelligible screaming down out by increased volume *
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Tesla advises drivers to pay attention and remain alert while using the driver assistance features. How well does that work out?
It needs to be more than just a request. Hasn't Tesla added various features over time to turn off AutoPilot if the driver isn't engaged with the task of driving?
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What is the point of "self-driving" if I still have to pay attention and be as alert as when I am driving? I mean, if I do not have to do anything most of the time (presumably the Autopilot is good enough for 99% of the time), I will get bored and will not have as good reaction time for when the Autopilot decides to hit a lane divider.
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OK, OK, "almost-self-driving". Anyway, the rest of my post stands. If the system, whatever called, is good enough so that I end up doing nothing for hours (and maybe not having to do anything on multiple trips) and then have to react quickly to some unusual situation, my reaction time is going to be way slower than if I was driving the car the entire time. It also takes time to recognize that the computer is notgoing to behave correctly (hmm, the car seems to be going straight at a lane divider, oh, but the
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Tesla has important settings in fixed locations on the touchscreen. Never a problem finding them.
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My current car locks a lot of the touchscreen while driving. Which is fucking stupid, because the passenger is also locked out. I don't understand the logic of not letting the passenger change songs or pair a phone or do whatever to keep entertained. That is far safer than the driver doing it, and better than the driver trying to use the voice commands, which are limited and don't work well anyway.
When I'm driving, I'd like my passenger to take care of the unimportant shit so I can concentrate on driving.
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There are countries like mine that already have a ban on using them while driving on the books.
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"Touch" and "screen" are independent. Screens replacing physical gauges makes a lot of sense. Screens are light, simple commodity items, and give you a huge amount of flexibility. An analog speedometer is always a speedometer, is heavy and needs to be manufactured specifically for the car.
Re: Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they just drove a Mercedes E class or any similar vehicle from five-ten years ago or so. They have proper HUD replacing analogue instrumentation instead of the "tablet on the side" that Tesla has. They also have a proper HUD projected in front of the driver. Controls are usually moved to the steering wheel and steering column.
This is nothing like Tesla's setup, because it's actually ergonomically functional. You can keep your eyes on the road while viewing the HUD, and you still have physical dials and knobs that you can have muscle memory for to operate it.
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The other key difference is that they have separate units for the instrument cluster, the nav/entertainment and the autopilot. If one fails the others keep working. Tesla tries to combine as many functions into the one control unit as possible.
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Tesla has about 50+ different processors. They all keep tabs of each other. If one fails the others keep working. It's even possible to reboot the main touchscreen while driving.
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I've seen them implemented in family Peugeuts a few years ago, so they're probably going to. Unless Silicon Valley Tesla types get their say, in which case we'll get a tablet on the side with touch controls because fuck you and your ability to keep your eyes on the road.
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My Mazda has one. It's nice.
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Mercedes, like many others, has joined the bandwagon of 'replace all physical knobs with a touchscreen'. The speed at which manufacturers move varies, but they all want to get rid of physical buttons because they're much more expensive to produce than a touchscreen these days.
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You can't actually "replace all physical knobs with a touchscreen" because that would make cars illegal in many countries. You can replace some, and that's sometimes happening in cheaper models.
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I have a "virtual cockpit" in my Audi. The nice thing about it is that it's located in the place of the standard gauge cluster. The best part about it is that I can have it display navigation maps in that spot (with speed and rpm imposed over the map). It makes things easier and safer as I can take a very quick glance down and then be back to watching the road. It's a movement millions of people have practiced thousands of times (probably far more). I find it far superior to using a screen mounted in t
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The whole digital screen instead of a physical rev counter, speedometer, and fuel gauge, and so on isn't just Tesla.
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My next car will probably be a Tesla, However having only a tablet for my controls isn't a positive for me. I am sure I will adapt to it, so it won't be a big deal also with improved Autopilot features it will make the stress of a touchscreen a lot less panic inducing (I have a small touchscreen on my current car, which I use very sparingly)
I think for many car makers they go Look Tesla seems to be successful. They have a tablet for a display, that is the easiest thing we can copy.
However I would like t
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Have you considered a Polestar 2? Similar price bracket, better UI with both physical controls and touchscreen, autopilot, and Volvo build quality.
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Tesla has physical controls for all of these functions.
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Or looked at what airplanes did twenty years ago.
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So, these geniuses have taken a look at my 2015 Tesla and decided that the rest of the auto industry will adopt the interface sometime in the next 10 years (if they're still in business making ICE cars).
Not good for diagnostics (Score:3, Informative)
Analogue gauges operate independently of each other, meaning that in emergency situations they can be more reliable. Also they consume less electricity for the most part.
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Analog gauges in modern cars are digital anyway and probably driven by the same ECU. But it's not like it's an airplane, you don't need any gauges to pull over.
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Cars should probably use the same approach airplanes do. Glass cockpit plus analog gauges for the critical readouts: altitude and compass.
So in a car... nothing.
Re:Not good for diagnostics (Score:5, Informative)
Not in modern cars.
Your ECU is feeding those gauges nowadays. You know that because your OBD will read those same values out for you... that's not "reading" the analogue gauge... it's just sending the values from the sensor down to a little D->A convertor to move your needle to retain the traditional appearance. Many cars also let you read that out on the digital display just the same while the analogue is there.
Analogue gauges are no longer independent. They haven't been for 10+ years. There isn't a little wire rotating a tiny coil to make your needle move any more. It's all electronic, because why go to that expense when you can just plug the sensor into the car bus and read it off anywhere as a lovely digital number.
On my car the rev-meter, speedo, fuel tank and temperature are analogue dials indicating digital data that I can read from OBD. They only rise with the OBD initiation. There's almost no mechanical components involved. The next model up of my car has a fake "analogue needle" drawn on an entirely digital display, but mine has a real analogue needle fed entirely by digital information for the "feel" of the thing.
But that's an entirely separate issue from "why are we connecting infotainment and the thing that controls engine timing, steering direction, throttle position, and ABS control?" on modern cars.
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But that's an entirely separate issue from "why are we connecting infotainment and the thing that controls engine timing, steering direction, throttle position, and ABS control?" on modern cars.
Because those things need to be connected? Or do you want your engine control to not know how fast you want it to go and your ABS to not know you want to step on the brake, and your dashboard to not actually indicated that these systems are active/inactive? Even steering direction is critically important to some traction control systems.
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You've put the separation on the wrong part.
"why are we connecting infotainment WITH the thing that controls engine timing, steering direction, throttle position, and ABS control?"
The latter are all conjoined. The former is not.
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Having an OBD-II sensor value does not preclude having a real gauge.
Having a fake gauge does not preclude having an air core gauge.
But with that said, most fake gauges are servos or steppers or something, you can tell they're not air cores because of the way they move.
My 1998 Audi A8 had a real tacho, but AFAICT fake everything else. Both tach and speedo felt like air cores though
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You know it's interesting. I have both an analog needle speedo display and a digital speedo display. As I drive and scan ahead, mirror, speed, etc, I often prefer to look at the needle. But when precision is required, like I know there is a speed camera ahead, or if I feel the car is going a bit fast and may need to slow down a bit, I read the digital.
When I think about it, I definitely only need to "look" at the analog, as opposed to "reading" the digital. I'm pretty sure my brain has saved the image o
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Analogue gauges operate independently of each other, meaning that in emergency situations they can be more reliable. Also they consume less electricity for the most part.
The 'analog' dials haven't been connected to any physical objects or analog signals for a loooooong time now.
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Analog devices my no longer be calibrated properly after 5 years of usage. One of the biggest problems with Analog is it is difficult to be accurate. While Digital takes the Analog signal, and only works when obviously high and obviously low.
Bring a new meaning to "computer crash" (Score:3)
A single ECU (computer) controlling everything, from games to driver assist (which includes semi autonomous functions)? LOL So what happens when that single point of failure computer crashes?
Tesla takes crazy risks with their product, and when their infotainment MCU crashes many time during the life of the car, and after 3-5 years it dies permanently as it wears out it's emmc flash chip (google it for details), however even they are not crazy enough to entrust the main infotainment hardware with the driver assist features. Yes, you might lose your heat or AC, ability to turn headlight on or off, control your seat heaters, listen to radio, even your blinkers stop working on some versions of their cars, but all of their hundreds of iterative versions have a separate "autopilot computer", meaning even when your main screen has crapped out and is rebooting (or trying to and failing), your windows may be all fogged up and you're driving without some lights, but the driver assist features keep on working - they are handled by a physically separate computer. No way the existing automakers will go crazier than Tesla.
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The hardware isn't the problem , its generally fairly bullet proof and the fact that single microcontroller engine ECUs have been a point of failure since the 80s but hardly ever go wrong proves that. The problem is the ever expanding unreliably bloatware these companies are putting into these things. An 80s ECU may (I'm guessing) have had double digit kilobytes of code in it which not only would be fairly easy to debug but could also be formally proven. Zero chance of that with the 10s or even 100s of mill
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When I said "computer will crash" I didn't mean that the hardware will fail. Every time your PC or your phone crashes (freezes, reboots, stutters, etc), your hardware is just fine, the difference is, that rebooting phone is not controlling 2 tons of steel barreling down a busy highway at 60mph.
Software complexity running an 8 core SoC with MMU, myriad of subsystems including storage, sensors, etc. is many, many, orders of magnitude hardware to write and validate than code on a single microcontroller. The nu
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The best bit with Tesla is you don't even have to wait for a software crash seconds before you have a real one - Autopilot will quite happily crash you into a truck or divider even while working normally.
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Software complexity makes such systems next to impossible to validate, completely impossible to validate if you allow 3rd party apps (games and such). Also, even systems designed for isolation do not guarantee perfect isolation. There are shared resources, like RAM, or FLASH, CPU cache, or even power. To give you a trivial example, 4 core system, 3 cores reserved for gaming, 4th running RTOS driving your car - game is infected with burn-Cortex virus (or just has a bad bug), overheats the 3 cores, the 4th co
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A single computer does not always me something resembling your PC. There is no reason a system can have multiple controllers, strong memory protections and generally be pretty self-healing / recovery capable.
We don't do that for PCs because PCs are all about speed and its easy and cheaper to cluster servers for most applications that need fault tolerance because; while your eCommerce site can't be down for 30 secords seconds without causing timeouts and problems for clients it certainly can tolerate a 2-3 s
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"A single ECU (computer) controlling everything, from games to driver assist (which includes semi autonomous functions)?"
Same thing that happens now. Your engine either shuts down or runs really rough, and you coast to the side of the road and call a tow truck.
If you drive anything that was made in the 90s or on you've already got an ECU controlling all the critical functions of your car, and probably most of the non-critical ones too.
SImulation (Score:4, Insightful)
>"Future cars will, by and large, say goodbye to analog gauges as digital clusters and more screens become mainstream"
That is fine, as long as I have the choice to put SIMULATED analog dials on the screen (RPM/Velocity, assuming it has a ICE, otherwise just velocity). I very much dislike numeric readouts for most information. This should be easy, and it should be the choice of the owner. Having just screens should make customization a wonderful option- what dials/readouts, where, what size, what color.
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>"That is fine, as long as I have the choice to put SIMULATED analog dials on the screen
Oh, and I won't buy a car that has no FRONT display. Center display is fine for some stuff, but it must also have a front display (looking at you, ugly Tesla model 3). I also want tactile controls for anything important I must use while moving (turn signals, flashers, volume/select, etc).
Cold dead hands... (Score:4, Funny)
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Good. Stop playing with distractions while driving.
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I'm pretty sure it's illegal to play with your dipstick while driving. Or even parked, apparently:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]
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What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
I deliberately bought a car that has entirely separate infotainment and OBD/ECU. One cannot access the other, they are entirely separate. Even the "hack" for upgrading the infotainment to an Android-based independent computer... they have to plug a physical cable into the OBD port for it to work if you want to monitor the car because they cannot interface the two systems any other way.
When I bought it, I told the guy I worked in IT. He tried to sell it to me on the techy features. And then I said, I want the basic model, with as little of the electronic crap as possible.
I got shown a car with infotainment, sat-nav, bluetooth, touch-screen, voice recognition, media ports, 28 buttons on the steering wheel (half infotainment, half dashboard operation), tyre monitoring, cruise control, driver assists, etc. etc. etc.
I literally said "No, I said the basic model".
"Sir," he said dryly, "this is the basic model. Here's the list of other options". Everything from automatic braking to sign recognition and lane-keeping. Sod that.
I had to buy the basic model. But even so you can't cross data from one to the other. That's just dangerous and stupid, unless you can ensure it's read-only access.
And I'll tell you why:
A few years after buying it, I was driving along. The satnav suddenly paused and the audio jerked and went funny. Then it started to do it more and more. The GPS position wasn't updating, it would suddenly jump hundreds of metres. The screen was not updating and it ignored all button inputs. The audio stopped and jerked and interrupted, like you were trying to play an MP3 on a 386 off a floppy drive.
Then the in-car ventilation stopped. Then the screen hit its watchdog and rebooted. Then it came back up and had trouble starting up.
But I was driving throughout, and at no point was any steering, braking, dashboard, control or driving function impaired, even slightly. It just carried on.
Got home and diagnosed it. Removing the media SD card, it started up without issue. The media SD card with the music was "corrupt". Formatted it, reinstalled the maps, put it back in, all fine. Never had a problem since.
But if a bad filesystem on a storage device for MP3 can knock out voice rec, bluetooth, the aircon, GPS position and mapping (which are stored on a separate card!), audio, etc. then it could have been far, far, far, far worse if that system had any interconnection to the driving functions.
As it is, they are independent for a very obvious reason. There is no "storage device" for the car functions, it's all EEPROM or whatever in the ECU itself and cannot be updated except via a special port with specialist software. Whereas the infotainment is an SD card with FAT filesystem with MP3s on it.
And even the steering wheel buttons - right hand D-pad, buttons and functions are infotainment. Left hand are dashboard, OBD functions, tyre pressure resets, cruise control etc. and affects only a separate dashboard display.
That's not coincidental. The manufacturer knew exactly what they were doing, even if the cost of a separate wiring bundle had to be folded into the "basic model" too.
Even established car manufacturers aren't this stupid. Keep it physically separate, and you never have to worry about some cascade failure where an error in NTFS filesystem handling can cut out your brakes.
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But if a bad filesystem on a storage device for MP3 can knock out voice rec, bluetooth, the aircon, GPS position and mapping (which are stored on a separate card!), audio, etc. then it could have been far, far, far, far worse if that system had any interconnection to the driving functions.
They'll just do it the same way they do it now, both computers are on the same bus. Nothing in the PCM, driver assist etc. depends on the voice assistance, but some modules can take commands from it. They will keep on ticking away even if that computer asplode.
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Until it gets stuck in a loop writing to the shared bus.
BMW says (Score:5, Funny)
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"Your car is a service, not a thing" right BMW? /facepalm
Cockpit? (Score:2)
What's with the "cockpit"? It's a slightly different seat in a selection of 4 or 5 - that's all. Unless you put all your passengers and their luggage in a cockpit, in which case, sure, it's a cockpit.
What's next? "Come see the new $car - with it's all digital bridge!"
Re: Cockpit? (Score:2)
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It's got some very important differentiating features: a steering wheel and pedals.
Cockpit comes from sailing boats and basically means where the steering controls are. In a small one, you do indeed keep your passengers in the cockpit. Aircraft also call it the cockpit and many light aircraft have an essentially identical layout to a car.
ha ha sorry poor folks (Score:2)
Future cars WON'T ... have large digital screens. (Score:2)
Oh, wait -- I guess you'd have the IMAX screen where the windshield is. Who'd want to see the outside; besides, you could always use the front camera and display the outside view.
Cockpits? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait, I thought this was about aircraft, it said cockpits and then below it was all about cars? WTF? I was all ready to go on and on about how expensive a G1000/G3000 suite was...
Dang it..
Luddites.... (Score:2)
I really thought I'd see less of a modern-day version of arguments (especially from this crowd!) that were probably made around folks afraid of horseless carriages 100+ years ago. Technology marches on. Keep riding a horse if you want, but this tech is here to stay.
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I really thought I'd see less of a modern-day version of arguments (especially from this crowd!) that were probably made around folks afraid of horseless carriages 100+ years ago. Technology marches on. Keep riding a horse if you want, but this tech is here to stay.
Well Ritz, I think you skipped quite a number of steps there.
Yes, people were scared of early automobiles, when the technology was new, untested, and unregulated. Over the next century, things got refined and optimized, some regulations went into place to ensure safety, and other things turned into conventions.
Computers went into cars to help assist with things like fuel injection, which helped cars be more fuel efficient and to have more accurate measurements of things that are relevant to driving.
This is
ADHD is bad enough already (Score:2)
and both video and game streaming
Do not want! The kids have way too much "entertain me all the time!" syndrome already. Sitting looking out the window and observing the world in quiet contemplation is good for you from time to time.
There is nothing like a real analog gauge (Score:4, Interesting)
There is nothing, repeat nothing which is as good as a real analog gauge. Once the problems with calibration were solved (long ago) they became the absolute best thing around.
Right now I drive a 1982 300SD. I am looking to replace it with a truck soon, because I don't think it's the best vehicle for me EVAR, but it does have some notably wonderful characteristics. Specifically, it is a truly analog vehicle. My foot controls linkages which control a mechanical fuel injection pump. The injectors are hydraulically-operated mechanical unit injectors. The gauges receive signals from amplifiers, not computers. In fact, the only computer in the car controls the EGR, which is trivially disabled. Even the automatic transmission doesn't need a computer, because it has no lockup torque converter.
The upshot is that when you do something, you can immediately sense the results. If I push down on the go pedal, then the very next injection event is affected, there is no delay. And when the speed, RPMs, boost, volts, oil pressure, or temperature changes, I know right away. A needle wiggles to tell me about it faster than I can actually perceive it. Even without cruise control (which is broken, probably just the switch but who knows, it's a 38 year old car) I can maintain my speed very well, because I have an analog needle to work with.
Sometimes my speedo doesn't work, because my car has had a lot of water in it, and some connections are corroded. At those times I use my phone with a GPS test app on it to provide a speedo. I can either use a digital readout or a fake analog gauge. I use the digital readout every time because the fake analog gauge is ugly. I have a FHD display but I can see see pixels in the "needle". This is true whether I'm using the poky GPS test app, or something more fancy like Torque Pro. I can much better maintain a fixed speed using the real needle in my gauge cluster than I can with any instrument on my phone, because I get immediate feedback of fractions-of-a-MPH difference in a way that my brain can grok automatically — a little more, a little less.
The lack of analog gauges on the Model 3 is stupid. At minimum that information should be readily available to manufacturers of stick-on analog gauge cluster packages so that owners can get a real cluster. The same is true of everything else. We actually built digital gauge clusters back in the 80s, out of LEDs. Then we found out that they were stupid, and went back to using needles. How many times do we have to repeat those particular dance steps? Analog gauges are just plain better if a human is involved. When the car drives itself, it won't need any gauges, but until then we should keep our needles.
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My new car is an all digital gauge cluster, if I wanted the hybrid it was the only choice. I can see that the 'gauges' only update maybe 3 times per second. So what
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My virtual analog gauges on my Jeep's LCD are good enough. It's really more about having an analog display at all, and then how much resolution it has. The resolution of my virtual gauges is much better than the physical, yet fake electric analog gauges from some vehicles in the past. And I trust you're not wanting the mechanical gauges from way back, that had cables that got sticky and tubes that plugged up. So yes, analog display style is a must. I even prefer it for timekeeping, because I tend to rou
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"Electric speedos are more accurate than a mechanical ones EVERY. FUCKING. TIME."
So your problem is that you don't know what we're talking about? My car has electric gauges, but no computer is involved.
"Electric gauges zero calibrate every time you start your car.-
No, they certainly do not. Not at all. There is an OBD-II monitor called the comprehensive monitor which does sanity checks, but that is not remotely the same thing.
"You don't give up needles using electrical gauges. Every single thing you said in
I don't need gauges (Score:2)
I don't look at them while driving. Now if every manufacturer offered a heads up displays as standard, that would be something.
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Not always , and unfortunately in this case they're probably correct. Why? Because nailing some cheap commodity LCD screens to a dashboard is much cheaper than bespoke instruments even when you take the cost of software for the LCD system into account.
Plus car companies for some reason think new cars are bought by 17 year old gamers who love this sort of thing rather than middle aged people who would much prefer to be able to select the radio channel and air con setting by touch using physical buttons while
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Plus car companies for some reason think new cars are bought by 17 year old gamers who love this sort of thing
Considering those 17 year old gamers aren't buying cars at rates seen in the past [forbes.com], one has to wonder if car companies are being led around by the nose by software companies who have no clue about cars.
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Yes. But that doesn't need to be the same screen as the infotainment. Ever.
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Car companies for generations were able push the Marketing idea that an Automobile is a Freedom Machine!
Giving the idea that you can just at any time of day go into your car and drive off to some new place for your own adventure to escape the humdrum problems of reality.
While a wonderful image, however real life has the Automobile as a Ball and Chain in your life.
1. Once you get to your destination you will need a place to part your 45 sq/ft in a spot where it will still be there when you get back.
2. Every
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I agree with the Tech-ignorant but not the age per say.
Most of everyone who is living today grew up with "Star Trek" Technology will solve all our problems attitude.
Once we get flying cars, no more problems with traffic.
Once we get food replicators hunger will no longer be a problem.
Cold Fusion will solve all our power problems...
Every decision comes with a tradeoff. There is rarely ever the right decision, only a better decision over the alternative for you current set of issues.
Technology has its trade o
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I agree with the Tech-ignorant but not the age per say.
For future reference, the phrase is per se.
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Oh man that gives me the shits. Phones working fine when I buy it, BT car buttons all work. First OS update, the skip button doesn't work any more. It's like developers write for BT 5 when half my good working gear is running BT 2. Or at some point, whoever wrote the probably open source BT implementation that all the cool kids use just said to themselves one day "fuck it, I'm not going to fix any more BT 2 bugs, move on people, buy new shit." Which I is fair enough I guess. Everyone's BT implementati
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I share this opinion. Tactile controls can be used without having to look at the console. It's almost impossible to do that with touchscreens.