> I mean having a cursor I could glance at, then put my eyes back on the road while I click right twice, up once, click again and then scroll to change whatever. They added a menu kind of like this in a recent update. Long press the left scroll wheel and then you can control a bunch of things using a menu that's controlled entirely by the wheel, no touchscreen.
On my car I can assign one specific function to the left scroll wheel, like the fan speed. What I want is something like the experience of using Windows without a mouse. I should be able to navigate the entire UI without touching the screen.
It's not really "assigning" a function. It's simply a menu that remembers where you were. You can always navigate through the menu to control all of the other functions as much as you want.
Compared to classic hydraulic lines everywhere dedicated cables seem easy. Having to account for a DOS attack from a compromised head unit or some such just seems like a nightmare.
On one hand you are right, but only if we can ignore the highly increased risk of electric malfunction from the extensive traditional (non bus based) wiring. This was a common problem in the 1980s when electric gadgets became numerous, but no standard bus was used on many such cars. To overcome this the plan back when I was working on that product was to use 2 system buses, one isolated internal for the safe critical…
Why even have the firewall? Wouldn't a true airgap be preferable? At the same time, having say steering and brakes on the same bus adds a single point of failure to both steering and brakes, which is not ideal.
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.
I wonder if it's possible to make adaptive surfaces on touch screens using the developments in bending displays. Being able to provide physical cues on a touch screen would have a wide array of applications.
Obviously physical buttons would be the sensible solution here though.
I've only used a Lexus that had a touchpad. I do however regularly use a Mazda with its commander knob, and it is far safer than a touchscreen in my opinion. You can do most navigation without looking at the screen, with just an occasional glance to confirm you're doing what you think you're doing. Whereas a touchscreen requires constant attention while you're manipulating the screen. The only thing that annoys me ab…
My Mazda is so weird. Android Auto has a completely random load time. It could be a few seconds, or it could take over 1 minute. Often I don't know if left or right is the fastest way to get somewhere, so I'd like to check google maps or waze, but it won't finish loading until a while after I've guessed and committed myself. It'll play the radio instead of my phone audio at some starts, then usually switch to phone a…
I haven't seen most of the issues you describe, but I do know that AA is incredibly finicky with the quality of cable you use. When I first bought my car I would use a random cable from Amazon and Mazda's infotainment would straight up crash (can't blame that part on AA though). Mazda's infotainment is pretty notorious for being terrible; that it takes so long to connect (and get past the safety disclaimers EVERY SINGLE TIME) is truly annoying. I will say that I just bought a wireless AA dongle off Amazon and since I got that it's a lot more reliable because I'm not swapping cables all the time, though my Mazda still will take a while to connect to AA, then start playing my phone music, then switch back to radio for now apparent reason. It feels like the two subsystems are competing.
I'm confused now. I haven't been in a current Tesla, but what do we refer to when we say haptic button nowadays? To me that's synonymous to tactile button = physical button, but you talk about capacitive buttons. Did Apple's introduction of haptic feedback for touch somehow shift the meaning?
> To me that's synonymous to tactile button = physical button Why would we need a synonym for a perfectly working word? A physical button is a physical button, to me a haptic button necessarily means some sort of virtual button as otherwise the haptic properties don’t have to be specified.
> Why would we need a synonym for a perfectly working word?
Because that's just how language works, I can think of a dozen perfectly working words that have synonyms. The word haptic existed long before touch screens and capacitive buttons. What else could it have been used for then?
> as otherwise the haptic properties don’t have to be specified
They need to be specified precisely because today buttons that don't have any haptic feedback exists.
On one hand you are right, but only if we can ignore the highly increased risk of electric malfunction from the extensive traditional (non bus based) wiring. This was a common problem in the 1980s when electric gadgets became numerous, but no standard bus was used on many such cars. To overcome this the plan back when I was working on that product was to use 2 system buses, one isolated internal for the safe critical…
Why even have the firewall? Wouldn't a true airgap be preferable? At the same time, having say steering and brakes on the same bus adds a single point of failure to both steering and brakes, which is not ideal.
Cost and risk management. These systems undergo rigorous safety evaluation, auditing, and testing. This is a manageable risk (very low) given the business requirements and the threat model.
> 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 (…
I can’t believe that Tesla still ships cars without a center-press horn button. I own a Model S Plaid, and the horn button’s location on the yoke can generally only be reached by the driver’s right hand. Even more dangerous, its position in space changes dramatically any time you are in the middle of a turn. The horn button is not easy to press in an emergency. Same story with the turn signals. If you are in the midd…
Given that you are most likely to use the horn to prevent an collision, and that during collisions the airbag deploys.. I would say that the center of the wheel is just about the worst place to put the horn button.
Slapping yourself in the face somehow seems worse than the airbag deploying properly.
My car has no physical climate controls etc. I just use the voice controls. “Hey Google, set the driver’s side heated seat to one” “Hey Google, turn off the steering wheel heater”
In my experience it'll probably work out a little more like: "Hey Google, lower the volume" "Calling $NAME_OF_DECEASED_PERSON_OR_RANDOM_RESTAURANT"
An immigrant taxi driver wanted me to say the street where I wanted to go, for google maps.
It would have been ~20x faster to just let me type it.
At least I had told him the general area, so we were getting there even while I kept repeating the address and maps was getting it wrong.
Your first link doesn't prove nothing, it has nothing to do with airbags being mandatory. According to this: https://autoily.com/when-did-airbags-become-mandatory/ , they are only mandatory in the US (my fault, sorry). Some countries, like India, are requiring ONE front airbag since 2019. The core of my message stands: car makers go way ahead the mandates. I don't recall any safety technology that ever banned or dela…
What happens with these non-mandatory programmes is that a manufacturer can give the programme money to buy their standard equipment vehicle and then the programme will buy the appropriate car from a dealer. The vast majority of vehicles are purchased this way. This way they can't manipulate the vehicles being tested. The easiest way for your new 4954 model to get excellent NCAP scores is to make the actual 4954's pe…
They might know which dealers are in the area of the testing facility?