
Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles - meteor333
https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-touchscreens-from-its-vehicles
======
marapuru
Praise to Mazda for making this decision.

As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's
need for touch screens in cars. For years I have been working on product
interfaces (not just apps). Many studies I conducted actually told me that
people favored analog controls over digital touch screens controls. It gives
you tactile feedback, making it accessible for anyone with sense of touch.

> Audi, for instance has said that part of the reason it’s discontinuing its
> rotary controller is that a touchscreen better supports Apple CarPlay and
> Android Auto.

This to me is insane reasoning. That is no way user centric. This decision is
100% business driven and has nothing to do with the end user. It basically
means they have given up on developing a good branded interface between the
driver and the car.

> phones and tablets are familiar, so too should in-vehicle touchscreens.

This too is so weird to me. I get that you want users to recognize an
interface. And that it should mimic how you use other things. But at least put
them in context.

I hope other brands start following Mazda again for this choice.

~~~
ubermonkey
>As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's
need for touch screens in cars.

Before phone integration, I might've agreed with you, or at least had no
opinion on the subject.

After watching many car companies, even high-end ones like BMW and Mercedes,
fail __utterly __at producing reasonable phone integration systems or
interfaces, though, I 'm all-in on CarPlay.

>It basically means they have given up on developing a good branded interface
between the driver and the car.

Correct. They have given up, and it's good that they have, because they've all
proven they absolutely suck at it. In the meantime, Apple and Google (?) have
done it for them, at least as far as the phone goes.

(I assume the Android equivalent is equally good; no reason it shouldn't be.)

>This to me is insane reasoning. That is no way user centric.

I think it really IS, though.

CarPlay is amazingly good, and only really works well with a touchscreen.

At this point, it would be very hard for me to buy a car that didn't have
CarPlay integration with a touchscreen. I've seen implementations without
touch, and they're much, much less useful.

I __do __agree, though, that touchscreens beyond phone interfaces should be
used very sparingly. The Tesla 's all-touchscreen situation in particular
seems like a terrible idea. Most of us are used to being able to adjust the AC
without looking, and that's only possible because there are physical controls
we can feel.

But the phone interface is distinct from that, and needs to be a touchscreen.
When it's not, or when it's not present, people just pick up their phones and
use them, which is worse.

~~~
ken
> CarPlay is amazingly good

As someone who recently rode in a car with CarPlay and saw two young
technology professionals try to use it, I disagree. One of them owned the
system and drove it every day it still didn't seem like either one really
understood it ("Why's it doing that?" "Maybe because ...").

I agree that all the built-in systems I've seen are terrible, but CarPlay
seems like merely the "least bad" implementation at this point. If that's as
good as we can do, I'd say we're still in the "research project" phase.

Nobody riding in my (ancient) car has ever had trouble finding the big
red/blue knob to change the temperature, or understanding "Here's my 2006 iPod
if you want music, or unplug it and plug in your phone if you want". This is a
solved problem.

~~~
gerbilly
Why is carplay even a thing?

Geez, can't people stop fiddling with their phones?

They've become like a kind of soother, a techno nanny that people can't do
without.

The sooner people put those things down, the better off we'll be.

~~~
judge2020
So you can use your preferred maps app in your car, so you can choose music
using your favorite music app, so you can send and receive text messages
without taking your eyes off the road. Without it, people would just be
looking at their phones anyways.

Guess we should go back to paper maps and listening to AM radio.

~~~
narimiran
> _so you can send and receive text messages_

How about _not_ reading messages while you're driving? And why do you have to
_write_ messages while in traffic? Can't this wait?

~~~
bitwalker
The whole point is that you are neither reading or writing them, they are read
_to_ you, and you dictate messages if you feel the need to reply while
driving, but both can be done with hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. I
suppose it is up for debate whether just the act of listening or speaking is
distracting enough to be considered a bad thing.

~~~
justinpombrio
It's not up for debate; we have evidence that it's dangerous. The NHTSA says:

"The available research indicates that cell phone use while driving, whether
it is a hands-free or hand-held device, degrades a driver’s performance. The
driver is more likely to miss key visual and audio cues needed to avoid a
crash. Hand-held devices may be slightly worse, but hands-free devices are not
risk-free."

Though it doesn't link to any studies and I'm too lazy to go searching, so if
you want a primary source you'll have to find it yourself...

[https://one.nhtsa.gov/Driving-Safety/Distracted/Policy-
State...](https://one.nhtsa.gov/Driving-Safety/Distracted/Policy-Statement-
and-Compiled-FAQs-on-Distracted-Driving)

~~~
filoleg
>It's not up for debate; we have evidence that it's dangerous.

Just like talking to other people in the car or doing anything else other than
driving. I know that I will take a driver getting their messages read out to
them over a driver who takes their eyes off the road and glances at the phone.
Good is the enemy of the perfect, and I would rather take an attainable good
over an unattainable perfect.

~~~
gerbilly
> Just like talking to other people in the car

No that's not true, talking to other people int he car is not associated with
reduced safety.

Probably because the other people in the car are also partially watching the
road.

~~~
viraptor
Apparent yes, it is. [https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2018/03/10/Talking-
while-dri...](https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2018/03/10/Talking-while-
driving-on-cell-or-to-passenger-threatens-road-safety-review/5411520710885/)

------
blattimwind
It's funny how the dashboard UI of lower-end cars tends to be consistently
better than higher-end cars, because low end cars simply have a bunch of
buttons that you can use without taking your eyes of the road. Sometimes even
the location of controls is much better in low end cars; the VW up! comes to
mind with all important controls located directly next to the steering wheel.
Beautiful. In other cars just switching the radio off has you reaching for a
button somewhere between the not-ashtray and the backside of the moon.

~~~
raydev
Ignoring the radio and focusing only on airflow controls:

I dearly miss the console in my base model 2006 Yaris. It had 3 Fisher Price-
sized knobs that I never had to look at when switching from feet/defog/face,
changing temperature, and fan speed. It never stressed me, and each position
on the knob had a satisfying clunk.

I "upgraded" to a 2017 Subaru and the air controls are laid out with
completely flat, indistinct buttons. The only knob is for temperature. Any
time I need to change air position or speed, I need to take my eyes off the
road and find the button, and then tap it multiple times to get to the right
position.

I also drove a friend's 201x Civic for a couple months, and the air controls
were actually worse: tiny buttons, tiny display showing what settings are
current.

Bring back Fisher Price knobs, please.

~~~
infecto
I have a 08 Yaris Hatchback...best controls ever. And yes those knobs make the
clunk feel and noise....I love it.

~~~
SECProto
The whole air system in the Yaris is great. I recently left my car sitting for
a while, and a chipmunk made a nest with the cabin air filter material. I
looked under the glove box, unscrewed three Phillips head screws to drop the
blower, cleaned it all out and screwed it back in. No messing around with body
panels or other parts that were in the way, no custom or odd-size connectors.
A mechanically simple system, easy to access and maintain.

------
vanderZwan
Bret Victor's _" A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design"_ is just as
relevant now as it was back in 2011:

> _There 's a reason that our fingertips have some of the densest areas of
> nerve endings on the body. This is how we experience the world close-up.
> This is how our tools talk to us. The sense of touch is essential to
> everything that humans have called "work" for millions of years._

> _Now, take out your favorite Magical And Revolutionary Technology Device.
> Use it for a bit._

> _What did you feel? Did it feel glassy? Did it have no connection whatsoever
> with the task you were performing? I call this technology Pictures Under
> Glass. Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working
> with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade._

> _Is that so bad, to dump the tactile for the visual? Try this: close your
> eyes and tie your shoelaces. No problem at all, right? Now, how well do you
> think you could tie your shoes if your arm was asleep? Or even if your
> fingers were numb? When working with our hands, touch does the driving, and
> vision helps out from the back seat._

> _Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness. It
> 's a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And
> yet, it's the star player in every Vision Of The Future._

[http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/)

(that second-to-last paragraph is surprisingly on the nose with the car
metaphor)

~~~
zaroth
And yet, every single phone today is nothing but a “picture under glass” and,
far from a paradigm of permanent numbness, humans are intimately connected to
these devices they carry with them everywhere.

Rant is the right way to describe this.

Do you remember the first time you used a map on a smooth multi-touch screen?
The joy of panning and zooming around, tapping to learn more about any
particular point! I remember that first experience was a total rush and
extremely stimulating.

Feeling like the digital map was connected to my fingertip as you pan with
that point stuck under your finger — absolute magic.

There are _some_ interfaces which are absolutely superior when provided as
picture under multi-touch glass.

Denying a touchscreen entirely is to make huge compromises in the overall
experience when configuring something as fully featured as a modern vehicle.

~~~
kevinconroy
Even if it's a rant, it doesn't mean it's wrong.

At CES a decade ago, I got to play with a touchscreen prototype that offered
tactile feedback. Press a button and the screen would push back and/or buzz
(it's been a while, hard to remember). What I do know is that it _felt_ like I
was pushing on something, not just glass.

At the time, it required a big area around it. Think ATM sized. For an ATM,
it'd be awesome. I'd hope Moore's law would get the tech down to phone size by
now, but here we are with more apps and no tactile feedback.

~~~
PascLeRasc
There's Apple's 3D Touch, which I think is pretty great but it seems like
they're trying to phase it out. It'd be nice to have an iOS keyboard with some
slight amount of tactile feedback - moving the cursor around with feedback
feels pretty nice and makes navigation much easier than without it.

------
Shivetya
Well after owning a Tesla Model 3 I am of the opinion, why in the hell do we
need forty plus buttons in cars? Seriously! (Go count your buttons, some cars
are higher than that)

First off with regards to the touch screen in the Tesla. In the vast majority
of drives I never ever touch it. Not once. Why not? Well I have my temperature
preference set, I usually play the music that is coming off my phone, and
well, what else do I need to adjust in my car? I can do music volume, do next
or previous song, and pause music, from the left steering wheel button. Wipers
and headlamps are automatic. Navigation is voice controlled and works.

I posted before when people came down on touch screens but let us be honest.
In most modern cars there is so much automatic that you really never use the
majority of controls you are presented with. Go ahead, put a sticker on every
button in your car, count them. Then for each you use take a sticker off. Have
fun.

Fortunately the Tesla interface is simple to use and almost everything you
need is only one level deep. Unlike my other previous cars where menu travel
seemed to go on for weeks.

So yeah, badly designed or badly placed touch screens are not good in cars but
so is this myriad of buttons in most cars. Each car you get into you have to
do a quick take on where things might be. Plus there are so many buttons.
Buttons for functions you truly may never use!

edit: grammar/typos

~~~
de_watcher
The climate control is through the touchscreen?

~~~
ryanhuff
Yes

~~~
CrazyStat
You _can_ control AC though the touch screen, which is mostly convenient for
the passenger. The driver can also control the AC with a scroll wheel on the
steering wheel.

------
diggan
Recently switched from a Renault Captur (with touchscreen) to an Audi A3
(without touchscreen) and the amount of focus the touchscreen requires
compared to a non-touchscreen with a radial button is amazingly scary. How did
anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place? Can't imagine going back
to having a touchscreen now, and hope they slowly disappear from everything
cars.

~~~
tomp
Can you expand on this? I really don't get it... I understand why people would
prefer "fixed-function" buttons like _temperature up_ or _lock doors_ , but I
don't understand how _radial button_ (which is just switching focus on the
display) is any better than touchscreen... To me, it looks strictly worse, you
need to focus on the button _and the screen_ (to see what's selected), instead
of just focusing on the screen and touching what you want directly.

~~~
laurent123456
You don't need to look at the button to use it. I forgot exactly how the Audi
one works but once you're used to it, it's like: Press, Turn right twice: Map.
Press turn left once: Audio player. Press: Play. You don't need to look at the
controller and, when you're used to it, you don't even need to look at the
screen. With touch screen, you'll _never_ get used to it to the point of doing
anything without looking at it.

~~~
bryan11
This is a key point. With physical controls, you learn their location and use
them without looking. This leads to better focus on driving. With a touch
screen, you're distracted every time you need to use it.

------
sametmax
Good. There is a reason you don't see apple like designed plane cockpit. When
safety or productivity matters, you need more feedback, more options
accessible and faster.

That's also why you don't program on a tablet, even with a bt keyboard. Task
switching is way to slow, not enough info directly accessible and multi
tasking sucks.

~~~
kkarpkkarp
> Good. There is a reason you don't see apple like designed plane cockpit.

But Mazda's cockpit isn't plane cockpit either. Please go for a test drive
with new Mazda 3 and you will be surpised how stupid is this decision.

If you want to volume up, change a song, yes, it is easy.

But if you want for example turn on GPS navigation, you need to use this wheel
near the gearbox to: \- leave a radio interface (you must look at screen and
turn the wheel at the same time) \- find where is a navi (by turning the wheel
and pressing it, still looking at the screen) \- choose, again with the wheel,
to start typing your destination \- and what most: again with wheel (turning
it and pressing) type the address simultaneously looking on an onscreen
keyboard.

All that while not looking on the road and holding your steering wheel with
one hand and another on navigation wheel on central canal.

How come this is safer by tapping on the screen?!

~~~
ehnto
You shouldn't be doing anything like that while driving. Also if it's physical
in any way you can build accurate muscle memory and know without looking that
you have gone to the right spot. This is almost never the case with touch
screens interfaces.

There is no safe way to interface with a screen while driving. You are taking
your eyes off the road, and your focus goes with it necessarily. The safest
option is no screens. It's the only reason I would never get a Tesla. If it's
mission critical it needs to be physical.

It's different in a plane, because you can safely take your eyes off the sky.
In fact flying by instruments only is routinely the only choice; night time,
weather. So a glass cockpit/touch screen controls make sense there. But even
then the key controls are still physical.

~~~
kkarakk
Just don't use navigation guy, memorize the paper map! /s

~~~
rland
Pull over to adjust the map. Does anyone really believe that adjusting GPS
while in a moving vehicle is safe?

~~~
_carl_jung
This gave me pause for thought. It really toes the line of socially acceptable
behaviour for a driver, as evidenced by how common it is to do so. How many
times have you been a passenger in a car and the driver has pulled over to
adjust GPS?

I don't think I have particularly dangerous friends and family, but they
rarely do.

~~~
majewsky
> How many times have you been a passenger in a car and the driver has pulled
> over to adjust GPS?

When I'm in the front passenger seat, dealing with the GPS and the A/C becomes
my responsibility.

------
coleca
Not ready to give Mazda any praise for their infotainment systems. I leased a
2019 CX-5 Grand Touring Reserve a couple months ago. Had I known how bad
Mazda’s UX was I would have leased something else.

First off their system takes an eternity to cold boot. If I’m making a quick
run to the store or dropping the kids off at a friends house the system isn’t
available for most of the ride. While it’s booting, the radio remembers what
it last did but all the controls including volume are locked. So if I was
listening to one of the comedy channels on Sirius I have no way to mute it or
turn down the volume of the often inappropriate content for a few minutes if
my kids get in the car.

Second the system remembers very little of the settings between drives. For
example the heated/ vented seats or the auto-hold braking feature have to be
set every drive.

I just drove a brand new Ford Fusion rental this week and their system while
much clunkier did boot up almost immediately upon starting the car. Of course
nothings perfect and while Ford did include hard buttons for most of the HVAC
controls you still had to go though the touchscreen menus to find the setting
to change the vent control to head and feet.

~~~
DanTheManPR
I would suggest taking it to the dealer, what you're describing sounds
abnormal. Mine boots in about 10 seconds.

I do definitely find it annoying that it defaults to playing whatever audio
source you last used when you start up your car. Whenever I have a passenger,
I have a slight moment of panic as I try to remember what's about to play
through the speakers, and whether it's appropriate for them to hear.

~~~
leevlad
The infotainment system in my 2017 CX-5 often freezes on cold startup. There
is no way to dismiss the "Warning" screen (which takes up the whole screen),
even by pressing the "Dismiss" button. Just have to wait for it to go away on
its own. I've had the backup camera freeze fully, which seems like a safety
hazard. A few times, the whole system failed to initialize too, which forced
me to pull over at the next gas station, and "power cycle" it by fully turning
my car off and starting it back up again.

Mazda punches far above its price in terms of driving dynamics and interior
quality, but I think their infotainment system is plain garbage and they
should be absolutely ashamed of such poor quality.

------
atoav
I don't even think you have to be defensive about it.

Touchscreens _can_ make sense for things where you need to have a flexible
interface and cannot afford your physical interface to look like the cockpit
of an airplane.

But for everything that is even a tiny bit critical you usually want to avoid
it if possible. This is why even 50k€ cinema cameras like the Arri Alexa swear
on knobs and buttons.

The things with buttons, levers and knobs is that they are expensive and very
few designers/engineers are good at designing interfaces with them – either
because they are not creative enough to get the optimal solution or because
they are not pragmatic enough to test their creative solution to the core.

~~~
romwell
The world of musical instruments went through this decades ago.

Yamaha DX7, one of the best-selling synths of all time, didn't have any knobs
or sliders to edit its sounds. People _loved_ the sounds, but editing them was
so hard that few musicians did - that's why you can hear many DX7 _stock
presets_ in 80's music.

The 90's were the dark ages of the synth. Even the buttons went away,
everything was in a menu now.

The synths thrived as virtual instruments, where adding knobs and sliders was
cheap.

Fast forward to 2010's. Arturia, a big virtual synth maker, said: you know
what? People _love_ knobs, let's give them knobs. They made Minubrute and
Microbute - and it was a smash hit.

Today, there are a plethora of synths out there, and you can program them all
with knobs and sliders. For some (like Mini/Microbrute), there is no screen;
for others (like Korg Mini/Monologue) it's non-essential, and you do
everything with knobs and sliders anyway.

Modern professional gear no only does away with _touchscreens_ , it pretty
much does away with _screens_ to a large extent. And where the screens are
used, the menu-diving with minimal.

Because when you make things done, you want to interface in your muscle
memory. And you don't want to be _looking_ at things - screens in particular -
to interact with them.

So if the maker of my $300 can figure this out and put over a dozen knobs on
the device to control _every single thing_ it does, I hope that the maker of a
$30,000 car can do the same thing as well.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The DX7 had one slider. If it had had knobs, it would have been much bigger
and _much_ more expensive.

And it wouldn't have been much easier to program, because it used a novel form
of sound generation which most people still find hopelessly unintuitive.

A Germany company made a programming box for the DX7 with one-knob-per-
feature. It was very expensive and sold very badly, even among professionals
who could easily afford one - which suggests that the market for
programmability really wasn't there, even with knobs.

People don't care about knobs. What they care about is simplicity. Synths like
the Microbrute require virtually no mental effort. The sound design model is
so simple virtually anyone of average intelligence can learn it in an
afternoon. Within a few days they'll know most of what there is to know -
which is how to make the same few stock sounds that analog synthesizers have
been making since the 1970s.

This is fine for beginners but experts find it very limiting. Brian Eno loves
his DX7, and the fact that you can set up the envelopes to make quasi-
generative noises is a big part of the appeal. Most people don't get that far
with it, but those that do aren't going to be happy with the very obvious
limitations of a Microbrute.

Touch screens in cars are more complex. Having a map in a car is a useful
thing, and there's no muscle memory. It's hard to see how you can replace
drag/touch to set a destination with buttons that are less annoying and more
intuitive.

But IME the big problem with touch screens is that they don't work. The screen
in my car is resistive, so I have to keep poking at it to get a touch to
register. The hybrid design - two rows of soft buttons, one knob, one screen -
would be fine if the touch part actually worked.

~~~
romwell
While there's no doubt many find FM synthesis hard, I disagree that the
interface didn't make it way harder than it needs to be.

I am absolutely in love with the Yamaha Reface DX that I have, and greatly
enjoy editing and the real-time controls over the parameters that it offers
with its mere 4 touch sliders.

I think the direct control boxes didn't sell well because not enough
keyboardists grokked FM well enough to mess with the sound live (and didn't
expect to learn) -- and also because _nobody_ loves add-on boxes. A better UI,
I think would change things. Again, that's a lot of what makes the Reface DX
fun.

In any case, perhaps the DX is not the best example here. A better example
would be the many 90-s and early 2000-s synths, which were all about menus and
you couldn't do anything immediately.

(Microkorg would also fall into that category, its knobs are deceptive: what
each knob does depends on the value of two or so _others knobs_. It's menus
but without screens. And it's a VA synth - no reason it couldn't be more like
Roland Gaia which is one-knob-per-parameter).

------
antocv
I assumed since 2001, that soon a car will be made, where all the functions
can be accessed with eyes still on the road. Just from the wheel, like the
paddles, and buttons for thumbs on the wheel. Anything extra, just place your
hand slightly from the wheel and immediately feel what you are about to switch
and adjust. Imagine to access any function of the car in complete darkness
just by the feel.

None of this bullshit, where buttons are far from each other, moving hands up
and down left and right to change temperature, turn air-conditioning on/off.
Where driver needs to glance down to steer hand into damn buttons. Where
"infotainment" needs to show you anything at all about what you are listening
to - as if you dont hear it. Keep information to a minimum, ffs.

Then we got touchscreens instead - now you cant even drive in full darkness
and feel some buttons with your hand to adjust. There is not even a Night
Mode.

Are car manufacturers really this bad? Yep. Tesla included.

~~~
zaroth
Tesla indeed has a night mode. Color pallet of the whole UI changes.

Day: [https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-
content/uploads/sites/3/201...](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-
content/uploads/sites/3/2017/10/screen-
shot-2017-10-18-at-4-13-42-pm-e1508357703211.jpg?resize=1500%2C0&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)

Night: [https://cdn-vox--cdn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/cdn.vox-
cdn....](https://cdn-vox--cdn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/VHMvRHBqyev8wF_7jGJxsBIRDQU=/0x0:2040x1360/1400x933/filters:focal\(857x517:1183x843\):no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/55955575/9U3A2261__1_.0.jpg)

~~~
ilikehurdles
The second link doesn't work at all on my computer. It downloads a 56kb .webp
file which doesn't open. I tried to extract the non-AMP url here:
[https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/55955575/...](https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/55955575/9U3A2261__1_.0.jpg).

In my opinion, this screen still looks excessively bright, distracting, and
the night-time photo really showcases the screen's inability to accurately
display dark colors (black still looks washed-out or gray).

~~~
zaroth
Thanks for the updated link. Copying and pasting on mobile over here.

The screen is quite high quality in my opinion, and not washed out at all.
You’re seeing the effect from the camera washing out from the street lights.

See how dark the steering wheel is? No screen behind the wheel makes for
sublime night time driving. It’s just you and the road, and silence.

------
Angostura
I'm a heavy Apple CarPlay user and I am delighted that my car (a 2016 Seat)
has analogue controls that work with it. I know that when I'm required to use
the on screen controls for certain functions, I _am_ a less safe driver.

~~~
Ambroos
Yeah, my daily driver was an Audi with a rotary dial for about a year (no
touchscreen at all), and Android Auto was great on it. You get to know the
structure of all menus and can take actions blindly after a while. It's been
almost a year since I've driven that car and I still know exactly what to
press to show alternative routes in Google Maps, for example.

Later I had a bunch of rentals with touchscreen Android Auto, and it was less
convenient and less safe than rotary dial Android Auto.

I wish Audi would've kept the rotary dial when they added a touchscreen in
their latest infotainment revision.

~~~
andyrew
Completely agree with you. I drive an Audi A4 with rotary control for CarPlay
and it works perfectly fine. Moving to touchscreens is purely an exercise in
cost-cutting.

------
m3at
Touchscreen are so common because they're cheaper. They also look great when
you're buying the car, and using the screen while parked in the store.

It's simply not optimised for usability but for attractiveness (both cost and
aesthetic wise)

~~~
hkai
Same as the glossy monitors that look nice in the store but ruin your eyes and
productivity.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
I hate glossy monitors with a fiery passion and don't understand why anybody
thinks glossy is a feature and not a bug.

I suppose having smooth glass can make the screen look slightly more crisp,
but having a bright reflection of everything in the room erases any gains in
clarity.

------
haberman
I'm curious, have you used Android Auto? You get in the car and it already
knows where you want to go because it has access to your calendar. It has all
of your contacts and your music. As a user these are the things that matter to
me, not a car company trying to serve me a "branded interface."

~~~
semi-extrinsic
For music and navigation, touchscreens are OK, as these are things you don't
suddenly need to adjust if something happens. But for instance the defrost
function on the AC can be something that you need to immediately control while
driving 60 mph, e.g. if you enter a tunnel with moist microclimate (we have
one of those nearby, it fogs up your windscreen in ~10sec at some conditions).
Such things need to have physical buttons with logical placement.

Volvo is perhaps the ultimate example in good UI for the AC: the buttons are
shaped like a human, and you press the part of your body where you want air:

[http://www.carkhabri.com/Gallery/volvo/volvo-
xc60/interior/l...](http://www.carkhabri.com/Gallery/volvo/volvo-
xc60/interior/large/34.jpg)

~~~
WalterBright
> the AC: the buttons are shaped like a human, and you press the part of your
> body where you want air

I was driving a friend's newer car down the freeway once, and had to call him
to find out how to turn on the godam defroster. There were so many knobs,
switches, and dials that influence this, all labelled with icons so I had no
idea what they did. Turns out that you had to push two buttons, toggle a
toggle, and turn two knobs. Madness.

My car has a selector that you move to "defrost". Then it defrosts, like
magic.

~~~
sizzle
I want to speak to the car with my hands on the steering wheel and tell it to
defrost the windows like I'm talking to an Alexa device. I can't wait for this
day to come...

~~~
kaybe
An automatic co-pilot would be nice indeed. It should also hand me drinks and
snacks and keep me awake with conversation.

ATM it's still a co-pilot job to translate navigation system information into
actionable directions in foreign cities..

~~~
ccozan
I mean this could the be itch at the base of a startup, right?

Would be really interesting, especially with cars like Tesla that do OTA
updates and can improve your "co-pilot" all the time.

------
rswail
Years ago I had a friend that was an embedded HW/SW guy working for our local
Ford manufacturing (AU). He was very proud of an antenna switch that had
options for "fully up/halfway/fully down" and explained all the complexities
of counting revs on the motor that was doing the moves and remembering the
count and working out whether it had reached the top etc.

When I asked him why they didn't replace the existing 3 position switch
(down/halfway/up) with a 3 position "go down/stay where you were/go up" and
just count the revs and remember them, he looked completely blank.

The idea that the people building these UIs are actually interested in actual
safe UX is misguided. UX is irrelevant, UI has to be sexy in the showroom.

Neither Apple or Google want the manufacturers to put in knobs and switches,
because then they'll have to adapt their partially neutered existing
iOS/Android UIs to support things like CANbus etc. Plus the integration costs
will go up and nobody got time for that.

~~~
javajosh
_> When I asked him why they didn't replace the existing 3 position switch
(down/halfway/up) with a 3 position "go down/stay where you were/go up" and
just count the revs and remember them, he looked completely blank._

In fairness, there's a lot to be said about limited options. The benefit of
the 3 position switch is simply that the user doesn't have to think about what
the "optimal" position is. Moving the antenna up and down goes from selecting
one of 3 numbers, to hitting a button to make a floating point number
increase, and then hit another button to stop it on the right position. I
personally don't think that's a good UX for the majority of people. (Heck, I'm
not even sure what the point of a 3 position antenna is!)

------
vedtopkar
This is absolutely the right way to go. I'm on the market for a new car for
the first time in a long time and the terrible UX decisions car makers are
implementing is quite shocking.

------
jacquesm
Finally a car company that gets it. Touchscreens and cars should be mutually
exclusive, anything that takes your eyes off the road in a car is simply
dangerous.

Feedback could be visual and in extreme cases audible. Input should be
tactile, so buttons rather than surfaces.

And screens should display only a little bit of information, in a font large
enough that you don't end up straining your eyes when you switch from the road
to the screen and back.

------
brettnak
I probably own the final Mazda that has a "touch screen"... If you could ever
really call Mazda's touch screen a touch screen.

A lot of the things that drive a poor experience with a touch screen are,
imho, directly because they have such a poor implementation of a touch screen.
Mainly, it's _slow_, _very slow_. A touch screen has to be very fast to seem
like it's working, and in a car (in particular), it _must_ feel instant or it
will feel like it's broken and cause distraction. I would be very interested
to see some sort of apples-to-apples comparision (a good touch experience, vs
a good tactile experience), but Mazda's is just not good. It's not even close
to the realm of "good enough" to be used as a comparison.

I would say it's more like they never tried to do a touch screen, and then
called it bad so they wouldn't have to keep trying.

And... The android auto experience is 10x better than the mazda infotainment
system because of access to spotify, podcasets, and _actual_ navigation. I
love the loftiness of how mazda talks about what they want to do, but they're
so far off of delivering what they say they want to that I don't really know
what to think. It's just bad and slow.

I really good tactile experience is probably better than a really good touch
experience. But Android Auto is getting close to being a really good touch
experience. The Mazda infotainment is not at all close to being a good tactile
experience if you want to use say, spotify, or google maps, or use it to
actually get to where you want to go.

------
giancarlostoro
When my iPod Classic died it really stung especially since they discontinued
them. I hate playing music on my phone. I cant skip songs or pause without
looking properly if I am on an aux cable.

Sure Bluetooth is a thing but you dont always drive your own car and every car
has their own convoluted way to do Bluetooth.

I wish Android or iPhones had multimedia related buttons somewhere on them
(dont miss that lock button / slider thing Apple used to add in so you dont
butt skip a song). It is much safer for me to feel out specific buttons while
driving than looking down on my phone screen.

~~~
oauea
You can skip tracks by long pressing the volume keys if you configure it:
[https://www.xda-developers.com/skip-music-tracks-android-
vol...](https://www.xda-developers.com/skip-music-tracks-android-volume-keys-
no-root/)

~~~
moftz
This used to be a stock feature in a lot of phones. I haven't had a phone that
did this since my HTC Droid Incredible back in 2011.

------
sschueller
Good to see that at least some manufactures have a sense for safety.

I miss the days I could reach for a button blindly to adjust my aircon or work
the radio.

------
twelve40
I don't know what the problem is or how to fix it, but every car UI/UX I've
ever tried, from Audi to Toyota was an absolute repulsive nightmare. Even
while not driving it takes forever to find a way to any basic function - while
in regular life the phones, and most other electronics are sub-second mostly
intuitive. Major car makers always feel like they are two decades behind! And
everyone insists on their own separate rat-hole of an experience. We shall see
if Mazda's does any better, but the touchscreens I've interacted with in cars
were completely maddening, an ugly pixelated blast from a very slow past even
in brand new cars.

------
izacus
Sensible interior design with hardware buttons is one of the main reasons why
I opted to get a Mazda over other competition. Most infotainment systems were
horribly janky and laggy and some companies even forced me to use them for
things like HVAC controls (I'm looking at you Peugeot). Wasn't a great
experience.

Having said that - I still like the fact that my Mazda has a touchscreen
active while stopped. Entering Nav directions is way faster than with the
commander knob.

------
kchoudhu
Thank fuck, and I hope the rest of the automotive industry follows suit: I
have never felt less safe operating a vehicle than when I have had to adjust
some car setting fifteen nested menu items deep while rolling down the highway
in an unfamiliar rental at 65 miles per hour.

------
charliesharding
It's been mentioned a few times but I believe haptic feedback is absolutely
necessary to the future of the touch screen.

How many times have you handed your phone to someone to show them and in the
process both you and the person receiving accidentally made a multitude of
gestures, resulting in your phone freaking out and opening all kinds of random
apps/windows..

I love how the new iPhones have the "press" ability on apps to open more
options. Personally I wish all interactions required a little bit more force
(besides, say, scrolling). When almost half the device is responsive, it makes
it all too easy to accidentally perform actions.

Does anyone know where the technology is with this? I remember seeing articles
a long time ago about potential for brail via haptics in screens

------
gerbilly
Touchscreens in cars are all about reducing cost for the manufacturer.

They are less safe, less convenient to use than physical controls.

The manufacturers know this, but they don't care.

I believe most customers also _currently_ like them because touchscreens are a
relatively new technology, and they are a fad.

------
radium3d
I feel like I'm in the perfect position to comment on this. I drive a 2019
Tesla Model 3 and my girlfriend drives a 2018 Mazda CX-3. The display on the
Model 3 is perfectly positioned so I don't have to lean forward and do not
apply any torque to my steering wheel whatsoever to adjust the settings on the
huge 15" capacitive touch screen. I also don't have to migrate my eyes any
further from the road than I would to find a physical button on a dashboard
due to the close, raised position of the Model 3's display and I can see
perfectly fine out the windshield while adjusting everything on the display.
The buttons are also larger with a 15" display compared to the tiny 7" display
which is located very far away on the dashboard of the CX-3. The position and
size of the display on the Mazda has the side effect of me rarely even
attempting to use the touch features of the display, but when I do I have to
lean forward which may cause me to apply slight torque to the wheel.

Based on my experience, Mazda needs a larger display located closer to the
driver if they want to make use of touch controls without the side effects
they mention. The wheel method is horribly clunky and takes more thinking to
get to the control you want to adjust. It's much faster and safer I believe
being able to access the control quickly and in a position that doesn't
require you to take your eyes far away from the road. You still have to look
at the display and process your control movements when using the dial control
on the Mazda and it takes longer. Tesla has a better UI by far. If you haven't
driven a Model 3 yet, I recommend doing so before commenting against touch
screen UX.

------
gavinmckenzie
I've owned six Mazda vehicles over the past 30 years. Current owner of a 2016
CX-9. The stock behaviour was that the touchscreen doesn't accept touches
unless the vehicle is stopped -- though it doesn't require you to put the
vehicle in park.

Also, the vehicle has a heads-up-display projected on the windshield. The
original HUD included a graphical tachometer so you could see the revs which
has limited value except it looked cool and gave you some indication on when
you were in boost. In a future update Mazda removed the graphical tach in the
HUD citing safety as they felt the constant animating tach in the driver's
field of view was a distraction. But, the tach remains displayed if you had it
turned on before the update.

The voice command functionality is okay, including for the mediocre built-in
navigation, once you learn the specific phrases and commands.

Last fall I upgraded to Apple CarPlay and the behaviour is the same. Touch
input only works when the vehicle is stopped. There was a rumour that one of
the reasons why CarPlay took so long to come to Mazda vehicles was because
Mazda wanted integration with it's rotary command nob, back button, and other
function buttons around the knob and on the steering wheel. Not sure if it's
true, but I will say that navigating CarPlay with the knob is just fine when
driving, and the physical back button allows me to navigate to the previous
screen regardless of whether the previous screen is a CarPlay screen or one of
the Mazda screens, which is really great.

I know some Mazda owners were upset with these limitations, complaining that
it prevented the passenger from operating the screen, but that seems like a
corner case.

------
Yhippa
If you think about, anything that 100% requires a driver to remove their eyes
off the road for extended periods of time is a bad thing waiting to happen. I
guess a lot of cars don't have touchscreens though and you don't see a lot of
news or analysis on how these touchscreens are killing people. I still see
people driving 70 MPH on major Interstates with their heads literally down
staring at their phones.

At any rate I still think this is a great idea. Mazda came close with the
generation of their infotainment systems before their current ones. You could
mostly use the rotary dial and do things if you memorized how many clicks of
rotation of the wheel it took and which button to press in the gutter on top
of the transmission.

I think the next best thing is a voice UI to control HVAC and entertainment.
The one on my 2015 Mazda 6 is pretty bad but this might force them to invest
in that which would give them a competitive edge.

------
coryfklein
Cue the angel choir.

Touch screens in vehicles drive me nuts! Requiring the driver to divert their
attention from the road makes all tablet-style interfaces a degradation of UX.
In all the cars I learned to drive in, I could adjust every thermostat control
as well as every audio interface completely by touch, without taking my eyes
off the road.

Not to mention the software issues! In one vehicle, you literally could not
turn off the radio. Your options were to press the mute button (which would
only hold until you restarted your car - at which point you'd get blaring
music or static) or to just turn the volume as low as you could.

And every car is now different and unpredictable! My dashboard should be a
utility, not a visually stimulating video game where I need to learn every
menu and submenu just to fade the audio to the rear.

All I can say is THANK GOD, Mazda. I hope all other manufacturers follow your
lead.

------
synaesthesisx
I think the big issue is in a majority of vehicles, UI/UX is nothing short of
atrocious. Navigating menus can often be totally unintuitive, even for techie
users - now imagine older folks attempting to operate these while driving. In
this case, if you can't do it right, it's better to not do it at all.

------
aerophilic
I am reminded of a quote I read lately referring to now Ford CEO’s Jim
Hackett’s research in understanding the automotive industry (he came from
outside the industry). Specifically: when it comes to cars, people LOVE their
cars.

Someone’s relationship with their car is very intimate and personal, in many
ways _more_ so then a house.

Much of the discussion I am seeing in this thread is very passionate, which
confirms the above observation.

~~~
ImaCake
Just to offer a counter anecdote, I am passionate about this topic because it
involves life and death. I care about my car in so far as it gets me places.
If I didn't need it in my car centric city I wouldn't have one. But, as other
people drive, and I walk or cycle, I want those people to have car GUIs that
do not distract them.

~~~
aerophilic
Completely agree, not everyone is as passionate as others (I am much like
you). But there is a large community that IS very much passionate. I still
recall a fellow classmate at school who if given half the chance will talk
about cars till the next morning.

But as they always say, to each their own. But especially in non-utility cars,
there very much a level of passion associated with owning a car.

------
jasonsync
The worst is the touchscreens on some Honda models (eg. 2016 Fit EX).

1\. They removed the volume knob in favour of a volume slider on the touch
screen. Very difficult to use, and even after a couple of years I have not
been able to get used to it, and keep reaching for a physical input.

2\. There's many UI quirks (bugs and ill conceived design flows) that make
menu navigation, managing saved stations, switching from AM to FM, connecting
a Bluetooth device etc. extremely difficult. RDS is even disabled by default,
which defeats the purpose of having all the extra real estate of the touch
screen.

Lots of complaints from users, taking them years to acknowledge it sucks.

~~~
jasonsync
3\. The answer and ignore touch screen buttons are so close together, it's
easy to accidentally tap ignore when trying to answer a call ...

------
kevinconroy
Kudos! Glad to see this swing back to tactile controls.

At the CHI conference about a decade ago I spoke with some of the lead HCI
researchers at Mitsubishi (which has long contributed to human factors
research). During Q/A they said the single best thing you could do to improve
safety was to NOT buy a car with a touchscreen interface. Lack of tactile
feedback is a major problem. We all were quick to point out that they were
selling cars with touchscreens. The HCI researchers said yes the company did,
but their point still stood.

You want to be able to do things like adjust heat and defrost without looking
(just with hands).

------
stevenjgarner
While I applaud the human factors engineering of removing touch-sensitive
screens, it only applies to vehicles in which there is a driver. We are
clearly in the final days of "driving", before the driver becomes just another
passenger in the autonomous vehicle. Once fully autonomous, won't the touch-
screen interface be the ideal user interface inside a vehicle - familiar,
ubiquitous and simple? Wouldn't Mazda be better served in spending their
design budget on accumulating the exponential real world autonomous driving
data that is giving brands like Tesla an advantage?

~~~
plaidfuji
I’m surprised I had to go so far down to find this comment. Most complaints
about cabin UI here are that they require taking eyes off the road. Tesla is
clearly designing a car for a time when the driver never needs to look at the
road at all.

------
karavelov
Finally we are back to Citroen CX design putting controls on the center
console:

[https://photos.smugmug.com/Other/86-Citroen-DX-
Prestige/i-Cv...](https://photos.smugmug.com/Other/86-Citroen-DX-
Prestige/i-Cv5pmk5/0/ae557449/X3/109-X3.jpg)

~~~
masklinn
Aren't most of the controls on your picture _not_ on the center console? The
bloody hazards button is behind the driving wheel and inaccessible to the
passenger.

For what it's worth I've pretty much always known the controls to be over the
center console.

And the instruments being there as well has been happening for some time, at
least for some vehicle classes e.g. on the C3 picasso anything but the purely
driving-related controls is on the center console:
[https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/citroen/c3-picasso/61746/used-...](https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/citroen/c3-picasso/61746/used-
buyers-guide-citroen-c3-picasso-pictures)

~~~
karavelov
Look at the controls behind the gear shift stick - not much but still similar
to what Mazda does with the audio controls.

BTW, I have never used the hazard button while the car is in motion or at
least driving very slowly.

~~~
masklinn
> Look at the controls behind the gear shift stick - not much but still
> similar to what Mazda does with the audio controls.

I don't think I've ever seen a car where these weren't on the center console.

> BTW, I have never used the hazard button while the car is in motion or at
> least driving very slowly.

'round here it's common to use the hazards when in sight of or at the tail of
a highway / freeway traffic jam.

~~~
seszett
The controls there are definitely not in the same place as most cars. Here
they are to the right of the driver, between the gear shift stick and the
handbrake.

Apart from some modern cars with a single dial and maybe a couple buttons
there, most only have storage space there and the controls are in the front,
not between the driver and passenger.

~~~
masklinn
Oh I see, you're talking about the entertainment system of the DX having its
controls in the center isle, next to the handbrake.

I was looking at the car system controls below the air vents, hence my
wondering what the difference was.

FWIW BMW's idrive and Audi's MMI physical control are in roughly the same spot
(idrive's been both below and besides the gear selector, MMI's usually been
above or below though both have basically surrounded the stick:
[https://www.picclickimg.com/00/s/MTE1MFgxNjAw/z/xvEAAOSwll1W...](https://www.picclickimg.com/00/s/MTE1MFgxNjAw/z/xvEAAOSwll1Wu7iF/$/2x-Audi-
S-line-MMI-Idrive-button-decal-sticker-_57.jpg)).

And though recent generation MMIs are apparently touchscreen-only, BMW has
retained physical controls next to the shifter: [https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/10/BMW-6-Ser...](https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/10/BMW-6-Series-Gran-Turismo-GT-test-
drive-88-830x553.jpg)

------
zelon88
Some great thoughts in this thread, most of them I already agree with. Some
thoughts I haven't seen discussed.....

Cars go out of style. They last a lot longer than a phone or tablet. Look at
any 00's era GM product. The radio/climate buttons are straight out of a Cozy
Coupe. It's gross, but in 2001 they were stylin'! Look at the 1992 Subaru
Legacy, or the 1990 Ford Tempo, or the 1991 Nissan Sentra. Electric seatbelts,
enormous speedometers, oddly shaped steering wheels... They were cool! Now
they're eye-catchingly gaudy. Lets not even get into the "digital dash" (yeah,
I'm talking to Jethro in the Pontiac).

What if you could have a car with a touchscreen but it only included Android
Gingerbread (2.3) and that was it?

Other than that I am always amazed that modern cars have back up cameras and
drive-by-wire steering/throttle/brakes but they still have a simple "check
engine" light. They don't even print out their own trouble codes let alone
tell you "Cylinder 5 misfire!" Such a feature would be trivial and add real
value, especially in the truck market. Perhaps when right-to-repair takes over
there will be no more incentive to keep the workings of cars magical and
mysterious to the layman.

~~~
daveguy
They don't have a good visual display of the check engine light, but you can
get a lot of information from that light, with the cross manufacturer standard
ODBII/EOBD (on board diagnostics 2 / enhanced onboard diagnostics). Progress
is going slow in adding features, but a $35 tool like this can give you
detailed information. One of the best car related purchases I have made:

[https://www.amazon.com/ANCEL-AD310-Enhanced-Universal-
Diagno...](https://www.amazon.com/ANCEL-AD310-Enhanced-Universal-
Diagnostic/dp/B01G5EA74I/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=obd2&qid=1560828444&s=gateway&sr=8-3)

------
Blackthorn
Maybe I'm just a luddite but I can't stand _any_ of these features in new
cars. Feels more like misfeatures to me.

I rent cars fairly often for work and so I see a lot of touchscreens, a lot of
bluetooth, whatnot. My car at home has a simple radio, a CD player that rarely
gets used, and cruise control. I prefer that to any of this new integrated
tech. The only thing about new cars that I really miss is a backup camera.

~~~
degenerate
95% of everyone would agree with you. It's the car manufacturers and the
business people behind the terrible tech in the car industry that disagree and
want us to have touchscreens.

------
cabinguy
I remember when microwaves had one dial and no buttons, no digital
touchscreens. You set the dial to the desired cook time in minutes/seconds,
and it automatically started (as long as the door was closed).

Same with an oven. Turn the dial to 350 and the oven was on and set to 350. It
took a fraction of a second vs a touch screen.

These new interfaces are often a terrible use of "technology" and are actually
a step (or more) backward.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I remember those days - I liked our microwave with just a time knob and a
start knob.

But it had its drawbacks. My young children couldn't set the time to heat
their oatmeal. "Turn it to 1 minute". They'd twist the knob and say "Is that
enough?" Without knowing enough about time they couldn't (yet) figure out to
turn right or left to get to the right number.

With a digital one, they'd just poke 1,0,0 and hit start.

~~~
cabinguy
By the time I had kids, the dial interface was long gone...but if I could
teach my kids to push 1,0,0, start, I'd bet I could teach them what 1:00
looked like on the dial pretty quickly.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Not really. They have to be able to understand math, not just memorize digits.

------
yakshaving_jgt
I am absolutely stunned that it's taken people so long to realise this. How
the bloody hell could anyone have been so stupid to not realise that we need
buttons with tactile feedback so we can keep our eyes on the road.

It's extraordinary.

------
ryeguy_24
Removing touch screens from the driver is a good one but there are so many
distracting UI patterns for drivers. The scary thing is that I would bet
people have died because of poor patterns that exist. These are some that I
have:

1\. Using Apple iPhone for navigation. Phone rings. I pick it up using car
controls. The navigation screen is now gone and is replaced with the phone
screen. [scramble to swipe bottom of phone to get back to nav] 2\. Audio
routing. The car winds up acting like a Home theater receiver that I have to
debug while driving. Why can’t I hear my music? Am I on AM/FM/IPhone
USB/iPhone Bluetooth/Wife’s Bluetooth. So many options. 3\. Every time I start
driving my car, Christmas music starts automatically playing from my iPhone
through the car speakers. It’s in my music library and for some reason it auto
plays (Why apple?). I always have to do some mid-driving swipeage to get this
to stop.

These are horrible patterns. I’d love to spend the rest of my life designing
UI for simplifying the driving experience. If anyone wants to hire me, please
do.

~~~
jpindar
Count me in, too. I'm an embedded systems developer/electrical engineer with
considerable automotive experience. Contorting myself under dashboards isn't
as much fun as it used to be, but I'll do it if I can make a difference.

------
dzhiurgis
Tesla is probably only company with proper software engineering team that
managed to create smart car platform.

Others trying to imitate its screens are shooting themselves into foot. If you
are not able to implement continuous delivery, you should stick to hardware
toggles. It's that simple.

The problem of screen being screen still stands in Tesla's cars, but much
bigger problem is shipping crappy screens.

~~~
romwell
I like what you're saying, but I think I can improve the message a bit by
shortening it:

>you should stick to hardware toggles

There we go, nothing to add now :)

------
satyenr
That is a really good idea. Touch controls are nearly useless on a moving
vehicle. It would be a lot better if Apple/Google came up with a standard
tactile interface for their in-car offerings.

Don't get me wrong -- CarPlay/Android Auto are leagues ahead of what
individual car makers have to offer. Having a standard system across all car
makers is a good idea too. They just need to come up with a more tactile
interface.

The touch screen doesn't necessarily have to go, though -- it could simply be
disabled when the vehicle is moving.

Volkswagen, for example, have a rotary dial which lets you flip through all
the items on the screen to select the one you like. It still requires the
driver to glance at the screen, but at least it doesn't require them to touch
the precise spot on the screen -- which IMO is more distracting. That said,
even the rotary dial is not perfect as it can't be operated by touch only --
w/o taking your eyes off the road -- not unless you know the position of every
single icon/control by heart.

------
mszkoda
My Alfa Romeo (and all recent Alfa Romeos in the US) don't have touchscreens.
The screens are in touch range and they have CarPlay and Android Auto, but you
have to use the wheel with them.

I got used to it pretty quickly and after a week or two I don't really have to
look at the screen to do 99% of things I need to do. It seems much safer to
me, though it was annoying at first.

~~~
noitsnot
My Rolls doesn't have a touch screen, which is nice because it helps from
distracting my driver during trips to the yacht club or the occasional polo
match.

~~~
bradlys
This comment seems so weird - it's just a European brand - not a rich one.
Alfa Romeo is nowhere near the price of a Rolls.

The _most_ expensive Alfa (their halo car) is a third of the price of the
cheapest Rolls without any options. Ford makes a more expensive car than Alfa.

~~~
noitsnot
Alpha Romeo is an Italian luxury brand in the U.S. Ford in the same sentence
is shocking.

------
cyxxon
I was actually pondering buying a Mazda, but now I am not so sure. Generally I
get the idea - please give me hardware buttons for radio/music volume,
temperature control, or to toggle suspension modes or whatever. But I want to
use e.g. the Spotify on my phone, and Google Maps. Someone further down
commented that it seemed to him that car makers have given up on their own
branded version if car software, and ohmygod yes, thanks. It was always an
afterthought and poorly thought out, buggy and much less functional.

So please, maybe find a middle ground, as I said - car functionality with
hardware knobs, and a touchscreen for stuff like navigation (where you need
the sreen anyway), and music control. Otherwise it will get worse - then I can
use the hardware button to select my BT input an dhave to fiddle around on my
much smaller phone screen. No one can actually want that, if the alternative
is to use a condensed version of that interface on a bigger screen...

~~~
hiisukun
I have driven a 2018 Mazda 3 quite a lot. The touchscreen is disabled while
the car is moving.

For complicated things while driving - that you wish you had a touchscreen to
accomplish - I wish you wouldn't do them while driving. I say this after more
than a decade working responding to road accidents.

However, the Mazda interface has been great for all the Android Auto functions
(including Google maps and Spotify) simply using the physical buttons. They
clearly went to some effort to make it work well.

And if you prefer, you can use voice controls fairly effectively via Android
Auto or Apple carplay.

Please keep your eyes on the road.

------
anderspitman
I'm a huge fan of physical/tactile input (and output) devices. I use foot
pedals hooked up to an Arduino for my CTRL/SHIFT/META keys both at work and
home, which helps my RSI enormously. I also designed a wearable bluetooth
device for adding physical buttons to phones[0] for a school project. I think
there's a huge potential for such products, and I'd love to get back to
exploring that space at some point.

If you want to get excited about this type of stuff, I highly recommend this
TED talk[1].

[0]
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lTOxHxHFjwJXeCLROAPf6OJD...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lTOxHxHFjwJXeCLROAPf6OJDonKZ9pliw2NMhQ-8QLw/edit?usp=sharing)

[1]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_s...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans?language=en)

------
achenatx
I listen to XM radio. My toyota interface is a dial for volume, a dial for
tuning, and 6 preset buttons (and 6 pages of presets).

I can easily tune through all 150+ stations very easily to find a particular
station. I can switch up 20 stations with a single twist, without looking.
Also since stations are grouped, I can set a preset for each type of station,
then easily tune up or down to listen to other related stations.

My wife's XM is a honda touch screen. The presets work ok, except they are
touch screen so you have to look at the screen to change presets. But if you
want to manually go to another station, you have to hit 2 touch buttons to get
to a tuning screen. Then you have to hit the up/down tuning button each time
you want to go up or down a single station. It is pretty much impossible to
try to find a station if you don't already know the number because it could be
100's of touches.

~~~
hrktb
I appreciate your point, and think it comes down to what use case most users
will benefit from optimising.

My wife switches between Spotify, the Music app and a separated radio app. She
does it on her phone's screen when at stop, she could do it on CarPlay or the
android version, but I can't just imagine how it would work without a generic
touch interface.

You use case (listening to radio) is in line with the current UI paradigm,
other use cases (using apps) just won't work with it. That's where we could
find a tradeoff I think.

------
p1necone
My touch controlled stovetop is a nightmare, I can't imagine dealing with a
touchscreen in my car.

------
bumby
One thing I really dislike about everything being integrated into a single
touch-screen is that you've now created a single failure point for all those
integrated systems. At least with tactile controls, if my radio knob breaks I
can still adjust my HVAC.

Also, when the touch-screens break they tend to be much more expensive to fix.
I listened to one person say they were quoted $7k to fix one. They were of a
conspiratorial mindset, so they thought it was a planned obsolescence feature
to help convince someone to buy a new car instead. I don't know if that's true
but the idea of a that type of reliability cost is enough to keep me from
returning to the same manufacturer.

------
perch56
I own a 2014 Mazda 3, brilliant car. The touchscreen firmware is a pain to
update every year while servicing it. When I bought the car it came it the GPS
hardware pre-installed however I was supposed to buy the maps separately for
about $500. I didn't see the point in this as for that money I could have
bought a new iPhone at that time and have various navigation apps. I also
praise Mazda for the decision. In the 5 years since I own the car I probably
actually used the touchscreen 20 times as usually I change songs or radio
channels from the steering wheel button. Buy a Mazda, you won't regret it :)

~~~
asdf21
2016 Mazda 3, completely agree.

Also have a 2016 Model S, and the bluetooth works much better on the Mazda, as
far connecting and using a cellphone quickly.

------
CodeTheInternet
They introduce other problems than just distracted drivers.

I took in my Mazda3 to have the screen replaced. There was an issue with the
sensors that mistakenly thought someone was touching the screen. At low
speeds, when the toch screen re-activates, it would start navigating on its
own; from changing music stations to calling people and changing GPS
waypoints. Drivers trying to stop this will be more distracted than they
otherwise would be. This happens at stop signs, red lights and slow-moving
traffic.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hey! This happened on Sunday in my wife's CRV! We were going to lunch, and the
touchscreen went apeshit, flipping between menus at the speed of light,
beeping madly.

And, as you said, she immediately began fooling with it, trying to get it to
stop. I had to tell her "Let me do this! You just drive!" Its very, very
distracting.

~~~
CodeTheInternet
Go to your dealer. I wasnt notified but they had a type of limited warranty
where they knew about it. The sensors were not installed correctly in some
units. They replaced it for free.

------
toss1
Excellent decision for Mazda. They've been optimizing everything for years,
tho a bit lagging with their electronics UI. The touchscreen was already
disabled when rolling (faster than ~5mph), so losing it entirely is a step
forward.

The touchscreen UI when driving is also a very bad design. Touchscreens have
no tactile feedback, so require focused visual attention to operate, taking
not only the mental focus away from the road environment, but also moving the
eyes well away from the road so losing much of the peripheral vision that can
'save' the driver by noticing unexpected motion.

Even as a racer with training on shifting attention between road, traffic,
mirrors, surround, & instruments, I've found that any attempt to put a complex
phone UI in a car significantly degrades my driving performance. Don't take me
wrong, I love having the Android Auto maps up on the screen of my new CX-5.

But, the usability, even using the knob, is a constant distraction, and I far
too often find myself squandering far too many microseconds on the UI trying
to adjust the map, when I should have switched focus back to the road. It is a
genuine hazard, and I've got training to manage it, and still often fail.

The primary, and almost singular goal of any driving or piloting UI must be to
reduce the driver's workload. ANY few microseconds squandered on hesitation
about the desired operation of the UI or just figuring out it's current state
can become deadly.

This is an entirely different goal and threat structure from any ordinary
computer or mobile device UI/UX design. Anyone doing it must be fully
retrained and reoriented towards these goals, and pursue them relentlessly.

------
suspectdoubloon
I think voice is a better interface for setting navigation, music selection. I
used it quite often with the google assistant through android auto. Its
intergrated into my steering wheel i hold the button and I tell the car what I
want. Im not losing focus on the road to find the knob/touchscreen whilst I
perform the interaction. It gets but clunky when I forget the order of
operations but the feedback is there.

------
Aardwolf
I love tactile feedback and love that for all controls like heating, volume,
windows, ....

Except for GPS destination input (except if they provide a nice mechanical
keyboard ;)) and map zooming. Imho they should allow touchscreen for GPS input
and map zooming, and disable the touch for the driver when driving (except
when it knows a passenger is sitting next to it and sees the passenger is
touching it, should be possible to detect)

------
pier25
I hate the touchscreen on my Honda SUV. It's not even Apple/Android but
something Honda half baked a couple of years back. I have been working on UIs
for a long time and it's just a disgrace of UX, design, and performance.

Plus it's pretty useless. Other that Bluetooth pairing it serves no real
purpose. 99% of the time we control the music player and volume from the
remote on the wheel. That's it.

------
legohead
My 2018 Mazda infotainment and overall "technicality" is just sad. I want to
say we are in some weird middle ground where car manufacturers are trying to
catch up to modern engineering, or maybe Mazda just doesn't care.

1\. It has terrible bluetooth lag. I like to sit in my car at lunch and eat
and watch YouTube, Netflix, etc. but I have to disconnect bluetooth because
the 2-4 second lag is unbearable. I don't have this problem with my other
cars.

2\. The keyfob drives me insane. If I get out of the car and leave it running,
keyfob in hand, I can't unlock the back doors. I have to open the driver door
and do it manually. I also can't lock the car while it's running with the
keyfob. I guess Mazda would rather my children have heatstroke while I go in
and grab something from the store. I have the keyfob in my hand! And the car
knows it.

3\. The touchscreen and overall UI is slowwwww. Strangely, the rearview camera
boots up and displays superfast, which is the _only_ nice thing I can say
about the car's technical features. Switching from radio to bluetooth is an
annoyingly long process. The main bootup is excruciatingly long as well. If
I'm 5 minutes from home I just don't bother with any sound and mute everything
because I'm already on my way and driving by the time it's able to do
anything.

4\. They charge you to add on Android Auto. Even if I did get this option, you
have to get to it thru their already-mentioned slow system, so I don't even
know if I'd use it. And you have to plug in the phone. Faster and easier to
just put the phone on the magnetic holder and go.

I could go on but this is long enough already. I really like the car
otherwise, but I'll be checking my next purchase very carefully when it comes
to the technical side.

------
anbop
There are three reasons to use a touchscreen for a UI: 1) minimal cost for a
device that already has a display, e.g. e-book reader 2) reconfigurable UI for
device that performs different tasks, e.g. smartphone 3) paging UI for vastly
complex products that can’t accommodate thousands of different knobs, e.g.
control panel for a non-professional audio generator.

A car doesn’t fit any of these.

------
runjake
My knee-jerk reaction was "I'm not going to buy a car if it does not support
CarPlay"[1], but Mazda isn't eliminating CarPlay functionality as part of this
process.

On-screen selections will involve tactile controls and I find that diable.

Why? CarPlay is a reasonably good UI unlike virtually anything pretty much any
car manufacturer can create, Maps, Podcasts/music interface, etc.

------
josefresco
How is a heads up display "accessible" for people with limited vision? In the
web industry, we kill ourselves to make every color combination fully ADA
compliant (in the US) and this involves a limited set of combinations. Not
being familiar with the auto industry regulations (does ADA even apply?), I
wonder how they (heads up displays) or even touchscreens could be considered
accessible. Anyone have insight into how this works? Is the user possessing an
active drivers license considered enough to exempt automakers from making
their controls accessible to people "with disabilities".

Edit: May have found my own answers. ADA guidlines only apply to buses and
other vehicles of that type: [https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-
standards/transp...](https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-
standards/transportation/vehicles/adaag-for-transportation-vehicles) And most
likely, not the operators.

~~~
wvenable
> How is a heads up display "accessible" for people with limited vision?

Perhaps people with limited vision shouldn't be driving.

~~~
josefresco
Of course, and some vision disabilities do require exceptions or a special
license. However, my experience with making websites accessible has taught me
that ADA, and WCAG specifically apply to even people with minor vision
disabilities which most likely, do not require a special license to drive. As
my edit indicates, ADA only really applies to "the public" and so therefore
private vehicles are probably exempt.

------
alkonaut
There is nothing inherently wrong with touch screens. Just use physical knobs
and buttons for anything you want when driving (heat, for example) then use
touch screen for everything you use when not driving. Entering a navigation
target, setting the clock, doing any car setup etc. Typing in a destination
with voice or a knob and button interface is infuriating.

~~~
acdha
I like that approach for those reasons but it really needs care to prevent
abuse – e.g. disabling inputs unless the car is in park. Too many
manufacturers do the equivalent of putting a bowl of ice cream in front of a
child and saying “we told them not to eat it”.

------
ivanhoe
Good, IMHO if using phones while driving is dangerous, then it makes zero
sense to use touchscreens all over the place in cars. However some features
could still benefit from it, like navigation and settings screens - all those
things that can't be handled by a single button or rotary selector, so you'd
still have to look down at it to use it.

------
pushpop
Yes thank you. I’ve been saying this for a long time

My VW has an amazing UI where the centre console is a small touch screen but
it has a bunch of tactile buttons around the edge that also interact with the
console. So the only time you need to use the actual console as a touch screen
is when entering precise details like an address into the sat nav or phone
number to ring. Which, in both scenarios, I am more than happy to do at the
start of the journey or pull over to do. Everything else, from the radio to
the air con, is controlled via tactile buttons.

More over, any important announcements that come up on the centre console can
also be displayed on the dashboard as well. Including sat nav. So it means I
don’t even need to look at the centre console to glance at stuff if I don’t
want want to.

VW have gotten a lot of bad press in recent years but when it comes to in car
UIs, I’ve driven few vehicles that compare equally well.

~~~
izacus
All the new high-trim VWs I've seen have pretty much touch-only controls with
some capacitive non-tactile buttons though.

------
ygra
I wonder, is it really the touchscreen that is the problem, or the amount of
things a driver is expected to do on it while driving? With the buttons on the
steering wheel I never have the need to even reach for the center console and
the screen. The only thing that really needs it would be navigation, but
that's set once at the start of the trip and then isn't touched again usually.

I'm sure I'm missing something here (or I'm a weird driver), or is it just
that _without_ having a multi-function steering wheel touchscreens are more of
a hazard than a radio with buttons?

(Ok, reading a few more comments here, it seems that some cars use the
touchscreen to also control temperature and other things that are still
buttons and dials in our car (the touchscreen is pretty much only media,
navigation, phone, and a few other functions I'm forgetting now because I
never used them).)

------
bscphil
This news provides me with the tiniest bit of hope I'll ever be able to buy a
car again. (Currently driving a 2002 model with no screens and no seatbelt
warning bell. Things are great back here in sanity-world.)

Edit: the car doesn't squawk loudly at me when I hit the lock button when I
get home at night, either.

------
iknak
Tesla should really take some notes here.

~~~
Doubleslash
I wonder what some analysis on driver focus, concentration and eye movement
would reveal when comparing Tesla, especially Model 3, drivers vs. drivers of
cars with physical buttons and blind operations.

------
mataug
The AndroidAuto / Apple carplay in newer Subarus accepts both rotary controls,
and I always end up using the rotary controls as often as possible when
driving. This is because the touch screen is harder to accurately press when
driving, compared the rotary dials.

On that note I also want to mention that Maps on Apple carplay has a terrible
UI which could potentially be dangerous. To move around the map, one has to
use arrow buttons on the touch screen. We can't move the map by just dragging
on the map like on a cellphone.

I believe this is an effort to avoid driver distraction. But people, including
me, keep trying to move it anyway while driving since its so instinctive, and
when the map fails to move it adds additional distraction by having the driver
investigate.

------
logfromblammo
I like a keyboard better than a touchscreen for writing text, and I like a
keyboard with mechanical switches better than one with membrane switches. More
expensive, yes, but the user experience is very much better.

One of the primary advantages is that I can usually find the key I want
without looking down at the labels.

In a car, I want tactile clickiness in mechanical or electromechanical
controls. I even want rocker or throw switches, instead of buttons that light
up an LED to indicate their state. And that means if the state changes in
software, a solenoid or motor is going to have to flip the physical state too.

Touchscreens, despite having "touch" in the name, are strictly inferior for
finger-based inputs. They're more "screen" than "touch".

------
kragen
Thank goodness! At least Mazda is opting out of the Pictures Under Glass
insanity:
[http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/)

------
Johnny555
The touchscreen isn't the problem, having a screen at all is the problem.

I have a Mazda and hate their scroll wheel interface, with a touchscreen I can
just press the "AM Radio" icon, with a scroll wheel, I need to turn the wheel
then keep looking at the screen to see where the cursor is so I can click the
right icon so it takes more attention -- both cognitive processing (how many
clicks do I need to turn to get down to the button I want), as well as visual
(is it on the right one yet?)

Voice recognition is even worse, I often end up having a conversation with the
car "Call George" "There is more than one George, which one do you want to
call" "George Modaline" "Ok, Calling George Smith - mobile".

------
crististm
Touch screens are so good as UI in cars they decided to put them in the next
gen F1 steering wheel.

Oh wait... they actually didn't!

Mazda's decision is very good: Any UI where you need to detour your attention
from driving to changing car status is missing the point of its existence.

------
Yizahi
Speaking about tactile controls - once I got Audi in rental, it had tilt
controls near the central knob and they were very good (and stylish enough for
general adoption). I could find them without much searching blindly and
trigger any of their positions the first try, zero errors. Very nice and
intuitive (after you remember what they do of course). See picture here, two
silver fins between navigation knob and gearbox, they tilt to front and back:
[https://cdn2.autoexpress.co.uk/sites/autoexpressuk/files/201...](https://cdn2.autoexpress.co.uk/sites/autoexpressuk/files/2016/06/a3-fd-092.jpg)

------
mwexler
Having recently driven two model year cars with little change other than one
now has a touch screen, the screen made a world of difference. Features I
normally never use were quick and easy to access. Yes apple and google car
stuff were also easier, but just the entire driving experience was nicer: no
knobs to twist and press or shift like a joystick, no sea of buttons with
meaningless icon, fewer endless dives of menus.

I see that the data may not agree with my experience but I look to have touch
in every car I buy in the future. From a driver looking to leverage
technology, while we get automation working, let's make it easy for the driver
to get to the car's features.

~~~
nkrisc
How many features do you need? I have a 2019 Subaru Forester and if I could
have gotten it without a screen I would have. Everything I need while driving
is on the steering wheel (cruise control buttons, radio controls), climate is
a knob and 2 buttons. Everything else I don't need while driving.

The only thing a screen is good for is a backup camera. In my ideal car the
screen just turns off or hides away when I'm not in reverse. Everything else
is a distraction when you should just be driving.

------
shrimpx
Pretty much 100% of interactions with my car are either android auto voice
controls or physical knobs (mostly the knobs on my steering wheel). There's
basically no reason to fudge around with either a touch screen or a rotary
dial while driving.

------
iotku
Android auto in a rental car got me through quite a bit with Google maps
without needing a car mount for my phone, but again I still never really
touched the screen much outside of initial setup while parked (getting
location punched into the map and maybe starting some music).

It's handy while parked, but I don't think I want to be fiddling much with a
touch screen while driving.

On the other hand, I don't see why my passenger can't be operating it while
I'm driving.

Still against volume and climate controls not being physical buttons or knobs
because having to look at a screen while driving for more than half a second
is bad news.

------
rixrax
What car manufacturers could|should do is focus on making Android and iPhone
apps that replace these screens. Apps that would update regularly and allow
controlling various functions of the car. And have analog controls and small
dash etc. display to access | configure systems that are essential for driving
and safety, complete with e.g. voice control.

I agree from personal experience that these LCD screens in cars are
distracting, and what’s worse, don’t get updates so that in just a few years
UIs will feel sluggish and ugly (if not already the day it rolls out of
dealership (I’m looking at you Ford)).

------
petepete
It's a case of picking the right tool for the job, touchscreens aren't
entirely awful. But if I'm driving and I want to switch to Radio, the button
should always be in the exact same place so I don't need to think.

My car has buttons for all these operations and it's great. What is bad for is
browsing the map when I'm parked; say I'm looking for a car park near my
destination, by the time I've zoomed out with a scroll wheel, browsed around
and zoomed back in a few times I could've done the same thing on my phone and
set off.

~~~
Arbalest
> the button should always be in the exact same place so I don't need to
> think.

I don't think that thinking is the problem, the problem is looking to locate.

~~~
petepete
It is, because if you look at your touch screen controls and it's in another
mode, you need to think about how you get out and back to radio.

When there's a button that says 'Radio' on it that never moves, you don't need
to look _or_ think.

------
stakhanov
Kudos to them! They just did their research and acted on it. (At least that's
how it appears). That's how it should be.

At many companies, the people doing that kind of research would be people who
no one really listens to. They would do the research. Then PHB-type characters
would enter the scene. And if research yields recommendations that would steer
the company away from the safety of the herd (of automakers, in that case),
then the research would be cancelled and the recommendations ignored.

------
dash2
Car manufacturers' touchscreen UI is hilariously bad, like a website from
1998. Interfacing with phones is equally unreliable. They really don't know
what they're doing.

------
twblalock
Mazdas still have screens. They have a knob and a few buttons between the
seats to control the screen. This change doesn't do much for safety or
usability.

The knobs are just as distracting as using a touch screen -- you have to look
at the screen to see what is being selected, and you have to take a hand off
the wheel to use the knob. In many cases it takes several knob movements and
button presses to get to something I could have just reached out and touched.
How is that any safer?

~~~
kenhwang
Arguably, if you can't safely operate a vehicle one-handed for your other hand
to use the knob, you definitely shouldn't be using a touchscreen.

~~~
twblalock
My point is that using a knob does not add safety, for exactly the reason you
mentioned. It is either safe to drive one-handed at a particular moment, or it
is not. Whether a knob or a touchscreen is used makes no difference -- one
hand is off the wheel and your eyes are on the screen.

------
BrandoElFollito
I would love to have one single, continuous touch screen instead of what the
car is providing me.

I only care about the speed and fuel level. And a big STOP when something is
wrong.and style feedback on things Iwill have to change soon.

Then radio and possibly two buttons.

All of this automatically provided when it is me who "logs in".

But I get some weird philosophical view of some designer go though I am
interested in the engine rate (I do not even know the name of this rpm big
dial), the oil temperature and whatnot.

------
moviuro
See this 2014 article about a good car UI with touchscreens [0]; though it may
take some getting used to. Switching back to analog controls and buttons is a
sane move in that respect.

[0] [https://matthaeuskrenn.com/new-car-ui](https://matthaeuskrenn.com/new-
car-ui) ; and HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7261003](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7261003)

~~~
kalleboo
I that guy suggesting multitouch on a car touchscreen? That seems terrible. I
find just swipe scrolling extremely awkward at arm's length (and this is with
CarPlay so it's not just due to weird car UI acceleration curves)

~~~
moviuro
Multitouch is easier to do blind, instead of having to focus on the screen
though.

------
isacikgoz
I use CarPlay for 2 years on a daily basis on my VW (w/ touch screen). The
head unit is placed in the middle of the cockpit. In time you build up muscle
memory so it can be a similar experience with hard buttons. The only catching
point is if your phone is slow, features like CarPlay behaves
nondeterministic. Thus, it becomes very distracting.

Also, to reduce distraction I suggest using Siri with CarPlay. It works like a
charm and you don't even need to look to the screen.

------
MagicPropmaker
It's good strategy, too. Now the other manufacturers are at a disadvantage
because people can claim that the cars are "defective" by having touch
screens.

I think a touch screen would be OK if it didn't operate while the car was in
Drive, so you can set preferences, etc, with a full keyboard. But you can also
do this from a companion app or website, so there's really no need to have it
at all.

And I'm really glad to see HUDs come to cars. I wonder why it took so long!

------
nkozyra
Touchscreens are fine, but are for passengers. The real issue is cars that
support _only_ touchscreen for some options and then make you go into park to
do anything.

------
sizzle
I can't wait for the day of Alexa/Siri/Google Assistant voic-level speech
integration for controlling air conditioner, calling, asking questions,
rerouting gps etc all hands free with emphasis on actually being usable,
unlike the crap automakers have been torturing us with (half-assed navigation
that needs to be updated at dealership, voice input system that barely
understands commands unless you say them in some very specific order, etc).

------
tssva
My girlfriend's 2019 Mazda CX-5 has both a touchscreen and analog controls.
Carplay will use both but Android Auto has always just used the analog
controls.

------
jbverschoor
Finally.. sanity

------
torgian
I haven't used a car in years, but I do use taxies or DiDi, or Uber, depending
on which country I'm in.

With Uber or Didi especially, you get picked up in cars that have these
touchscreens. I've never seen a driver use them for anything other than radio
operation. They use their phones for GPS navigation.

And in the nicer cars (BMWs, Mercs, etc) the touchscreens just destroy the
aesthetics of the car's interior. Horrible looking.

------
officeplant
I wish everyone would follow suit. There is nothing I hate more in a modern
vehicle than a touchscreen.

Automatic headlights come close, but my hate for those is mostly from drivers
that fail to turn them on when the sensors fail or aren't sensitive enough to
come on. So many heavy downpours / fog in our area and I see plenty of new
cars without their tail lights on and just low beam/running lights.

------
michaelbrooks
I'm a Mazda driver and I liked how you can use a touchscreen before you drive
and then it switches off the touchscreen as you're driving to make travelling
safer. At first, I was confused, because I've been so used to using
touchscreens during journies before, but I applauded them for making such a
useful safety feature and I applaud them again for taking it one step further.

------
alexchamberlain
This is great. I grew up watching the Simpsons and always dreamt of sitting in
front of a nuclear control panel like Homer's, but instead, I sit in front of
soft control panels (and many more text editors, but that's besides the
point). I think we should invest more in bespoke, more usable interfaces and
break away from everything being a touch screen, keyboard and/or mouse.

------
TuringTest
That's a sign of an industry with heavy user research and iteration.

In a more conservative industry, interaction practices researched and adopted
at the beginning of the discipline would be maintained for decades without
questioning - _cough_ programming _cough_ -, and profound changes would
require a thorough adjustment of the tools used by the industry and the
mentality of the practitioners.

------
itchynosedev
How it made through ] production in the first place is really baffling. There
are supposedly thousands and thousands of engineers, industrial designers, QC
and other product people working in the automotive industry. And yet between
2010 and 2019 you'd be hard pressed to find a model coming without a touch
screen. This is insane. This seems like a basic usability and safety issue.

------
cryptozeus
Can’t they just simplify touch screen UI. I understand the distraction factor
but that can also happen with too many hard controls as well. In Tesla, the
hard button on steering wheel can be modified by the touch panel control. They
both work together.

IMO this is a wrong move for mazda. Eventually if these cars become smart cars
then you will not be interacting with controls as much. Touch an go.

------
izzydata
I hope this becomes more common. At least in sportier cars. I want some kind
of tactile response that I can feel while driving so I can navigate a vehicles
controls without ever taking my eyes off the road. I want physical buttons,
knobs, dials and switches. If there is a display it should not be a touch
display.

Hopefully I can find something of this sort to replace the 7" screen in my
GT86.

------
doctorRetro
A big reason I still love my 12 year old car (a Mazda, by chance) is that it
doesn't have a touch screen. I've borrowed a number of cars over the years
that have touch screens and I hate them; they're distracting, they're not
intuitive, and you can't use them without taking your eyes off the road. I'll
say this for Mazda; they're practical.

------
karmakaze
It wouldn't take much hardware added to the screen to make it better. Just add
a couple pushable rotary dials, few raised buttons with edges, and some audio
feedback (even just clicks/beeps). Trimming down the software will take more
work as it seems to be designed on desktop computers running tablet emulators
without testing the UX while driving.

------
wycy
I liked the use of the Mazda touch screen for the purpose of entering an
address (while stopped) into the Nav system--so much easier than using a wheel
to scroll across a keyboard--but otherwise it wasn't necessary. They could
obviate the need for a touch screen for this function by allowing you to send
an address to the car via your phone.

------
shosko
I still drive a Saab with the night panel option, which turns off all
distracting lights and messages at night. Of course there is no screen either.

Driving should be an exercise in focus with the tools to help me do so, even
in the proliferation of options (climate, entertainment, etc).

The 17-inch screen in the Model S is just absurd to me. I dont want it. I dont
want screens.

------
intopieces
In general I am against this move. Buttons can only do one or two things, and
you have to learn it. Touch screens can do infinite things, and can display
unique indicators based on state. Still, if the choice is between and
infotainment system that won’t get updates or a just buttons, give me a spot
for my phone on the dash and call it a day.

------
infecto
Just a thought but I wonder if this whole touch UI craze was due in part to
the legislation that require backup cameras in America and forced all cars to
come with a lcd screen. I get this feeling companies then just all jumped on
the touch UI bandwagon because now they were forced to have a screen for the
backup camera.

------
mhandley
Like many people my age (early 50s), I now need reading glasses. My distance
vision is fine, but my phone held at arms length is slightly out of focus
unless I put on my reading glasses. This is the case for many (most?) people
my age. I hate any display on a car that I can actually reach. No touchscreens
for me.

------
cjtrowbridge
Tom Paris is somewhere squealing with glee.

------
netsharc
It's a bit insane that cars (as far as I understand it) have to go through a
lot of certification, e.g. that their airbags work, or that the controls work
properly (e.g. that the brake-by-wire doesn't have bugs), but that only now
have they done research if touch screen usage is safe or not...

------
bitcuration
It's Tesla started this design, iphonized car industry.

Screen navigation should be banned in the car no matter what type of screen it
is.

When driving or piloting, what's the last time you heard the display has
several levels of menu/screen to move around. Just display everything, let the
eyes choose where to look.

------
fbn79
I have a Mazda 3 (2016). There is a touch screen but the touch mode is active
only when the car is not mooving.

~~~
shifto
Yes, same for my 2018 model. They turned it off with the new 2019 model.

~~~
izacus
It's probably worth mentioning that screen on 2019 model isn't really within
comfortable arm reach anymore and it's now way higher on the dashboard.

------
Guthur
Thank God for this, anytime I've had to use a touch screen while driving I've
felt it's stolen so much of my visual attention that it's amazing I don't hit
something. In contrast a physical knob can be used purely by touch without
ever having to take my eyes off the road.

------
whizzkid
Touch screen is almost essential for navigation functionality. It makes life
easier in car while not driving as well. I think what manufacturers should
focus on is to implement touch screen functions on the driver side as physical
controls. This way driver does not need to reach for the screen.

------
tolger
I have a 2018 Mazda CX-9 with the touchscreen. I almost never use the
touchscreen, because there's a much more convenient scroll-wheel positioned in
the center console and within my right hand's reach. There are also controls
in the steering wheel for audio, phone and cruise control.

------
kgwgk
If I had to buy a car now it may be a Mazda 3 because of this. I may be
getting old but I prefer having physical buttons and needles. The dashboard in
the new Mercedes for example may look neat and futuristic but I can imagine it
going wrong in many ways. I just want a car, not a space ship.

------
josteink
I have a 2014 Toyota Auris, and while on service I got to try the new 2019
model.

 _All_ interior controls were touchscreen and impossible to use while driving.
Worthless gimmickry.

Definitely didn’t tempt me to get a newer model. I’ll keep my 2014 with its
buttons and dials until auto-designers regain there senses again.

------
kuon
I never tried the Mazda system, but as an experienced UX designer, I agree
that touchscreen in a car is one of the worst idea ever in term of UX. It's
far, it requires aim, there is no tactile feedback, some gestures (like
scroll) are really hard and require constant attention.

~~~
zaroth
If scrolling is hard on your car’s touch screen, then the manufacturer failed
_spectacularly_.

Nothing is easier, more intuitive, or less distracting, than scrolling on a
proper multi-touch screen.

~~~
Fins
If you are stationary and can dedicate your attention to looking at the
screen, sure. In a moving car, not at all. Using touch is a spectacular
failure to apply even the basic common sense.

Of course, needing multi-touch to do scrolling is a pretty major failure, too.

~~~
zaroth
I didn’t mean to imply scrolling should be done with two fingers :-)

But rather if you offer touch scrolling you’ll also want pinch to zoom.

“Spectacular failure to apply even the most basic common sense” is a pretty
strong position. In my experience with actually using a fantastic touch
interface for navigation, and having tried and hated using nav systems in
expensive cars in the past, where I’ve had to resort to using my phone for
nav, I am equally strongly of the position that proper multi-touch nav on a
large screen (Tesla Model 3) is safer and easier than any kind of button based
nav system.

~~~
Fins
I think it would be a reasonable argument that if you need to fiddle with
navigation while driving, your nav system failed. And honestly, whether I am
using Waze on the phone, or built-in nav, short of "crap, I've put a wrong
destination in" I've never had any particular need to do anything to the nav
system once I start going.

Now, sure, I can see how a large touch screen might make a better interface
for _navigation only_ , as long as you are stopped and can use it without
having to look at the road. But I know of an even better interface -- give me
keyboard and mouse, and even with desktop Google Maps I'll get routes faster
than with any touchscreen system out there.

But of course 1) mouse/keyboard in a car isn't very feasible, and 2) that
touch screen, since it's already there, is being used for controlling other
systems in the car, too. And _that_ is a problem. Anything that may need a
quick adjustment while you're driving (and in real world, of course, that
includes things you shouldn't really be doing while driving...) should be
doable with muscle memory and at most a quick glance. Touchscreen doesn't do
that, so I think it clearly does fail the common sense test.

------
overcast
Good, non tactile buttons in an automobile is THE worst idea ever. I know
where every single adjustment in my car is by feel alone, without the need for
some dumb screen distracting me. Amazing that these screens don't have the
negativity surrounding them that smart phones do.

------
jerzyt
Kudos to Mazda for saying no to this insanity. Not only is it unsafe, it's a
horrible user interface. I'm not able to drive and hold my outstretched arm
steady enough to select an item with a finger. For next car purchase I'll
definitely test drive a Mazda.

------
discordance
Tesla just emailed me about playing games on the center console, driver
pictured sitting next to the screen[0]. Surely this can't be a good idea?

0: [https://imgur.com/a/kUq06eI](https://imgur.com/a/kUq06eI)

------
JVIDEL
They're right but their solution is cumbersome and counter intuitive.

What we need is to put all the controls both within sign and within reach of
the driver, that means in and around the steering wheel, just like it was done
in sport cars where driver focus is essential.

------
microcolonel
Another way Mazda is leading the way with design. I have been really impressed
overall with Mazda's approach to design, especially lately, all the way from
the powertrain to the controls (or the other way around, if their marketing is
to be believed).

------
colek42
As somebody who rents cars on the regular I love having a consistent modern
interface across every vehicle I use with Android Auto. To me this consistency
is much safer than trying to learn a new "cockpit" with every vehicle I drive.

------
DonaldDerek
... well i hope this'll ripple to other domains. The renaissance of modular
synthesizers is highly noticeable in today's music making, and especially live
performances, well a car is very similar to a sonic vehicle in that sense.

------
msh
I hope they are right but I still think it depends on design.

My current citroen is mostly touch controlled, but I find it requires less
attention to operate than the button/dial controls on my old nissan which were
horrible.

But I think the real future is voice control.

------
b_tterc_p
What functionality do you regularly need on the dashboard besides map and
Spotify? I have none. And as a result the touch screen seems reasonable.

I get that’s its bad if you’re constantly interacting with it while driving,
but... are you?

------
muzika
After driving a Tesla for a couple months, I now wish all cars had a UI like
it does, with one large touch screen. Other manufacturer’s touch screens feel
ancient by comparison. And so do tens of switches and knobs.

------
laythea
Yes. This is what we want. Touch controls that involve the sensation of touch!
:)

------
hsnewman
I bought my Mazda 6 the last year it offered no screen. The salesman wanted be
to buy the next year which had a god awful touch screen on top of the dash, I
hated it. I am glad I didn't get a touch screen!

------
dirktheman
Some of the higher end luxury cars have little touchscreens that look like
buttons on the same place where you'd expect the button, with tactile feedback
to mimic a physical button.

Good luck with that in 20 years or so...

~~~
iamtheworstdev
no one owns a car for 20 years anymore so it's probably not a concern.

~~~
Tade0
I wouldn't be so sure about that - both my father and his sister independently
of each other bought their cars new over 20 years ago - I'm planning on
keeping my 2017 Toyota as long as possible, because the savings are immense.

Maybe it's something specific to my country overall my parents' generation
keeps their vehicles as long as possible.

~~~
iamtheworstdev
obviously I shouldn't have said "no one" and made such a blanket statement.
But the average age of a vehicle on the road in the USA is 11.6 years and the
average length of ownership is 79 months (so 6.6ish years), according to the
IHS.

[https://www.autonews.com/article/20161122/RETAIL05/161129973...](https://www.autonews.com/article/20161122/RETAIL05/161129973/average-
age-of-vehicles-on-road-hits-11-6-years)

------
mensetmanusman
How much of this is generational? In 10 years we will have buyers that have
only known touch screens as an interface.

The issue is that we have to solve high-speed touch screens that behave well
in vehicles that sit outside.

------
m-p-3
Good, that say, I wish Android Wear / WearOS went that path too. I miss
physical buttons for navigating interfaces, especially in the cold winters
with my gloves, and I hate, HATE using voice commands.

------
marvin
When cars eventually go self-driving, not having a touchscreen will be a big
competitive disadvantage. Over-the-air updates of car software will be
essential to adapt the driving/transportation experience, also for the
existing fleet of cars, as the product matures and manufacturers can use
people's experiences to make improvements. This does require part of the car's
user interface to be software driven, and touchscreens are the best way of
doing that. If the car is capable of safely driving without human input, most
of the the safety concerns of touchscreens disappear. There's also the
question of being able to configure the car to operate in fleet/rental mode,
which would probably be challenging with controls that are less intuitive than
a touchscreen. You're left with some UX considerations of sometimes needing
longer time or needing to look at the screen for operating common
functionality.

I'm not saying that tactile controls in general should be banned, and I'm
probably also saying that most car manufacturers _absolutely suck_ at software
and will elegantly botch any attempt at integrating a touchscreen.

Maybe Tesla has gone overboard and should add (software-controlled) physical
dials for the systems that are used all the time and are never expected to
change much, such as A/C, seat heaters, trunk & frunk and so on. But that's a
comparatively minor UX modification.

The million dollar question is whether proper self-driving is 5 or 15 years
away -- if it's the former, auto companies really don't have as much time to
adapt as they think. Some customers might like a touchscreen-less Mazda if
they can tack a safe self-driving system onto it, but they will have a hard
time competing with companies that understand software and have good
integration of intuitive touchscreen interfaces. Once (if?) proper self-
driving is here, software suddenly becomes critical, and it's hard to control
a complex software system through physical knobs. People will also want better
entertainment systems integrated in the car at that point, and a touchscreen
makes such modifications simple.

~~~
mxfh
Since autonomous in most cases also means car on demand, I think the car
ceases to exist as seperate entity to configure, what's more import that there
is a seamless transferable configuration based on your preferences once you
rent any car, so that it becomes a nearly natural augmentation of your
smartphone or whatever device you'll cary around with you sometime in the next
2 decades.

Meaning low friction in getting your audio/calls out over the speaker system
and syncing of navigation with your other devices. And having car notifaction
and interior lighting, audio EQ preferences synced too.

Any screens left in the car might be there purely for diagnostic or
entertainment (think inflight entertainment and hopefully better) purposes,
that need only minimal direct interaction.

------
matthewmcg
My current Mazda with CarPlay enforces this already. When you are moving, the
touch functionality is disabled and you must use the physical buttons (dpad /
rotating wheel combination) to navigate.

------
MisterBastahrd
Seems to me that onscreen displays and Alexa-style voice control would be the
ultimate killer app for cars. How often do we have to divert our attention
from the road just to check the speedometer?

------
dawnerd
I rented an Audi a4 that had Carplay but only allowed buttons to navigate. It
was really frustrating. Trying to move the map around ended up being more
dangerous than just swiping the damn screen.

------
robbrown451
Seems like the future is voice control. I'm pretty used to talking to my phone
to do navigation and similar things while driving, but it can be frustrating
because it gets confused a lot and often makes me push a button. (vanilla
Android) But you have to imagine it will get better.

People are used to being able to do sophisticated things that go beyond the
sort of controls you can operate by feel. You used to get by if you could
adjusting the volume with a knob and pushing one of 5 preset radio stations,
and maybe being able to operate most the heater/AC controls without looking.
That's not good enough anymore.

Voice seems to be the only real option. Maybe by the time it they work out all
the kinks the cars will all be driving themselves.

------
qertoip
Unintended side effect could be drivers using their connected smartphone which
is far more dangerous.

This is already the case with Mazda's touch-disabled-while-driving screens.

Not sure at all about the net effect on safety.

~~~
izacus
Why would you use a connected smartphone for HVAC controls and switching
songs? The controls on steering wheel and near gear shifter are way more
convenient.

~~~
msh
changing to a different album would be easier to a touchscreen.

~~~
izacus
What are you basing that on? It's pretty easy using Android Auto or Mazda CMU
using the rotary controller. Easier than grabbing the phone while driving.

~~~
msh
I have not tried on a mazda but on other cars I have found the rotary
controllers very cumbersome.

------
ed312
Is there a good site or db that let's your compare cars without or with
minimal LCD screens? I vastly prefer analog gagues and minimal b/w digital
displaces for things like radio.

------
jaimex2
Interesting strategy at Mazda. No plans for electric vehicles and no more
touch screens. Brilliant or insane plan I'm not sure, it might make a nice
niche for them.

------
unbryan
Yay, I guess. Mine's touchscreen and rarely think to poke at it. Also it
doesn't respond to poking if the car is moving. The console controls are
terrific.

------
caligarn
When is someone going to come up with a tactile touchscreen, with buttons that
indent or protrude out of a flat touchscreen, depending on audio or tactile
usage.

------
numlock86
From a consumer perspective as someone driving the new released Mazda 3 2019
(the one in the article) and previously owning a VW Tiguan with touchscreen in
the center, I can say I am super happy with that decision, both from a
practical standpoint (cleaning/wiping, yuck ...) and from a functional
standpoint: It's just so much easier and less distracting to use the center
dial. It takes a bit longer in some cases (navigating Android Auto for
example) but it's worth it. And most things can be handled by 'OK Google'
these days anyways.

------
rado
Common sense is back.

~~~
jaclaz
Hopefully, but not all over, only in spots.

------
segmondy
I don't know that we can praise this. I think a hybrid approach is nice. I've
had a vehicle that had a hybrid approach and that was nice.

------
m463
I've owned two mazdas and they had the best dashboards and controls compared
to all my other vehicles.

Meanwhile Tesla... innovative, but not very driver-centric.

------
jclardy
Makes sense for Mazda - they already disable the touchscreen while the car is
in motion, so might as well save a few bucks and get rid of it entirely.

------
sizzle
I thought the touch screen was disabled at any speed above being stationary? I
don't see why they removed it if it was only usable at standstill?

------
jmalkin
Concerned about his this will impact their sales. We are easily seduced by
pretty screens, and overestimate our driving ability with gadgets on hand

------
underdeserver
Thank you!

Touch screens require you to look at them to use them. Physical knobs and
buttons do not. You're supposed to look at the road, not at a touchscreen.

------
filoleg
This whole thing honestly reminds of the pushback against touch-screen only
smartphones, along with the infamous "mixing the input and output on the same
surface" quote (I cannot recall the exact quote, but my bastardized version
provides a pretty good gist of it). People will scream, people will kick, but
it will eventually happen.

sidenote: I was initially in the "bring the keyboards on smartphones back"
camp as well, but given how well it all worked out 10 years later, I foresee
the same happening with touchscreens in cars.

~~~
m52go
They are completely different situations. People are intently focused on their
smartphones, whereas they're distracted when using car controls.

~~~
filoleg
Oh, I realize that, not trying to draw a direct analogy. Just expressing my
feeling that the whole debate over touch screens in cars will end up the same
way.

------
hokus
There is this joke where you greet someone on the street by raising your hand
to them in front of your face so that they cant see who you are.

------
plaidfuji
Lack of touchscreen won’t be the reason I buy a Mazda, but over-use of
touchscreen is one of the top reasons I won’t even consider a Tesla.

------
sn41
Great move. Enough of frozen screens and unresponsive interfaces right in the
middle of driving. Who ever thought this was a good idea?

------
rkagerer
This is a great sign. I was worried when it came time to buy my next vehicle
I'd have trouble finding something with real knobs.

------
bitcuration
Blame Tesla. Overnight, Tesla has redefined user interface in automobile
industry, all are racing to adopt Tesla's philosophy.

------
swalsh
My ideal state would be Alexa for the driver, and a touch screen for my
"copilots" (one in front-seat, one in backseat)

------
jwhiz22
Sensible decision to take based on their research. As a Mazda3 2018 owner, I
find the control knob way more enjoyable to use.

------
kristianp
The description of the jog controls sound a lot like those in my 2006 Honda.

The description of the torque "“Doing our research, when a driver would reach
towards a touch-screen interface in any vehicle, they would unintentionally
apply torque to the steering wheel, and the vehicle would drift out of its
lane position,", doesn't make any sense. I doesn't matter whether you reach
for a touchscreen, button, or bugle, it would produce the same effect.

~~~
marapuru
I can imagine it's the combination of looking at the touch screen and reaching
out.

A button can be reached with sense of touch alone. A touch screen must be
looked (or at least glanced) at.

------
bluishgreen
If you don’t have a touch screens users will still continue to fiddle but with
an even tinier more dangerous phone screen.

------
remote_phone
I just bought a Model 3. There are a lot of great features but I simply hate
the touchscreen display. I can’t reliably change the AC, etc without
distractingly taking my eyes off the road. I hate it. My other cars I just
reach for knobs or buttons but having to find the stupid parts of the
touchscreen are really dumb and a terrible design. If the next version doesn’t
have a better interface with more knobs and buttons I won’t be buying another
one.

~~~
robbyt
Thats frustrating. Not trying to be snarky, but did you notice this while test
driving?

------
learnstats2
I miss being able to touch-text. Easy with buttons, impossible on a touch-
screen which gives you no feedback.

------
lowlevel
This brought a smile to my face. I've hated them since they first showed up.
Kudo's Mazada. Kudos.

------
Lewton
Whatever happened to all the companies working on providing tactile feedback
on touchscreens many years ago?

------
arthurfm
Couldn't Mazda have simply disabled the touchscreen controls when the car
reaches a certain speed?

~~~
SomeOldThrow
It’s better to have one interface than two.

------
randiantech
Definitely makes sense for me. With physical buttons i can keep watching at
the road all time. kudos.

------
the_mitsuhiko
Does carplay support non touch usage?

~~~
batbomb
I have a 2017 GTI and it has a dial you can use to cycle through things but
it’s not ideal. Certain things are useless though, like the keyboard for maps,
but you can use voice control there.

I do like the VW implementation. There’s still lots of buttons and steering
wheel control, and the screen is small enough and UI actions defined enough
that I don’t have to look at the screen much to interact.

------
ddingus
I almost always turn the systems off.

Great call by Mazda. Maybe a newer car purchase will make sense again.

------
numlock86
This was actually one of the many selling points to get one of these. No
regrets so far.

------
lucas_membrane
Is the outcome of this going to be voice-activated everything (down to the
cup-holders)?

------
cloudking
Mercedes solves this with non-touch screens with physical controls within
natural reach

------
CelestialTeapot
Good! They may make the interior look cleaner and save the manufacturer having
to stock various small parts and not having to install buttons and dials
depending on the trim level, but from a safety perspective tactile feedback is
key to minimizing distractions while driving, and touchscreens just don't have
that.

------
zaroth
The real reason Mazda is purging touchscreens from their vehicles is because
their screens are terrible, laggy, hard to use junk and they have no way to
fix it because they lack the vertical integration and expertise to bring it in
house.

I would guess this is a technical failure wrapped in PR messaging.

~~~
FraaJad
eh.. I had a 2016 mazda that I replaced with a 2015 lexus. The mazda's rotary
knob based interface is soo much better than the the "mouse" based lexus one.

My mazda had the touchscreen, but I hardly ever used it.

~~~
zaroth
I’m personally glad to see Mazda ceding the high ground on this. IMO they are
like RIM sticking to physical keyboards in an new Apple world.

There’s absolutely no question that _almost_ everyone fails badly at in-car
touch screens. Perhaps it’s due to the myriad poor quality past
implementations that many people seem to be in denial of their obvious and
incredible benefits for _many_ tasks.

~~~
Fins
One thing people tend to miss is that all of those "obvious and incredible"
benefits of touchscreens are applicable or should ever be applied top
operating a moving vehicle.

And if there is somebody who does NOT fail at this, I'd like to meet them.
They probably have a working perpetual motion engine, too.

------
gravy
Is it touchscreens that are distracting or screens in general?

------
totalrobe
Now if they would bring that HUD to some of the lower trims..

------
bitxbit
I remember when BMW didn’t want to put in cup holders.

------
modzu
this is actually the reason i didnt get a tesla! 800 comments in this thread
and maybe im not alone. hopefully things change for the better.

------
0xADADA
This is a PR piece promoting Mazdas new technology.

------
santafe
Cool that i'm working on one right now. :S

------
pulsarflash
touch screens requires diverting your eyes from the road than reaching over to
a dial or button. it's extremely dangerous

------
Gelob
Those dials in BMWs are from the fucking devil

------
techer
Please remove them from the back of the headrests on long plane trips. Being
stabbed in the head repeatedly is trying.

------
loxs
OK, time to buy a Mazda

------
Daddy_Rob
why not just add lane assist like every other company?

------
evidencepi
Looks like a bmw!

------
Keverw
Neat. I always wondered why it's legal to use a huge touch screen built into
your car but not your phone (Not like you should be texting and driving
anyways, just an example). I feel tactile knobs and stuff is better, like if
you need to turn up the AC just turn a knob while Tesla makes you fiddle with
your touch screen.... Maybe you start to remember where things are, but next
software update could change that.

I know on one of the Tesla models, you even need to use the touch screen to
open your glove box which seems odd. Then with all the news stories of police
shooting people on routine traffic stops, reach for the center to open your
glove box for your insurance card, who knows maybe you are reaching for a gun
in the center console. It's just out of the norm since most people glove boxes
just open up with an actual handle. Even though their computer always knows if
you had insurance or not even before being stopped, just another way for the
city to make revenue if you forgot your paper. But maybe I'm listening to the
media too much but it wouldn't surprise me if some innocent person was
murdered just because they decided to drive something different and slightly
more technical while making a slightly wider turn than a cop thought they
should of made.

There's a video on YouTube of a guy being stopped in a Tesla because the
officer thought the touch screen was a modification instead of being built as
part of the car... but after a little back and forth and laughs then realizes
it's part of the car and leaves without any further info as a good cop should.
while some others might feel bad and still try to find something wrong instead
of accepting they were wrong.

Maybe in a popular tech-filled San Francisco cops see Tesla's every day but in
small towns in like the midwest, they are rare and fancy. Then some places
there isn't an official place to even get serviced, but the same could be said
about Lamborghinis. I forget who but I was watching some internet marketer guy
from some small town in Maine talk about owning a Lamborghini. Apparently
every time you stop somewhere even at a traffic light people want to talk to
you and get pictures. Even said people would drive and take photos which made
him nervous since that's unsafe but people would chase him to get pictures. A
BMW i8 would make a interesting super car since already the large BMW network
of service centers at dealerships, but if you are the only one in a small town
probably will attract people attention too. So I guess you can feel like a
celebrity for a bit.

Then in New Jersey, they have DMV checkpoints during the morning commute
looking for missing emissions inspection stickers waving people into a empty
parking lot, while the Tesla is 100% electric and exempt but doesn't mean a
cop will detain you for 15 minutes giving you a hard time and make you late
for work because no one told him. But the same can be said about no front
plates, 19 states don't require them (and July 2020 that will be 20 states as
Ohio passed a law getting rid of front plates as a effort to save money but
delayed it by a year from being in effect so law enforcement can figure out
how to deal with no front plates. I'm not sure why they can't just call up the
highway patrol from Kentucky, Tennessee or Florida and ask them since they
have years of experience with no front plates and already figured it out.) but
there's stories of people on road trips being hassled. Someone went on a road
trip from Florida to San Francisco and got a parking ticket for no front
plate... Might of been a meter maid though instead of a cop though. Well at
least it's winnable but so annoying people paid to enforce the law are so
uninformed.

------
sonnyblarney
I rent cars often, so I see these systems with fresh eyes and I'm basically
shocked at the complexity of it all.

I tremble a little bit when I want to play something with my iphone, nervously
moving through the screens.

I think a couple of knobs, a few buttons, and a very simple screen, hopefully
HUD of some reasonable kind - or even info displayed behind the wheel would be
suitable.

I always wonder how many accidents all that technology causes.

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sureaboutthis
One thing that really bothers me about the screens in cars nowadays is that,
to me, they always look like an iPad that was just screwed into the dashboard
at the last minute as an afterthought to look high tech. In the high end Tesla
that I drove a few years ago, it was molded into the center console and had
the look and feel of forethought and intent.

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g00s3_caLL_x2
One of the major drawbacks of touchscreens is the amount of controls that are
being integrated with them. Most folks mash the screens harder than they need
to, and they wear out too fast. Once the screen it kaput, half you car is
useless. I can deal with rolling the windows down, but taking my tunes
away...no bueno.

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markmm
This is like Nokia sticking to keyboard in their phones. Worst decision ever
made. Their interface will be out of date 5 mins after its made with no way of
updating

