Touchscreen only is a terrible idea. I think it's fine if you have play, pause, volume and mute buttons and have to use the touchscreen to enter your Spotify login details.
Its understandably more expensive for the car companies - they have to make the machine that makes the parts for a retro dash, then install them - but fuck the car companies, this is about safety and ease of use.
Having repaired some of the knobs on my dash, I assure you, they are less expensive than a TV. The AC knob is like 2 pieces of plastic and some bike brake style tension cables that hook to a leuvre somewhere inside. A touch screen is going to be a tabled screen and a motor on that leuvre etc.
I remember years ago seeing a video about a company that was supposably developing tactile touchscreens. There was a layer underneath the LCD layer that could be puffed out with some kind of fluid to form bumps where the buttons were shown. Nothing has come of this, unsurprisingly.
It really only makes sense for the map. I have a 2020 and it has the touchscreen but besides the map which you touch once before you start driving, everything else, AC, speaker volume is a simple knob.
Unrelated, but my elderly uncle drove a minivan with an automatic transmission that he drove like it was a manual. He would start from every stop by putting the shifter into "1" and then "2" and then "D" and then back to "N" when he stopped. He was a former Navy pilot (A-1 Skyraiders) and I guess he just couldn't accept the loss of control that goes with an automatic. It doesn't seem like this could possibly have been good for the transmission, but I dunno.
there was a wife of a billionaire who drowned by accidentally driving a tesla into a pond on her estate, because of the touchscreen gearshifting problem. I'll try and look up a source of anyone wants it
In case you don't yet know, touchscreens are mostly cost saving measures. They're incredibly cheaper than physical controls, and so every company wants them.
There's also quite a bit of reliable data on touchscreens negatively impacting drivers' performance, as well as substantially increasing the likelihood of crashes. Which only the EU and China seem to care about.
Welcome to 2026, where China actually looks at academic research, and introduces safety laws, while the US disregards anything but billionaires' profits.
In my opinion, touchscreens in cars are very cool, but only for navigation and minor features such as radio or ambient lighting controls. I know a lot of people might crucify me for calling radio a minor feature, but it's not critical for the driver's ability to drive safely.
Yep. You can memorize where knobs and physical buttons are, because its a field of tactile feedback that you can navigate by pure touch, and once you are familiar with it, without even having to think about it.
but a touch screen? Theres no tactile feedback, no nothing. Every time you have to do anything, you have to take your eyes off the road to read screens and navigate menus.
Honestly, I wish they'd make touchscreen interfaces illegal for everything but privately owned tablets/phones. It has no business being the way a driver interacts with a car, or a customer interacts with a store, or anything else.
Just to add to what others are saying, I live in canada, where we have to drive with gloves. All meaningful controls need to be chunky physical features.
I wish I didn't have to look at or touch my phone for navigation. No clue why, with modern tech, I can't communicate with my phone verbally star trek style to ask questions about upcoming turns, alternate routes, adding stops, etc.
Good solutions are actually possible (and available!), but for some reason almost no car companies adopt them. Or they do for a single model, never to touch it again.
I know at least one model of Skoda Fabia has a feature, where you can connect your phone (via cable or bluetooth), and it'll take the phone's Google maps and display them on the car's bigger screen.
Not a perfect solution, but infinitely better than just using a phone or the car's most likely outdated navigation. Entirely possible, but very rare.
My previous employer upgraded everyone's work phones early this year. Some sort of MOTO phone. Im dispatched, this phone is given to me for navigation. This thing was so overloaded with ads that I couldn't use Google maps for a single trip without giant full screen ads popping up for some MOTO shit. It's the actual phone manufacturer shoving ads up while a navigation app has the screen forced on.
I'm no phone dev, but there's no way the phone manufacturer who modifies the boot image and packs 20 uninstallable apps DOESNT know when the phone is being used for navigation. I would say the opposite, I bet android makes it very clear why the screen is stuck on. And the phone manufacturer says hey let's advertise right now, it's the perfect time.
How many deaths can be directly tied to this advertising campaign. Like so wildly directly, I'm not sure how advertising can more directly and immediately cause death like this. There's a MOTO dev somewhere that should be looking at hard time
It's generally much cheaper to produce a tablet than it is to produce 30 physical buttons and knobs. Fewer wires are required too, and the same setup may be easily reused across many models.
If Elon decreed that the Tesla iPad would now also give the driver, say, a prediction market gambling feature or X-rated AI chatbot or something, there’s nothing any government would do to stop him*, because after all he is a visionary genius and was a trillionaire and you can’t argue with the invisible hand of the free market.
* the US and UK would wave it through, because you can’t hold up the inevitability of the future. The EU would grumble, though might fold under the threat of tariffs.
Hence why I bought a car with, according to all the reviewers, a "dated interior". Just what I wanted: lots of buttons and knobs! There is an 'infotainment' touch screen, but I can ignore that.
You shouldn't be changing the navigation settings while driving. If your navigation settings were on your phone it would obviously be illegal, and just because it's in a separate device (no matter the sort) that doesn't make it acceptable.
I participated in a driving simulation a while back. It was a real vehicle that had full motion, but was on hydraulic struts instead of wheels.
They were testing how phone usage affected people.
It’s texting that’s the problem. I murdered a few jaywalkers only while interacting with creating words. Not when on speaker phone and not when just looking at the phone.
Touchscreens aren’t really that bad when designed well.
It's not just texting - I looked at the console to see what song was playing and then rear-ended the car in front of me that had stopped suddenly.
.
Anything that distracts from actually paying attention to driving is a problem.
61 Comments
radiofreebc@lemmy.world · 145 pts · 27d
Touchscreens in cars are a really stupid idea.
zurohki@aussie.zone · 46 pts · 27d
Touchscreen only is a terrible idea. I think it's fine if you have play, pause, volume and mute buttons and have to use the touchscreen to enter your Spotify login details.
cecinestpasunecommunication@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 27d
What if we got around login details or just used some sort of audio input?
Kimjongtooill@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 27d
Let's not give them ideas....
saltesc@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 27d
I hate mine.
hperrin@lemmy.ca · 86 pts · 27d
Don’t forget, in a Tesla, you even need to use the iPad to adjust where the AC vents are pointing!
troybot@piefed.social · 40 pts · 27d
That's hilarious but I don't know if you're joking
AlecSadler@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 35 pts · 27d
Not a joke.
cecinestpasunecommunication@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 27d
Yeah but it's not untrue.
slaacaa@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 27d
Also needed to open the glove compartment. Not joking.
xylol@leminal.space · 17 pts · 27d
And to put the car in drive or reverse
Eheran@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 27d
Bwahahahaha
julianwgs@discuss.tchncs.de · 7 pts · 27d
There is always the option to not buy a Tesla
Michal@programming.dev · 6 pts · 27d
But you don't have choice what other people are driving around you.
Karjalan@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 27d
These to a fucking tea. And cause it's a flat touch screen you can't even feel your way around to the correct settings while looking at the road.
I'll happily have no screen and old analog controls, and yes, I realise I sound like an old man yelling at clouds.
joshcodes@programming.dev · 17 pts · 27d
Its understandably more expensive for the car companies - they have to make the machine that makes the parts for a retro dash, then install them - but fuck the car companies, this is about safety and ease of use.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 8 pts · 27d
Having repaired some of the knobs on my dash, I assure you, they are less expensive than a TV. The AC knob is like 2 pieces of plastic and some bike brake style tension cables that hook to a leuvre somewhere inside. A touch screen is going to be a tabled screen and a motor on that leuvre etc.
Granted, I have a cheap little car.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 27d
I remember years ago seeing a video about a company that was supposably developing tactile touchscreens. There was a layer underneath the LCD layer that could be puffed out with some kind of fluid to form bumps where the buttons were shown. Nothing has come of this, unsurprisingly.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 27d
It really only makes sense for the map. I have a 2020 and it has the touchscreen but besides the map which you touch once before you start driving, everything else, AC, speaker volume is a simple knob.
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de · 46 pts · 27d
It's even funnier when you need to reboot the car while driving, because the browser crashed and the interface became unresponsive
cecinestpasunecommunication@lemmy.dbzer0.com · -2 pts · 27d
Sorry some of us grew up on science fiction, and want life to be cool. I bet you hare the fart feature too.
Almacca@aussie.zone · 36 pts · 27d
On some Teslas, even the gear selection is done through the touchscreen. Fucking awful design.
victorz@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 27d
No. Way.
How is that legal?
Oh wait, it's not a manual of course...
halcyoncmdr@piefed.social · 14 pts · 27d
It's a modern EV... It doesn't even have a transmission.
All you're picking is Park, Drive, Neutral, or Reverse.
victorz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 27d
Yeah, I was tired when posting lol, it's the same on my own EV 😄 (not the gear on screen part)
zurohki@aussie.zone · 11 pts · 27d
Yeah, you aren't changing gears while driving, you're switching between forward and backward, so you're already stationary.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 27d
Unrelated, but my elderly uncle drove a minivan with an automatic transmission that he drove like it was a manual. He would start from every stop by putting the shifter into "1" and then "2" and then "D" and then back to "N" when he stopped. He was a former Navy pilot (A-1 Skyraiders) and I guess he just couldn't accept the loss of control that goes with an automatic. It doesn't seem like this could possibly have been good for the transmission, but I dunno.
victorz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
Just like on my own EV car with a knob for backwards and forwards (and neutral) 😆 I was tired when posting that comment lol
tyranny@crazypeople.online · 6 pts · 27d
there was a wife of a billionaire who drowned by accidentally driving a tesla into a pond on her estate, because of the touchscreen gearshifting problem. I'll try and look up a source of anyone wants it
mmcintyre@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 27d
Was that Mitch McConnell 's sister in law?
tyranny@crazypeople.online · 1 pts · 27d
the very same! Angela Chao
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 27d
In case you don't yet know, touchscreens are mostly cost saving measures. They're incredibly cheaper than physical controls, and so every company wants them.
There's also quite a bit of reliable data on touchscreens negatively impacting drivers' performance, as well as substantially increasing the likelihood of crashes. Which only the EU and China seem to care about.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198226000382
Welcome to 2026, where China actually looks at academic research, and introduces safety laws, while the US disregards anything but billionaires' profits.
In my opinion, touchscreens in cars are very cool, but only for navigation and minor features such as radio or ambient lighting controls. I know a lot of people might crucify me for calling radio a minor feature, but it's not critical for the driver's ability to drive safely.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 27d
Yep. You can memorize where knobs and physical buttons are, because its a field of tactile feedback that you can navigate by pure touch, and once you are familiar with it, without even having to think about it.
but a touch screen? Theres no tactile feedback, no nothing. Every time you have to do anything, you have to take your eyes off the road to read screens and navigate menus.
Honestly, I wish they'd make touchscreen interfaces illegal for everything but privately owned tablets/phones. It has no business being the way a driver interacts with a car, or a customer interacts with a store, or anything else.
Krudler@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 27d
Just to add to what others are saying, I live in canada, where we have to drive with gloves. All meaningful controls need to be chunky physical features.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 27d
Doesn't that basically mean you can't fully drive a car like Tesla? lol
Krudler@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
Any vehicle that cannot be controlled while wearing gloves is grotesquely inconvenient in Canada.
forbiddencherry@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 27d
I wish I didn't have to look at or touch my phone for navigation. No clue why, with modern tech, I can't communicate with my phone verbally star trek style to ask questions about upcoming turns, alternate routes, adding stops, etc.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
Good solutions are actually possible (and available!), but for some reason almost no car companies adopt them. Or they do for a single model, never to touch it again.
I know at least one model of Skoda Fabia has a feature, where you can connect your phone (via cable or bluetooth), and it'll take the phone's Google maps and display them on the car's bigger screen.
Not a perfect solution, but infinitely better than just using a phone or the car's most likely outdated navigation. Entirely possible, but very rare.
Winning@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 26d
My previous employer upgraded everyone's work phones early this year. Some sort of MOTO phone. Im dispatched, this phone is given to me for navigation. This thing was so overloaded with ads that I couldn't use Google maps for a single trip without giant full screen ads popping up for some MOTO shit. It's the actual phone manufacturer shoving ads up while a navigation app has the screen forced on.
I'm no phone dev, but there's no way the phone manufacturer who modifies the boot image and packs 20 uninstallable apps DOESNT know when the phone is being used for navigation. I would say the opposite, I bet android makes it very clear why the screen is stuck on. And the phone manufacturer says hey let's advertise right now, it's the perfect time.
How many deaths can be directly tied to this advertising campaign. Like so wildly directly, I'm not sure how advertising can more directly and immediately cause death like this. There's a MOTO dev somewhere that should be looking at hard time
Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 27d
Wait, how come touchscreens are cheaper than buttons?
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 27d
It's generally much cheaper to produce a tablet than it is to produce 30 physical buttons and knobs. Fewer wires are required too, and the same setup may be easily reused across many models.
https://www.bimmer-mag.com/touchscreen-vs-buttons/#Cost-Saving_Measures
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space · 18 pts · 27d
If Elon decreed that the Tesla iPad would now also give the driver, say, a prediction market gambling feature or X-rated AI chatbot or something, there’s nothing any government would do to stop him*, because after all he is a visionary genius and was a trillionaire and you can’t argue with the invisible hand of the free market.
* the US and UK would wave it through, because you can’t hold up the inevitability of the future. The EU would grumble, though might fold under the threat of tariffs.
tyranny@crazypeople.online · 2 pts · 27d
so true bestie
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 27d
My favorite thing is the cop cars that have an actual fucking laptop set up next to the driver. Nothing distracting about that, no sir.
UncleArthur@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 27d
Hence why I bought a car with, according to all the reviewers, a "dated interior". Just what I wanted: lots of buttons and knobs! There is an 'infotainment' touch screen, but I can ignore that.
Strider@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 27d
Depending on your country, it might also make you liable. Not every judiciary system is like that.
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
In the UK that would be a distracted driving charge.
Which is a hefty 6 penalty points, half way to getting disqualified from driving.
Smokeless7048@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 27d
One of the things which attracted me to the Chevy Equinox I bought: it has the basic climate controls as buttons:
Heat, fan, temp, Ac, everything but heated seats
Tenderizer@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 23d
You shouldn't be changing the navigation settings while driving. If your navigation settings were on your phone it would obviously be illegal, and just because it's in a separate device (no matter the sort) that doesn't make it acceptable.
As for the AC, it's a bit more complicated.
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 24d
I have a touch screen in my car, but pretty much all the functions can be accessed by buttons in the center console or steering wheel.
HuePony@lemmy.ml · -3 pts · 27d
Voice control should be only option. Physical buttons of radio and etc are same distraction
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 27d
Physical buttons can be mapped using touch
Brkdncr@lemmy.world · -15 pts · 27d
I participated in a driving simulation a while back. It was a real vehicle that had full motion, but was on hydraulic struts instead of wheels.
They were testing how phone usage affected people.
It’s texting that’s the problem. I murdered a few jaywalkers only while interacting with creating words. Not when on speaker phone and not when just looking at the phone.
Touchscreens aren’t really that bad when designed well.
farting_gorilla@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 27d
It's not just texting - I looked at the console to see what song was playing and then rear-ended the car in front of me that had stopped suddenly.
.
Anything that distracts from actually paying attention to driving is a problem.
Brkdncr@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 27d
That’s not new, looking at the radio has been a thing since the 80’s.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 7 pts · 27d
Yes yes, the three numbers on the dial.
Brkdncr@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
The 80’s were when digital radios came out. Quite annoying. I’m sure there was the same complaints then as now.
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net · 14 pts · 27d
Even if having to interact with a big touch screen while driving were truly safe, I don't want to have to deal with that when I'm driving.
shweddy@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 27d
I call bullshit because you can't adjust the ac or radio without taking your eyes off the road
sexhaver87@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 27d
shweddy@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 27d
No but I find it difficult to focus on the road and on a giant iPad at the same time @sexhaver87@sh.itjust.works
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 27d
Sir this a Lemmy.
We don't do actual real world anecdotes here. Just circlejerking around headlines and twitter posts.