Sick of touchscreens in cars? Maybe good news is coming.

[PaulMB]

Come to think of it, if "the legislators" can decide that in the public interest car engines have to have a minimum thermal efficiency and maximum emissions, why cannot they also legislate that a car cannot be wider than 180cm, longer than 480cm, weigh more than 1500 kg. and produce more than 200HP?

One answer might be that the legislators are taking orders from the car makers, and not vice-versa.

 

[Martian Sunrise]

The thing with automatic transmissions is, you don't 'use' them. They work all by themselves. Flawless. DSG is just a complicated way of making a 19'th century invention work as a 20'th century one already does beautifully and simply with planetary gears.
Nowadays in the quest for complexity they seem to do auto boxes with up to 10 gears. Ten! The last time I had an auto it was six speed in a BMW 335i, lots of fiddling up and down the gears without any obvious reason.
Best ever auto was Mercs four stage with a very low first gear that only was used in a rushed standing start.

This is nonsense.

If you can’t appreciate the difference between a t350 and a DSG, then I’m out…

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

The thing with automatic transmissions is, you don't 'use' them. They work all by themselves. Flawless.

Not flawless. I often catch mine out in the wrong gear for what I ask the car to do, and the move-off from standstill can be vague, which makes a brisk takeoff into a gap in traffic inadvisable. And long descents of steep hills usually gather more speed than I want because the ‘box holds on to too high a gear.

Just a few examples of my current car, which I like very much but the gearbox could be better.

 

[tiggers]

I reread my post. I never referenced anything about 'electric power steering'.

OK, but your post was responding to a post about electric steering and talked about steering feel... maybe you can just see where the confusion arose.

 

[tiggers]

The only thing that springs to mind is displaying maps. And that could/should be on any old "tablet" specifically for that purpose that is put away when not in use.

To you, the 21st century is just something that happened to other people isn't it?

 

[tiggers]

No
or maybe, Yes.

Oh - go on, please...

Cost, customisability, upgradeability, modularisation, diagnostics - a single cross platform data driven solution to the myriad of model specific buttons, controls and wiring looms. Put everything on a network bus and hot swapping of modules, retrofit upgrades, configurability, feature rental etc. becomes a different world of easy. It's what I'd be doing if I made vehicles... it will take time for the interfaces to be optimised and the balance found between standard controls and screens, but they're here to stay.

 

[tiggers]

This thread is quite amusing... several posters who think their idea of optimal vehicle design (which is about 25 years out of date) should be foisted upon everybody... just buy an old car if that's what you want... it's not like there aren't plenty out there... and leave the rest of the world to move on. Anyway I'm out as so often on pfm with threads about anything new there is no appetite for progress.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Plenty of appetite for progress, but also plenty of scepticism that new solutions actually and automatically represent progress. Many of the advantages you cite are advantages for the manufacturer, not the user. And if the manufacturers’ advantage is my disbenefit I will, as you suggest, buy something else. Indeed I did exactly that. Faced with a choice between current and last model of Volvo V60, I went with the older one, exactly because of the touchscreen thing.

 

[gintonic]

This thread is quite amusing... several posters who think their idea of optimal vehicle design (which is about 25 years out of date) should be foisted upon everybody... just buy an old car if that's what you want... it's not like there aren't plenty out there... and leave the rest of the world to move on. Anyway I'm out as so often on pfm with threads about anything new there is no appetite for progress.

excellent post. It was always better 25 years ago didn't you know,?

The PFM negativity gland is pulsating at full force in this thread

 

[Suffolk Tony]

Not flawless. I often catch mine out in the wrong gear for what I ask the car to do, and the move-off from standstill can be vague, which makes a brisk takeoff into a gap in traffic inadvisable. And long descents of steep hills usually gather more speed than I want because the ‘box holds on to too high a gear.

Just a few examples of my current car, which I like very much but the gearbox could be better.

I was thinking my gearbox is pretty flawless, couldn't think of an instance of it being caught out. Then I suddenly remembered - my car hasn't got a gearbox!

 

[Cav]

Not flawless. I often catch mine out in the wrong gear for what I ask the car to do, and the move-off from standstill can be vague, which makes a brisk takeoff into a gap in traffic inadvisable. And long descents of steep hills usually gather more speed than I want because the ‘box holds on to too high a gear.

Just a few examples of my current car, which I like very much but the gearbox could be better.

I have not driven many autos but the autobox could be operated manually so that one could select a lower gear if you wanted some engine breaking or hold a lower gear for maximum acceleration for example.

 

[Tony Lockhart]

"Anyway I'm out...”

 

[flatpopely]

Last car I had with a touchscreen.................I never used the touchscreen, always the iDrive and thankfully all daily controls had physical knobs or switches.

 

[matt j]

It would be alright if this "progress" wasn't just shit to use though. Maybe when competent voice commands come in we can bin off all this daft screen malarkey.

 

[pianoman]

Not flawless. I often catch mine out in the wrong gear for what I ask the car to do, and the move-off from standstill can be vague, which makes a brisk takeoff into a gap in traffic inadvisable. And long descents of steep hills usually gather more speed than I want because the ‘box holds on to too high a gear.

Just a few examples of my current car, which I like very much but the gearbox could be better.

Is that a DSG by any chance ?

 

[KrisW]

Well... I grew up in a succession of VW type 3's (also designed by Porsche).

Porsche didn't design the Type 3, unless you count his design of the Type 1 (Beetle), upon which the 3 was heavily based.

Even the Type 1 wasn't a Porsche design. Credit rightly belongs to Hans Ledwinka of Tatra, whose Model 87 was pretty much copied for the KdF-Wagen. Porsche and Ledwinka were friends, and so Porsche did ask his other friend and client, Adolf Hitler, about making a payment to Tatra in acknowledgement of the debt owed in the design. According to Porsche, Hitler assured him it would be "taken care of", which it was, in a way, when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and nationalised Tatra.

In the 1960s, Volkswagen made a 10 million DM payment to the Czechoslovak Communist government in settlement of the rights to the original Beetle design.

 

[PaulMB]

Cost, customisability, upgradeability, modularisation, diagnostics - a single cross platform data driven solution to the myriad of model specific buttons, controls and wiring looms. Put everything on a network bus and hot swapping of modules, retrofit upgrades, configurability, feature rental etc. becomes a different world of easy. It's what I'd be doing if I made vehicles... it will take time for the interfaces to be optimised and the balance found between standard controls and screens, but they're here to stay.

I read that 3 times and still don't understand.

 

[KrisW]

@tiggers.. I think touchscreens in cars are overall positive, as they allow finer control of lesser used fuctions without adding cost. My objection is to the unsafe practice of placing all of the secondary cabin controls onto such an interface in an effort to save money.

I have earned pretty good money in the past designing and implement touch-screen interfaces for customers in retail and healthcare, so I have nothing against the technology... if it is used appropriately. But if I'm driving on a busy motorway and need to turn down the cabin temperature or change the radio volume, I should not have to take my eyes off the road to do so.

Touchscreen interfaces are really bad for this kind of function because they offer no tactile guidance and also because the interfaces are highly "modal": previous actions change what's displayed on screen, so even if you are able to accurately guide your finger to a very small area of screen surface without looking, it is not possible to know what a touch in a particular area of the screen will do without first looking at it. A dashboard or steering wheel switch, on the other hand, is always there, has a fixed function, and can be located without looking.

 

[awkwardbydesign]

I read that 3 times and still don't understand.

It means it's good for manufacturers who don't care if it's crap for end users. Simples.

 

[Tony Lockhart]

I just think that some people just struggle to accept that industry does get things wrong, especially when left to themselves.
Very few would argue against sensible implementation of absolutely anything new. I really like CarPlay. I use it in my own little way, it works.
I like the multiple charging sockets for phones etc, very sensible.
Autodimming mirrors? Oh yeah! Why would you not want them on your road car?
Hidden menu in the LED screen to set how warm the seats and steering wheel go, and for how long? Yes, that makes sense. As it would do for every other 'never used while driving' selection.

I want that sort of new tech, along with the very latest spec braking/ABS/ESP tech, passenger and pedestrian protection.


I also want a car with none of that, for fun, but that won't be happening any time soon.