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Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

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Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#751

Post by hahamrfunnyguy »

Bought a 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The software UX is so bad and the car's systems are so buggy. One example is that if you don't shut the door all the way and shift into drive you get a beeping sound and a big red message that says

SHIFT [p] into range

I don't understand what that means. Is it telling me to put the car back into park? Why not just say the door is open? My '05 Subaru had lights on the dashboard that showed each door that was open - a really sensible way of indicating what to do without having to read anything.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#752

Post by patentatt »

acapybara wrote: post #647
jjav wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? You've got physical buttons? Big whoop. That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. No, that's wrong. Problem with touchscreens is that (1) you need to look at them and (2) there is no tactile feedback of whether you pressed it or not and (3) you need to hover your arm in a moving car at just the right spot. Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems. If the ac…

Our Subaru has a physical volume knob. Its position is only a "gentle suggestion" to the software to move volume up or down. At times, especially when starting the vehicle, there is major latency in the software processing the knob movement.. Also, if the knob is moved too fast, the sw gets the wrong reading. This results in volume being way too high for serveral seconds as well as many other frustrating, dangerous s…

I guess that's what we get when a rotary encoder is much much less expensive than a 4-6 gang potentiometer. And I also feel your pain with the car "booting up" phenomenon. I don't even have a particularly tech-heavy vehicle and upon starting the car the entire infotainment system feels like booting up a packard bell in 1996.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#753

Post by [deleted] »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #615
Archelaos wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's legal to fiddle with a damn computer screen, because it's part of the car. In Germany it is only legal to operate a touch screen while driving for essential functions with only a brief glance. For example, a judgement was handed down against a Tesla driver who tried to switch up the interval of the windscreen wiper via touchscreen and ran off the road in the process. Source: https://www.burhoff.de/asp_weit…

The judgement should have been against tesla, not the customer. Wipers are essential and should not require fiddling

[deleted]

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#754

Post by zaroth »

galangalalgol wrote: post #748
Archelaos wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's legal to fiddle with a damn computer screen, because it's part of the car. In Germany it is only legal to operate a touch screen while driving for essential functions with only a brief glance. For example, a judgement was handed down against a Tesla driver who tried to switch up the interval of the windscreen wiper via touchscreen and ran off the road in the process. Source: https://www.burhoff.de/asp_weit…

I didn't believe it could be that nad, but I looked up the video at Tesla and you really have to go to the touchscreen to speed up the wiper. That should absolutely be illegal. Does it have some autosense feature so that you usually don't have to ise it?

It does have an auto mode.

But also, you can now adjust wiper speed / interval on the steering wheel in a Tesla without using the touchscreen.

Feature was actually added a just a few weeks ago in a software update.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#755

Post by nsxwolf »

londons_explore wrote: post #677
nicky0 wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in a rainstorm and the wipers are set to "minimum speed" then turning the speed up would be critical.

The safe thing to do would be to pull over first, as you see the rain getting heavier, then adjust.

I get the impression you’ve never driven in the rain.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#756

Post by dghughes »

matwood wrote: post #699
hasmolo wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm dropping my subaru for this among other reasons. 1. throttle response, move your foot to 20% and experience between no throttle and wide open as the 'turbos' kick in in my outback 2. every time we get near an intersection with bollards, it thinks it's a kid and slams on the brakes 3. you're not allowed to persist auto start disabling 4. you will be nagged for looking anywhere other than dead straight, especially…

Wow on 2-5, but I thought 1 was 'normal' for cars with a turbo charger?

I wouldn't say that is a thing anymore since the 1980s. My old 2003 truck a 5.9l turbo diesel was quite responsive but at nearly 6 litres spewed a lot of exhaust to spin up the turbine. Smaller cars may suffer a bit more although some sporty cars may have two stages; separate small and large turbos. The small is good at lower rpm and the large better at high rpm.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#758

Post by joshgachnang »

sircastor wrote: post #229
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #189

I wouldn't mind touchscreens as long as these imbecile developers would strictly limit UI response time to under 16ms. In no world where you're barrelling 3,000+ lbs of mass at tens of miles an hour should you be distracted by some moronic app or subsystem failing to respond in time because it was written by under-experienced software "engineers." Any software running as a part of a motor vehicle should be federally…

> because it was written by under-experienced software "engineers." I used to be an infotainment software engineer for an Auto maker. There’s this idea in the software industry that because the software behaves poorly on your car’s system, it must’ve been written poorly by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. In my experience it was almost always a matter of the hardware being stretched way past its limits.…

Meanwhile some car company is putting a Ryzen APU capable of playing Steam games in the infotainment system.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#759

Post by eastbound »

chrisan wrote: post #696
acapybara wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our Subaru has a physical volume knob. Its position is only a "gentle suggestion" to the software to move volume up or down. At times, especially when starting the vehicle, there is major latency in the software processing the knob movement.. Also, if the knob is moved too fast, the sw gets the wrong reading. This results in volume being way too high for serveral seconds as well as many other frustrating, dangerous s…

Clearly that is a problem with Subaru (and Honda from someone else?) and not physical buttons themselves. Just because some vehicles have a piss poor implementation doesn't mean the idea of physical is wrong. I have a 2015/16 Ford and Chevy with the infotainment screens - both have physical buttons and both respond instantly to my changes. They also both have an additional volume control on the steering wheel itself…

> Just because some vehicles have a piss poor implementation doesn't mean the idea of physical is wrong.

Yes it does. We constantly ban entire classes of goods because some of them can be badly built or badly used by customers knowingly using them wrong. Sydney even banned a few hundred bars in 2013 because tenants were using alcohol then misbehaved on the public street.

Of course, a proven track of horrible implementations of OS for physical knobs should ban those companies from using them for 10 years. Come back to us when you can control how your gear behaves, we should tell them, this is the textbook implementation of no-upfront-regulation-until-you-misbehave.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#760

Post by nosequel »

justeleblanc wrote: post #701
geraldwhen wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many states you can absolutely use your phone while driving, either to call someone or actively use gps without a window mount. What’s explicitly prohibited is texting/writing and driving.

The US is not a beacon of consumer safety. In my European country, having your phone in your hand while driving is illegal.

I live in a state where phone use is legal and I am so jealous of you right now. I see near misses on the road every-single-day.
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