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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

#391

Post by Slartie »

amenhotep wrote: post #367
Slartie wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you are not legally required to use the volume control regularly in order to drive safely. You are not even legally required to have any kind of volume control in your car. You are legally required to have and use the turn signals. You are legally required to have and use the windshield wipers (because you need to be able to see the road when it's raining). Same is true for the horn and hazard lights - those are…

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. We don't really want to mandate physical volume controls, because they're necessary. We want to ban touchscreen volume controls, because they're unsafe. If Tesla want to deal with this by having no volume control, that's fine! Good luck to them.

Touchscreens are not exactly the only way to construct a control in a way that's problematic to use when driving. You can just as well place a physical control in a hideous spot in the car, which you can't reach easily, hence making you as the driver bend over and search for the control. Also, physical controls don't necessarily mean that you can recognize them safely without looking at them - buttons can be physical, but still blend into their surroundings in a way that provides no real tactile feedback to your fingers when they find the button. I've seen crazy physical controls in cars that aren't much different from touchscreens with regard to their usability when driving, but still they were technically physical controls and would thus pass your "touchscreen ban".

If you want physical controls that actually are significantly safer to use than touchscreens, you need to lay down some ground rules for them as well (reachability, size of buttons, tactile difference from surroundings,...). And that rules out a "blacklist" approach (banning some particular undesired solution) and instead requires a "whitelist" approach (requiring a solution within a defined set of guidelines that constitute what's considered an acceptable solution).

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

#392

Post by scaryclam »

dexwiz wrote: post #29
bhpm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it be safer to require all cars to have voice controls? Then the driver doesn’t have to move their hand off the wheel at all.

Not all drivers can speak. Not all drivers speak in a way a voice control can reliably understand them. Not all drivers are in environments where voice commands can be easily understood, like loud music. If you are driving a car you likely have the ability to push a button.

And even when the driver can speak, use the language, be understood and the voice controls are reliable, sometimes they don't actually want to disturb the passengers sleeping in the car just to crack the sodding window open a bit!

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

#393

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

aurareturn wrote: post #4

Around 10 years ago, I started looking into buying a new car. I couldn't believe the number of cars that switched to touch controls even 10 years ago. It boggles my mind just how car makers thought it was safer/easier to have touch in a car while one is driving. I refused to buy any car that replaced physical buttons with touch controls 10 years ago and I still have this rule today. Then again, it also boggles my min…

are you me? I did the exact same thing in roughly the same timeframe. Went to a toyota dealership, when I realized all the vehicles were touch I asked if I could get one without and they told me they don't do that anymore.

I walked out and just continued driving the corolla I had (still have it to this day). When I needed a minivan I purchased an older honda odyssey and fixed it up.

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

#394

Post by otherme123 »

modeless wrote: post #334
klausa wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's at best marginally easier to hit a random physical button on the center console than to hit a single button on the bottom bar of a Tesla screen You presumably typed this out on a keyboard of some sort. Which one can you do more confidently and reliably without looking: — hitting the "u" key on a physical keyboard without looking — hitting the "u" key on a touchscreen keyboard on your most used mobile device?

I can touch type and hit 'u' without looking, sure. But only if my hands start on the home row. This has no relevance for the situation under discussion. I cannot hit the 'u' key on a physical keyboard confidently and reliably without looking if it is mounted on the center console of a car and I am driving with my hands starting on the steering wheel . I always look to position my hand to hit those buttons. Meanwhile…

Be honest: when you reach for a physical button you might glance for 0.5 seconds or even less. Usually you'll try to reach it without looking, and only glance if for some reason you can't do it. You glance, reposition your hand, and operate the knob without looking.

When you try to use a touch screen, you look at it all the time. I've just tested: to unlock my phone I have to push a physical button on the right side, swipe up and then make an easy pattern. I can grab the mobile, orient it correctly and push the side button without looking or even thinking. But just to make the up swipe I look at the screen (I can force my self to not do it, with effort). But I'm unable to make the pattern without looking all the time I trace it. It's like the brain don't want or can create muscle memory for touch screens.

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

#395

Post by fodkodrasz »

jojobas wrote: post #388
fodkodrasz wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, ColPAS and ParPAS solutions both normally have the mechanical connection of the steering column between the rack and pinion mechanic and the steering wheel, they mainly differ by the way of introducing the mechanical assist force to the system. (on the steering column, or at the rack and pinion mechanism). They generally have the following root safety requirements: - the assist system must not cause "blocking"…

Why even put it on the bus? Adding a couple of meters of cable per critical system like steering or even 10 for braking couldn't offset the complexity of bus steering.

On the contrary, adding just "a few meters of cable" per each critical system, and adding separate sensors instead of using the same critical sensors would greatly increase complexity. Also so really underestimate the cabling and sensor needs for modern requirements.

Having redundant bus and redundant sensors usable by multiple subsystems is a better way.

Well, I have heard of power assist using a single simple potentiometer as a steering wheel position sensor in some really cheap cars... I'm not sure how much of an urban legend that is, but nowadays it surely wouldn't cut it for road permission in the EU.

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

#396

Post by hef19898 »

Vespasian wrote: post #390
hef19898 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VW went so far into left field with their controls on the ID-series, it is embarassing. Good to hear that they correct.

Just my own thought but I believe they were under immense pressure to achieve similar (or even some) margins with their very first broad market BEV, as they are getting with comparable ICE models. As a car the MEB siblings are not bad at all and by now the software is fine I hear, but they cut just to many ergonomic corners instead of accepting the costs of getting started in a slightly different market segment.

Funny thing is, Skoda is doing better (no real news so), despite using the same platform.

What definitely didn't help, was putting a self-declared Tesla fanboy in the CEO seat. Only Tesla is Tesla, no other brand can get away with Tesla stuff. Should have been clear for VW, as they lived of marketing to sell overpriced cars for decades.

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

#397

Post by nottorp »

croo wrote: post #190
dzhiurgis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obvious limitation is something like Maps and media. My guess ones that use mechanical dials (i.e. Lexus until ~ year ago) cause more distraction than touchscreen by simply being harder to use and taking more time to solve your problem. Given how well chatgpt's voice recognition works - why not just put it on all cars!

> Given how well chatgpt's voice recognition works - why not just put it on all cars! Because saying "roll down the left window" is still a fucking nuisance compared to a click of a button.

And because you may be driving with your windows open, listening to music or having passengers and talking to them.

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

#398

Post by snowpid »

otherme123 wrote: post #377
Slartie wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, but in that mind your kid in the back seat is safety-critical, so maybe we mandate no kids in the back? Or your wife next to you in the passenger seat, she could also make you remove your eyes from the road (happens quite a lot actually) - mandate no wifes in the passenger seat anymore? You need to draw a line, otherwise really anything in your car can be safety-critical, you just need to imagine the ri…

I think you are doing a strawman here. Nobody but you is talking about "mandates", and then you go ridiculing imaginary mandates that nobody is defending. Case: seat belts. First introduced in 1949, three-point seat belt invented in 1955, Saab made them standard in all their cars in 1958, Volvo in 1959 after being shown studies with fatalities. The first compulsory seat belt law was in 1970 (Victoria, Australia), and…

Which country are you talking about? Airbags are mandatory because of the UN. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/197...

and Euro NCAP chooses the cars indepently: https://www.euroncap.com/en/about-euro-ncap/the-car-selectio...

Or is it possible that you mix up the US regulation on a thread about EURO NCAP?

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

#399

Post by hef19898 »

Maakuth wrote: post #389
Vespasian wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ultimately decided against an MEB based model because the (steering wheel) UX felt almost unusable during my test drive. I partcularily struggeled with the cruise control swipe-click and hilariously the window switch. The car i ultimately settled on has worse overall infotainment software but physical controls which can be operated blindely and reliably. No wonder VW is already in the process of correcting this dis…

And how much cheaper can this stuff really be than real buttons?

Enough. Also, these design changes were advocated for by the CEO at the time.

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

#400

Post by serpix »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #393
aurareturn wrote: post #4

Around 10 years ago, I started looking into buying a new car. I couldn't believe the number of cars that switched to touch controls even 10 years ago. It boggles my mind just how car makers thought it was safer/easier to have touch in a car while one is driving. I refused to buy any car that replaced physical buttons with touch controls 10 years ago and I still have this rule today. Then again, it also boggles my min…

are you me? I did the exact same thing in roughly the same timeframe. Went to a toyota dealership, when I realized all the vehicles were touch I asked if I could get one without and they told me they don't do that anymore. I walked out and just continued driving the corolla I had (still have it to this day). When I needed a minivan I purchased an older honda odyssey and fixed it up.

Hyundai and Kia has buttons.
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