But even then, how do you find the A/C or volume control on a touch screen without taking your eyes off the road, without accidentally touching something else? You just can't feel your way to the volume knob. Sure, you are a responsible driver and would only do that at a traffic light or other completely safe situation, but I don't know how many accidents touch controls in cars already caused with less responsible drivers, trying to adjust their AC while driving by an elementary school.
On a more serious note, there's a big difference between a vehicle like a car that is operated by one person, and a ship with a large crew with dedicated tasks.
Each crew member should have been assigned the management and activation of a given portion of the touchscreen.
Morning briefing by the Captain: “John, you’ll supervise and operate the bottom left corner of the Touchscreen. Adam, as a left handed sailor, you’ll stand right to John and operate the bottom right corner of the Touchscreen with your left hand so there are no collisions in case of emergency”
A/C is automatic and I don't need to touch it the vast majority of the time. While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. It's at the bottom of the screen so it is easy to do by grabbing behind the bezel and only requires a quick glance to align your thumb. In practice I glance at physical A/C controls when adjusting them too, so I don't see a big difference here.
If you really need to adjust the temperature so often and can't stand the thought of using the touchscreen, you can assign that function to the left scroll wheel.
It seems like you have a more sensible car than many. I was recently in one with really dumb automatic AC that needed adjustment very often, the AC settings were in a menu behing two clicks, there was no convenient landmark to orient my hand without looking, the temperature slider was very small and dense needing high precision and the temperature text was rather small. And the steering wheel buttons are, of course, not remappable.
I drive about a dozen different modern electric cars on a regular basis (carsharing) and all of them have at least a few of the above flaws (if not for AC then for something else that needs adjusting while driving).
Avoiding to get into a "which car brand is best", I'll just say that I think there is simply a difference in the "DNA" of the car brands for how they approach the driving experience. It takes many many years and iterations and care about driving a car to produce a good car UX and some brands you can just immediately conclude that the CEO or the product managers don't care about driving and probably have never driven the specific model themselves, while in some brands you really feel they are a "driver's car".
This goes for tech in general and not just cars btw :)
Like rental, but per minute. Look up car2go, although maybe they're no longer in business in the US, i. Europe they changed their brand name.
It's like those scooters you can hire and leave (almost) anywhere, the benefit with a car is, if you park it idiotically, they can check that you were the last driver and forward the parking ticket to you.
Car2Go and Reachnow both ended in the US around 2020.
There are some other carsharing services in the US in some major cities (e.g. gig car share in sf/seattle), but I would argue overall there's less carsharing now compared to 8-9 years ago. Partly the age demographics have changed, ridesharing (uber/lyft) rose in popularity, and carsharing in the us has had its share of profitability issues.
Peak carsharing in the US to me was around 2017-2018 (car2go, reachnow, limepod, maven, ...)
I think cheap uber/lyft ate their lunch originally but what sealed it was the introduction of dockless bikes & scooters.
Of course those smart cars didn't really help either. They were great for parking and stuff but damn did it feel like driving a gocart. My foot was either at full throttle or no throttle.
I think another kicker for carsharing at the time (~2020) was this forecasted revolution of driverless cars and robotaxis, which has sortof continued (waymo) but also collapsed (argo, cruise / tesla safety issues, etc. ) over the past couple years.
I liked carsharing from the stance that even if it didn't make me want to get rid of car ownership, it made me feel less inclined to invest as much into car ownership (i.e. keep an old used car with cheap insurance, use carsharing if my car needs maintenance or going on a trip where i dont want to worry about breaking down or if taking another mode of transit back.)
This line of thought kinda gets into the predicament of carsharing (and arguably rideshare/robotaxi) services owned by automotive companies - they're fairly deep in the business of selling cars much more than attempting a service business.
The kind of carsharing I use is company-run, so it's basically just rental, but billed by the minute and with parking spots scattered all over the city. I imagine they have a very expensive fleet insurance in the background.
There are also a handful of "peer-peer" carsharing systems where you let other people use your car and I have no idea how insurance would work there.
> While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time.
I'm not sure how much I agree that temperature is not safety critical. It's relative for sure, less safety critical than breaks or transmission, but it can still impact safety in certain situations. In the city when you have a lot of red lights and stop signs, it's not a big deal to wait for the next stop. But on a free-way when you've got a ways to go before you can make a stop then uncomfortable temperature can create a distracted or nervous driver situation. I suppose you could pull over on the shoulder if it were that big of a deal, but even that isn't the safest thing to do on freeways and it's recommended to only do that if you're making an emergency stop.
In my opinion this shouldn't even have to be a big deal. The only reason we're even discussing it is because car manufacturers are moving from tactile buttons to touch screens. People are accustomed to working these types of auxiliary systems without stopping and historically have been able to do so without taking their eyes off of the road. People aren't going to stop doing those things because now they have to use a touch-screen.
Purely from a consumer standpoint, why on Earth would I EVER choose a vehicle that expects me to pull over to change the AC or to take my eyes off the road to control it, if there are competitors on the market that allow me to do so without doing those things?
Can you imagine actually pulling over off the interstate to change your AC? Absurd. Totally absurd and disconnected from reality. Nobody would do it, they would take their eyes off the road and then it doesn't matter AT ALL whether the function they're trying to perform has to do with safety or even operating the vehicle -- it's a distraction, and that's sufficiently bad.
Can we stop putting distractions in front of drivers, in general? Please?
I'll forgive Android Auto and Apple's thing because people won't stop looking at their phones otherwise but the driver should be able to control the vehicle and everything they might want to do in it without looking away from the road.
My mother-in-law has had a Mercedes for four years. It has a self-parking feature. She still doesn't know how to use it and probably never will. She couldn't possibly assign a function to the left scroll wheel either. And she's Mercedes Benz's target market.
The HVAC controls are a safety critical control because they are what dehumidifies your windshield screen.
And quick changes of T or RH needing the user to crank up the heat, turn on the AC and direct the air to the windshield at full speed are very possible depending on where you are.
Imagine crossing a miles long tunnel under a mountain separating two weather zones.
A sensible approach I saw in the BMW i4 was to keep the defrost buttons around, among relatively few buttons. (I forget if the climate temp controls were physical too though.)
In my car, I basically never change the A/C. My dad used to have a same-vintage car for a while, but a different make, and it absolutely needed adjustment depending on whether the sun was shining on you or not, and possibly other parameters. They both had "automatic" A/C.
Now these cars are ~20 years old, maybe things have improved. I haven't ridden in my dad's ~2yo car for any long stretch during the summer to compare.
Automatic climate control is one of those things that sounds good and is nice when it works but never works properly in all situations. I much prefer manual controls.
The "smarter" they get, the worse they are to use. Modern cars are always blasting air into your face, at temperatures which deviate enough from the current temperature to be incredibly distracting.
I just want a gentle breeze of slightly warmer or slightly colder air, damn it!
> While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time.
That is good reasoning, but are you sure a high number of drivers are also waiting with adjustments, instead of fumbling on the screen while continuing to drive?
A lot of people send and read phone messages while driving. I highly doubt that same people gives a second thought before playing with the screen while driving, unless they are under a real stressing situation (pouring and twisted road at 2 AM).
1. Physical controls that you can interact with without the need to take your eyes off the road
2. Touch screen that you need to look almost every time, much of the time while actually interacting with it. But you can mitigate that by using it more responsibly, waiting until you are at a stop, our out of range of anything you might need to react to (which might not happen for 10 minutes or even longer)
Then #1 is clearly the winner. Because 2 is more dangerous for everyone on the road (not just you with your own behavior, but everyone else that might act irresponsibly and hit you). We specifically craft laws to make people interact with their phones less (hands free only, etc) because "people must act more responsibly" is not a reliable solution.
Exactly. That is why physical buttons you can use without looking are so much better. For the perfect driver it does not matter so much, but that is a rare species.
I think this is missing something fundamental. If it's too hot or cold, folks are distracted - from driving. Perhaps you are less distracted than most.
Yes, they can reassign buttons. But the core problem is distraction, which causes users to go to the touchscreen, which creates even further distraction by capturing their visual attention.
No. Ventilated and heated seats are something I want to control easily. And when driving in the sun I have the AC set to 64. When driving at night it's set to 72.
And it's different if I drive with the top down depending on weather. I don't need to look at the buttons to do that now.
This is presumably one of those models with the screen that's not integrated in the dashboard and looks like an afterthought. Those usually have some kind of bezel you can grab to stabilize your hand, but the actual control is still touch-based and on the screen.
Yes you can. My last three cars have had a volume knob under the left thumb. My current car has a second volume knob behind the gearstick, and the A/C is the only analog dial along the center console. I can easily adjust both without looking away.
I have volume controls and similar on my steering while, and I never use them.... because I can never remember which is where. I prefer my stereo controls to be in the stereo controls area, my climate controls to be in the climate control area, etc. Spreading them out makes it more annoying to deal with.
I know it will cost me karma to point it out, but in a Tesla you can use voice control to adjust your AC/radio/navigation while your eyes are on the road and your car's 10 eyes are on the road.
Exactly. I have a mild accent, but my dad still has a thick brogue. Would a car understand him? Not if it's using the same algorithm as YT's captioning.
I don't change the AC while I'm in motion. All my cars have auto AC so I rarely touch them even as the temperature changes outside. I probably adjust the AC a handful of times a year. I'd rather not waste a lot of dashboard space on buttons that practically never get pressed, I'd rather have my map be even bigger and easier to quickly glance at and have more space to browse my media collection while stopped.
I don't understand how so many people have come across cars with seemingly terrible auto AC systems. Even my old 2000 Honda Accord had a competent auto AC system. I haven't had manual AC on any of my cars in decades. Whenever I rent a car it's always infuriating having to constantly muck with the AC system.
I'm not talking about a single car, I'm talking about several different makes and models over the last couple decades.
Works on my machine implies it's something special about that one device. My experience has been auto AC has worked fine with several different car models from several different makers across the last 24 years of car manufacturing.
I take it your AC controls aren't behind a touchscreen then?
I'm mostly arguing having AC controls on a screen aren't that big of a deal, because chances are if they're on a touchscreen they're auto, and if they're auto you really shouldn't need to ever really mess with them while moving. The only real exception to this would be defrosters, but I do agree there should be a least a physical defrost toggle button.
Fair enough, I wouldn't mind controls behind the screen for stuff you wouldn't need on daily basis. But I feel like we already had it with early screens and infotainment.
Functionality that might be needed when you drive (fogging up, change audio src, increase temp) should have physical interface.
So if you have auto AC it could go behind the screen.
But what I am afraid is that cars are sold with premium features as upgrades. So features that are fine behind screen would suck in cheaper models. And when looking at what BS automotive industry is pushing now (subscription services for physical features that are present), I am not hopeful this would be addressed.
> Functionality that might be needed when you drive...should have physical interface.
I generally agree. Safety critical features need physical control options close to the driver's normal inputs.
> But I feel like we already had it with early screens and infotainment.
I have two cars. One with a big screen and few physical buttons, and one with a small screen with lots of physical buttons.
Because of all the physical buttons, the screen had to be a lot smaller. The vast majority of those buttons relate to actions I really shouldn't be messing with when driving or are connected to the auto AC system which as mentioned doesn't really get used. So it is a ton of wasted space on the center console.
On the other car, the screen is very large. There's still important physical controls related to driving and defogging and adjusting media and what not, but they're all immediately around the driver's area not the center console. This allows for the maps for navigation to be very large and easier to glance at. The interface for changing media a lot easier to use when stopped and wanting to actually look at what choices I have or have my passenger make changes.
At least to me, I'd much rather have the center console be filled with the map and actually used input surface rather than just have it filled with tons of buttons which generally still shouldn't be used when driving.
I guess I should have phrased it as "chosen to own cars with seemingly terrible AC systems". Theromostatic controls are pretty cheap to implement, its not like you'd need some high-end extreme luxury car to have that feature be normal.
If the AC controls are on a touchscreen, chances are they're auto. If they're auto, you probably shouldn't have to mess with them at all while moving.
You need at least sun direction, temperature and humidity sensors and reasonable software behind them to have good automatic AC.
Basic thermostat is somewhere in center console, which doesn't help much if your chest is blasted with sun. Also temperature you feel is different depending on humidity.
I live in North Texas. I guarantee you we get a lot of days with intense radiant heat.
Both of my cars have glass roofs. Previously they had sunroofs. Lots of sunlight in the cabin.
I haven't had issues with automatic AC in decades in cars that aren't exactly luxury cars. It is a solved problem for at least every brand of car I've owned.
This explains why you are content with automatic AC. When you live with fost and snow many months a year you get a need to adjust the AC while you drive.
It snows in Texas. I wake up with many mornings of frosted windows and several week stretches below freezing. I still don't need to adjust my AC other than pressing "defrost" at the start and pressing it again later when its all melted. I'm 100% for a physical defrost button as things related to visibility should absolutely be physical, but that's not really a part of regular AC settings.
I'm still not adjusting the overall temp or vent activation or compressor on or off, I'm just setting it to max defrost and turning that off when it's done. Even when I drive to places where its below freezing every day, I'm still just leaving it on auto AC other than defrosting. Why would I need to adjust the AC while I drive when its snowing outside of defrosting? The AC can automatically adjust itself.
People say auto AC can't possibly work when its hot and sunny. People say auto AC can't possibly work when its cold out. And yet every car I've had for over 20 years of model years with auto AC has worked perfectly fine at 0F and at 110F.
In my other car, which adheres to the “buttons for nearly everything” philosophy, the steering wheel heater (for example) is down by the driver’s left knee, even using it via the touchscreen is probably safer.
Experiences with this sort of thing are subjective, but I’ve never had any problems with Google Assistant in the car.
