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European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

arstechnica.com

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Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#211

Post by asyx »

golergka wrote: post #123
evanjrowley wrote: post #122

I am waiting for the day when mechanical keyboard enthusiasts finally put kailh hot swap sockets into a car's controls. Then we can have debates about whether car controls should be tactile, linear, or clicky. GMK keycaps for German cars. Japanese cars with Topre switches. Anime dye-sub keycaps on ricers. QMK firmware forked and re-written in MISRA-C. It would be grand.

Some people should be chiming in to say how annoying the click sounds are to the passengers.

I guess the passengers can take the bus then

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#212

Post by macNchz »

user_7832 wrote: post #98
magicalhippo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gas pedals in many modern EFI vehicles feel more like foot-operated potentiometers than throttle linkages. In my EV it literally is a potentiometer. I really miss the feel of a physical throttle linkage on the snow and ice, I feel it's much more difficult to judge grip. Also, since it's just a pot, I don't know why there's not a speed mode for it, it to make it operate the cruise control speed set-point rather than…

> I really miss the feel of a physical throttle linkage on the snow and ice, I feel it's much more difficult to judge grip. The throttle is separated from the wheels/ground by the transmission and the whole engine, which makes me wonder if the response you felt probably was a combination of eg rpm/physical vibration and a few other factors. It should be possible to recreate these even in an EV, then.

There is a noticeable difference in feel between ICE cars with physical throttle cables and those with electronic throttles…the drive-by-wire models have a very small amount of lag between pedal input and engine response. If you’re attuned to it, or drive “spiritedly”, the effect is quite noticeable. I think mainstream cars mostly switched over around 20 years ago, I remember learning about it when I googled for why the accelerator pedals in new cars felt so weird to me.

I think there are a few reasons for it, one of which is simply increasing efficiency by smoothing the accelerator input a bit. I’ve only driven an electric car a few times, so I’m not sure if they also have this delay, but I would expect they do.

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#213

Post by whitehexagon »

I never want to see a car with any kind of monitor/touchscreen, I see enough of those at work.

If it is about cost savings, why do I see a new plague of animated flashing indicator lights, horrible! And the number of small towns I drove through on my last big road trip that had flashing LEDs dotted all over road signs, crazy. Reminds me of the old flashing web adverts. Just another annoying distraction from driving safely.

I'd like to see some rules like, no change is speed limit within certain distance of previous sign. Because suddenly we have a plague of signs, e.g. every 100m reducing the speed for a roundabout in 10km/h steps! are we allowing drivers on the roads that dont know to slow down in advance of a junction. And the best part, the roundabout has 'go around arrows' flashing in blue (the colour of police lights here) so straight away you assume a major traffic incident ahead, and then probably quickly learn to ignore blue flashing lights...

So physical buttons need to be the start of a bigger push-back against needless technology based on 'because we can'.

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#214

Post by rkagerer »

userbinator wrote: post #16

But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn Are there really cars where the horn is not a physical button/ring on the steering wheel? IMHO the driving UX peaked in the 1960s, and was largely unchanged into the 2000s, until touch screens started taking over. Compare: https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads... https://images-stag.…

At least the steering wheel and pedals still behave the same.

Don't give them ideas...

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#215

Post by arghwhat »

Beldin wrote: post #189
userbinator wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean you don't press the left one to stop, and the right one to go?

Around here the middle one is to stop, left is to switch gears. Except in go-karts, those only have 2 pedals.

Remember to press both left and center pedals to stop.

Manuals proliferate in EU, but we have also always had automatics on the road - and a significant increase since DSGs hit the market - so no one who has driven a few normal cars would be surprised by two pedals in an electric.

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#216

Post by inferiorhuman »

userbinator wrote: post #16

But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn Are there really cars where the horn is not a physical button/ring on the steering wheel? IMHO the driving UX peaked in the 1960s, and was largely unchanged into the 2000s, until touch screens started taking over. Compare: https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads... https://images-stag.…

Peugeot through the 505 put the horn button on a stalk on the steering column. The 505 ended production for most of the world in the early 90s and I've not seen any of their more modern cars so I've no idea how long that design lasted.

The French made some really… interesting choices with their cars.

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#217

Post by tmikaeld »

modeless wrote: post #207

> Now, Euro NCAP is not insisting on everything being its own button or switch. But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features This is much more reasonable than I assumed. Unlike seemingly most people here I have no problem whatsoever with fan controls or audio controls or whatever on the touchscreen, as long as it is responsive (…

> …Teslas. Or at least it was, until they removed the physical turn signal controls.

The turn signals wasn’t removed, they moved them to the steering wheel as physical buttons. Which ofc isn’t optimal, because you turn it…

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#218

Post by switch007 »

My Ford has no physical buttons for climate control (except “Max”). If I want to direct the air at the windscreen and my feet full blast, I have to:

- Tap the fan direction button

- wait 2 seconds for it to load

- tap windscreen and feet. Each selection lags at least 1 second

- tap fan speed

- drag a narrow, laggy slider up/down to the desired position

I hate it. The auto setting doesn’t blow the feet hard enough when it’s wet, to dry your feet. It’s wet about 9 months of the year here.

Another bad UX is to change the drive mode:

- press the physical button

- tap the screen to select the desired mode

- tap a tiny back button (there is no timeout to auto go back to previous screen)

You would think the physical button would toggle through the modes, but no !

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#219

Post by williamcotton »

tmikaeld wrote: post #217
modeless wrote: post #207

> Now, Euro NCAP is not insisting on everything being its own button or switch. But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features This is much more reasonable than I assumed. Unlike seemingly most people here I have no problem whatsoever with fan controls or audio controls or whatever on the touchscreen, as long as it is responsive (…

> …Teslas. Or at least it was, until they removed the physical turn signal controls. The turn signals wasn’t removed, they moved them to the steering wheel as physical buttons. Which ofc isn’t optimal, because you turn it…

So that’s why everyone who drives a Tesla never uses their turn signal?

Re: European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

#220

Post by darkwater »

threeseed wrote: post #33
userbinator wrote: post #16

But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn Are there really cars where the horn is not a physical button/ring on the steering wheel? IMHO the driving UX peaked in the 1960s, and was largely unchanged into the 2000s, until touch screens started taking over. Compare: https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads... https://images-stag.…

I think the issue with the horn is referring to the Tesla Model S. And specifically the horn button being capacitive co-located with the voice assistance and windscreen wiper buttons. Which in a safety situation was difficult to locate and press.

They just reverted the horn positioning in the soon-to-be-released refresh of the Model S/X.

Sometimes even Elon admits he was wrong.

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