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When researching family cars recently, I literally avoided the Honda CR-V just because the AC was controlled via the touch screen.

There's a "Climate" button, which brings up a screen on the display where you can turn the aircon on/off, up/down, etc. It's just horrendous. Give me my dials.

My worst gripe - which all modern cars have - is the aggressive bluetooth auto-connect. If my wife takes the car, it will automatically connect to my phone in the house and start playing whatever was last playing. If I'm using headphones, it will just pinch the audio from them. I cannot disable this. Drives me absolutely nuts (no pun intended).

The other day, I was taking a call on my iPhone, over the earpiece, in my office suite's lobby.

The connection was rock solid, and then out of nowhere the audio just disappeared, without warning … but the call didn't drop. A few seconds later it returned. The person on the other end said they heard what sounded like a child for a second. I was perplexed.

Fast forward a week, and this happens again. I look at the call screen, and notice that the audio is being routed to Bluetooth? Opening it, it says I'm connected to my car. Not possible: I'm here, in my office, took a bus in.

I look up, baffled, and happen to see my wife drive by, 40 feet away, through a concrete wall and some glass.

Damn you, auto-connect. DAMN YOU.

I really want an option like this

   Enable

   [ X ] Audio

   [   ] Phone Calls

   < Pair >    < Cancel >

I can't be the only one that has wanted the car to be a speakerphone exactly 0 times.

Heck maybe someone is the opposite. They love terrestrial radio or their CD collection and also the speakerphone feature. Give people options.

I don't think my iPhone has this, but my 2018 Škoda has this. There are exactly these two checkboxes, they say something like "phone" and "audio" and they do exactly that. And this isn't even when pairing, you can bring up the menu anytime and just enable or disable each functionality. I usually drive, so we connect my girlfriend's phone to "audio" so she can be the DJ while I leave my phone connected to "phone" so I can take calls.

(My car as a speakerphone works beautifully. It's not even about the speakerphone, more about the good microphone, the ability to call someone, adjust the volume and then hang up without having to take your hands off the wheel.)

Also the case on my 2014 Citroën.

And in my 2020 BMW - assuming I don't use CarPlay.

Same in my 9 year old BMW, I can connect audio, phone, or both.

This is an option in Android.

Settings > Connected devices

Tap on the device, that brings up a list of switches for features the device is allowed to use.

I assume iOS probably has something similar.

You are unfortunately assuming incorrectly.

Bluetooth on iOS is a mess. If you are paired but not connected to a device, all you can do is forget it.

If you are paired and connected, you can:

* Change the name of the device as it appears on your phone

* If it's an audio device change its function (for example "car stereo", so iPhone will not automatically decrease volume if you put the volume to max which it will do for "headphones", as you probably control volume from the car stereo itself)

* Disconnect

* Forget

That's it.

The audio preference to be bluetooth audio only can be configured in the cars bluetooth connection settings, usually.

Is this not a thing? My phone has the option to disable phone calls but leave audio enabled. Also my car now asks before transferring a call in progress from the phone to the car instead of doing it automatically when it's in range.

Oh it is! It might be new. It's yet another reminder to constantly recheck things and not assume things don't change

I wonder if it works. Thanks. I'll try it!

So now I remember.

The car refuses to connect unless I give it phone permissions.

You can do this on android for quite a while on a per decive level. Not sure if that's what you use

All Android phones have exactly that selection when connecting to a BT speaker. It explicitly says if you're connected for audio and/or speech and you can set your preferences.

I actually take calls over car audio frequently. But only when I am inside the car, obviously. When car's Bluetooth tries to take over from the garage while I'm inside the house, that's hugely annoying.

Why wouldn't you want that? Do you not take calls in your car?

I consider calls private and it makes me uncomfortable

And it's funny how quite a few times people don't realise how their conversation is perfectly audible (and even quite intelligible) outside of the vehicle due to some combination of either bad soundproofing/speaker placement and/or excessive interior volume levels.

My phone connection is screwed up in my 2012 Honda Civic so all the caller hears is a high pitched screeching sound. I have not found a way to turn off calls on the Honda system or on my iPhone and it's so frustrating! Especially when calling out because you can't switch to using the phone's speakers/mic until the call has been answered. This means there is always a 10-20 second bit of time where I have to shout my apologies until I can get it changed. Or I have to turn bluetooth off entirely and it takes a minute to get it connected again after my phone call.

I drove a rental BMW a few weeks ago, and I think it had exactly this setting. Don't know if it does what you mention here.

Every Toyota I’ve driven has this option. I agree, it’s quite nice.

Toyotas used to have that option.

This is why I hate that modern flagship phones usually don't have a headphone jack.

Once you pair devices, it defaults to this connection.

My SO often borrows my noise-canceling headphones and as it stands they're firmly paired with her iPad and will not let go without elaborate ceremony.

I had a similar problem borrowing my wife's NC headphones. Months later I discovered Sennheiser BTD 600 which is basically an audio-only BT dongle (so it shows up as a USB headset). Now whoever wants to use the headphones just plugs in the dongle (it has both USB-A and USB-C). Works without a fuss.

You are using them wrong. The intended solution is to buy another set of headphones.

/s

> and happen to see my wife drive by, 40 feet away, through a concrete wall and some glass.

Is she okay?

Ironically, perhaps, the car everyone must be complaining about in this thread introduced call transfer controls that avoids just this. Through an OTA update.

Yes, it's Tesla.

If you're already on a call when the car connects to the phone, you must press an on screen button to transfer the call to the car audio.

(Bloody brilliant, if you ask me; and also something that couldn't be introduced to existing cars post release that were buttons only. I was quite anti-screen before I got mine, but now that I've gotten firmly used to it - and seeing enhancements every few months, I'm quite happy. I would like more generic mappable buttons on the steering wheel, but it's not a deal breaker).

I was sort of in the anti-touchscreen camp too, but the early 2020 Tesla has just the right controls on the wheel and stocks that I don’t mind the screen. And, also, the big screen for maps and backup cameras is really nice.

Well the anti touch screen camp is more accurately a "don't take my dials and buttons" camp

This is really it for me. I don't mind having a touch screen; I just want to never have to use it while I'm driving.

I'd call it more don't make what was one press of a button into five taps on a touch screen.

Plus gloves in winter regions we wear gloves 6 months of the year.

The automatic (#1) steering wheel heater would help you with that, it's the one feature I didn't know how much I needed. And that's just from Melbourne, Aus, where it gets down to about -1c to 2-3c (30-37f) at the most. :-)

I don't find myself needing to dig into any menus whilst driving. I use voice control to change music etc, and I tend to enter my nav at the beginning of my trips. You can still control volume and pause with steering wheel buttons. I'd like call answering and hang-up buttons as well for the steering wheel.

As a Fanatec Podium owner/sim-racer I'm used to having more physical buttons and there's definitely room for more underneath + on the back. I would like some for immediately folding mirrors and a few other functions.

#1) Automation of steering wheel warmer was a recent OTA; previously it was manual.

The problem though is that it's a Tesla. An OTA update won't fix that.

Is there some improved BT technology out there? I’ve seldom seen it go more than 20 ft or through a substantial wall.

Wikipedia says this about Bluetooth:

> In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limited to 2.5 milliwatts, giving it a very short range of up to 10 metres (33 ft).

But that's not really how radiation works. You can transmit more by using more power, sure. The louder you shout, the easier it is for people to hear you.

You can also receive more by having a bigger antenna. The harder you listen, the more you can hear, regardless of limits on source volume.

So the easiest way to explain this would be to guess that the cars are using bigger Bluetooth antennae than usual.

Antennas are not amplifiers. As long as the antenna is correctly tuned to the impedance of the transmitter output stage, it will radiate most of the power of the transmitter, but cannot exceed 100% (it is a passive element, and exceeding 100% would break the laws of conservation of energy). In this case the size of the antenna does not affect the total power emitted and there will be no range gains from using a bigger antenna.

What the antenna size/shape can affect is the directionality of the beam. By emitting the same power directionally, you can increase the range in some directions at the expense of reducing the range in all other directions. But the total power would be still the same.

Also the reception gain is actually the same thing as emission gain. You cannot make a passive antenna that has better reception without making it more directional, which means worse reception from some other directions. You cannot improve reception from all directions by making a bigger antenna.

Of course a bigger antenna can pick up more power. Just imagine placing two antennas instead of one. Each one receives a certain amount of power. Two will receive the sum of that power.

That doesn't work that way. If you sum the signals from two antennas, those signals would differ in phase depending on the direction of the incoming wave. For some directions they will add up, for others they will cancel out. That would change the directionality of such antenna system, which is exactly what I have written above - you gain somewhere, but lose elsewhere. Antenna gain is a function of only its directionality. A theoretical, ideally symmetric antenna has gain 0 dBi, regardless of its size.

If the antennas cancel, you change the polarity of one of the antennas and then they add up.

But then it is no longer a passive element. Sure, you can use N antennas connected to some electronics that adjust the phases dynamically so they always add up. This is what modern "beam-forming" wifi routers do these days to improve range.

Bigger antennas can positively pick up more signal. The Mars rovers do not have megawatt radio transmitters, instead we use enormous antennas on Earth.

We use antennas which are incredibly directional for Mars rovers. Compare a regular lightbulb vs a flashlight with a lens. Total light emitted might not be that different, but the intensity at the same distance (or how far the light reaches) is because the beam is focused. That works the same with receiving signal: a giant dish will focus the signal to a central point, and a Yagi-Uda antenna will use a similar phenomenom to focus the signal on a dipole.

Ofcourse car bluetooth presumably has an antenna that radiates roughly sphere-like, it wouldn’t make sense to pick up signals on the right of the car with a dish or something.

To that end, bigger antenna doesn’t do a whole lot to boost signal. There might be other factors at play increasing the reception though, such as signal polarity and whether the length of the antenna matches the frequency in a correct way (or is some multiplier of it). For Bluetooth that’d be roughly 13cm or 6.5 or so.

> a giant dish

So why don't we just use a small dish?

Because it wouldn't be as directional as a big dish. The relative size of the dish vs wavelength plays a factor here. If you make a dish thats the size of the wavelength it wouldn't even work as a dish, it would receive the signal from all angles. This is also why high gain antennas for higher frequencies can be much smaller than for e.g long waves.

It works two ways: one is that you can go lower in frequency (e.g. bigger wavelength) if your dish is bigger, the other is that you just capture more of the signal. If you take light as a metaphor, a bigger lens will just provide more 'signal' at the focal point.

Bluetooth from an regulations point of view has the same power limits as wifi (it's in the same 2.4 Ghz ISM band). In practice Bluetooth devices are small which limits both antenna size and desired power consumption so they tend to operate at a shorter range. If one end is a car, which has none of these limits, and the other end is a phone with a reasonably well designed antenna, you can get decent range.

I turn my bluetooth completely off for this reason. It's the only way I can figure to prevent this.

The only way to win is not to play.

I'm not sure if this is even possible on my car. Is there a hardware module I can remove?

I turn it off on my phone. Don't know if there's a setting in the car. I'm sure you can rip out some Bluetooth receiver in the car if you're really determined

And mine won't even hold a steady connection from a few feet away! Not without having to "turn it off - and turn it on again", at least once every few days.

Is this due to car or iPhone option?

[dead]

My Mazda CX-5 has buttons for A/C control but I'm still annoyed because my '99 Civic had knobs which are infinitely better. One for temp, one for fan. That's all I need. Don't want no stinking buttons for fan intensity in a row of 100 other buttons.

My old cx-5 has knobs, I love them, but the rest of the system sucks (notably, if you allow the car to download your contacts it will take several minutes at each start to allow you to play audio)

This! My car automatically syncs my contacts (which I have never used) once it connects my Phone, instead of,like, playing the radio, allowing me to call, or show me the goddamn GPS route.

Oh, is that why it takes so long to start audio? If you dont download contacts does audio start in a reasonable time?

Yep, audio starts within 10-15s. Unpair your phone then pair again, select no when it asks if you want to sync contacts and messages

This is why I always turn off Bluetooth when watching porn, otherwise my phone auto-connects to my wife’s Mini Cooper when she drives into the garage. DAMN YOU AUTO-CONNECT!!

I'll do that next time too

I could live with auto-connect, but the assumption that I want to immediately start playing anything seems like a nuts assumption to me.

I believe it's controlled from the phone side of things.

I'll listen to some music, watch a video, whatever on my phone. I'll pause it, turn off my bluetooth headphones.

Then some time much later, I'll get a phone call, turn my headphones on. When the call ends, suddenly what I had been playing starts playing again through my headphones. It's been a wide variety of apps, not one single thing: podcasts, youtube videos, videos on webpages, google music, spotify.

The pseudocode I had in my head was the phone subsystem had something like:

func onCallDisconnect() { if bluetooth.Headphones.IsConnected && media.IsPaused { media.Play() } }

It's stopped, I think, on new Android versions. At least I haven't had it happen for a while.

My experience is the opposite: I used to use Bluetooth to aux adapters, and some of them wouldn’t send a play command on connection and some would.

What’s hilarious is the $10 Bluetooth retrofit I got on Amazon in my 2011 car doesn’t even do this. It just works as a Bluetooth speaker but doesn’t start playing and connects only when I turn on the car. Simple and easy to use.

I think this is the majority of the problem(s) with bluetooth, bad defaults.

In cars, second issue is no button to switch on/off, instead either the overly complex pairing process or the overly aggressive one.

In phones, its non standard playback - I'm in the camp that audio should pause/resume for calls, and calls should always be routed through the phone you use.

If you get a call while on the road either it should do nothing (no connect to car or auto route) or it should be hands free, per phone preference (no fiddling with settings in the car dash, period). This mostly works with some setups, but there's no easy config option and phones don't all have easily customized UIs. Your phone should probably be in charge of the volume too - some car I have gotten into try to rupture my eardrums, others seem to be on whisperquiet and need considerable cranking. Oh, and there should be a BT device priority, there usually isn't and sometimes my headphones get usurped by the car.

My solution so far if I want BT is just to use headphones, and unpair all devices from the dash. I would use in car BT more if they worked in a reliably similar fashion.

A standardized "ask the user" protocol might help some. I don't think Apple or Android play are valid alternatives, though - there are legit use cases for BT interactions that don't involve phones at all, making over complex top heavy proprietary protocols the norm just destandardizes things more, it doesn't make them better.

I don't know how to do this, but drivers should never have access to phone calls. You are driving and should not have that distraction. I've never seen someone drive safely and talk on the phone at the same time. Many say they are safe while in the phone, but independent observation says they are not.

Ironic, I'm /completely/ the opposite. My radio cannot connect and start playing music fast enough.

The radio stations in my area are all total and utter shit, and I'd rather listen to white noise while I wait for the BT to connect and start playing my music. I find it difficult to even listen to a radio station for a minute these days. It's now permanently set to a dead frequency.

My old car had an aftermarket head unit that would stay on the BT mode when I start the car, not making a sound while it's connecting. Current car always defaults to FM, and only when it's connected then I can go to the BT source option and get music from my phone. It's horrible!

I like to listen to podcasts or audiobooks while I drive. Usually I do this through Bluetooth.

Occasionally I want to use Android Auto so that the maps will show up on the car's screen. I have to plug in my phone through USB to make this happen. The audiobook will now play over the USB connection.

When I disconnect from USB or when I turn off the car, it switches from my audibook to SiriusXM ads. At twice the volume. It's incredibly obnoxious.

See my comment above about the aux jack.

For my car, I solved the radio issue by plugging in a headphone plug (no cable attached) into the aux input. The car prioritizes android auto/BT->aux input->XM/FM, so by having this plugged in the radio never plays automatically. It just starts on aux (no sound), then switches to Android Auto once it's connected.

Bluetooth is the worst standard ever [1, 2, 3].

My 'solution' is: _Maximum_ 1 (one, one!) Bluetooth 'master' (e.g. phone) device per 'slave device' (e.g. headphones, speaker). That means, if your friend asks if they can connect to your speaker the answer is "Sorry, no.". If you want to use headphones on your laptop and your phone, you need to buy two headphones, etc.

For really problematic appliances, like cars, I just deactivate Bluetooth. Not worth the pain. For audio in the car, I use a portable speaker. :shrug:

[1] Proof: Many people can't even pronounce it

[2] I've bought two, different, new 3k bucks computers that never got the Bluetooth work with anything (yes, they run Windows).

[3] I have a 200 bucks Victron SmartShunt in my van to monitor my battery. Can't connect to it anymore with any device (yes, its Bluetooth). Will have to buy an expensive external display (at least that exists) and crawl on the floor to read it. You read my rant this far? Congrats. Have a nice day :-)

It's all in the implementation (which is not to say that the standard isn't contributing to poor implementations).

If you believe hassle-free multi-device Bluetooth is a pipe dream, you have not been experiencing the magic of a ZMK firmware keyboard roaming between devices with high reliability and practically no delay.

(Less blissful and smooth if you want to pair a Windows dual-boot system as a single device tho :p)

I'm willing to accept climate controls within a touch interface so long as the "auto" mode is as competent as the auto mode in my 2013 BMW 1-series. I set it to 22°C at medium intensity. It's rare that I ever have to touch the climate controls, and exceedingly rare that I need to touch the climate controls while in motion. The only manual intervention I perform toggling "max AC" for a few minutes on an especially hot day — and that's pressed while not in motion.

I've used "auto" modes in many cars and they're often rubbish. For example blasting unpleasant hot air in your face if you ask for 22°C and it's 21°C outside. Whereas the "stratification" feature of BMW climate control means the upper vents will never blow hot air in your face unless you override it.

Even worse in cold climates.

I've had an external heater heating the inside of my car and the engine for 2 hours. Then I start the car with AC set to 22C and instantly I'm blasted with -20C air from the outside.

Why?

The Toyota Prius was the first car I owned that actually waited for the air to be the correct temperature before opening the ducts. The same worked in the summer, if the car was already cooler than the outside air, it wouldn't do anything until the AC had enough time to cool.

FWIW - just bought a 23 CRV for my wife because of the abundance of analog controls. Not sure what on screen display you were seeing, we use the knobs exclusively.

Nice! I guess they fixed it up

This review is for their 2021 model.

> Plus, while there is a climate button and fan speed button, as well as dials for the temperature settings, you still have to go through the screen to control whether the air conditioner is on or off, and also which ventilation is active. Odd.

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-reviews/honda-cr-v-81488

And a demonstration, though it's for an even older model:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99WLw0pQc8w

I have a 2016 Civic, it's almost identical to the video. All I can say is this is such a non-issue: The "auto" mode they implemented works really well.

I use the temperature knob pretty much exclusively. If it's hot, the A/C comes on. If it's cold, it doesn't. If the windshield needs defrosting, you press that button and.. it defrosts, then press "auto" to get back. I've literally never manually changed the A/C setting, and once or maybe twice in 5 years of ownership have I manually adjusted vents.

The (physical) recirculate button is occasionally useful to manually if you're driving through dust/smoke/smell. But I'll also note the use of this with A/C is automatic: if it's really hot out or you turn the temp down really low, it'll automatically turn on recirculate (so it's cooling the already-cool inside air), but if it's able to use outside fresh air it'll do that instead. This is another thing that Just Works and I basically don't have to think about.

Remote start is similarly smart: When it's cold out, it turns on the defrost and heats the seats up. When it's hot, it runs the A/C. Either way when you get in it's usually already comfortable and it resumes whatever mode and temperature it was set to last time you drove -- and on only a mildly warm day, that might mean A/C isn't on. Manual control of A/C is just something you never need to do.

Sorry, but Honda absolutely nailed it on their climate control.

The lack of a physical volume knob, on the other hand...

"and once or maybe twice in 5 years of ownership have I manually adjusted vents."

I'm going to guess you daily drive mostly and don't pickup many groceries then, and probably don't have a wife/kids.

Blasting heat is usefull when e.g. you don't have windows, blasting cold is usefull when you have raw meat in the back and you don't feel like freezing too.

Or, you drive with someone with larger/smaller body mass or metabolism, you want to blast cold air, they want to be warm (adding/removing layers is not always an option).

There are numerous ways auto mode falls apart here, there are probably others I am not thinking of...I do know that when I take cars that have an auto mode in them it can be nice, but I usually get annoyed with them because something (blast of air, heat through the windshield) messes it up and I just want "cool" or "hot" air not to fiddle with bad UIs on dimly lit displays I can't see in the glare from the snow/blue sky to figure out the "right" temp to reconfigure too...

Well, your guesses are all incorrect.

The "dual climate" does work decently well, though we don't actually use it that often. Seat warmers do a better job if you're actually cold (and my wife usually puts hers way higher than mine).

> Blasting heat is usefull when e.g. you don't have windows, blasting cold is usefull when you have raw meat in the back and you don't feel like freezing too.

You can still "blast" heat or cool: by turning the temperature way up or down it goes to "MAX" (I don't recall exactly, but something like below 16 or above 25C) and the fan will also run at full speed.

I'm not sure how manually "blasting cold" to keep raw meat in the back cold also doesn't freeze you in the front, or what that has to do with auto mode, but we typically don't have groceries in the car for more than about 20 minutes and don't worry about it. I know people who have a much longer trip to get groceries and they use a plug-in cooler; that seems like a more sensible option.

> auto mode [...] messes it up and I just want "cool" or "hot" air not to fiddle with bad UIs on dimly lit displays I can't see in the glare from the snow/blue sky to figure out the "right" temp to reconfigure too...

Just not reality, in my experience. Auto mode just works. I've been in other cars where it's bad so I understand where you're coming from. I adjust a couple degrees up or down, usually based on what we're wearing, and that's it -- and no need to use display or touchscreen for this.

On the display: About the only time it's hard to read is if there's direct sunlight coming through a non-tinted window. I usually drive with polarized sunglasses and then it's basically never an issue at all.

> I'm not sure how manually "blasting cold" to keep raw meat in the back cold also doesn't freeze you in the front, or what that has to do with auto mode, but we typically don't have groceries in the car for more than about 20 minutes and don't worry about it. I know people who have a much longer trip to get groceries and they use a plug-in cooler; that seems like a more sensible option.

Ofc you can have a cooler, but that eats up space, and not all grocery trips are planned. Re 20 min - sounds like you are lucky - if you get into a traffic jam you might get stuck.

How it helps - not a universal feature but you can often adjust heat/cool for back/front, I've also seen it where each seat gets their own climate control knobs.

Regarding MAX - that's nice, but that's not auto, which was my point.

And yeah glasses definitely help - I love my transitions for that reason. But display tech matters here - glossy vs matted, and in my experience glossy holds up a bit better under sun while matted holds up better to e.g. night city driving. Backlights are important too - but again to my point this is all overcomplicated and a knob is just easier/cheaper/less prone to breakage.

It's nice you have an auto mode that 'works great' but as you admit there are a fair number of cars where that's just not true. I suspect in part that's because this is a difficult problem, that is partly self mfg. And I don't think most people at dealerships have time to test it to the degree you seem to have (although you didn't mention how it handles in open air, i.e. with sunroof or retractable hood) - a knob is something I can test in 5 min and know it "just works".

Never had an issue using exclusively the physical buttons for climate control in my 2021 CRV

Just FYI, CR-V model 2023 has all necessary controls back on buttons. I took it back into consideration for that fact only

You might want to look at tasker to have it enable Bluetooth when you're not at home or something similar. Also, on most cars you can change the priority of phones, moving yours down would help.

Then it becomes really annoying when we're both in the car and I want to use my phone.

There is no magic solution that would, without user intervention, automatically know which phone you want to connect. It can't (yet) read your mind.

I'd rather it just not autoconnect. That's all.

At the moment it autoconnects (even if you're already connected to another device), AND autoplays. Doubly annoying.

There is a magic solution. It's called "Ask the user". All these companies think they know what's best for users, with their minimal settings, AI, and auto-magic this-that. Just ask.

"Hey, last time you drove in me you were listening to music via bluetooth. I found the following _two_ devices that I can connect to. Whuch one do you want?"

Perfect solution for the touch screen. Show a bunch of fat icons for all the found and paired devices. Usually it'll be 2-3 devices. Make it easy to tap your option as you are getting settled in the car.

That doesn't come close to being a perfect solution for the touch screen. This one is vastly better:

1. Eliminate the screen.

2. Provide an audio port.

3. When audio comes in through the port, play it over the car speakers.

You know I tried to think of a legit case where screens are better - if I could get engine details that'd be rad but not actually that useful, weather might be nice as well but actually no while I'm driving I'd prefer just to ask my car or phone to tell me, maps are nice but really that can be done better by a GPS box with updatable maps/software (I own a car that has a nav system built in that is now non functional due to age, plus while it worked it was wildly out of date), rear view camera is nice but actually you could put that in the back or on the vehicle ceiling, it's safer to turn around and actually look, movies and games are not safe, and everything else is just text e.g. audio info, but you could get away with a couple of those old scrolling tickers.

I think you are right, we should be demanding cars with zero or very little dash at all.

Then I need to take my phone out of my pocket, find somewhere to put it where I can fiddle with the screen and change tracks while driving. Not ideal...

Get an mp3 player. Your phone is a step down from the car screen.

I have a wireless CarPlay dongle. If you don’t do anything it connects to the last used device if it can find it in 15 seconds or so. Otherwise it connects to any remembered device, and you can pick which one if you have one to prioritize.

The other day my mom was at our house, parked next to me. She got in her car to leave at the same time I did. I pulled out my phone and put on some music - noting that it was weird that I needed to do anything at all, typically it just resumes playing as soon as it connects to Bluetooth.

But I didn't get any audio. That's weird. Until she drove away and the music started playing through my phone's speaker a few seconds later, and I realized that it connected to the wrong head unit.

Buy two of the same headphone, watch it not work because the software differentiates on the label not the MAC, and never asks you or auto labels the one you connected to...

Not a BT problem so much as a bad software pattern. I solve this by naming my devices uniquely.

My old BMW had this pretty well solved, the Bluetooth device name was the last few digits of the VIN.

> it will automatically connect to my phone in the house and start playing whatever was last playing

If it's an iPhone you could use automations (Shortcuts app which is preinstalled) to auto-pause music whenever it connects to bluetooth and launches CarPlay. I have done it and works like charm.

https://www.guidingtech.com/how-to-stop-music-from-automatic...

> If I'm using headphones, it will just pinch the audio from them.

Man the bluetooth protocol really is something. Never connects when you want it to, won't pair or unpair, but when you don't want to use it it'll force a connect.

And the thing is practically wifi, I am always at a loss as to how did they manage to mess it up so badly.

> I cannot disable this. Drives me absolutely nuts

Does this actually happen even if you're using bluetooth headphones? Or just wired headphones.

Because if it's bluetooth headphones that's pretty surprising.

If you mean you're using wired headphones, I realize this is obvious, but you can just turn bluetooth off on your phone when you're not using it. Arguably, you should, since bluetooth drains the battery for no reason and leads to more electronmagnetic 'noise' in the house (interfering with other bluetooth devices) as well as draining the battery on your phone, and possibly having negative effects on your health if you talk while holding your phone to your head

Bluetooth auto-connect somewhat makes sense, reasoned from principles.

If you want audio to start magically playing in the car, and the car is often turned off...

You can't have the phone connect to it. Otherwise it would continually have to poll for a car, which would burn power.

Ergo, you have to have the car initiate the connection, which should happen when the car turns on.

Now, you could either have a "Confirm connect?" every time that happens or you could have it auto-reconnect.

In most circumstances, "Car-initiated, auto-reconnecting Bluetooth" is preferable to the alternatives.

Even if it does have bizarre and annoying UX failure modes.

Ironically, the last time my family purchased a "newer" car (2015), we avoided the Ford Flex and instead purchased a Honda Pilot because the Pilot didn't have a touchscreen for anything. We currently have a 2022 Nissan Altima as a rental (one of the kids totaled the beater 2004 Subaru Forester), and while climate controls still use buttons and knobs, everything else is controlled via a tablet-like touchscreen. I hate it.

I’m really becoming pretty convinced that audio is not an acceptable use case for Bluetooth.

Just so much jank, and that’s before you get to most devices only supporting lossy encoding.

The sibling comments here are hilarious, but I actually prefer the Bluetooth auto-connect. "When it works" it's even better than a headphone jack. There is definitely more room for customization of the nuance, though. I could easily see a per-device setting on the phone to allow it to pair automatically or manually.

Extending this topic, I've also had my phone calls hijacked by my wife who has just started the engine and is about to drive out. Happened to her when I took the car too. It brings a great deal of confusion as to wtf happened to our phone calls.

I always wondered why they couldn't prioritize devices close to the system over others

I think they just connect to whatever phone responds to the "ping" first.

All I want on my phone is the ability to NOT auto-connect to Bluetooth devices that are in range. It infuriates me. It should be a simple binary toggle for each device, and yet it doesn't exist. At least not on Android. How does this not exist yet? It should have been part of the original spec decades ago.

Bluetooth interfaces need a way to disable individual devices with a slider.

And this is why open ecosystems are better for the customer. If the software in the car was more open - even just as much as android - someone would write an app for that.

/daydreaming ... :(

Reminds me of this gem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32163667

I hate the touchscreen on my HRV. Thankfully I almost never use it and most controls are buttons and dials but I agree it would be a deal breaker if everything was touch based.

Wired CarPlay or Android Auto is much better in this respect.

until the jack in your phone gets wonky due to age :(

It's incredible how little effort is put into these entertainment systems, and they're entirely closed source.

Just use the aux jack, dude. You don't have to put up with this.

Wonderful. I recently rented a model 3 and found it incredibly frustrating that it required multiple touches to adjust settings that would be a single button press on a more traditional car. Don’t even get me started on the windshield wipers - a total nightmare in winter storms and located on the left stalk? These are safety concerns. As long as humans are operating these dangerous vehicles, I vote for fewer driver distractions.

And navigating a software menu (which changes at random times when it updates itself) just to open the fucking glove compartment. What was wrong with a physical latch?

It allows you to lock it with a pin. I don't want to carry keys.

Fine, then have a lock that's accessible electronically. The usual case of just opening the glove compartment when it's not locked can still just be a physical latch.

There are so many good reasons to carry keys. Why carry a yubikey, or a license for that matter? Because good security is about what you have, not just what you know. It's about authentication.

In the spirit of the present article, mechanical locks (especially for anything car related) are better. You can't hack into them. If you force or break them, you are forced to leave physical evidence behind that you did so. Not so for a Bluetooth or WiFi hack. This is why I will not enable my smart garage door opener. I don't even have pay by phone, because they offer an attack vector via NFC directly to my bank account. I carry credit cards instead.

Sure, carrying all those pieces of metal is annoying. I got a KeySmart to help mitigate this. I carry my car key in my wallet with my cards. It's worth it, and there are ways around the costs.

Then put a physical button (with deep travel) on the glove compartment. If it isn't pin-protected it works exactly as a physical latch would, just with an extra redirection through some microcontroller. When you enable the pin lock, pressing the button opens the pin input on the screen.

Please go work for Tesla, because the design you just came up with on the fly is 100x better than theirs.

That sounds awful. My hand has to travel to the glovebox, find a button, back to the touch screen, then back to the box. There's no eloquence.

I think the tesla glove box is easier for a driver to open than a manual one. Two rapid taps & it's waiting for you

Most people leave the glove box unlocked most of the time. Tesla optimized for the rare case.

It’s entirely possible to do both.

Right, because the person that broke into your car is not going to just going to rip it open with a crowbar?

Why not make it a lock that doesn't require electricity? For example: https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/combination-number-lock-meta...

Exactly, it's super useful & frictionless.

I almost didn't buy a Tesla because of my concerns over the lack of controls, but turns out that while driving, it's rarely if ever necessary to touch the screen, because there's voice commands for everything (navigate to X, climate control off, etc). Plus often you don't need to do anything at all: the lights switch on automatically if it's dark, the windshield wipers activate automatically if there's moisture, etc.

For me, the weirdest/most dangerous quirk is that the 'gears' (drive/reverse) are located on the right stalk, on several occasions I've toggled it in the wrong direction.

> there's voice commands for everything

Voice commands fail the universal design principle. I haven't tried Tesla's but I hate using voice commands and it's not an option for everyone. Not every language is supported and if you have a heavy accent or, like me, a speech impediment, even the industry leading software with training does not work most of the time. Pushing a button is quicker than speaking, especially if you have to say the same thing multiple times.

A voice command takes longer to execute than a press or flick of a finger IMO.

It would be interesting to see what the cognitive loads are between a physical movement and a set of voice commands. I remember reading a study that found talking to another person in the vehicle was the equivalent to having had a certain amount of alcohol. I'm sure there's a difference between voice.commands and conversation, but interesting nome the less.

Voice commands are good because you can keep both your eyes and hands on the task of driving without interruption.

Having an actual conversation with someone is much more distracting because you need to listen to them, preserve social norms, etc.

Until the voice command fails and you have to resort to digging through a touchscreen UI.

For whatever reason, my wife's voice does not do well with voice control (despite being an American with an average American accent). And I have a slight Scottish accent (pronounce my Rs and /hw/) which, despite being mild (lived in the US for nearly 40 years) still causes trouble with voice control.

Voice commands are terrible in general if:

- You do not have a generic north american english accent

- Are not speaking English and standard english.

- Have any sort of speech impediment

- Can’t remember what something is called or a specific command

- Want immediate feedback

Oh and they have a tendency to fail at random.

In my Model 3, voice commands work flawlessly for my wife.

For me, it never hears me. Doesn't matter if I talk loud or quite, fast or slow. I'm a native english speaker with no regional accent. Tesla also has no explanation.

Thing is, even if it worked for me, I'd still trade it for dedicated buttons. It borders on aggravating when my wife is driving to be mid conversation and have her suddenly yell out "wipers on".

In theory yes, but it's never that simple is it.

I have no skin in the game personally though. I just thought it would be interesting to see the figures in comparison.

Most of the world doesn't speak english as their primary language, and TBH I have yet to see a single person here in Europe (Swizerland) to command their phones using voices, or any other device (nests etc are extremely non-popular here, never saw it here and I work of english-speaking corporation).

I mean literally 0 times, this is very US-centric (and maybe UK/Australia/NZ) way of thinking. So US car working safely only via voice command? That means it isn't working for me.

TBH I would never ever want such a critical piece as car commanded by voice. We are 4, no way car will reliably grok everything for it 100% of the time and nothing else (that's the bar to compete with for buttons, not a nanometer lower).

YMMV I suppose but the "auto" options for climate + wipers do not work well for me.

Single droplet in the right spot => furious wiping. 100 droplets in the wrong spots => no wipe.

Climate - My preferred mode is to have the A/C on but not actually directed straight at me (so through the windshield vents), but auto also blasts through the front.

Voice commands can be inconvenient and unnatural. In the middle of a conversation having to wait for someone to pause and then interrupt a conversation to interact with a vehicle is poor user experience. It goes against our natural ability to multitask. Also not great when you have sleeping passengers.

> voice commands for everything

how do they work in small spaces when there's active noise around (small children screaming for example)?

They probably don't - it's what you get when a sociopath designs cars and doesn't think of anyone but himself.

>>because there's voice commands for everything

Ah yes, the only other control method that manages to be worse than touchscreens. It works well if you speak absolutely perfect english, but for those of us for whom English isn't our first spoken language, you can kiss voice controls goodbye. Just a complete pile of trash, and incredibly frustrating when the car repeatedly misunderstands you.

You mean perfect American English right?

Voice control goofs with my South African accent all the time...

My only request would be an option to override the auto wipers (even on autopilot) and without the touchscreen. This could be done effectively by adding a double press action and auditive feedback to the left stalk button.

The automatic windshield wipers in Teslas is a joke. They're so bad that I'm having trouble even formulating how bad it is, you really have to experience it. They've clearly not been very well tested in areas places where it rains so often, and in so many different ways, that we have dozens of different words just to describe what it.

1. It will take multiple seconds to react even if the entire windshield is completely covered in water. Like zero visibility. I've had this happen on multiple occasions where water from the opposite direction is splashed over on my car. To manually start them I have to first toggle it with my left arm on the left stalk, then set it to full speed with my right arm on a touch screen. All while at high speeds and trying to perform an emergency stop / regain control. The manual toggle on the right stalk wipes one time, in the slowest speed. You also have to wait for this to finish before it will actually adjust the speed you selected on the touch screen.

2. When they're in automatic mode and I enter a tunnel they will turn off, which is good, but you'd imagine that Tesla with all these supposed self-driving capabilities were able to deduce that it will most likely be raining at the other side of the tunnel, and be prepared to turn them on quickly. They don't.

3. When I manually toggle a single wipe it seems to reset whatever algorithm they use to decide if the cameras are detecting that it's actually raining. I can't really see any reasonable scenario where I'm not also using windshield wiper fluids that this makes any sense.

4. It will randomly just start in glaring sunlight, often at maximum speed. To add insult to injury, if you're in a country that uses a lot of salt on the roads during winter it will then coat your entire windshield in it, causing it to speed up, making it progressively worse, until you can do the "toggle dance" with both your hands to disable it.

Recently Tesla decided that you can't turn off things like automatic windshield wipers and high beams when you want to use adaptive cruise control or similar features. I understand that it has to be able to detect cars in front of it, but I don't understand the rationale of forcing these features to be on automatic. Just let the drivers know they have to turn this on in situations where the car isn't confident it has enough light or visibility to do it.

They recently fixed some of the issues with high beams. You don't go around blinding everyone like you did previously all the time. But it will also just randomly turn off because it sees a sign or a parked car, or take 4-5 seconds to turn back on again. Making them practically useless. In scenarios where I have to use high beams it's often critical that they turn right back on after passing ongoing traffic. If I have them in automatic mode you can't toggle it back on again. You have to wait for it to figure it out. The type of headlights that Tesla now uses, often referred to as "matrix lights", are capable of selectively turning blinding off parts of the light beam, but for some reason they don't use this capability for anything other than making them write "Tesla" on walls in front of the car if you perform the "light show".

I bought a aftermarket product[0] that connects to the ODB-port that lets me overrides these things. And it lets me put programmable physical buttons to do things like toggle windshield wipers in the car. The concept of having user programmable buttons in the car is something I really like, and I think this is a concept that should be explored much more. All the buttons in a car should be programmable. There's more[1] and more aftermarket upgrades to Tesla's that adds capability like this, but everything is living on the whim of a guy who'll just terminate people's API access on Twitter, so there's that. The weird thing is, besides the windshield wipers, automatic high beams and some of the questionable choices Tesla has made, like removing ultra sonic sensors, I really love the car.

[0] https://enhauto.com/product/six-s3xy-buttons [1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ctrl-bar--4#/

model 3 has voice control "turn on wipers" "set AC to 68" "drive home" - at the press of a button, the music fades and it listens like "hey Siri"

That sounds like a poor solution to a problem of their own making

At least it's hands free unlike the pile of shit that is Subaru Outback's infotainment. Takes upwards of 20 seconds to change any settings after the car turns on because it lags so bad.

Jesus Fuck is the Subaru infotainment system just an absolute nightmare. I love Subaru cars. I have owned several.

My most recent (23 Impreza) was the first with full-blownsies infotainment. It is just an absolute shitshow.

Slow, laggy, buggy, hard to understand menus. It randomly turns black and takes a minute or two to turn back on when starting driving. If you get in turn the car on, and put it into a gear without waiting for 20-30 seconds, the screen and therefore radio will be completely unusable for anywhere from 30 seconds up to five minutes afterwards.

It is just awful. Awful.

It will probably make production costs cheaper in the long run to avoid as many buttons as possible, unless legislation forbids it due to safety concerns. I’m on team Hyundai in this case, but if you want to produce the cheapest possible car, you will have to reduce the amount of components that needs to be installed.

Teslas aren’t particularly cheap, of course.

They do look cheap once you step inside.

As an owner it works great. Windshield wipers have a sensor for automatic control, and if you want to manually adjust, voice recognition is highly accurate these days. I switch between my Prius and Tesla all the time as my wife shares the vehicles, and I much prefer the Tesla controls. But I'll get off of your lawn if you'd like.

I'm usually listening to audiobooks. Right now Tesla doesn't support any audiobook reader, so voice commands momentarily mute the book without pausing.

Next issue is the quality of voice recognition. It just sucks.

Oh, and wipers are a pure fucking BS in Teslas. They removed a $5 infrared precipitation sensor, and it STILL doesn't work well.

I don't own Tesla, I have a strong Punjabi Accent when i speak English. Many bigger companies phone trees based on voice "commands" are useless for me. It never understands me. My Ford Sync voice controls too struggle to understand me. I prefer buttons.

Like Zail Singh with Reagan, you will just have to teach it Punjabi :)

Anecdotally the owner I’ve asked about it said it sucks. And he’s a native English speaker. How’s it do with accents?

Maybe it’s been improved with hardware upgrades? His is around a 2017 I think.

I imagine it works as well as the famous voice-activated elevator in Scotland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMS2VnDveP8

An update came out around November of last year that vastly improved auto high-beams, and somewhat improved automatic windshield wiper performance.

I mean the voice control features specifically. Didn’t hear anything about the auto high beams and wipers which could imply they worked better than the voice recognition.

I'm a native speaker, maybe I have good enunciation. I'm amazed at how accurate the voice recognition is. It almost never makes a mistake, even with obscure location names. It displays on the screen what it thinks you said and even updates it as more heavy duty ML requests come back with better results.

To me, this is definitely a major safety hazard to rely on voice command. If you just get splashed and in a stressed out voice you ask for wipers and your car might not understand you.

It would def draw a pause if I were driving a Turo rental. It's great to have the option of voice. But I can actuate the wipers much quicker with a hand stalk than I can speak it.

Absolutely. Not to mention the needless inaccessibility.

actually the wipers have a physical one-shot button on the stalk.

Yeah, hilarious how people are complaining about wipers when they literally have a 1-shot button on the stalk to trigger a quick blast at any time. Hold down for 2 seconds to get wiper fluid/de-icer. Seems like Tesla actually has the safety feature you want.

This will trigger it to run once, in the slowest setting. And then you have to wait for this to finish before it updates to the speed you've set on the touchscreen. Tesla could have also solved this by just letting the user decide if it should be a single wipe or toggle a certain setting.

Being able to toggle a single wipe, with or without wiper fluids is also something every single car I've ever operated has had. In addition to be able to control it from the stalk.

Not everything has to be reinvented. They walked back a little on the steering yoke, but for some reason they still remove the stalks and have touch buttons on the steering wheel. The one thing that everyone with the yoke categorically hated.

Seems like Tesla has a lot of solutions to problems people never had in the past until Tesla came around

The way to do it is to press the wiper button (press in on the stalk button) to swipe one and then it gives you options for manual wiper speed selection via an on-screen control.

So I use a touchscreen to adjust the wiper speed and delay? In the worst kind of weather where I really need it?

Sign me up!

This is a huge improvement over my 2008 Kia where I twist the stalk and don't have to look at it and I can keep my eyes on the road.

OTOH, my old Kia doesn't have Full Self Driving. Ah well.

> my old Kia doesn't have Full Self Driving

Don't worry, neither does Tesla :)

in every other car on the planet it is the right stalk down. They had to go and reinvent this.

I am absolutely not defending Tesla at all, and do genuinely believe they do things that are incredibly stupid in auto design.

But - at one point, when the shift was the right stalk, wipers were controlled via a switch, knob, or other mechanism either on the dashboard or on the left stalk.

So. It's not like changes haven't happened before.

They were still physical controls that offered tactile feedback and never moved so you could always operate them blindly.

Also my parents are older and something in their skin makes them routinely almost invisible to capacitive touch controls - heck I still have trouble from time to time getting displays to register reliably.

I loathe touch controls and will never buy a vehicle that only has touch controls. Luckily all my current cars are in excellent condition and I pamper the crap out of them. If I'm lucky I'll be able to be buried in them :p

I can’t even get Siri to reliably play a song or skip a track, let alone anything useful. Must be my accent.

I’d hate to try to operate vehicle controls with the same hit-and-miss interface. Give me tactile controls any time.

It was doing its best on automatic but the wipers were sporadic at best. This was a major winter storm and visibility was awful …the model 3 had no idea where the lane lines were and apparently no idea how bad the precipitation was.

I think I’m just going to keep buying and driving 15 year old cars until the new cars are an order of magnitude better. I can buy 10 half decent 15 year old cars for the price of new Tesla!

(15 years old is the magic number in MA where the car no longer has to pass emissions checks during inspection)

Plus, you can probably fix them yourself! None of this "hack it yourself and void the warranty, or pay a goon to hookup a computer to your car to 'fix' it."

I wonder how long it will take for people to start selling jailbroken cars...

The voice control is shit

> the music fades

Disgusting.

Love when the music fades for like 5 seconds to play a 250ms chime.

Cool, and if you have a strong accent then what?

[dead]

Wipers on the left stalk is entirely normal for cars that have column shifters since those are always on the right. There's plenty of new trucks using column shifters, mostly on those with bench front seats. I'd honestly prefer a column shifter (and therefore wipers on the left side) if it gives me more real estate on the center console. New automatic shifters are sometimes entirely electronic so there's no constraints on where it can go. Having a center console electronic shifter is a skeuomorphic design. Wasting space on something you touch a few times every trip and only when completely stopped seems unnecessary.

Is (among other things) having windshield wipers control on left stalk being a dangerous thing? That cars I had in other countries (with opposite side driving) had signals on right & wipers on left stalk.

Probably not. You'd figure it out pretty quickly the first time you need to go around a corner or change lanes.

FWIW, ever car I've ever owned or driven in the US has left stalk for turn signals and right stalk for wipers. Headlights are often on the left stalk as well, but sometimes a physical on the dash (usually to the left of steering wheel).

Regardless, I have a strong dislike of touchscreen UIs in cars. Fine for the main radio, as long as I have physical controls on the steering wheel. But for open the globe box, or adjust the seat, or changing the wiper speed? GTFO, that's asinine.

The cars I've driven in the UK have varied. The only ones I remember for certain are Nissan Micra (indicators on the right) and BMW 3 series (indicators on the left), and the others have varied. My fingers only seem to know which is which when the car is driving, and I still sometimes hit the wrong stalk if the car is stationary.

Compared to putting the steering wheel on the wrong side it seems like a minor point.

Not really - just mildly embarrassing, like spilling your coffee when opening a door. Where I come from imported cars vary left or right stalk. So it’s common to see people accidentally washing windows especially in rentals. No great harm and mostly amusement value since it’s very obvious to everyone, everybody’s done it, and nine times out of time they just try again the other way and get it right after that.

At least you only rented it. I've never driven a Tesla but I don't have to to know that would be horrible.

You better not drive one because you may be surprised.

Surprised good or surprised bad? It's probably fun to drive but the screen I'm not interested in.

The screen is surprisingly good. I feel like a lot of the comments there are a bit like when smartphones changed from buttons blackberry style to touchscreens iPhone style. For sure buttons are better for some use cases but a touchscreen is nice too. It’s okay that you have to press the touchscreen to configure the automatic AC. It’s not something you do often anyway. However you may use the navigation or the media player more often. The model 3/y also has nice buttons on the wheel anyway, not some cheap touch buttons. With the exception of the wipers speed selector. They fucked up on this.

Physical buttons on the blackberry were far superior - except for the space they took. So a touchscreen on something that has a physical constraint is a reasonable trade off.

There are ZERO constraints preventing them from still including physical buttons except for impractical hipster design philosophies. Want to have touch screen in addition to physical buttons? Knock yourself out. But I will never buy a car with pure touchscreen controls.

I've never owned a Hyundai, but stuff like this makes me want to look at them.

I recently bought what I thought was a car, only to find it is a tech-ridden abomination.

I want a vehicle that is reliable. I want a vehicle that is simple. I do not want a rolling AI/touchscreen.

Even just from a security standpoint I want minimal software in my car.

As a counter to all the replies, I have owned nothing but Hyundai and Kia since high school, and my family has owned several Kia and Hyundai vehicles. It would take something very major for me to consider another brand.

Their warranties are outstanding and long. My Kia engine was part of a recall, had an issue, but was then replaced out of warranty for free in less than a week during 2020. The engine now has a lifetime warranty. All of their warranty repairs, for small things, were done without hassle.

When we took a look at buying another car a few years ago, Kia and Hyundai were by far the best quality car out of everyone, including Honda. I think people to still shit on Kia and Hyundai because the names aren't Honda or Toyota. They have their issues, but in my experience, the warranty and recalls they did covered everything at no cost. And at this point, my Kia is an 8 year old model which was at the tail end of its model design even then.

I have zero concern about my Kia's reliability. I even drove my much older Hyundai well over 100,000 miles with hardly any maintenance before trading it in.

I was in the same boat until my car was stolen. If you haven't heard of it, look up the Kia Boys, though the same rules apply to Hyundais.

If you do manage to get the car back, you find yourself much more interested in car anti-theft measures, and will then discover that there are very limited options for parts due to the epidemic of them being stolen (66% of cars stolen in 2021 in Milwaukee, the center of the epidemic were Kia/Hyundai). And there is no indication that the company will be of any help going forward. The only real option is to not buy pre-2021 Hyundais/Kias.

This is an international problem, whith every location having a model/brand that's preferred by the thieves. Market forces and all that.

In South Africa, the best car security you can have by far is to simply park next to a VW Polo/Golf. The VW will _always_ be stolen first. Don't forget to set a reminder to go out at some point, so that you can move your car and park it next to another VW, as the first one would be stolen by then.

A close second are Toyota Hilux and Fortuner.

All these cars are super popular, both to own and steal. Result is insurance premiums that can be double normal rates, especially if you fall in the "young and reckless" demographic.

I have a hand-screw isolator on the battery of my my VW T5, like this

https://images.app.goo.gl/d5GXhBocg3gEjhbZA

I take the green screw part with me if I have any concerns, and sometimes even if it's parked in it's usual place at home.

I figure if a their tries to start the vehicle and it doesn't even turn on, they're likely to move to the next vehicle rather than muck about trying to troubleshoot mine.

It's low tech, and non-obvious.

I used to pull the accessories fuse, so it wouldn’t start.

My older Nissan Frontier has a fuse for the fuel injection. I pull that out if I ever park any place sketchy.

You are now the second person to recommend me an idea in that vein; I have just been using a steering wheel lock since I can't actually get an immobilizer rn. So I think I will actually materialize on your idea. Appreciate the comment.

Hmm another thought - tie the gas pedal to the steering wheel with a steel chain/lock.

Sure, they can cut your chain with bolt cutters, but that's not exactly inconspicuous, and it encourages would be theives towards easier marks. Probably cheaper than a wheel lock, too.

One step further I've thought of would be to buy two and remove the brass threaded contactor from one of the green hand screws and replace it with a nylon part so you could screw the dummy unit in to make it appear as though the unit is complete, thereby potential throwing off a savey would-be their who is familiar with the the trick of removing the contractor.

Another issue with some models of Kia and Hyundai is some insurance companies are now refusing to insure them due to how easy they are to steal. Imagine buying a car and calling up your insurance company to add it to your policy and...nope. I've never heard of that before.

https://www.autoblog.com/2023/02/09/hyundai-kia-models-state...

It is unfortunate for sure, but it doesn't affect fob only / pushbutton start cars. Kia and Hyundai have rectified the issue on newer models though and are at least giving away free wheel locks in certain areas, or so I've read.

I've heard reports that the newer models are still broken into at higher rates, despite thieves failing to steal it.

The way your comment reads is that 2022 and newer models are safe. Did something change in 2021?

The stolen cars were model years less than 2022 and were trims that needed a key to start the vehicle. Models that's used pushed button starts were unaffected.

You can see all the models affected and rollout of software to address it here: https://hyundaiantitheft.com/

A number of things including some insurance companies refusing to insure kia and hyundais. People wont buy your cars if they can't use them!

Shouldn't there be, like, a glut of parts on the gray market if they are stolen so often? They don't end up in chop-shops?

They steal them drive them around recklessly for a few hours, the crash into a light pole.

Its not professional criminals stealing these cars, its 13 year old kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbTrLyqL_nw

Yeah, but a crashed auto is an instant organ donor of myriad parts. What happens to the crashed cars?

"Kia Boys", ok. Another euphemism to ad to the dictionary.

Same deal, my Hyundai was stolen 3 times from Sept 2021 to October 2022 when I finally sold it.

Was a huge headache.

3 times in a year? I'd be looking to move far, far away.

Yeah. That’s not a car-problem.

That’s living in a lawless neighbourhood kind of problem.

Move somewhere safe. Where cars don’t get stolen. You’ll probably find most other crime statistics beneficial too there.

So - people shit on Kia, because they remember what it was like before Hyundai owned it.

My sister bought a Kia around 2000. It was garbage. You have to go a ways farther back, but once upon a time Hyundai wasn't very good either. At some point (I guess in the 90's?) people started talking about how Hyundai had caught up to Toyota and Honda, and Ford and Dodge needed to do the same.

I've driven many Kia rentals the past ~15 years, and they are awesome. Even remembering all of what I wrote above, I was surprised at times at how premium the fit and finish was, and how powerful and smooth the ride was.

Yea, in the past decade or so, both Kia and Hyundai have stepped up their game to compete with Honda and Toyota. Great warranties, easy to work on, etc etc. I'm curious what the world will look like in another 20 years. Will Hyundai's get more expensive than Toyota? Will Honda bring prices down to better compete? Or will some Chinese startup roll in and attempt the same playbook as the previous brands? I any case, I think it's a net positive for consumers.

I had a 2006 Kia Spectra and learned to drive manual with it. Lasted for 10 years until it got rusty enough from winter salt that I wanted something else. Other than oil changes and front struts it was trouble-free.

I rented a Sonata once and drove it 3500 miles without issues. But since then my impression of Hyundai has deteriorated. Had another die on me while driving on I-85 in a rush hour Atlanta. It was scary. Then all these reports of engine fires and theft because of lack of immobilizers.

I'd like to buy Kia or Hyundai, but personally I find the interiors both look and feel "cheap", even on the high-end models like the Kia Stinger. Interiors from BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Volvo look and feel so much more luxurious.

I leased a Kia Niro EV last year (EV FOMO made me unwilling to commit to a car right now, plus the used car market was obscene). I’ve been generally delighted with it, excluding the stupid Bluetooth auto connect nonsense.

I own two Hyundai (2007 Entourage, 2015 Sonata), and a 2022 Honda Odyssey. My initial impression of the Honda is far better than it was for my Hyundais. We'll see how it progresses over time, but as of now, I don't plan to buy Hyundai again. The only thing I hate about my Honda is I can't turn default-to-off that stupid setting that kills the engine and restarts it automatically whenever you stop the vehicle at a light or stop sign.

I don’t have one myself, but every time I hear the engine restart at a stop sign I’m tempted

https://www.idlestopper.com/product/idlestopper/1

You’re comparing cars that are a generation or two apart. Not really a fair comparison.

I can’t speak for their EV line, but no media is talking about how crappy their engines are. I won’t touch a KIA or Hyundai and I have zero qualms speaking up about it. My brother and I both needed new engines after 50,000 miles with normal wear and maintenance. If you read up on oil consumption you will discover they have had problem’s continually since 2014. Last I checked the 2021 +models are still affected. Getting the engine replaced is getting harder as they can’t keep up with engine demand. It’s a 4000 mile set of tests and BS. KEEP ALL YOUR SERVICE RECORDS and keep your maintenance schedule, or you will be paying anywhere from $16,000 USD to fix it on your own dime.

They do have a history of cheaping on parts. When we had a KIA, all sorts of problems with CV joints, and power steering components, all expiring around 130,000km or so. Just lower quality seals & parts on drivetrain components, that lasted just until out of drivetrain warranty, if I recall.

Their EVs seem well built, from watching Sandy Munro videos, anyways. (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igFytqIMp0A)

But they're also so-far all in the upper tier of price ranges. Nobody is really making a 'budget' EV yet, apart from maybe GM with the Bolt.

Expiring at 130k KM seems sort of reasonable? How long do you expect those parts to last?

130k km == 81k mi, for the metrically-impaired.

CV joints, drivetrain, power steering ... in a "reliable" vehicle, will last at least double or triple that!

Depends how and where you drive it, and what ride quality you will put up with.

Around 80k miles upgrading to better aftermarket suspension components is usually worth it.

The wildest part for me is that the turbo variants they're selling in Europe seem to be perfectly fine. In the N cars there only seem to be clutch issues (and other stuff that's only relevant if you track them). My family has driven Korean cars since 2008 without ANY issues and I'm perfectly happy with my i30N.

Strangely, Does Hyundai/Kia have some difference wrt engines in US and India? Never heard anyone complain about engine in India even after 62k miles, they are quite popular among taxi drivers, who definitely stress the engine more than enough. Indian roads can be quite punishing on cars.

It IS strange! Hyundai and Kias are the most reliable cars in America right now https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cars-with-the-fewest-and-ch...

Note that it appears CarMD is basing this on data largely from 1995-2015. That’s well under the likely time/miles when KIA/Hyundai would have started to have engine trouble s.

Taxis are one of the least stressed engines as they stay at operating temperature for most of their life, more so when they are run 24/7 with multiple shifts.

In Indian traffic cars are constantly revving and slowing down. And Indian taxis are worst maintained. We don't have regulations enforcing it. And the driving of the majority of taxis is also haphazard. I'm not aware of any ideal taxi situation that you're speaking of in the Indian context.

Most engine wear is from cold starts.

That only matters if your design isn't garbage to begin with.

If you have some Toyota 22RE-esque timing component eating abomination or some Navistar 6.0-esque headgasket eating abomination the thing won't last long enough for normal wear to dominate the equation.

I’ve read some threads either here or on Reddit from mechanics saying it was the 2.0 engine (I think the CVT versions) that crapped out like this and they used that engine in a ton of models. Anecdotal, but mine is an old 2013 Kia with a 1.6 engine with DCT like all their turbos / top of line models and I’ve had no mechanical issues at all yet, but I’m looking to buy soon and I won’t consider their 2.0s out of caution.

My 2012 Accent had this issue with a 2.0 engine. Started burning oil around 90K miles and was getting worse by the day. To their credit, Hyundai replaced the full engine at no cost right at 100K miles thanks to the warranty - I have had the car for 10 years without incident, so it's pretty cool to get a brand new engine. I'd buy another Hyundai just because their warranty is so kick-ass

IIRC Kia or Hyundai has longest warranty - something like 8 years.

There are a few people in this thread saying their engines seized within the warranty period but weren’t covered by Kia, so this warranty might not be as useful as it sounds.

It used to be 10

One of mine has a seized engine at 66k miles. I’ve been waiting 2 months for the pleasure of paying $6k for a replacement. It is hopelessly backordered. I plan to sell mine as soon as I’m able.

It is sad to see even the more 'conservative' (design wise) car companies following this design. Lexus gets a lot of flak for boring/old tech interiors but give me their 2010s design over 'modern' touch screen/capacitive button all-the-things any day. Shame they haven't got more plugin hybrids or EV options though, their build quality/design in my experience makes a lot of other cars feel rushed.

My parents had a 2021 Hyundai Santa Fe top trim, and the design was a mess. A part from lane keeping, it had nothing my 10+ years older Lexus RX didn't have, and I found so many aspects of driving it counter-intuitive. I'm glad they are keeping real buttons, but I also hope they start removing things/make them simpler.

It's crazy to me that people think a "boring" interior is a bad thing. I want my car to be as boring, functional, and familiar as possible. I never want to think about my car except when it needs maintenance.

Hyundai’s are being stolen[0] left and right where I live.

[0]: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hyundai-kia-p...

A friend had a Hyundai Elantra. He needed new brakes so we went to Autozone, picked up some pads and then we jacked it up. I was flabbergasted - they were the easiest brakes to change in any car I have ever done. One bolt, swing the calipers up, pop the old pads out, plug in the new ones, swing the caliper down and put the bolt back in. Had both done in 20 minutes. It was amazing. A car actually DESIGNED to be serviced.

A few months later the crank angle sensor went out - again it was the easiest car to work on I have ever seen. The sensor was out in the open, not buried under a bunch of crap. One 10mm bolt, and the harness connector was easily accessible too. Five minutes and we were done.

Apparently it's no accident - their attention to detail carries over into their construction equipment too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuUi4Fc_8hE

Oh yeah, car had 250,000 miles on it and still ran like a top while getting 40MPG. Other than using a little oil. For a "cheap" car I was beyond impressed.

I just bought an Ioniq 5 a couple of months ago. The buttons are legit great, and the EV drive train is top notch.

Loving it so far.

I loved the look and interior of the Ioniq 5. However when testdriving it, it felt sitting on a plank getting tossed about while going over roundabouts. I also had it loose grip and have the FWD kick in in situations and conditions that have never been an issue at higher speeds in my previous (smaller and lower) cars and my current XC90.

maybe it had something to do with the large amount of power it has. But it felt scary enough for me to not try it.

I had the exact same feel when test driving it. It has problems cornering and driving in winter conditions.

Hmm. I've driven on snowy roads and found it to be better at handling than any other car I've driven, even counting cars that had dedicated snow tires (whereas the Ioniq only had all-season tires).

It also has a "snow mode" to help with particularly bad roads. I found at least one review that puts its snow handling down as a "pro", so it's not just me. [1]

I did get the Limited AWD with the 20" wheels. Not sure if that makes a difference.

[1] https://www.hotcars.com/2023-hyundai-ioniq-5-review/

I suppose the tires do matter a lot. I’ve driven an AWD (not sure whether it was a limited edition). The grip was indeed better in AWD mode, at the loss of range but the tossing around is still there. Maybe that would have been fixed completely by Sport seats.

Still, I’ve never had a car lose grip like the Ioniq 5. For the FWD cars that is expected, but also the RWD I have is easier to handle.

Ive never had a Hyundai but I recently rented a Sonata and wow! It had all the high end perks of other cars like top down parking view and a beautiful widescreen for my apple CarPlay! And driving it was great! I was seriously impressed and I enjoyed driving it for the several days I had it.

The human race with technology is like an alcoholic with a barrel of wine.

Hyundai is on a roll now. IONIQ 5 is one of the fastest-charging EVs, and yes, still has physical buttons.

I wish someone would EV a convertible, a glass roof is nice, but a convertible cannot be heavier that all that glass.

What I really want is the Wuling Hong Guang Mini EV Cabrio in the US.

Here's some pictures, that thing is so cute https://gmauthority.com/blog/2022/09/gms-wuling-mini-ev-cabr...

I'd especially love it as a vacation rental. A Hawaiian trip with that thing would be great.

Do you have a picture of it next to an F150? That might be why they don't allow cars that small, though the Feds would never admit it.

Soundly like they’re picking the wrong cars to not allow in that case.

Unfortunately the second you talk about banning large trucks in cities, someone comes along worrying about the policy applying to their rural town / homestead.

Why would an F150 be relevant? The highways are dominated by much larger tractor trailers.

You can't always drive a heavy duty truck like that in the city. You have to take certain routes a lot of the time.

Also F150s and similar are somewhat commonly used as commuter vehicles.

In most of the US you can. It would be very difficult to drive in the US in a way that avoids those trucks without restricting yourself to some tiny core.

Heh. Neat little city car, I like it.

it's about aero, not weight. EVs have great range at low speed and at high speed rolling resistance is 90+% of your drag. glass holds a very smooth curve extremely well.

We bought a 2020 Hyundai Palisade. Absolutely freaking lot it.

Lane assist is unreal. It eases 90%+ of the standard driving fatigue.

I have a Genesis G70 2021. It is fantastic; best car I've ever owned. I don't see myself buying anything other than Genesis, if my budget permits. So many awesome features and almost all of them are controlled by dials. I absolutely love it.

Had a tiny Kia rental recently for few months - small display for wireless Carplay and reversing camera, buttons otherwise. Perfect combination.

All that said wish there was more audio commands and overall remote start gets close to Tesla (who is far from perfect too).

Buy a Mazda

In about 10 years when they are finally serious about EV's

I'm convinced Mazda could have taken over the world with an electric CX-5. What a missed opportunity. Hopefully it's not too late for them as I think it's one of the nicer, and more tasteful vehicles on the road.

[dead]

This has been linked to on reddit, and it's being called out that a few 2023 Hyundai models have capacitive buttons and touchscreen controls; Tucson, Ioniq, Verna at least.

>tech-ridden abomination. Ok I'll bite, what was this abomination? Did it require logging into an app to start?

Mazda? They don’t even have touchscreens

They do, however I found it very intuitive on a CX-9. You rotate a dial and it scrolls through all options.

On the mazda 6 at least, there's a touchscreen for the native nav/media/etc software, but the touchscreen is disabled if you use Android Auto and are forced to use the dial interface. Go figure.

The newer models skipped on touchscreen entirely though.

What you probably want is a 4runner.

Guess what, most if not all cars today have what's called an ECM which is essentially a computer that controls your engine among other things. It's certainly a very easy task to flash that ECM as long as your inside that car and can plug in common off the shelf devices and have your car very quickly be unable to start.

Unless you're buying a car that's a decade old you cannot find what you want.

Both buttons and touchscreens have a place in a car... especially ergonomic buttons in just the right place and a well made touchscreen gui.

All the things that the driver might ever do during driving (blinkers, lights, radio, ac,...) should always be controlled by a physical button, that is easy to find by touch only, even in the dark.

On the other hand, reseting TPMS (air pressure system) sensors, looking at service history, internal error display, setting "welcome home" interval (delay with turning the lights off when parking), etc, are much easier done on a touchscreen with a nice menu with all the settings.

Somehow car manufacturers like the extremes... either you use a touchscreen to turn on the ac, with a few popups first, maybe even an autoplaying ad before you can change the temperature... or you have to press six random buttons at the same time and count the number of blinks of a random led on the dashboard to navigate the "menu" to change a not-everyday setting on the car.

IMHO, it has everything to do with old-school executives absolutely beside themselves that the expert labor they should be hiring (for UI/UX) requires wages several times higher than their line workers.

I expect executives to be absolutely beside themselves that they can spend a fraction of money on a few UX designers and coders and eliminate an entire class of parts and steps in a production line.

It’ll be an absolute steal. Executive level usually doesn’t think much about individual salaries and instead thinks about budgets, complexity, and risk.

> … eliminate an entire class of parts and steps in a production line.

What would they be eliminating?

Auto-playing ads on car touchscreens? Is that really a thing?!

I drive pretty old used cars so I don't know what newer ones are like

Imagine everything you hate about modern tech -- touchscreens, bluetooth, loading bars, slow & buggy web-based interfaces, ads, unbelievably stupid "smart" features -- but now you have to use them while traveling 70 MPH in a 6,000 lb steel battle tank next to hundreds of other humans doing the same.

Car reviewers can't get enough of this shit for some reason. I don't think I'll ever buy a car made after ~2012.

Coming soon to a for near you :)

https://www.motortrend.com/news/ford-billboard-ad-patent-sys...

to me the generation of cars roughly 5-10y old fits exactly that bill. They usually have touchscreen, often even Android/iOS integration and they have all physical controls still (except for Teslas). And with the right drivetrain you can find ones that are at or above 43mpg on the highway. For daily commuters I guess it's better to have an electric, but for my needs (weekend driving/shopping runs) it's perfect.

BMW had a rotary control button in every car. Now the idiots have removed it from at least two models (X1 and Active Tourer). My bet is that they will put it back eventually, but the person who made this decision should be shot.

Wow, talk about missing the point.

Four grids of uniform buttons, they think that's an improvement over a touchscreen? There is zero practical distinction between taking your eyes off the road to see which button you're pushing vs taking your eyes of the road to see which part of the screen you're touching.

GOOD HVAC/radio design means you can perform ALL essential functions WITHOUT taking your eyes off the road AT ALL, once you've spent five seconds learning what's where. The controls should be in locations where it's hard to mistake one thing for another. The controls should also be differently shaped and different types. Give us knobs and sliders!

Is anyone even awake in car design depts anymore?

Unlike a touchscreen, you can feel the line between adjacent buttons and between buttons & the surrounding dashboard. Unlike touchscreens, you can touch these without triggering them, use feel to locate the correct button and center your finger on it, then press it, all without taking your eyes from the road.

Could they be even more distinct? Sure. Are these still a huge improvement over a touchscreen? Absolutely.

I have seen a touch screen covered by a thin layer of plastic in the button row that has some indentation so the finger can feel where the buttons are. This was on the control panel of an industrial machine. With some small sound or haptic feedback when the button is being pressed, this allows someone familiar with the interface to quickly press some buttons while operating the machine.

(There was also an indentation for a slider on the side)

Did you have to buy a new cover when the buttons moved?

No: just inflate the top layer of the screen as the same place as the button below (see https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/a-keyboard-that-rises-up-fr... for more).

I mean that is cool, but afaik literally no one has ever done this in an automotive product. Probably because this flexible screen would turn crap after 10 years of non-stop inflating/deflating, or wouldn't operate in conditions that cars actually exist in(-30C/+40C operating temperatures are standard for automotive screens, as soon as you add any kind of flexible plastic you definitely lose that).

A slightly sarcastic “just” on my part, haha. Considering that the original idea (also a later project GelTouch[1]) never lead as far as I’m aware to any shipping products, I doubt they thought about specific automotive needs.

[1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2807442.2807487

In that case, the interface was made for that display. So that every screen had their buttons located under the bumps. (In the buttons row)

Some elements were not located there, but that was not the most used ones and then it was ok to look at the screen.

There is zero practical distinction between taking your eyes off the road to see which button you're pushing vs taking your eyes of the road to see which part of the screen you're touching.

There is, in fact, one large difference. With a button you know you’ve pushed it. Once you see where to press your eyes can go back to the road while you actually press the button since the feedback indicating it’s been pressed is tactile.

That’s just a button though. That scenario is magnified with any sort of adjustment slider.

I just got out of a rental with a touchscreen climate controls and it was significantly less safe just adjusting the heat.

Car touchscreens also have tactile feedback - they produce a click and a vibration when a press is registred. This works well. What doesn't work at all is being able to find a button without looking.

Largely, no they don't. Most models I've seen (including, the usual whipping boy Tesla) do not have any haptic feedback on their touch screens. Noises when clicking something is more common, though.

No, you are missing the point!

With a row of buttons, you can count and you do not need visual attention.

With a screen, instead, you must look even to understand whether you are on a clickable object at all!

Great, we have gone from a horrible and extremely unsafe design to a bad and mildly unsafe design.

What happened to the ~5 decades of design ranging from "decent" to "great"? Even the worst-designed dashboard of the early 00s was better than what we have now in many cases. Give me my damn knobs back.

I was going to agree, from the description above, that this was still a bad design.

But having looked at the picture, it seems fine. There are four sets of buttons that do different things. It will take negligible time to locate the one you want, after which you can stop looking at the panel. The buttons won't move and you'll be aware when you've pressed them.

Well designed button layouts don't require counting to figure out which one to push. Even that is a cognitive distraction.

I would like to see an explanation of how a human can have any interaction or choice without some level of cognitive cost.

Well designed button layouts use tactile differences so you can non-visually identify where you are without conducting a sequential search. Button clusters are restricted to groups of three or two with distinctive shapes or raised features that permit rapid acquisition of the intended button. You can't do that with a uniform, flush button strip. That's just designer wannabe BS where form is everything and function is ignored.

I think clearly Hyundai have taken an approach that improves dramatically on the 'buttons hidden behind touchscreens' menus' which has started to plague cars with touch screens.

The result is a dashboard that has decent form and decent function as opposed to great form terrible function. They aren't going for impeccable function here.

When a company tries to do the right thing and publicly calls out flaws in design iterations that we have disliked, lets not shoot them down for not getting it perfect.

To say its "form is everything where function is ignored" is just an overreaction.

Did you touch-type your post, by chance?

Hopefully not while driving

There isn't one, but we really don't use that many controls while driving. Those should be large, differently shaped, and well spaced apart.

> With a row of buttons, you can count and you do not need visual attention.

Exactly. Drive that car every day and you won't even need to count after a while. And even if you do you count by feel, no need to look.

Anecdote: I drove a friend's Tesla. I couldn't figure out how to adjust the a/c *.

* I mean, I could have probably done it with the manual and 10 min. But in less "advanced" cars you just turn the damn knob.

Both can be true.

You can have buttons AND screen, like in Tesla for example.

Not to mention voice and beyond that even simply automation.

Of course some people will say Teslas don’t have buttons, but those people don’t know what they are talking about and can be safely ignored.

Would you mind posting a photo and enlightening us?

Sure here's one... it's a hotlink, so if it breaks, try google

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/images/GUID-7F31F314-174E...

While I agree that Hyundai's console design is seriously lacking, anything immovable/unchangeable has a key benefit over touchscreens: it can be habituated.

Personally I find any interface that can move while you use it to be borderline anger-inducing (the Google Cloud Platform console comes to mind immediately). In a car it's deadly. Gimmicks move gadgets though, so we had to let some designers and product managers get their bonuses/promotions and then pivot into an "epiphany" (sans the mea culpa) to get to now.

I dare say the thought process is that, does it really matter over and above how they have already designed it?

If you spend enough time in your own car you will get pretty darn good at finding your buttons with the smallest of glances. I don't think car designers really see the benefit, when they're constantly changing their dashboard designs.

Touchscreen however is a no go.

They could also just stop changing the designs and go with what's worked for 50-70 years.

That's a recipe for keeping horses rather than cars.

Designs should change and improve as technology improves, however it needs to move in a responsible direction. What we had 50-70 years ago is quite different from what we have now.

I agree entirely; this is lazy design. Cars are the most dangerous machines we’ve invented, by orders of magnitude nothing else causes as much unintended harm. It’s really, really worth doing the best possible job in the control surfaces for these machines.

They’ve prioritized visual consistency over usability. For example, why do the Volume and Tuner knobs look identical? They’re for different purposes, used in different ways and in different contexts. They’re even usually used by different _people_ — the volume knob is more likely to be used by the passenger, for instance.

And yet, they’re more related to each other than they are to the buttons placed between them, like Search and Map. All those buttons seem essentially arbitrary to me. Are Seek and Track really as important as Setup? Why have a rarely-used and interruptive feature like Setup right next to an often-used and non-destructive feature like Favorite (I’m guess that’s what the star means)?

I’m still glad they’re real buttons rather than a touchscreen. But you’re totally right — this is exceptionally lazy design and implementation of physical buttons.

And if I may — I’ve seen replies already to the effect that the usability of this interface doesn’t matter, either because it’s not a big deal to begin with, or because drivers will get used to anything, or for another reason. That’s missing the point — usability is for everyone, all the time. Even exports make mistakes with unusable controls.

> For example, why do the Volume and Tuner knobs look identical? They’re for different purposes, used in different ways and in different contexts. They’re even usually used by different _people_ — the volume knob is more likely to be used by the passenger, for instance.

Given that they’re so far apart, I don’t see why they should be physically different from one another. Also, the standard position of the volume knob is on the left, the tuner knob on the right. This is how it has worked in any car radio I’ve ever seen when the knobs are arranged horizontally like that. They’re both within easy reach so trying to statistically determine which occupant is most likely to operate which knob doesn’t seem very useful.

I agree with everything else you’ve written. I hate it when disruptive controls are mixed in with less-consequential ones. This design could use some improvement, but it’s also substantially better than the touchscreen-only alternative.

It could certainly be improved, but it still looks much more usable than a touchscreen to me.

I’m pretty sure you regularly use a piece of plastic with 104 near identical buttons without looking at any of them.

Not identical: they typically have raised markers on two of the home row keys precisely to help with orientation. And, well, your hands are already positioned over them much of the time, so relative identification is much easier. Not so with these buttons.

These are in 4 different blocks with only 4 each, I don't think this is terribly hard without looking. And it's not like these are functions like windshield wipers that would typically go somewhere else. Looks more or less like typical buttons to me.

The bottom two blocks are fine, I agree, because they're laid out in two dimensional so if you feel around for the corners and identify the buttons that way.

The top set of buttons arranged in a line are much worse. They're two sets of 4 in a sense, but they're nearly undifferentiated from the hazard lights button, so in reality it's one long strip. I strongly suspect that people will take their eyes off the road to look at those buttons more often than not.

(Yes they're media controls, but let's be honest: people will use them to skip tracks while driving.)

I am 37 and have felt for these raised markers precisely zero times.

Have you ever tried typing on a keyboard without them? They're one of those things that you don't notice consciously but is actually really important.

Not sure I'm using them even unconsciously. Because every time (admittedly not often) that I get a new keyboard I type shifted (as in djogyrd instead of shifted) for a while.

If i'd be using those raised markers I wouldn't take so much time to adapt I think?

I’m 33 and was the mostly the same until I switched from QWERTY to Colemak. Now my index fingers practically live on the f and j keys.

Car buttons often have markers as well.

That’s not analogous. Proper use, or accustomed use, of a keyboard places the hands in the correct position by default. Our hands don’t remember the _absolute_ position of those buttons, only their position _relative_ to other buttons.

Buttons in car control panels require users to leave the default position of hands-on-wheel and acquire the new button. That’s an expensive operation, and it’s well-studied — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law

Also, keyboard layouts are static — learn QWERTY once, use it forever. Car control panels are usually different between cars, so learnability is harder. Many people regularly drive multiple cars, increasing difficulty again.

Okay then. How many times do you you stare at the controls on the television remote every time you turn it on or off?

This is over blown. You only have to learn your car's radio once per car.

>Also, keyboard layouts are static — learn QWERTY once, use it forever.

Or you could learn Dvorak and switch between the two.

Core functions like HVAC and hazard lights deserve dedicated controls, but modern cars also need a type of input that can be used with a tablet-sized display. What to do?

*Rotary Encoders*

The best type of input for a car is a rotary encoder, a knob with tactile "clicks" that register as you turn it. Good ones can also be pressed down like a button, and moved in cardinal directions like a d-pad.

Have one for your volume knob: pressing it down toggles muting.

Have one for the main controls: twisting moves the cursor, swiping changes which app is selected.

Have one on a steering wheel stalk, to cycle between display modes on one of the dashboard display's rounds.

We need more rotary encoders.

Sounds like you'd like Mazda.

> Have one for your volume knob: pressing it down toggles muting.

Check.

> Have one for the main controls: twisting moves the cursor, swiping changes which app is selected.

Check.

> Good ones can also be pressed down like a button, and moved in cardinal directions like a d-pad.

Check.

BMW uses a rotary encoder for their iDrive thing. I have it in my 2011 3 series.

People trash talk it, but I actually like it.

I hated it because the software was shit. I only used it in rentals, so additional shenanigans were probably going on, but what I remember:

- on home screen icons for functionality would never stay in the same place. They were shuffled based on "recency"

- in some menus you could only scroll to the very top and to the very bottom, in others the scrolling would wrap around

- in some menus you went further down by shifting the knob right, in some by clicking

And other minor and not so minor annoyances

> Have one for the main controls: twisting moves the cursor, swiping changes which app is selected.

And... take your eyes off the road to see where the cursor is?

It doesn't seem so bad to me. They're evenly enough separated, and all have a nearby 'index by feel' point.

Reading this comment before opening, I for some reason expected a giant panel of 16 identical buttons in a square.

This actually looks like a really practical design to me.

Maybe I've been driving the wrong cars, but I don't expect to be able to feel around blindly to find the right button to press (although, to be honest, that does seem like it'd be doable with this Kona design). I do expect, however, to be able to glance at the button panel and quickly get a fix on the button location so that I can look back at the road while my fingers to the rest. This design would certainly enable the latter.

> There is zero practical distinction between taking your eyes off the road to see which button you're pushing vs taking your eyes of the road to see which part of the screen you're touching.

Practically, I don't need to take my eyes off the road to press an analog button, that I am familiar with, having a small chance to fail (to register the interaction). Touchscreens are notorious for not registering interaction, which is why using a touchscreen keyboard is inferior.

> Give us knobs and sliders!

Ironic ask.

In testing and studies, buttons appear to perform better than touch screens. For example, https://www.vibilagare.se/english/physical-buttons-outperfor...

Aside from the studies, on a personal level I have a car with a touch screen and one without. The one without is, simply, easier to use.

Do you have any good examples of a car or plane that can be operated that way? I'm not aware of any.

Taking a glance to co-locate your finger and a button or knob is far faster than doing so with an element on a touchscreen. And the latter requires visual attention throughout the interaction.

Also, I would wager that keeping eyes on road while mentally finding a button or knob without looking is actually more distracting than taking a quick glance for it.

There is absolutely a difference. You probably typed this entire message on your desktop or laptop keyboard without looking at it. Could you do the same on a touch keyboard on your phone? Buttons staying in the same place and giving tactile feedback makes all the difference.

The design in the linked picture looks just about like any other non-touchscreen car in the world, and is perfectly usable.

and yet, here I am, typing on my keyboard, which is above my eye level while I lay on a couch eating a burrito with my latop on my belly. And I don't even have to see the keys... they should alternate every single key with a knob so I know the difference.

You can take your eyes of the road for a little bit my man. You do it all the time anyway when checking mirrors. Yes, knobs and sliders would be better but this is a good compromise vs exclusive screens.

Also, as per the other content: you can type and remember 100+ buttons.

+1 - Good design should be a bigger requirement than number of buttons.

I have a Tesla where autosteer can be engaged by two moves of a stalk.

I have a Nissan where the feature is controlled by a one button within two rows of buttons beneath my left knee.

Buttons are not always an improvement.

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Yup. Additionally, unpredictable buttons are worse than a predictable touchscreen.

Buttons should be unique visually and by shape, and perform as you expect them to (no eating/missing/etc inputs).

The physical buttons aren't moving around, I don't think these things are similar.

They can, just in different ways. In one car I had the volume/tuner rotary wouldn't work right until after the radio had been on for a few minutes.

The cost of a physical button with less consistency than a touch screen, at least initially. Worst of both worlds.

That's wonderful, I hope other car makers realize how distracting and dangerous touch controls are for a driver's ability to focus on driving.

My car has physical controls for most things, and I use CarPlay for music/podcasts and navigation, and even for that purpose it's extremely distracting to use it while driving when compared to the physical interfaces for A/C, seat heaters, mirror adjustment etc. I generally avoid as much of the CarPlay interface as possible while driving.

Voice commands are not the silver bullet solution here, they have a lot of problems such as requiring all passengers to stop talking, and it interrupts the radio, podcast, or music, and generally it's awkward to use voice commands during a phone call. Voice commands are probably fine for some low stakes input like asking to call someone, changing music tracks etc.

Hardly fair to compare navigation and selecting music to adjusting temperature and seat heaters. Very different tasks with very different requirements for looking at them.

That's great! I hope all new Hyundai's buttons are more readable than the darn things in mine. I thought it was just me, but nope, it's a common complaint. I can not make out a single word on my buttons, it's super annoying.

https://www.palisadeforum.com/threads/cant-see-buttons-in-br...

I much prefer buttons over a touch screen, but designers need to remember to make them readable.

I bought a Peugeot over a VW because it has actual physical buttons.

Keep pushing touch controls, I keep not buying your shit.

I bought a used 2019 VW instead of a new model for this exact reason. I'm afraid it's the last VW I'll own unless they roll back touch controls.

Which VW? Except for the ID4, all recent models I've driven have physical buttons for everything I'd need to touch while driving.

I don't think it's fair to call the capacitive touch panels they've put in all new models "buttons".

Especially with those crappy tiny touch areas.

Audis and Skodas (same group, basically same cars) have the regular physical controls AFAIK. I'm driving a 2021 Audi A1 and it has nice click-y buttons for everything

I just drove a brand new rented Peugeot 208 and even the manual A/C was touchscreen only so that's ruined too.

My wife has an ID.4, and they really have gone overboard with touch controls. You have only 2 sets of window controls (driver-side and passenger); you have to use a touch control to switch between front and back.

Physical buttons will become a premium feature.

I bought a Chevy Bolt vs a Model 3 for this and CarPlay. It is so well designed and every time I need something it is right where I expect it.

Could I learn the touch interface? Of course, but driving is often done subconsciously and touch is not amenable to that type of automatic interaction.

I wanted a car, not a toy.

(I am aware of the irony regarding the unfortunate proportions of the Bolt making it look like a toy car… lol)

The Chevy Bolt also costs over $10k less than the Model 3.

Yep.

I had my eyes set on the Genesis GV60, but that car’s entry model (if you can find it) is $60k.

The Bolt was $33k - 7.5k in tax rebates. It is an enormous value.

It isn’t the Genesis for sure… but it’s 80% of that car for 40% the money.

The GV60 is the same platform as the Ioniq 5 and EV6. Ioniq is hard to find, but EV6's are relatively available.

Is it? We walked into our local Hyundai and they had several models they were selling at MSRP.

A quick check shows you're right - they are pretty common now. When I bought my EV6 in September, it was a much different story.

I bought mine about 30 days too soon to qualify for the tax rebate. Pretty salty about that.

For long time I wondered why UI in spacecrafts is so inconvenient. Apollo computer UI seems to be lacking. Soyuz UI, while seems to improve over years (ha, it would be strange, over so many years...), still looks clunky. And then - Crew Dragon comes with touch screens. Don't they understand it's a big step back? There are benefits of "fluid" interfaces, but where is the attention to important features, ability to use "main" tools without re-learning where they are and how they look like, while having the tactile feedback?

I have been in the room, so to speak, when the design of a fusion reactor control room was being discussed. I feel the answer is simply: because engineers "design" these things.

I feel like the design of spaces is simply not considered very well if at all. I get the feeling that maybe aircraft do it best? Or at least that's the impression that I have had.

Did engineers really design the touch screens on Dragon? I feel like those were in the first mock-ups that came out. I assumed that it was just a “concept car” type detail and they would have MFDs in the real spacecraft.

Touchscreens seem like a very marketing/design feature.

Agreed. These systems tend to be designed by engineers without a lot of input from designers.

One big difference is that spacecraft crews actually train on their craft, just like aircraft pilots, and extensively. So they know what all the controls are for, what they do, what to do in an emergency, etc. When a pilot wants to fly a different model of airplane, they have to be retrained (or cross-trained rather) on that model, since the controls and procedures may be different.

For some strange reason, people expect to just jump in the driver's seat of a car and drive away with zero training.

I don't know much but driving spaceship won't need to watch outside continuously so touchscreen may make sense than car driving

The idea of tactile feedback is that you can look at one place - like a screen, which gives you information in ideally most convenient way - while, without looking, operate buttons, knobs, levers etc., at the same time.

If you have, for example, a screen which shows you docking crosses in the center of the picture and control buttons on the periphery of the picture, you still need to move your focus from the view to controls to operate them. This is a simplified example, just to illustrate my point.

This can be seen in plane cookpits, where a lot of things are migrating from physical buttons to the screens. But there are still a lot of knobs, buttons, levers...

Cockpit of an Airbus A380: https://i.stack.imgur.com/rLdZ3.jpg

The key seems to be to move the info to a screen, but still control the screen with physical buttons and not touching the screen. E.g. move the status display of the A/C to the central screen, but turn a knob to adjust the temperature.

The Space Shuttle has some of the most advanced-looking UI I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame there isn’t more information about it.

Not only the buttons but also a lot of parts which are electric when they really don't have to.

My brother, who has three kids, tried out a SUV which had an electric hatchback, where you have to trigger the trunk closing with a button. With a manual hatchback he could fill all the luggage in the trunk and just slam the door, without any problem. But now the electric hatchback would not close if the car felt there was a luggage in the way.

In the end they had to remove the luggage, close the trunk and fill the trunk from the side doors.

Well, I wish BMW did the same. Wanted to go for the new BMW M2. But now instead of a well-integrated speedometer & central display they shaved it off of the dash and put in place this monstrosity of a wide screen. It's just bolted on with no sense of cohesion.

And with that the buttons for climate control are gone.

Want to turn on heated seats? Touch the screen. Change fan speed? Touch the screen.

All things that I can do blindly (eyes on the road, not eyes closed, but you get it), which now require looking AND finesse, because if I mis press who knows where the GPS will send me next...

It's such a bummer because I think the last 2-3 generations of BMW's iDrive system have been absolute rockstars among autos. Sad to see them go backwards with iDrive 8 where you have to navigate nested menus to toggle heated seat controls.

Real pushable buttons. Not the capacitive crap VW has ruined their interiors with.

I miss my Prius, which had a large dedicated button on the dashboard to switch the speedometer from MPH to km/h. (US model)

I don’t know why it was there but I did like to push it.

Good to hear it was made that easy. Last Prius I rented there was no way to display km/h and Toyota’s official response was “just buy next year’s model”.

maybe it was intended for the rental market

Your Prius? I thought we were talking about cars, here!

Will this translate to their Kia brand? My EV6 has touch controls for the climate control, and the same "toolbar" flips between climate and radio controls. (it does have 2 circular knobs). On the next level trim, the controls for heating/cooling seats are touch and are notoriously easy to accidentally hit (though on mine they are buttons)

The cabin controls are okay on Hyundais, I guess. I remember having to use the touchscreen to set the rear temperature controls. This is confusing when the main screen is occupied by Android auto. So it isn't like you have button control over everything.

I'd recommend Mazda for getting pushbutton controls right.

I'm a big fan of the Commander knob on my Mazda (despite absolutely everything else about their infotainment being hot garbage). It's so easy to use without being distracted, more so even than physical buttons. But unfortunately, it seems like Android Auto is going more and more away from supporting non-touchscreen inputs. First they added forced "look at the road" breaks when you were scrolling a large list, which actually made it more dangerous when scrolling with the knob in a Mazda since it would just take longer. And their new layout is pretty terrible for a rotary input as it has no clear tab flow.

Good on Hyundai! Other cars will go back to this, or will the NTSB make them?

Aviation has figured this out long ago. Look at any "glass" cockpit. They all have buttons around the screen. For example see linked [1] Garmin 1000 panel, common in General Aviation.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin_G1000#/media/File:Garmi...

Amazing! When I bought my last car, I ensured there were physical buttons for everything I regularly use. While driving, most things happen without much thinking, and touch screens feel like the antithesis of that idea. I recently had to drive a car with a touch screen for, e.g. AC and radio control. I failed miserably to turn off the radio for 3 hours on the highway. I usually expect these things to be intuitive enough to do without reading the manual of a car.

I've been looking for a commuter car and right now the Mazda3 is at the top of my list because it doesn't has a touch screen.

For many of these UI designers the inspiration for a physical buttonless control panel might have come from the famous Steve Jobs iPhone launch keynote. In that speech he convinced the world why having physical buttons is a bad design choice. Obviously he was talking about just phones.

Yup, if you're browsing or using an app, your eyes are already on the phone screen. That shouldn't be true when you're driving.

I have a Hyundai Ioniq 1st gen, and the main reason I didn’t go for the 2nd gen was the touch-only controls (capacitive buttons). I’m happy that Hyundai reconsidered this - I love the build quality of their cars and this decision will make it way easier to be a repeat customer.

Honestly, the move to soft keys and touchscreen UIs for basic vehicle operations was one of the worst trade-off decisions. Touch UI makes sense for complicated device interactions, such as a navigation systems. But these are typically supplemental features to driving. Replacing basic functions like climate, or volume controls, etc was insanely foolish in my view.

Imagine if you had to look at the steering wheel or gas pedal to confirm you interacted with them...

We are gifted with highly precise and sensitive devices (hands) for manipulating objects which can detect even the slightest interaction by feeling alone, and to replace that with something that requires visual or auditory feedback..in a car...was a reckless move.

I have owned a Hyundai, and I have zero idea why everyone is so convinced that their physical buttons reduce driver distraction. In the six years I had it, I never managed to totally figure out where the HVAC buttons were and in what order they cycled the different modes.

I have zero issues with my 2018 Elantra buttons. the whole experience is perfectly normal.

Reading the comments here remind me of the days when the iPhone was first released to the masses and everyone was like 'oh no i want my physical keyboard it feels good'.

Good times looking back.

Any button not on the steering wheel will require you to look away from the road, even for a split second. In that split second something can jump out in front of you. You can blame the touch screen or other things, shoot maybe even if you were looking straight ahead your mind might have drifted (as is the case with long distance, boring driving after hours without a break). No amount of UI will fix that.

Best we can hope for is better tech in the car for obstacle detection and avoidance.

As multiple people here have pointed out, they can operate the button interfaces on their cars by touch alone. My car only has knobs and buttons and I can operate the heating, radio, cabin lighting and hazards just by knowing what the control feels like.

So happy to see this. My VW ID.4 is extremely frustrating, because I never know if touching a control will do something or not. Many buttons are also touch-sensitive. Endless confusion, and additionally you can't "feel" for the button, you have to look and touch carefully, because otherwise touching might trigger something else.

Just a couple of days ago I wanted to feel the temperature of the air being blown into the cabin. I put my hand near the vent and inadvertently turned off the headlights and turned on rear windshield heating — just by touching. Took a while to set everything back to sane settings.

I use Miles car sharing a lot, and I now actively avoid the VW ID cars. The user experience is just so much better in the Polo, everything just works and is intuitive. In the ID, figuring out how to activate the hot air while driving when the windshield starts to go blind is no fun. Parallel parking sucks because you have very little feel for when the car is bumping against something vs just needing a bit more power to move. The interior looks like it was designed to be cheap above all. Adjusting the mirrors is a frustrating experience.

I wish automakers would make buttons with small programmable OLED displays, so that I could bind custom actions to them.

I hated button layout in ALL of the cars I've owned. I usually needed only a couple of buttons, with the rest being unused.

That would be nice but very expensive and not so robust as moulded parts without any display/electronic on the surface. I wonder if there is a cheaper way of customizing the button icons than with OLED displays.

Heck, I'd be OK if the automakers went old school with replaceable stickers/panels.

Hm. Should I patent it? Off to USPTO!

Can we have both? Magnetic adhering buttons to touch screens? Could even make the touch screen configureable, so its something new for every driver and different in every car. If you are a UX designer. How did we get here?

I have one of those cars that’s mostly touchscreen and it doesn’t bother me. The most important actions for driving have analog controls around the steering column or on the wheel. I set the cabin temp once and don’t touch it because climate control is a very easy task for car computers. I can pause the audio and change volume from the wheel. This is fine. The car designers do get paid to think about this stuff, and they mostly do a good job. It’s only a debate because the internet has opinions.

SO is car button designer for Tier 1 supplier. It's not only a debate on the internet.

The killer invention would be a device that is as easy to replace/maintain/configure/adapt as the glass/ipad interface, but as easy to do blindly as an 80's knobs-and-buttons interface. I'm sure automakers have plowed money into all kinds of cool haptic inventions, and there are lots of past examples of UX innovation (BMW control wheel, modern HUDs). I hope we'll figure this one out eventually, because the Tesla solution sure isn't the end of the story.

You really think screens and integrated electronics are easier to maintain and cheaper to replace than plastic buttons and copper wire?

Yes, absolutely and of course. It’s not even close. It’s basically 1 cable to install.

And you can use the same hardware for all models and all trims.

By “maintain” I mean “adapt to new models and features”. But it’s likely often cheaper to repair as well since labor is the majority of the cost.

After test driving a Model Y, I have to admit the touch screen-only interface wasn't _as_ bad as I thought it was going to be.

That being said, mechanical controls are superior for tasks that need to be done while driving: I'm thinking wiper and A/C controls in particular, with mirror and seat adjustments being slightly less important. I fully expect Tesla to start adding a few more hardware controls as other manufacturers learn to market this as a value add over Tesla.

I think my current BMW is probably going to be peak design for me. All of the driving and climate controls are physical click-y buttons. It still has a touch screen for ancillary stuff that I don't need when driving which is fine, but I don't have to use the touch screen at all when driving.

Sadly it seems they are following the crowd on the new versions, it looks like climate controls have moved onto the touch screen. I won't be glad to "upgrade" to that.

As far as the console goes, I would gravitate to the most basic I possibly could. I don't want to spend an extra 6k for stuff I'd rather do on my phone anyway.

I own a Hyundai Tucson 2020 and it's your basic family vehicle with a lot of small quirks but no big issue. It doesn't accelerate fast enough, the passenger door locks behave inconsistently, and Android auto occasionally doesn't work, etc. But overall I think it's solid car so I bought it when the lease ends. After all nowadays it takes too long to get a car and interest rate is approaching 7% - too scary.

> Lee hinted that while this is a priority for Hyundai today, things may change in future. In particular, the company will likely look at using touch controls more heavily when autonomous driving becomes mainstream. “When it comes to Level 4 autonomous driving, then we’ll have everything soft key," said Lee.

Hell, no. When it comes to level 4 autonomous driving, I want a hardware one key override, not everything soft key.

Finally, a dose of sanity. I was thinking everybody in auto industry went crazy with those touch screen control. I would never buy a car without physical controls, at least as long as I am supposed to drive it, it is refreshing to see somebody understands it.

A good start, now for more manufacturers to follow suit.

This is such good news, I was planning on keeping my used Volvo for decades as I love my buttons so much

Standardised physical controls are one of the best things car designers have ever done. When I did not own a car I rented them on a regular basis. It is amazing that you can just step into a car that you have never driven before, flip some familiar switches, turn some knobs and press some pedals and be on your way. Throwing all that away for some fancy touch screens is just a waste.

Not sure why peripheral vision UIs never took off for cars. It solves the safety issue of taking your eyes off the road with while still enjoying the benefits of a touch screen. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sT33BPUQaHg&feature=youtu.be

Curiously, most of the ac/nav/media controls in my Hyundai Tucson are touch (big touchscreen with the usual suspects, and a row of buttons that aren't part of the screen and could've been normal buttons, but are instead capacitive ones that don't provide any tactile feedback).

I am grateful they've decided to at least stop there.

One of the main reasons why I decided to buy a Hyundai (i30) last year is the good cockpit design. Physical buttons for the essential controls, touchscreen for nav, some extras and settings.

The UX in some car brands is so horrible I really struggle to unterstand how anyone would ever build/buy those atrocities.

Can we get them back on phones too please?

This is good news, though some (mostly higher-end) carmakers are addressing this by having high-quality natural language voice commands. I look forward to having a vehicle like this someday, but in the meantime I'm glad that there are mainstream carmakers that are keeping physical buttons.

I personally don't enjoy voice commands, they require all passengers to stop talking, and it interrupts the radio, podcast, or music, and generally it's awkward to use voice commands during a phone call. Well placed physical interfaces are unbeatable for their input reliability, which translates to less time spent distracted from the road.

They don't have multiple mics to triangulate on the driver's voice? What you describe does sound annoying!

I don't have a high-end luxury car, I've only used Android Auto / Apple CarPlay through the car's microphone system.

Even if we assume a sophisticated system that can triangulate your voice, trying to talk to the car while driving, and having other passengers talking seems like a recipe for distraction.

Perhaps! I was imagining that it would work at least as well as a HomePod, which can pick up very quiet talking even when music is playing. Since the car knows where your head is located, I assumed that it would perform even better. I don't have a problem talking while there are others in the car — I often have kids in the car and use an AirPod to ask Siri to send text messages. I find it to be less distracting than reaching for knobs (and I've driven knobby cars since the 90s, so am well-practiced at that). I find steering-wheel controls to be the best, but anything that makes me reach into the center stack is less preferable (compared to voice interface) for me.

My experience with Siri when I've lost a remote has been more than enough to tell me that trying to control volume with voice is just a pain in the ass.

The difference between a car company with a software department and a software company with a car department.

I love it! I've been ranting about touchscreen-mania in cars for years now! Good on ya, Hyundai!

People seem to miss the most critical point. Physical buttons aren't needed when you can focus on the input, such as when a vehicle is driving itself. Physical controls are needed for all non tesla's / vehicles that require attention

Like Samsung "promised" (advertised) keeping the headphone jack?

https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-mock-ads-apple-headph...

Saw Porsche Taycan with weird AC controls hidden deep inside the touch screen and a very un-intuitive UI. Honda did the same mistake and now have changed their decision and gone back to physical buttons. Hyundai realises it. Hope others follow the lead

I love buttons but you don't really need them with a properly designed climate control system. Yet many cars are fitted without climate control so the driver is always fiddling the buttons or subjecting passengers to cruel temperatures.

While we are at it can we get back the sliders to control heat and a/c output. The whole "set your section of the car to a specific temperature" is a fantasy.

Imo, a large number of people grew up with tablets. Even my own kids, in the back of the car finishing games while driving.

In 10-20 years most buttons will be gone in cars. Because the new generation is so used to using touchscreens.

I think that’s beside the point. There’s probably professional pilots active today that “grew up with tablets” but I don’t think anyone wants cockpits to replace knobs and levers with touchscreens.

In a car you can get away with this kind of compromise because there’s an idea that it’s what people “want”, but my personal opinion is that car makers have a responsibility to ensure that design changes they make do not impact the safety of drivers, and I have a hard time thinking that isn’t a problem with touchscreens, because you simply cannot interface with the car anymore without averting your eyes the same way you can with actual buttons.

My kid, who grew up with tablets and is now just old enough to drive, hates touch screens in cars for non nav/infotainment functions. Now, he’s been taught to drive in a car with buttons, so he’s bitten the apple so to speak. If he didn’t know any better you’d probably be right.

Perhaps people thought cars would be self-driving so people could ignore the road while playing with touchscreens.

Of course Tesla's 2016 demo video of its self-driving feature was faked^1. There were several crashes, some fatal, resulting from Tesla's alleged self-driving feature. The company is being sued by multiple parties for breach of warranty.^2 Stay tuned.

1. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/tesla-staged-2016-self-...

2. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

I fully support this for basic environmental controls and audio, but there is a limit. I test drove a Kia EV6 GT recently and it has, IIRC, 4 up-down levers and about 8 or 10 other buttons on the steering wheel, flappy paddles, and stalks. Compared to Tesla (which I also test-drove), which has only two pushbutton scroll wheels and two stalks, and a big screen. the polar opposite.

I think neither gets it exactly right. physical controls of things that can get obtrusive - wind and noise - are appropriate. But it's ridiculous and distracting to have too many buttons for features that are not really necessary to drive. I think that a common one like rear view mirror adjustment, or even seat adjustment, should not be physical buttons, but menu items.

I've had an EV6 for 6 months, and I don't find them counterintuitive.

be honest - how many of the 30 or 40 physical controls do you actually use on a regular basis?

I frequently switch mode between Eco and Sport, always switch to level 4 regen, and use both cruise control and the volume controls daily. So just on the steering wheel, I use probably 75% of the levers and buttons daily. Maybe I'm the rare power user. :-)

This should be a government regulation rather than a promise. I have a lot of sympathy for laissez faire (in the absence of regulatory capture) but we don’t want market forces being shaped by death.

I think there's an old joke somewhere in here about designers being unable to resist re-inventing perfectly good buttons for the nth time, so that they can cleanly "style" them.

Amazing. Now can we promise to keep instrument cluster dials as needles? I don't have a repeat of the Aston Martin Lagonda when the LCDs undoubtedly become dated.

I love my Skoda Enyaq, but the fact that I have to look at a screen to change some very basic settings (temperature, auto stop breaking, etc.) I hate.

Nice! I want a car to be as analog as possible. Touchscreen controls looked cool to me as I was a child, now I understand that's all bullshit.

Interesting as they just removed almost all buttons in Hyunday Tucson at least. Good thing they're bringing them back.

At least we still have a real wheel and not just some arrows to push on a touchscreen. :)

Had my eye on the Hyundai i20 for my next car, this definitely helps that decision.

Maybe what's dangerous is awful UI/UX; not touchscreens

That is the criteria I used in selection of car. Tesla is off

ioniq5 has some beautiful buttons mixed with screens

Thank goodness. I FAR prefer tactile instruments.

Well they just got a (repeat) customer for life.

Finally some reasonable people

I have a 2022 VW Golf GTI. It has no buttons for the climate control and haptic buttons for the steering wheel controls. I think there's some assumptions the designers might have made about how people would use the system:

The first is how HVAC systems work in a house, old cars, and new cars.

- Home window and central ACs (at least all the ones I've seen) can't adjust the temperate of the air that comes out, it's tied to external values like whether the air recirculation is on, the temperature of the outside air, wind, etc. For example if it's 90f out and you turn on the AC and the desired temp is below that it will output 70f. There's many variables, size of the system whatever, point is YOU CAN'T CONTROL THE TEMPERATURE OF THE AIR COMING OUT OF THE SYSTEM

: You set a desired temperature

: If that temperature is above (AC) or below (heat) the compressor and fan turn on

: The system outputs a fixed air temperature, as cold as possible for all the variables BUT NOT your desired temperature

: When the desired temperature is reached (or a few degrees in either direction to prevent rapid cycling) the compressor turns off. The fan may also turn off or continue to run depending on the settings.

Cars:

In older cars and newer cars when automatic climate control is off or unavailable the system outputs the TEMPERATURE YOU CONTROL. You aren't setting a desired temperature but an output temperature. One exception to this is cars that turn off the compressor when your interior air is below the desired.

Many newer cars have automatic climate control. You set the desired temperature and it adjusts both the air temperature, fan speed, and position until you reach the desired temperature.

That means if it's 90F in the car and you want 69F the initial output air temperature will as cold as possible, possibly lower than your desired to assist in getting to your desired. This is accomplished via air mixing with the heater core. *It's more complex than this but for the sake of simplicity

I believe the goal was that you would set a fixed temperature, turn on auto, and rarely touch the system. This is even more possible in my car because there's dedicated defrost buttons that override the system when on and return it to the previous setting when you turn it off.

This means there's less interaction with the system and therefore less need for dedicated buttons and less distraction, assuming that's how it's used.

Steering wheel:

The steering wheel has a volume control:

https://www.topgear.com/sites/default/files/2022/02/TopGear%...

Both + and - are on one long strip with no gap between other buttons. When you press it there's a small amount of movement and haptic feedback. It does not respond to touch unless you slide.

The operation is as follows: Press + and the volume increases by 1 Press - and the volume decreases by 1 Slide your finger from left to right the volume increases multiple values depending on the amount of contact and speed of the swipe Slide your finger from right to left ....

Again, the sliding action mimics the operation of a phone. I don't think it's unreasonable for the designers to assume the operation would be natural for people.

Overall there's a greater learning curve however a learning curve for a car isn't important in most situations since you usually keep a car for a few years. I've gotten used to it and I would have liked real buttons I don't see a problem. Taking my eyes off the road can happen for many things, like GPS, text messages, etc. That's something I need to known not to do because simply reduces the reasons doesn't seem like the ideal solution.

So I daily drive a 1988 saab 900, with very nice haptic controls. My engine blew up at the end of february. In the last 4 weeks I have been driving my wife's car, a 1990 Saab 9000. Automatic Climate Control is great. Last week I got the 900 back up and running and it's such a stunning difference between a car that was engineered originally in the 70's and one that was 'new' in the late 80s.

In my 900 there's basically 2 heat settings, ICE COLD and FIREY. It's best controlled by adjusting the return air flap / fan speed or cracking the windows. It's never right, it's always fiddly. I don't like it, except on very cold days it has no problem.

I notice that the 9000 I spend much less time fiddling with buttons, but when I do... it takes me longer. On my 900, I don't even think about it, like when you drive stick shift, you just shift, no mental thought. You think it and do it in one motion, like using vim hotkeys.

So - now I will be back to driving my 900 this week after I finish buttoning up the interior pieces, and I don't know if I like it more or less.

not sure why I typed this, I like saab.

I'm somewhat interested in older cars, but a big deterrent for me has been safety. I guess this is just a risk in driving an older car. A lot of my driving is on the highway going 70+ MPH, so I suppose if my commute consisted of roads with half the speed limit or less then it'd be more of a consideration.

Agreed, though a saab 9000 is a far cry from the old X frame bel air. There's a serious amount of crash protection. The concept of crumple zones is alive and well in the car, we've just been refining it

"NORCROSS, Ga., Oct. 4 -- The real-world success of Saab's safety engineering heritage is once again underscored by the latest reports from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI). According to the IIHS rating system, the Saab 9000 had the lowest driver fatality rate among 153 1990-1994 passenger cars, wagons, trucks and sport utility vehicles. As listed in the Insurance Institute's September, 1996 report, the Saab 9000 scored the lowest driver fatality average -- better than such safety stalwarts as Volvo. Saab's average score of 25 was well below scores posted by every competitor, including the Volvo 940/960 (45) and the BMW 5-series (52). (A score of 100 indicates 2 fatalities per 10,000 registered vehicle years.) Data on the current-generation Saab 900, which debuted for the 1994 model year, was not yet available. "

Sorry I also found this: Folksam Report 2017, the result:

    Saab 9-5 I, 98 - 09. Good security. At least 20% better than the average
    Saab 9-3 II, 03 - 12. Good security. At least 20% better than the average
    Saab 9-3, 98 - 02. Good security. At least 20% better than the average
    Saab 900 II, 94 - 98. Good security. At least 20% better than the average
    Saab 9000, 85 - 98. Average security
    Saab 900, 79 - 87. Below average. 20% worse than the average

I may keep my 17 Golf R for a loooong time. Perfect Goldilocks car.

Last year with physical tach and speedo, first year with adaptive cruise.

And it’s a mk7 so it still has buttons for most things.

Oh and it’s a manual, which is getting obnoxiously hard to find on anything.

They're right, and touchscreens also inconvenient, annoying, and not universally useful. For an entertainment center and navigation a touchscreen is great, but for basic functions I want switches so I don't have to look away from the road.

Please.

[dead]

Please do remove the 72 trillion buttons plastered over the steering wheel.

Agreed. Interestingly, only on higher end vehicles have I seen more appealing/simpler steering wheels (Audi, in my experience).

The wheel is for driving, not an art piece.

It is a good place for additional controls that the driver may need to use, without taking hands off the steering wheel.

I drive a Tesla. Love having no buttons. Love having no HUD in front of my face. So clean, so simple.

There's a couple buttons on the steering wheel for music and cruise control. Haven't needed anything more than that.

Not wonderful. People are comfortable with buttons but with this comfort comes a loss of innovation on new ideas that are better than buttons.

Audi is working on advanced technology where by simply pinching the air in front of your infotainment and moving your hand left or right, you can control volume as if you were moving an analog slider widget. You can also grab the air and rotate your hand left and right to control climate temperatures.

So the innovation over buttons is gestures. Sort of like pushing buttons.

"Advanced technology". Touchscreens while driving can be finicky and dangerous for removing attention from traffic. Who's to say this advanced technology is going to be as seamless as you imagine, instead of requiring my hand to be located just-so before it reads? Never understood why "if it isn't broken don't fix it" is such a horrible idea to people like you.

I mean, do I care about a promise for this? If I'm in the market for a car and they're important enough to me, I'll just buy a car that does have buttons. If they break their promise, it's not like I'm screwed. My current button-full car still has them. Next time I need another car I'll buy one that does have buttons.

1) Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe. You might imagine having to briefly glance at a screen is less safe, but that's not evidence. The only thing I've ever seen people cite is some unscientific magazine article that claimed touchscreens take slightly longer to operate for certain strangely-chosen controls, which is not at all the same thing as measuring safety.

2) People never have a very good answer for which physical buttons cars like Teslas are missing. There's physical controls for all driving functions, volume, music play/pause, music next/previous. Adjusting climate is in a muscle-memoryable fixed position, not in some menu. You certainly aren't supposed to be adjusting your mirrors or something while driving.

> Nobody ever provides any evidence that touchscreen based car interfaces are less safe.

That's a bit like the old joke that the efficacy of parachutes at preventing free-fall deaths has never been proven scientifically. (Well, until this 2003 study[1])

Some chains of causality are so obvious that we don't need to prove them scientifically: Many people find touchscreens hard to use without taking their eyes off the road. Taking your eyes off the road can lead to crashes.

1. https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

“We don’t need to prove it because I believe it” isn’t a compelling point. There’s many ways the answer could be counterintuitive. For example, perhaps people know they have to take their eyes off the road so they operate those controls during safer conditions. But most importantly, I don’t even think it’s true that there are cars where key controls are only on difficult to access touch screen! Hence my whole point about Teslas actually having all relevant physical controls. Plus, all these cars with zillions of physical controls now have big shitty touchscreens too. It’s not clear that’s a better UX, as many people in this thread complain about.

“It’s an issue because I said so even though I haven’t contemplated a null hypothesis either”

Tesla's windshield wiper controls are pretty obnoxious. I think the climate controls are pretty bizarre too, even if you can look at them while you operate them, and I don't know how well the music controls would work if they were reliable, but I found them to be so random I couldn't operate without looking.

Good thing is on a freeway you can engage auto-throttle and lane keeping which are good enough that you can look away from the road for a few seconds. It makes it ok for the rest of the UI to be bad, but that's not the same as it being good.

One physical button to wipe, without even leaving the wheel. How hard is that? And they wipe automatically otherwise. Not sure what you mean, unless you mistakenly think it’s necessary to go through some screen menus to find the controls.

Here you go: https://exchange.aaa.com/safety/distracted-driving/

This is not particularly relevant, the tested features are not really available as no-look controls in any car, nor are they the driving critical controls people imagine these touchscreens replace.

> Participants were required to use voice commands, touch screens and other interactive technologies to make a call, send a text message, program audio entertainment or program navigation, all while driving down the road.