People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars — For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, wit…::People are dissatisfied with the technology in their cars, according to a new survey from JD Power. They especially don’t like the native infotainment systems.
Some proposed design principles:
I would pay more to get a car with more buttons than you can comprehend and a small little infotainment system that allows you to play music than a super futuristic car with a iPad in the center and nothing else in the center console area.
physical buttons for the important stuff; stuff like setting interior RBG lighting color and intensity? that can go on soft buttons.
If a feature can go on soft buttons, it can stay at the fucking factory.
For real if I wanted RGB footwell lighting I would install it myself. And I did, in my first beater car, as a dumb teenager does. I thought it looked pretty cool.
But now as a grown man I want a car to start every time, go fast when I step on the pedal, and have AC like a refrigerator. If it’s a truck I want it to pull heavy trailers and not get stuck in mud and THAT’S IT.
Currently driving a 2008 Crown Vic and a 1978 F350 on propane, both of which do exactly what I want.
EQ for the sound system?
My 2004 Honda accord had a good EQ, and it was all controlled with 2 buttons and the radio tuning dial to adjust the levels.
There is no need for a touchscreen in a vehicle. A small screen for displaying information is one thing, but I should not be compelled to play with what amounts to an iPad when I’m driving a car.
If the sound system is why the touchscreen is in the car, the sound system can stay at the factory.
Adjusting mirrors and seats can go on the touch screen as you do that before the drive and I don’t think those can stay at the factory.
Sometimes I have to readjust the mirrors during a trip depending on how I sit.
No thanks, mirrors and seats are too important for the touch screen and sometimes need to be adjusted while driving, as you adjust your sitting position.
And really, I don’t want to spend an extra 10 seconds (if you know the car) or 2 minutes (if it’s someone else’s) to get the seat and mirrors adjusted beofre a drive. I want to get in the car, adjust things quickly, and go.
How are you people moving in your seat this much? I never had to adjust anything but the rear view mirror and that is manual anyway.
My posture is completely different in the city, where I am constantly leaning forward and looking over shoulders to clear blind spots, and my foot is regularly on brake and accelerator. Contrast on the highway, where my head and body are mostly still, and my feet are flat on the floor while using cruise control. Since I’m not moving around as much, I regularly move the seat slightly to reduce pressure points.
Similar with the mirrors: For city driving, I want my mirrors a little lower and narrower to see parking spots while backing. For freeway, a little higher and wider gives better visibility of the blind spots without needing to move around as much. For towing, I want them even lower when backing, and even higher and wider on the freeway to clear blind spots.
Yeah, I might go more than a month without touching either the seats or the mirrors at all. But, I might also be adjusting both a dozen times in a single trip.
We share it with other people. I, personally, would just ban short people, but they do exist and they love to move the seat away from my sweet spot.
If I had to use the touchscreen to fix it every time, I’d just leave it in a ditch and set it on fire.
I’ve adjusted mine twice in the last month alone because I needed to fold down the rear seats. But also sometimes you borrow your car to someone who doesn’t have a memory setting. Or your car doesn’t have memory seats and has multiple users.
If I have to use a touchscreen to adjust my seat once a month, that’s 11 times a year too much for me. Buttons? Fine. Levers and wheels like in old cars? Also fine.
Um yeah, you do that before you start driving. All the situations you mentioned don’t necessitate adjusting the mirrors while you are driving.
Or are you one of those people who complain about distracted driving due to touch screens, but then drive off with completely maladjusted mirrors? Bro…
Adjusting mirrors and seats can go on the touch screen as you do that before the drive and I don’t think those can stay at the factory.
I think it’s hilarious the people waxing poetic about how dangerous it is to use touch screens while driving are downvoting you because they’re adjusting mirrors while driving.
Mazda. They’ve brought back physical buttons and have support for CarPlay if you want it.
I’ve also heard they are decent cars, at this point I’ll just keep driving what I’ve got and hope that in a couple years, more manufacturers will return to making most things controllable by physical buttons.
Get a 2004-2009 car, yank the stereo out and throw an aftermarket headunit with android/carplay in. Best of both worlds!
Ugh one of our cars needs a new head unit, as its mid-2000s aftermarket unit has gone bad. But I can only get the dang thing halfway out. I can’t even get to seeing the wires in the back. No idea how it was put in, but it seems the wires are too short, maybe I have to remove the whole dashboard front thing?
2010-2012 will work as well if no tech package. My 2010 Lexus RX350 has no touchscreen, but still has knobs and a backup camera on the back mirror. It’s wonderful.
No. 9 but for media volume, touch controls are garbage and gestures are even more garbage.
Looking at you, VAG.
A special place in hell is reserved for whoever the hell keeps putting capacitive buttons on cars, ESPECIALLY when they put them on the steering wheel!
Oh yeah those shitty VAG touch controls. Went to a customer with my employee in summer. When returning home we opened the sunroof to cool the car down quickly. Couldn’t close that mf for 10kms on the autobahn until everything cooled down. Absolutely horrible.
Wouldn’t AC cool it down quicker? And more efficiently at autobahn speeds anyway, drag is worse than running AC at speed.
I don’t disagree with you on the horribleness of the controls though. Worst part is, MB has gone the same route. I’ve got the last generation with physical HVAC buttons. I have no idea what my next car will be, but apparently Mercedes doesn’t want me to buy their cars anymore. Mazda has come out as anti-touchscreen, which I admire, but it’s going to be a hell of an adjustment in terms of suspension and drivetrain comfort.
The plan was to let the heat out for a couple of seconds until the ac was cooled down 😉
Had a Mazda in the past and driving a Honda now. The Japanese cars are often conservative and not as fancy as the European ones but usually they just work in my experience. They are often cheaper and maintenance is also cheaper. My 320HP Civic Type-R has the same maintenance costs then our Fiat Tipo with 120HP. Performance wise it was comparable to a A45 AMG which cost twice as much with maintenance costs about 2-3x of the Honda.
Mazda may be a smaller car brand but their combustion engines are often very innovative.
I mostly drive slightly bigger cars. So while I’m fairly sure the Japanese will beat the A-class in just about every metric, but they don’t really have a good answer for C-class and above - outside of maybe Lexus, but a 3 year old Lexus is way more expensive than a 3 year old Mercedes. I buy my cars after a few years of depreciation, so I actually like the fact that German cars depreciate a lot in their first few years. But then Lexus doesn’t really have good diesel engines like the Germans do, so fuel consumption differences alone will add up a lot.
To be clear, I don’t really need or want any of the fancy features (aside from Carplay, which is starting to be ubiquitous), but just the suspension setup alone between a C-class and a Toyota Camry is vastly different. The 9 speed auto box is also excellent, to the point that I don’t even feel like I’m driving a tiny 2 liter diesel with only 190HP.
Thankfully, all cars I’ve driven that had a touch screen also had some media buttons on the steering wheel. I’d prefer to have good old physical buttons in the center console, but at least you didn’t have to use the touch screen.
Buttons on the wheel are better than a touchscreen, but they suffer from being all backwards sometimes, as you use the wheel for it’s intended purpose. The old Peugeots had this thing behind the wheel, you can controll the radio with, using just 2 fingers, without looking. It’s the peak user experience. Nothing will ever beat it. I feel a suden urge to buy a beer for whoever came up with it.
https://www.cartronics.co.uk/media/Peugeot-207-Double-Din-Radio-Upgrade/Peugeot-207-Steering-Wheel-Controls.jpg
French cars regularly had sometimes strange looking but often quite useful quirks.
…who tf…which car maker has gestures? If you’re gonna gesture how about you gesture your damn hand over to the button?
I think mostly VAG (VW-owned brands) and BMW, maybe Mercedes as well. VAG uses them to sense your hand approaching the touchscreen to hide additional items “when you don’t need them”, BMW uses full-on hand waving to navigate menus.
Dont worry.
They will make it all voice controlled in the future!
"Alexa, take me Starbucks and play latest episode of “Ow, My Balls”.
Why 10? It’s not like you do that while driving.
Thing is every knob saved saves time and money during manufacturing. So the companies want to put as much as they can on the touch screen. I don’t mind if they do that with things I do before driving, I mind a lot if it’s something I have to do during the drive.
Yeah they do it to save money, and then charge you out the ass for “oOh LoOk ItS tHe FuTuRe”
Well prices should come down once competition from the Chinese manufacturers picks up. Hopefully at least.
In China you can get a VW ID.3 for 15000€ and a Tesla model 3 for 30.000€.
In China, you can get a VW ID.3 manufactured by a state-owned and subsidized company in China. The same is true for the Tesla Model 3.
Basically, the Chinese government is subsidizing electric car (and battery) production (and enforcing domestic protectionist policies) so of course the same version of the car is cheaper in China. The US goes with a different approach, by providing tax write-offs to people who purchase electric cars which is vastly less efficient (and more expensive to US taxpayers).
China hasn’t subsidized the EV industry in years. Don’t believe everything you hear from your 60 year old neighbour.
The fact is batteries have come down in price so much that that price of the car is absolutely economically viable. They are just milking us for all we are worth in the west.
Why 10? It’s not like you do that while driving.
Thing is every knob saved saves time and money during manufacturing. So the companies want to put as much as they can on the touch screen. I don’t mind if they do that with things I do before driving, I mind a lot if it’s something I have to do during the drive.
Fuck cars
Your kink is not my kink, but your kink is okay.
Gotta get the cussy.
Agree… but I live in America… so there’s basically no reasonable alternative
Yeah, I hear you. I wish I had better bike infrastructure and a decent rail system in my city.
Bitch I biked across this fucking continent. You have choices. Your fucking lazy.
Oh, for those carefree days. But someday if you have a house and a family to support, you’ll quickly find the difference between being lazy and being exhausted by your responsibilities.
I would love to take a month off and bike across the continent. That sounds incredibly lazy to me.
No shit, I barely have time to ride my bike around the neighborhood after work before making dinner, let alone for a month at a time.
That’s not the point, high-speed. You have options. Your legs work fine.
yeah no one ever bikes anywhere ever and its all just grown men in spandex out for a joy ride.
Yes, a month to bike across the county was awesome! I’m sure you’re just the fittest little tiger ever and doing 80 miles a day is easy-peasy!
Bitch I work in the trades.
You want me strap a condenser, furnace, A coil, 50 feet of line set, and 100 pounds of tools and supplies to a bicycle, and then tell my customers I can only see 2 of them a day because I’m gonna bike from each house and back to the shop for each call?
Sounds like a letter U problem.
Sometimes people don’t want to bike 2h each day to get to work and back, especially if you live in the desert…
Here’s an idea: don’t live in a desert.