Car touchscreens are cheap, not good • Hacker News Board

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#101

Post by recursive » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

scottyah wrote: post #97

recursive wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that's cool, if it actually works reliably . Automation tech enthusiasts are willing to be impressed by 99% reliability. To get buy-in from regular people, it needs to just work better. To be clear, I don't know how reliable this actually is now, but I'd be willing to bet that it's not reliable enough.

Then it seems like we should work on making it better instead of just trashing the idea?

Both could be possible. It belongs in an R&D lab unless and until it's good enough. If, after some time and dollar threshold, it's still not good enough there might be a case for spending those resources elsewhere.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#102

Post by wvenable » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:53 PM UTC

4fterd4rk wrote: post #88

The anti-screen crowd vastly overestimates people's competence with buttons. "You can hit them without taking your eyes off the road!" Please observe the typical driver as they attempt to change their climate control settings and report back.

Wait till have they have to swipe up from the bottom of a touchscreen to do the same thing. In many ways, it's all the same buttons with the same icons but now they're inside of menus!

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#103

Post by wvenable » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

max8539 wrote: post #85

Not sure why the command knob in Mazda scares new users: it’s an option and you still could use the touch screen, it’s just a nice alternative for it… Absolutely love the command knob, so much better than using the touch screen

You cannot touch the touch screen on a Mazda with the commander knob unless you're in Carplay/Android Auto and only if you've found the buried setting to enable it.

It is not an alternative for touch screen, it replaces it.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#104

Post by flumes_whims_ » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:56 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #52

aftbit wrote: post #37

They're getting better though. The first gen touchscreens were tiny and unreliable. The one in my 2024 Ioniq 5 is pretty decent. I am really glad I still have physical AC controls though, even if they're capacitive. Touchscreens are modal. If I want to control the climate, I first have to press the Climate capacitive button or scroll through the screen to find climate. That takes my hands off the wheel and my eyes of…

> I will _happily_ pay the $100 more to have a more premium and tuned interior I'm guessing the cost difference is greater than this. Which means the end-user price difference would be north of $1k. Would be interesting to see if customers would pay $2 to 5k extra for a mostly-tactile interior. (I think back-up camera requirements make some screen unavoidable.)

That can get thrown into a tiny 2" screen in the instrument cluster.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#105

Post by mcphage » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

advisedwang wrote: post #45

I have heard (but have no insider knowledge) that it's not just the cost of parts, but what parts do to the development lifecycle. With physical parts, the development process is highly sequential. Pick the look, design how it fits, engineer what parts are used, manufacture tooling etc etc in a waterfall. If a revision needs to be made, the whole process needs to be re-started adding a huge amount of delays. With a t…

I feel like you could solve that with some constraints defined early in the process—the controls must fit in dimensions XxYxZ, and have K-input wires, and draw at most 5V of power, or whatever. Then the control designer can go off and design whatever they want within those constraints, and the car designer can go off and design the interior of the car knowing what the head unit will require.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#106

Post by iamdamian » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:04 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #62

iamdamian wrote: post #31

There has been more pushback on car screens over the past couple of years, and the optimist in me hopes this leads to change. With enough pushback, manufacturers will have to listen to the market, cost savings be damned. A concrete step I take to push this along: I mention physical buttons as a dealbreaker to car dealerships when I shop. Of course, I'm only speaking to dealer reps and not the decision makers at $CAR_…

That works as long as you actually stick to your guns and keep them as deal-breakers. If you accept them with some grumbling, that's still a sale and that provides no backpressure to the manufacturer.

I agree. It also works if you mention it as a dealbreaker, leave without buying, and then buy at another shop. Yes, I realize this can be more work and may not be feasible for everyone.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#107

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:05 PM UTC

scottyah wrote: post #70

iamdamian wrote: post #31

There has been more pushback on car screens over the past couple of years, and the optimist in me hopes this leads to change. With enough pushback, manufacturers will have to listen to the market, cost savings be damned. A concrete step I take to push this along: I mention physical buttons as a dealbreaker to car dealerships when I shop. Of course, I'm only speaking to dealer reps and not the decision makers at $CAR_…

I could not imagine having to go back to buttons for anything I actually want to control. Once you get used to a well-designed touchscreen, buttons are just so clunky and unintuitive for most functions. Dials are probably my most favorite physical control, but other than volume there's not much it's useful for in a well-designed, modern car anymore. It was great for radio stations, but is terrible for Spotify. Settin…

[deleted]

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#108

Post by dghlsakjg » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

jmward01 wrote: post #51

I realize the article is pro buttons. I think a huge thing missing from the button discussion (well, maybe lightly touched on in the article) is that physical buttons and controls help guide without looking. Other buttons give feedback that your hand is in the right place. Sure, at first contact that (very bad) reference radio is worse than the touch screen but within a few days of using that I would not need to look…

I think that most people have the usability of buttons without sight as a main argument for.

Things like sliders and knobs can also have limits and detents that provide two way feedback that a screen cannot.

If you have to set the fan level on a touch screen, I have to use my eyes to coordinate my hand movements. On my old 2000 econobox, I just had to find the fan control slider (normally without even looking, and certainly faster than finding it on a screen, and getting my hand to the right spot), and I knew if I was already at max, or how much I had adjusted it based on the number of clicks. Same thing with the old red/blue temperature adjuster slider/knob.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#109

Post by joe_the_user » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

advisedwang wrote: post #45

I have heard (but have no insider knowledge) that it's not just the cost of parts, but what parts do to the development lifecycle. With physical parts, the development process is highly sequential. Pick the look, design how it fits, engineer what parts are used, manufacture tooling etc etc in a waterfall. If a revision needs to be made, the whole process needs to be re-started adding a huge amount of delays. With a t…

I suspect that another thing that's expensive, besides analog controls, is creating and testing a new, better interface for driving ICE cars using digital controls. So the only thing old our old-tech car companies do is add ad-hoc extensions of the usual car controls. And it is economical to package all these in a touch screen along with all the standard controls they can get away with.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#110

Post by bryanlarsen » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

citelao wrote: post #72

bryanlarsen wrote: post #23

The $6,000 profit per car referenced in the article is gross profit, not net profit. Net profit is considerably lower, around 5% for the mass manufacturers. So a $100 cost savings is very significant against a ~$3,000 net profit on a Bolt.

OP: ooooo, that's neat. Do you have a source? I struggled to find a source for even that $6,000 number.

The $6,000 number is a lot harder to calculate. The lower number is just vehicle profit from their investor reports divided by number of cars sold. The lower number is a lot more variable -- some years car companies lose money from their vehicle production side...