If I get Android Auto read me my WhatsApp messages whilst driving it will ask me if I wish to respond. When I do so verbally it just comes up with giberish but it does seem to understand "no, **** off!".
^^ there does appear to be huge variety in the ‘smartness’ of the voice control systems. My BMW i4 was terrible, as is my wife’s A1. My Kia is great, never seems to miss a beat on commands or dictation of messages.
I don't know about anyone else. But I think haddock is better than cod
Thanks VW
MEHR KLIMAANLAGE SCHNELLIGKEIT BITTE
There’s a fundamental issue with right hand drive cars as most folk are using the touch screen with their non-dominant hand.
It's just the same for left handed people on RHD cars 😉
Can you not point to/touch something with your left hand or do I have a superpower?
13 year old Transit. Everything is buttons. Apart from the mirrors, which you adjust by winding down the window, leaning out and wiggling it. It just works
15 year old Transit for me. Don't have to worry about the air con settings as I don't have Air Con, well, it has windows that open.
Mind you, the only electric vehicle I've found myself interested in for any length of time is the Slate.
I saw a review of a Tesla where you had to drag up and down on the display just to select forward or reverse! Thats got to be the worst implementation of a touch screen interface.
https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/tech/does-it-work-tesla-s-stalk-free-interior/
@thepurist - the whooshing sound you hear is the point going right over your head. The actual point is that with a touchscreen it’s just not possible, no matter how long you’ve had the vehicle, to learn where to place your fingers on a touchscreen when there’s absolutely no tactile feedback to tell you that you’re actually contacting the place you need in order to operate the function you need! My old Octavia was pretty poor when it came to operation of certain functions, because there were a row of identical buttons underneath the climate control system that were impossible to tell apart and some of them didn’t actually have a function, because it wasn’t a high enough specification vehicle.
One of the worst examples I came across for really poor ergonomic design was the Citrôen C4 Grand Picasso, circa 2018/19, which had all of the drivers information placed in the centre of the dashboard on two LCD display screens:
I can assure you, from personal experience of driving a significant number of these vehicles, that trying to locate and adjust things like screen demist, fan strength and a bunch of other functions, when the buttons are all completely flat and have no haptic feedback, and everything is outside your line of sight while driving, is bloody stupid!
Christ, you can’t even see how fast you’re going because all necessary information is completely outside your line of sight!
I drove a fair number of those awful bloody things, and while they’re very comfortable, and there’s lots of room in them, unless you have a passenger who can be relied upon to operate things for you, from a driver’s perspective, they’re bloody awful things!
I didn’t just drive them for a couple of miles, I might be driving for several hours, cumulatively several hundred miles, if not more; horrible, hateful things to drive.
Here’s the interior of my car, everything I need to operate is within reach and is a physical rotary knob, which will put a corresponding visual notification on the screen, not that it’s important to know the actual fan speed, temperature or radio volume, because it’s obvious when it gets cooler or hotter, and the radio or audio is operated from steering wheel controls.
My modern (button, touchscreen and voice controlled) car is much more complex yet simpler to operate than that.
I think part of the confusion (for me at least) is that for instance, my mini will tell me that the tyre pressure is low, which is a good thing generally, but after you put air in, you'll need to reset the system that manages it. So that's (on the centre console) touch the screen for car, now you've got either car settings or systems setting, choose one, (it's systems not car btw, no, I don't understand why either) find then the tyre management option which is another sub menu, now press reset; which isn't a clearly labelled 'touch here' and it'll perform a reset, now this could be a few seconds at motorway speeds, but at stop start town traffic speeds could be 5/10 mins, and then once that's done, touch a symbol on the screen to 'accept' the reset. It's fantastically complex and you have to do part of it while driving/moving. As it's mini, all BMW cars are the same.
It's clever, but given the ability of driving for some folks, bonkers. I'll bet money that some folks are driving around with underinflated tyres, and won't do anything because the system that manages is so complex - Obviously a sub section of folks won't ever check their tyre pressure anyway, but BMW have created a system designed to alert you. it should be easier, not more difficult.
My view is that if an aeroplane can have touch screen then so can cars .
It’s an odd one. They make cars look modern, and save car companies a shed load of money.
Personally I won’t buy a car without physical buttons
I think ( could be wrong ) that Porsche have now even gone for a physical button that turns off all the stupid driver aids in one go , now that is progress!
Re CountZero’s post -
We’re currently looking for a replacement for our 10 year old Golf. Whilst it was dated inside, it was fairly intuitive to drive and most of the controls where I’d expect to find them and easy to operate. New EV’s however… what a shitshow.
I appreciate they’re more complicated, so need more controls, but who thought not having a display in your line of sight was a good idea? I’m not talking about the centre touch screen per se for background systems controls and mapping, that I can live with, but no dash in front at all with speed and current car status? Wtf?
We quite liked the Volvo ex30, but the no dash thing was a complete deal breaker for me. I don’t want to be taking my eyes off the road all the time to see what’s going on thanks very much, no wonder there’s so many accidents on the road these days, way too many distractions.
the whooshing sound you hear is the point going right over your head.
Sigh. No CZ you are failing to understand that my critique is that the paper being referenced does not say that buttons are better than screens. That's it - your opinion is fine, and I've already agreed that screens are not a great choice for regularly used functions.
Take one extreme where everything (indicators, gear selection etc) is on the screen and it would be diabolical. Take the other where everything has a physical control and these days your dash would be a mass of tiny switches, most of which you'd barely touch. I'd suggest there is a sweet spot where the most frequently used things are on stalks or buttons and all the stuff you don't need is tucked away on a screen. I'd even be fine if the screen locked above 5mph.
Hopefully we're heading for some sort of convergence where layouts become more standardised again - 30 years ago you had lights, wipers, indicators, heater and radio and they were all in pretty much the same place in every car (except some that put the indicator on the wrong side so you wiped the screen every time you turned right).
As nickc says, part of the problem isn't "touch screens vs physical buttons" (though that absolutely is a problem) but rather, you've got to go hunting for things.
I've never used the trip counter. Off the top of my head I don't know how. It's a setting somewhere. It's also on the steering wheel controls but I've got to first scroll left-right through various views on the mini display on the main dash to get to the one that controls it, then uppy-downy to the particular trip setting.
Worse, the odometer is buried somewhere in the touchscreen, what's shown on the dash instead is the useless trip. As far as I can tell this can't be changed. Remember when someone asked you for the car's mileage, you'd say "oh, I forgot, I'll just go check" and you could read it through the window without even unlocking the door? On my last few cars it was in darkness until you armed the ignition, which was a minor inconvenience. Increasingly you'd have to do more things like actually start the car and/or scroll through information displays. Now you don't even get that luxury, it's ... somewhere? ... in one of the settings screens.
They make cars look modern, and save car companies a shed load of money.
It astounds me that an "infotainment" system would be cheaper than physical switches. We're depriving tomorrow's young drivers of the unbridled joy of going scrumping round scrapyards. My 1970s Fiesta looked like the flight deck of Concorde by the time I'd finished replacing blanking plates with the contents of my snorkel pockets.
This article summarises the very real issues with modern car design:
VWs used to have a button in the glovebox to reset the tire pressure warning. Then about 10 years ago this changed to having to do it through settings in the stereo. My son's Polo radio didn't work and the tire warning light came on which couldn't be reset because the damn radio didn't work. VW wanted £3.5k to replace the unit in the glove box (its just a screen on the dash).
Managed to fix it by shorting a jumper in the control unit and using some dodgy software downloaded from the internet. But what a faff.
It astounds me that an "infotainment" system would be cheaper than physical switches.
Touch screens allow for virtual buttons/switches to be added in software - any time even on the fly.
So no physical buttons or associated wiring needed = Cheaper.
(And to some, sexier)
As it's mini, all BMW cars are the same.
my last car was a BMW i4 and the tyre pressure system could only be adjusted/reset if stationary with handbrake on..
you did have to drive a bit to get it to register/update the pressures, that’s the same on my current Kia, where again, reset can only be done once safely stopped.
