Carmakers Must Bring Back Physical Buttons, Says Europe (hagerty.com) 177
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hagerty: Euro NCAP, the automotive safety industry body for Europe, is introducing new guidance for 2026 which means that five important tasks in every car will have to be performed by actual buttons instead of by accessing a screen. Indicators, hazard warning lights, windscreen wipers, horn, and SOS features will have to be controlled by proper switches in order for cars to be granted Euro NCAP's coveted five star safety rating.
"The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes," explained Matthew Avery, director of strategic development at Euro NCAP. "New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving." Although it won't be mandatory to comply with Euro NCAP's new rules, car makers that don't will lose valuable points in their safety ratings.
"The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes," explained Matthew Avery, director of strategic development at Euro NCAP. "New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving." Although it won't be mandatory to comply with Euro NCAP's new rules, car makers that don't will lose valuable points in their safety ratings.
unexpected outbreak of common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope it will actually have an effect
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It will be interesting to see what Tesla does. This isn't a mandate, they could stick with their touch screen for everything. It just means that their safety rating will be lower because they don't have physical buttons.
Tesla's safety rating is questionable anyway. They get points for having front collision avoidance, but it's inferior to other cars that use radar. It gets the same tick box, even though it doesn't work very well. I think I read that they are going to start more detailed testing of these fea
Re:unexpected outbreak of common sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Literally all of these things are already buttons on my Model 3 [manualsbooks.com]. Indicators are the left stalk. Hazard warning lights are a button on the ceiling. Windshield wipers are the button at the end of the stalk. Horn is, well, where every horn is. SOS is a button next to the hazards.
People who don't own them have the strangest ideas about Teslas.
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Does the stalk let you set the wiper mode, as in off/intermittent/full/fast? Or is it just press the button to spray/wipe once? I think it needs to have all those functions to be compliant.
At some point Tesla had all the functions on the touch screen. Maybe they relented, like they did with the yoke. I see that the gear select is still on the screen though.
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My 2022 Tesla Model S has a steering wheel button for the wipers and a scroll wheel/button to select the mode.
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Yes, changing the wiper mode is required I think. Didn't the yoke make the horn a touch button? Anyway, good that they changed it back and abandoned that half baked thing.
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It will be interesting to see what Tesla does. This isn't a mandate, they could stick with their touch screen for everything.
Or Tesla could simply stick their touchscreen and leave it at that. /sarcasm
Re:unexpected outbreak of common sense (Score:4, Funny)
Well, yeah, who knows how much their customers care about safety ratings. Some guy on twitter had the steering wheel of his cybertruck come off while driving, and still said he loved Tesla.
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Are the Tesla buttons actual buttons, or just touch sensitive surfaces that are otherwise smooth and unyielding?
The SOS system is mandatory in EU cars now. In the event of airbag deployment or pressing a button, it calls emergency services and shares GPS location data.
Re: unexpected outbreak of common sense (Score:4, Informative)
>Are the Tesla buttons actual buttons,
Yes. At least on the Model 3 and Y we've owned.
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That's good to hear, thanks. Looks like that are responding to customer feedback.
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Tesla automatically notifies of crash/airbag deployment. No user action necessary.
Really, relying on a person who was just in a crash to have to press a button is not a good design.
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That's the mandatory system in the EU, all new cars have had it for a few years now.
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Tesla automatically notifies of crash/airbag deployment. No user action necessary.
Really, relying on a person who was just in a crash to have to press a button is not a good design.
The thinking is maybe that different crashes require different levels of emergency response, depending on how safety of the passengers and surrounding traffic and pedestrians is affected. Police should not be summoned automatically for fender benders, and depending on the situation, a fire truck or ambulance might be needed. That's why direct communication with the driver is a good thing.
Re: unexpected outbreak of common sense (Score:2)
Tesla calls the owner in case of an accident
Re: unexpected outbreak of common sense (Score:5, Informative)
Wipers need manual control for when the rain sensor doesn't work right. It's safety critical that you can quickly and easily clear the windscreen when needed.
Hazard lights are sometimes needed on the motorway when slowing down a lot, to prevent collisions as cars behind don't brake hard enough.
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Glad Europe is pushing against this unwise trend.
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But is there any data to support downgrading the safety rating due to it?
If not, it seems questionable. I'd like the safety rating to state how "safe" the car is.
I guess they could always run a lab study and gin up some data on faster response times with direct access to a physical button and let the reporting make the leap from there to "safety."
Re:Good. (Score:5, Informative)
yes
https://www.themanual.com/auto... [themanual.com]
https://www.vibilagare.se/engl... [vibilagare.se]
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
> But is there any data to support downgrading the safety rating due to it?
Why would we need a study to decide selecting emergency hazard lights from a touchscreen menu is less safe than a giant honking button you can cram with the heel of your hand?
It would be an extraordinary claim that it's just as safe (or safer).
It's OK to believe obvious things without a peer-reviewed study as long as you're open-minded about the possibility of being wrong.
We made it nine million years out of the trees to being indomitable by having good instinctual and cultural heuristics.
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This is so true, and reminds me of what Bezos has to say about Type 1 and 2 decisions.
https://kb.founderculture.net/... [founderculture.net]
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At one point it was an "obvious thing" that the Earth was flat. To some people, it still is. Even after people figured out that the Earth is round, it was an "obvious thing" that the sun revolved around the Earth, not vice versa. It was considered so "obvious" at the time that Galileo Galilei was tried and imprisoned for heresy for believing that the heliocentric model was correct. To some people it is an "obvious thing" that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are secretly operating a child sex & slavery
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
But we have data. We have a LOT of data.
Not paying attention to the road is a safety hazard.
Looking away from the road is a safety hazard.
A touchscreen requires you to look at the screen instead of the road.
We do not need to test each and every single thing that takes your attention away from the actual driving to see if they, too, are a safety hazard.
The safety hazard is not looking at the road while you are operating a vehicle at speed. Period. The discussion ends there.
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There's nothing obvious about the world being flat. The world has been known to not be flat since the very dawn of recorded history. Even cursory evaluation of what you can see indicates it almost certainly isn't.
The fact that some cultures produced a large amount of flat earthers, which may or may not have had something to do with them being told they were going to burn if they didn't believe in The Firmament, does not mean everyone did. It means some cultures and religions produce an overabund
Spot the non-driver (Score:3)
Hazards are used when slowing to a stop on freeways and so on, where one would not be expected to stop. That may be illegal in some jurisdictions but it is safer than not doing so.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you take your eyes off the road, it's a problem. If you take your eyes off the road to use a control that needs to be used quickly then it's a big safety problem.
Even without touch screens, I've had moments trying to figure out how to use the horn to avoid an accident, because newer cars have relegated the horn to only certain parts of the steering wheel.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Informative)
Anything that makes you look away from the road is a potential safety hazard.
I can reach down to the right to adjust the heating, the fans, etc., without ever looking at what I'm doing. I can't do that with a touchscreen simply because there is no haptic feedback, and making a mistake means looking away for even longer as I'd then have to first fix the mistake, THEN do what I was intending to do in the first place.
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I prefer rotary knobs with proper tactile feel and distinct surface since you can feel it in the dark. For buttons you still have to look.
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Besides data already linked, looking at and poking a screen until you manage to tap just the right spot (from significantly off-center in most cases) is a much more difficult task than twisting the left hand knob below the row of row of buttons - all of which you can feel - to do some task while driving.
For a touch screen you not only have to look away from the road, but also re-focus your eyes on a close object to change. The other you can do with a glance at most, even in a car you aren't familiar with.
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It's easier to use physical buttons without taking your eyes off the road than to use a touch screen. Thinking it takes a study to figure that out sounds like a case of a reddit-tier "omg i love science" fetish.
By anecdote, I had a Ford Fusion with a touch screen for climate control; if I wanted to use the heated seats, or change the temperature I'd have to tap a small area on the screen. Which means taking eyes off the road, stabilizing your hand to hit the right spot on the screen; which based on road co
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This is something pretty much anyone can test for themselves:
Try using the calculator a smartphone vs the number pad on your keyboard to enter a number series.
While looking, your accuracy and speed be clearly better on the keypad - the tactile interaction keeps your fingers aligned.
Without looking, the touch screen becomes practically unusable.
It's the same reason that apple walked back their touch bar. Same reason flat/touch/projected keyboards never caught on and laptops that fight to shave .1mm of heigh
This is a absolutely correct! (Score:5, Insightful)
My Goodness, YES (Score:5, Interesting)
I rent cars a lot, and so I'm plagued but this new "Tesla" mode of putting everything in a touch screen. It's probably the most dangerous and in any case uncomfortable trend. The worst offender in new cars, is I think Volkswagen (my experience is with the electric ID.3), with some "sliding finger" controls but most of them set into the touch screen. My goodness, even volume is not a rotating knob but a sliding finger touch control.BMW seems to have gotten it mostly right, as have Toyota and Hyundai. The Chinese are of course terrible in so many ways as to have you not caring about the touch screen. That's of course a broad generalization, as I have tried just one Lynk & Co (horrid) and one Opel (passable, but you can see details, hits of the Chinese manager mind behind the possible German engineers remaining)
I haven't tried American brands so I cannot speak about them.
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Rest assured that Tesla has all of these emergency functions (and more) on buttons.
In my old Corolla (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't all cars this way?
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"It's cheaper to put in a touch screen that needs multiple levels of menus than it is to put in physical buttons and controls for everything."
Pedantic, but I don't think a large touch screen plus electronics is cheaper than some wires and switches. But once you've decided that your vehicle needs that large screen (maps, sound, etc.), it then becomes cheaper to move as much functionality as possible to that sunk cost point.
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Pedantic, but I don't think a large touch screen plus electronics is cheaper than some wires and switches. But once you've decided that your vehicle needs that large screen (maps, sound, etc.), it then becomes cheaper to move as much functionality as possible to that sunk cost point.
That's kind of the point. Once you have the screen, putting another interface on the screen is just some programming time, not a cost per vehicle. And wiring harnesses get expensive pretty quickly. The button might not even be $1, but the wiring for it is probably more than $1 once you figure the labor or robot needed to place it.
And screens are absurdly cheap these days.
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It actually is.
The screen doesn't need injection mold tooling made up, doesn't require stocking a few dozen different physical parts, etc...
The screen has to be there due to regulations requiring backup cameras, so you might as well use it for other things (or so goes the bean counter thinking).
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>>Pedantic, but I don't think a large touch screen plus electronics is cheaper than some wires and switches.
Touch screens are ridiculously cheap (especially if you pick a common size that's used in other products) and physical switches/knobs with associated mounting/fit-and-finish hardware is surprisingly expensive. Touch screen interfaces can also be modified with a software upgrade. Any change to physical controls will require an expensive recall.
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I can put my hand on the center console and turn the AC on, change the air vent outlet/demist, fan air speed and air temp without having to take my eyes off the road.
Aren't all cars this way?
Not for a long time - even before the touch screen craze. These stupid automatic climate control systems are the worst offenders. My 2001 Toyota had a few big buttons to turn the A/C compressor, recirc, and defrost on and off, and temp, fan, and vent control were all giant chunky knobs that you could reach for without looking to adjust whatever was making you uncomfortable. The automatic ones have tiny buttons with half the functions buried in clumsy menus (and nothing you do will actually make it comfortab
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Try sitting down and closing your eyes and I doubt you can do it - or at least that you fumble.
Not a law or regulation (Score:2)
From what I've read, these guys aren't a regulatory body or government agency... so they can't mandate this.
But what it will mean is that those without these features will see their ratings dinged - and hopefully that's enough to encourage them to start adding them back in. I've seen them compared to IIHS in the US - which is also not a regulatory agency but does crash and other testing and provides safety ratings for vehicles (where NHTSA is the actual government agency for that sort of thing).
Re:Not a law or regulation (Score:4, Informative)
...but if your EuroNCAP rating is low nobody will but the car, and you will have to slash the price to sell any at all ...
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This is what people call "late stage capitalism", right? Where people can decide to make bad products, others will point out the flaws, and buyers decide whether or not to buy the bad products?
Re: Not a law or regulation (Score:2)
Sounds like "all stage capitalism" to me. If anything, "late stage" capitalism would prohibit you from making a bad product.
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It doesn't mean "highly evolved capitalism."
It refers to its decline.
Late Stage Capitalism would be you buying the bad product even if a better one existed.
It is the point where the core assumption of capitalism breaks down- that better products will succeed.
Instrument Panel & GPS (Score:3)
Can have a screen. The rest better be buttons or I'm not buying it.
Related /. (Score:2)
Ok, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
So I liked the headline more than the substance. The only things included are:
-Indicators: If they mean to include *buttons*, this means even's Tesla's "arrow buttons instead of stalk" would pass. I don't know anyone that even thought to make this a 'touchscreen' feature.
-hazard warning lights, windscreen wipers, horn, and SOS features: Again, I've only ever seen these as hard controls in any car, even aggressively touchy ones. "SOS features" are far from ubiquitous so there's less to go on there, but when I have seen it, it's a hard button.
Unfortunately omitted are several things which can be distracting and *are* being made touchscreen only:
-Music controls, at least mute/volume/pause/next/prev should be hard buttons. It becomes too distracting
-Vent controls - Tesla made this a touch only to steer the air. I could easily see this as distracting
-Basic AC controls: bump up or down the temperature a bit, turn it on/off.
-PRND: Tesla makes this a touchscreen only control, but at low speed in a parking lot I could easily see someone fob that at the wrong time and whack a pedestrian. People don't always come to a full stop before switching between forward and reverse, especially in EVs.
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False. While these are present on the touch screen, there are also drive controls above the rear-view mirror, on the ceiling. Still controversial, yes, but they're there. Or, there they're. Whatever.
Re:Ok, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Overhead buttons? To make people feel like in a jet plane? Just get "The Marauder"
From pictures I see those are not physical buttons, those are capacitive touchbuttons. That means no physical feedback. And probably no tactile identification. To make matters worse, the hazard warning lights button is in the middle of PRND, making it PRHND.
That's some designer level shit... Hasn't seen a UX expert from 100 miles.
Getting rid of the indicator stick is a really bad move. Again, decades of usage thrown away, because "pretty" or "cheaper". And this isn't a case of historical lock-in as with our keyboard layouts. The stick is practical too.
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Aren't the Tesla "buttons" actually touch pads with fixed legends? As in a smooth surface that doesn't move, no tactile feedback or even ridges to help you locate them without looking.
Teslas also have the windscreen wiper controls on the touchscreen. They are supposed to be automatic, but the automatic system uses the front facing camera and doesn't work very well.
I agree it would have been nice to have more on the list, but hopefully if manufacturers are required to have physical controls they will won't d
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The indicator buttons alone would put me off buying an M3 here in the UK. I'm not going round a roundabout using that!!
Thank god; please bring to US (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all the sales guy was a doofus. He made the point in the process that we wouldn't have to do maintenance on the car except to change the tires. The the car would last 500,000 miles before needing a battery swap, so we were saving money over the long haul. I looked at him like the idiot he was; fortunately we weren't buying the car for this reason. Technically he's right, in that there is no major transmission overhaul required or fluid changes over time or whatever. But 500,000 miles? In a normal driving pattern, the average person does 12,000-15,000 miles per year. 500,000 miles would mean the car would be good for 30+ years. I have never once seen a touch screen, or sensors, or any form of electronics last that long outside of my old Gameboy. And all of those parts are $1,000+ to replace. What good is the car if the touch screen goes out? You can't control the damned thing!
Second was this exact issue about buttons. The first time I drove the car when it started pouring rain, I turned on the windshield wipers. Except it was just the single-use button. How do I turn it on permanently? Oh, there's a pop up menu on the touch screen, I can select which speed I want. Except I have to take my eyes off the road and look at that stupid screen, which is literally the last thing i want to do when it's pouring rain in traffic on the freeway. Why would you make this design decision!?! Oh right, because it's software guys designing a car. Literally the stupidest UI/UX design decision for a car; every important control should be available to the driver without them taking their eyes off the road.
We know we're going to sell the Tesla off in a few years, but unfortunately they depreciate faster than every other car [spectrumnews1.com]. Sigh, thanks for nothing Elon Musk [cnn.com].
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First of all the sales guy was a doofus....Technically he's right, in that there is no major transmission overhaul required or fluid changes over time or whatever.
What good is the car if the touch screen goes out?
lol wtf..
why did you buy a car that you obviously hate? wait ill answer that. you didnt buy the car and are just here trolling with your anti-telsa bullshit.
Re:Thank god; please bring to US (Score:4, Funny)
why did you buy a car that you obviously hate? wait ill answer that. you didnt buy the car and are just here trolling with your anti-telsa bullshit.
Perhaps he didn't hate the car until after he had to live with it, kind of like how I didn't hate anonymous comments until I spent some time on Slashdot.
Re:Thank god; please bring to US (Score:5, Informative)
Oh right, because it's software guys designing a car.
No, it's the bean counters designing the car. Those capacitive "button" arrays are CHEAPER than real buttons. And if you're going to have a big touchscreen around for navigation anyway, then the temptation to delete controls and move them there is strong... and cost-related.
Re: Thank god; please bring to US (Score:2)
You can't blame Elno for the actions of executives of wholly different automakers. Not all of them ever deleted all the important physical controls.
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You can't blame Elno for the actions of executives of wholly different automakers. Not all of them ever deleted all the important physical controls.
My point is that he's the one who started the trend and everyone else felt pressure to innovate in that same direction.
Even if you think touchscreens are dumb it's hard to resist customers asking for them.
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> Oh right, because it's software guys designing a car. Literally the stupidest UI/UX design decision for a car; every important control should be available to the driver without them taking their eyes off the road.
Please don't lump UI designers into the same category as UX and software developers. I know we try, but "pretty" wins every time...
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YES!
UX is taught from a marketing perspective which is primarily about customer feelings. It's taught literally from the marketing dept of my university.
UI is about empowering humans and is taught from the computer dept; however, it uses a psychology based textbook - it BELONGS as a course in the psychology dept!
Many schools will place either in their art dept. this is wrong and way too many graphic artists are other there as dunning-kruger specimens.
Oh, I've actually talked with some UX product designers a
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Dont get me wrong. Physical buttons are vastly superior to touch screens, but there ARE ways of adapting.
Yeah, but (Score:3)
But if I go out to my Jeep, it has a big touchscreen, and quite literally hundreds of settings. And many of them are safety related.
The dashboard is pretty full already, it won't have room for the many physical switches needed. And talk about confusing.
At least they didn't make it mandatory. Physical switches are good, but we could end up with dashboards looking like those from a B-29.
Oh - wait. I would definitely buy a vehicle with a B-29 dashboard.
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If you remember the same vehicle a few years ago before it had a screen at all ...
The ones you needed to adjust whilst on the move - should be physical switches, no more are needed
All the stuff you setup once, or need to stop to adjust properly, can go on the touch screen
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If you remember the same vehicle a few years ago before it had a screen at all ...
The ones you needed to adjust whilst on the move - should be physical switches, no more are needed All the stuff you setup once, or need to stop to adjust properly, can go on the touch screen
My Jeep might be already acceptable. It has both regular switches and knobs for things like radio environmental, cruise, and even Kilometer, Celsius and Pascal, or Imperial. I can operate in either.
But a B-29 type dashboard would be cool
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The pinnacle for me was the Honda e, now sadly discontinued. Expansive touchscreens for both the driver and passenger, but also a decent amount of physical buttons for all important functions.
No giant centre console either, nice and open.
What's really weird is that Honda's new EV, the eny:1 or whatever it's called, lacks a lot of basic EV features that were in the e, and the amazing HMI.
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"I would definitely buy a vehicle with a B-29 dashboard."
Does it come with a Little Boy or a Fat Man ?
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"I would definitely buy a vehicle with a B-29 dashboard."
Does it come with a Little Boy or a Fat Man ?
That comes with the apocalypse package.
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There are two still flying, but I'm not sure that they're for sale.
let's keep going with this (Score:2)
Doesn't go far enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Environmental controls need to be 100% tactile button and/or lever activated as well. In the first place, a fogged or iced windshield is a huge safety problem, so activating heat without taking your eyes off the road at a time when visibility is already compromised is an absolute necessity.
In the second place: practically speaking, a driver having difficulty finding controls to warm up the car is also a safety hazard. It takes eyes off the road, yet almost no driver is going to pull over to make the setting change in a safe manner.
The other danger of allowing key controls on computer touch screens: inevitably, dipshit web and visual designers will continually "improve" the layout - because of vanity and other bullshit reasons - and move some safety-critical control just when drivers have learned how to access it consistently without too much additional thought. (Just think of how Windows makes users play whack-a-mole during software updates, then apply that to your daily commute).
Job one in automotive controls is the combination of safety and ease of use for the driver. Every other consideration - whether it be esthetics, profit, or vendor lock-in - is a distant second.
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Environmental controls need to be 100% tactile button and/or lever activated as well.
Agreed, anything you regularly interact with while moving should be adjustable by feel, certainly the defroster/defogger, heat level and fan speed should be on the EUs list as well.
I'd also give extra safety points for heads up displays, since they serve the same purpose of encouraging the driver to keep their eyes on the road and are becoming increasingly common in modern cars.
meh (Score:5, Funny)
Paging Captain Obvious (Score:2)
Yes. (Score:2)
They should go further with this. HVAC controls would be a good start.
Nooo! (Score:2)
Climate controls, volume and cruise control should have been on that lsit as well.
The first step (Score:5, Insightful)
The next thing they should do is ban display panels in cars entirely.
Apart from the level of driver distraction they cause, its a single point of failure for much of the key functionality of the car.
This is particularly annoying when the screen in your older car inevitably eventually fails (even assuming you didn;t accidentally crack it, the screen, backlight and touch panel still all have a finite number of operating hours). With older cars you often can no longer get a replacement because its old enough that the manufacturer and OEM no longer make/carry it, so they are the also both rare and in high demand from all car breakers.
Basically hitting the designed lifespan of your LCD panel or its backlight can effectively turn your whole otherwise still perfectly working and usable car into a worthless brick that you cant even sell.
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Part of why I still drive a 2015 with buttons for everything -- and a proper shift and clutch setup as God intended. However, given the legal mandate (in the U.S.) for a backup camera for those incapable to turning their head (must be fairly common) and/or looking in their mirrors, even my vehicle has a small display for this purpose...
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I drive a 2010 lacking a backup camera. I don't miss it...much. The thing is kind of handy when parallel parking in the city.
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The backup camera is a great boon even for those of us who can turn our heads, because the car's physical design makes visibility to the rear and rear sides very poor. Also, I don't know about you, but when I turn my head to the right, there are things I can see that can't see when I turn my head to the left, and vice versa. The backup screen is a good check -- now I have to turn my head to 3 places instead of 2, but I can see more.
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Right, so people can go back to squinting at their relatively tiny phone screens to look at things like maps. Done right, a large panel is useful and often safer.
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Back in my day, you didn't have maps. You drove, you ended up somewhere, and you were happy. Then this damn "paper" thing came along, people started printing "maps" on it, and the world went to shit. I mean, if Harry moved his red truck you'd have to get a whole new map! Harry's truck has been sitting at the same corner for the last 40 years, but still!
I hear the kids today have replaced paper with witchcraft. Good riddance.
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yeah the "done right" thing is something that the car makers apparently can't understand. They keep adding more pointless crap instead of taking stuff away,
My idea of the perfect display (assuming you want one at all) is just an user-replaceable cheap tablet that does nothing other than be a bigger-screened remote for your phone.
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I agree with you about the distraction and do want to see more buttons/sliders/knobs instead of touchscreen menus.
However, I don't removing the display will actually improve reliability that much. Those buttons, sliders, are going to talk to the car's control system, probably not be directly wired to what they're controlling. The CPU is a major point of failure and it's going to be hard to source particular models in the future.
While you're at it (Score:2)
Pontiac (Score:2)
My first halfway decent car out of college was a beat up Pontiac Sunbird. While not being a great car altogether, it had the best designed user interface I'd seen in a car, and I've not seen a better once since.
All commonly used controls were large, oversized switches and push-toggles around the dash cluster cowl. With your hands at 2 and 10, you could control lights and windshield washers without moving your hands. The only control stalk was for cruise control and that's all it did. The turn signal level d
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I had an '85 Mazda 626. Wipers, and lights were large push buttons on the cowl. Just lift your finger, WITHOUT removing your hands from the wheel, and you were good.
I loved that car. Only an accident caused me to get rid of it.
Add to the list: (Score:2)
US Navy Also Thinks that Touchscreens are Bad (Score:2)
My least liked part of my Tesla (Score:2)
Using a touchscreen while moving, even on a smooth road is difficult
The Tesla touchscreen is also picky, and sometimes I need to touch the same spot 5 or more times to get a response
I like the touchscreen for things done when parked
I hate it for things done while moving
NCAP != EUROPE (Score:3)
What cars sold in EU must and must not have is laid out in
1.) Regulation 2018/858
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/lega... [europa.eu]
2.) Regulatio 2019/2144
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/lega... [europa.eu]
1.) is the regulation for the WVTA - Whole Vehicle Type Approval
2.) is the regulation for safety (nick: GSR2 / General Safety Regulation)
(as 661/2009 was GSR1)
A WVTA is basically a list of regulated and/or mandatory functions and features a car must have / will have. If there is a regulated feature you cannot add a similar feature without fulfilling the regulation's requirement.
You see references to UN-Regulations and their respecive versions then you need to know the "343-document"
Document:
"ECE/TRANS/WP.29/343/Rev.32/Add.2/Rev.2"
343 -> main doc
add.1 -> addendum1 to main doc
add.2 -> addendum2 to main doc
Rev.32 -> Rev of main doc
downloadable under:
https://unece.org/status-1958-... [unece.org]
It's a long list with Documents building up nearly everything in your mostly european car.
UN-Regulation Versions in IT-Terms:
Series of Amendments = Major Version / Main Line
Supplement = Minor Version within Main Line
If one of the referenced and mandatory regulations demands the presence of physical buttons - you need to build your car with a certain physical button otherwise it is not considered a car in Europe and will not be allowed on the streets.
(example: cybertruck is not a car to drive on eu streets as even at a first glance will fail pedestrian and most likely passenger safety aspects by a mile)
Not NCAP - perhaps they can influence the rule making, but they are a lobby group - with perhaps good intentions but also sometimes bad outcomes as the overly lane keeping and drowsiness checker and so on will put small cars at a maximum disadvantage in contrast towards much expensive All-You-Can-Have-SUVs.
The regulations are either written by EU comission or parliament.
Radio and heating (Score:2)
Hazards, wipers, horn... these things don't get used often. What they should really go for is components that are used in everyday driving and which are the most likely to disrupt drivers most frequently - heating / AC controls and radio channel selection.
Yes please (Score:2)
Physical buttons and dials (Score:3)
This is one of the reasons why I chose the model/trim of my current car. The higher trims all have buttons but they were all electrically controlled. The lowest tier actually has physical buttons and dials instead. Unfortunately the radio is part of the touch screen but at least there is a physical dial that can control it even if the touch screen was to go out. *fingers crossed*
Re: (Score:3)
While "cell-phone zombines" walking into poles on sidewalks is a problem, it's nowhere near as unsafe as taking your eyes off the road while driving.
The switch back to physical buttons on cars can't come fast enough.
The only acceptable place for driver touch-controls is right along the top of the dash, where the driver can still see the road in their peripheral vision.
That's where I keep my GPS on my 2005 Escape - up on the dash where I don't have to take my eyes off the road to see the map.