End of the touch screen in cars?

[119]

Well, maybe not the end but a step in the right direction of stopping the hiding of basic functions, especially if they wish to gain 5 star NCAP.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-1...

[GeniusOfLove]

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[richhead]

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[ColdoRS]

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[Biggles Flies Undone]

It can't come soon enough.

There are certain functions that are fine in touchscreens and they do give you an easier time with complex stuff than multiple button pressing for example, but on the move, they are an absolute menace.

[Boxster5]

Lane keeping assist & auto stop start buried in the touchscreen on my wife’s Formentor are the devil child. First thing I do is switch them off but can’t turn them off permanently.

[kambites]

Personally what I think we need is a situation where the touch element of touch screens (at least those within reach of the driver) has to be disabled when the car is moving. That way the features which it's sensible to use a touch screen for (such a programming the sat nav and basic configuration of the car) can stay there but manufacturers can't shuffle things people actually need to use while driving in to save money.

[MB140]

Boxster5 said:

Lane keeping assist & auto stop start buried in the touchscreen on my wife’s Formentor are the devil child. First thing I do is switch them off but can’t turn them off permanently.

I’d be amazed if they can’t be coded out or to remember the setting. First thing I did when I got my BMW. BimmerCode and an OBD dongle. I appreciate if it’s under warranty then you may not want to.

[119]

MB140 said:

Boxster5 said:

Lane keeping assist & auto stop start buried in the touchscreen on my wife’s Formentor are the devil child. First thing I do is switch them off but can’t turn them off permanently.

I’d be amazed if they can’t be coded out or to remember the setting. First thing I did when I got my BMW. BimmerCode and an OBD dongle. I appreciate if it’s under warranty then you may not want to.

I think a lot of newer VAG stuff is hard coded and cant be altered unless one is feeling brave by digging in to the EEPROM!

[Lester H]

Hopefully. However they are cheaper for the makers than proper, accessible, safer, comprehensible buttons and cars are now, it seems ,marketed to younger drivers as extensions of smart phones . Looking on PH though, the trend has done VW no good.

[Jader1973]

I’m not convinced they are cheaper, but assuming they are: it’s also cheaper to not fit Airbags and all the other passive / active safety equipment. However they had to fit it all so cars got a decent NCAP safety rating and now some of it is required by legislation.

So, if NCAP decide certain functions need buttons then they’ll fit buttons. NCAP may start with critical functions but given how they operate (justifying their existence) I wouldn’t be surprised if they move to requiring screens to only control very basic functions when driving, like audio and phone calls.

Some places don’t allow poking about in the screen / scrolling etc by law but that puts the onus on the driver to do it rather than the manufacturer to not allow it.

[Gad-Westy]

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[kambites]

Jader1973 said:

I’m not convinced they are cheaper.

Depends on how you look at it. A typical central touchscreen and the underlying hardware to drive it and run the firmware probably costs about a hundred quid which may or maybe not be more than a 100% button solution. However, once you have the screen, the underlying hardware and a basic user interface stack, adding features to the firmware basically costs nothing so if you're going to have a screen at all, it's significantly cheaper to put everything you can into it.

As you say though, manufacturers will do what they have to to get a good NCAP score which is why this sort of initiative is a very good thing. Euro NCAP is, for good or bad (probably a mixture in reality), hugely influential.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 26th March 19:05

[NRG1976]

Hate touch screens, when the car is moving it’s hard to press the right button !

[Gad-Westy]

kambites said:

Personally what I think we need is a situation where the touch element of touch screens (at least those within reach of the driver) has to be disabled when the car is moving. That way the features which it's sensible to use a touch screen for (such a programming the sat nav and basic configuration of the car) can stay there but manufacturers can't shuffle things people actually need to use while driving in to save money.

If we must live with touchscreens (there are some advantages I admit) then I quite like this idea but I guess there would maybe need to be some consideration for a passenger using the touchscreen. I'm generally all for simplicity in cars but since we're a long way down that rabbit hole then maybe wheel sensors to ensure two hands are on the wheel for the touchscreen to be operable whilst driving.

I haven't read the ncap stuff yet but I'd like to think that the legislation also covers haptic controls which IMO are equally inappropriate.

[119]

I think a lot of it is/was moving more towards voice control reducing the need to touch the screen.

[Gad-Westy]

kambites said:

Jader1973 said:

I’m not convinced they are cheaper.

Depends on how you look at it. A typical central touchscreen and the underlying hardware to drive it and run the firmware probably costs about a hundred quid which may or maybe not be more than a 100% button solution. However, once you have the screen, the underlying hardware and a basic user interface stack, adding features to the firmware basically costs nothing so if you're going to have a screen at all, it's significantly cheaper to put everything you can into it.

As you say though, manufacturers will do what they have to to get a good NCAP score which is why this sort of initiative is a very good thing. Euro NCAP is, for good or bad (probably a mixture in reality), hugely influential.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 26th March 19:05

The other thing with buttons is that manufacturers are constantly having to design new ones to keep their interiors looking more modern than the last model. All of that design time to get the look, feel and action just right, validation testing and re-tooling etc must be massively more costly than a single screen. Physical buttons also present much harder challenges when it comes to ingress protection too which I suspect is why we end up with the emperor's new clothes haptic solutions. All marketed as offering the customer the latest tech but in reality it's really just giving manufacturers an easy ride at the obvious cost of safety. And I hate to be too cynical but I think there are also a lot of customers who just lap this stuff up as being somehow a good thing. So I'm glad Euro NCAP are doing something to protect ourselves from ourselves. Perhaps they can work on reversing the compulsory inclusion of lane keep assist next...

[raspy]

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[richhead]

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[Missy Charm]

kambites said:

Jader1973 said:

I’m not convinced they are cheaper.

Depends on how you look at it. A typical central touchscreen and the underlying hardware to drive it and run the firmware probably costs about a hundred quid which may or maybe not be more than a 100% button solution. However, once you have the screen, the underlying hardware and a basic user interface stack, adding features to the firmware basically costs nothing so if you're going to have a screen at all, it's significantly cheaper to put everything you can into it.

As you say though, manufacturers will do what they have to to get a good NCAP score which is why this sort of initiative is a very good thing. Euro NCAP is, for good or bad (probably a mixture in reality), hugely influential.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 26th March 19:05

I'd have thought the screens would be far cheaper for all sorts of reasons. If one thinks back to the nineties or two thousands, when cars had lots of equipment and all of it was operated by buttons and switches, a single model could produce umpteen variant dashboards dependent on combination of interior style and equipment fitted. A simple alteration such as picking automated climate control or an in-dash CD changer could result in a need to design, develop, test, manufacture and fit a completely different set of controls.

Cars really were tailored back then. Now, they aren't. The touchscreen does away with the need for dozens, if not hundreds, of interior variations; all the change happens within it. As such, all dashboards can be the same and cars can be made far more cheaply. It's a crying shame.

A really nice car interior, say that of a Granada or other upper-market family car of yesteryear, was very much designed to suit the car it was placed within - plastics and woods were often colour-matched, the materials had a variety of textures and there were variations to suit individual tastes for a luxurious or sporting ambience. The controls were as much symbolic as they were functional, reminders of the machine that enveloped driver and passengers and invitations to interact with it. They had style and they rewarded the senses.

A 6" touchscreen display smeared with fingerprints doesn't symbolize much more than bored children spending their parents' money on video roulette or an electronic terminal stuck to the wall of a service-station toilet inviting one to poke the cartoon face that best expresses how one feels about the cleanliness of the facilities.