Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 660 posts

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

#441

Post by mgoetzke »

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.

Recent Model S versions have the horn where it belongs

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

#442

Post by oblio »

tiagod wrote: post #319
oblio wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the lack of redundancy is the issue. Redundant electrical connections can be very robust otherwise they wouldn't put them in F-35s.

The F-35 took like 25 years and a staggering amount of billions to develop...

Fly by wire has been a thing since the 80s, F-18 IIRC. At some point we'll have drive by wire, it just makes sense.

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

#444

Post by kwhitefoot »

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.

Which years does this refer to? The horn on my 2015 S70D is huge pad in the centre of the steering wheel.

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

#445

Post by moogly »

Vespasian wrote: post #372
jwr wrote: post #360

I have a VW (ID.4) and they took the touch craziness to another level. There are things that don't look like buttons, but are touch-sensitive, and there are also buttons, that apart from being pressure-sensitive, are also touch sensitive. Like volume buttons on the steering wheel, where if you try to feel for them without looking, you end up accidentally "swiping" and turning your volume up to the max. The whole touc…

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…

Doesn't Skoda have pretty sensible steering wheels still?

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

#446

Post by bengale »

jojobas wrote: post #248
rkagerer wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the steering wheel and pedals still behave the same. Don't give them ideas...

Tesla Cybertruck uses steer-by-wire with almost no redundancy. Electric power steering was bad enough to cause crashes, this is just ambulance chaser's dream.

There is zero chance of me trusting that, not that the Cybertruck will ever be allowed on European roads.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-alarmed-cybertrucks-steering-...

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

#447

Post by Vespasian »

moogly wrote: post #445
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…

Doesn't Skoda have pretty sensible steering wheels still?

Yes I should have limited my comment to VW, Cupra and Seat(?)

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

#448

Post by moogly »

modeless wrote: post #305
ClikeX wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volume control is a very commonly used feature in cars. That should definitely should be a physical button. I drive a Lynk & Co (reskinned Volvo XC40) and it has a rotary knob on the center terminal for fan speed, temperature, and volume. Which are all within reach without me having to look or lean over. There's also a volume button on the steering wheel next to my thumb, which is great. The only annoying part is tha…

Is there a car without a physical volume control? Teslas have it on the steering wheel. What really kills me is my wife's Civic has no pause button at all, physical or otherwise. And it autoplays media on your phone when you get in. Don't want your phone to play whatever random YouTube video you happened to click on hours ago? Gotta pick up your phone to pause it there. And this doesn't happen right away, oh no, it t…

Most MEB cars with the VW ID style center screen have a touch strip under the center screen to adjust volume. On earlier models this isn't even illuminated at night.

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

#449

Post by bengale »

I think my BMW X5 has the best middle ground for buttons vs touchscreen. I think in the new one they've moved more towards my i4 setup though which is too far on the touch screen.

The X5 has nice push buttons on the steering wheel for media control and stuff like cruise and lanekeep functions. Then it also has heating controls, a volume knob, and some shortcut buttons I can control. All the other gubbins is in the touch screen which works fine.

My i4 moved heating controls to the touchscreen too and dropped the shortcut buttons which is annoying. It still has the nice steering wheel buttons though and a volume knob but it's heading the wrong way IMHO.

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

#450

Post by RHSeeger »

otherme123 wrote: post #381
generic92034 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. That is good reasoning, but are you sure a high number of drivers are also waiting with adjustments, instead of fumbling on the screen while continuing to drive?

A lot of people send and read phone messages while driving. I highly doubt that same people gives a second thought before playing with the screen while driving, unless they are under a real stressing situation (pouring and twisted road at 2 AM).

If the choice is between

1. Physical controls that you can interact with without the need to take your eyes off the road

2. Touch screen that you need to look almost every time, much of the time while actually interacting with it. But you can mitigate that by using it more responsibly, waiting until you are at a stop, our out of range of anything you might need to react to (which might not happen for 10 minutes or even longer)

Then #1 is clearly the winner. Because 2 is more dangerous for everyone on the road (not just you with your own behavior, but everyone else that might act irresponsibly and hit you). We specifically craft laws to make people interact with their phones less (hands free only, etc) because "people must act more responsibly" is not a reliable solution.

Post reply on HN