I’ve been seeing some absolute nonsense online recently, nonsense showing some actual real-world car features, and I’ve realized it’s my duty to take a moment and let the whole world know what’s going on here is very much not okay. It’s not okay. I’m not going to sit back and just let it happen, let my beloved universe of automobiles get slowly infected by this insidious, pervasive idiocy because I sat back and did nothing. Not today, Satan. Not fucking today. What I’m not going to let happen is this: gloveboxes opened by a software button on a touchscreen interface, buried inside some bullshit UX. I wanna scream knowing it exists.
I realized I needed to speak up about this – and I don’t think this is hyperbole – grave threat to the very human condition – because it’s somehow infected the new Cadillac Lyriq, and is now showing up on videos about the car, like this one done by none other than our pal Doug DeMuro:
I have to hand it to Doug for maintaining his composure here; I can only imagine moments after this video was shot he was behind a tree, sobbing and vomiting and shaking all over, while one of Doug’s many handlers surrounded him, covering him with medicated salves and telling him that somehow everything will be fine.
But everything will not be fine.
Did you really get a look at what was happening there? There’s at least three steps involved here, and I’m being generous, because depending on what the center-stack display is currently showing or doing, you’d have to add more steps even to get to the menu with that “Controls” icon:
I know I’m not the only one who feels the same sense of rage and dread when they see this sort of thing happen, because I’ve already seen things like this:
Please God no pic.twitter.com/vfhdgfaEya
— Peter (@Peter_M_V) October 10, 2022
This, of course, is the only reasonable reaction to being confronted with the touch-screen glove box release. I should be clear that I’m not trying to single out Cadillac or GM here, they just happen to be the most recent example of this madness, but it has existed before, like on the Tesla Model 3:
I didn’t speak out when the Tesla first demonstrated this, and that’s on me. I foolishly thought this was just some Tesla-only affectation, and there’s no way this poison could seep into the greater mainstream car market. I was wrong.
Speaking of wrong, what the hell is wrong with that guy in the Tesla video? How does he find this cool? Does he have a knee-buckling, pants-ruining orgasm when he goes to a grocery store and steps on the magic mat that makes the sliding doors open automatically? Jeezis, dude, stop encouraging this.
The touch-screen-actuated glove box is terrible because it’s one of those examples where carmakers have found that they have the technology to do something, so they do it, without considering literally anything about what they’ve done. Did anybody want this? At all? It takes something that has never been a problem, opening a glove box, and added cost and complexity to the construction, and added time and inconvenience to the process. No problem is solved, but a fuckload of new problems are introduced.
What if your battery dies, and you have your small emergency charger in the glovebox? Tough shit! What if you’re waiting in a turned-off car while your friend or parent or lover pops inside the liquor store, and you need to get, say, your hyper-important pills out of the glove box? Again, tough shit. And, if you’re thinking, “hey, stop worrying, I’m sure they have an emergency mechanical release for the glove box somewhere,” then I encourage you to fuck right off and take a moment to think about the deep, hurtful idiocy of that statement.
Did they do focus groups for this feature? Did they get responses like these?
“I hate how easy and quick it is to get the glovebox open. Can you guys solve that?”
“Is there any way to make simple acts I’m used to doing a real fucking chore?”
“How can I be sure every single tiny fucking thing on this car will be an expensive hassle to repair in 10 years?
“If the battery dies, is there any way to fuck me over even more than normal? Like, you know, hard?”
“Can you just smack the shit out of me over and over again with like a slab of roast beef, or is there some electromechanical and software solution you can integrate into the car for the same effect?”
I hate this so much. Nobody wants this. Nobody needs this. You want to make the car seem fancy, just make a physical latch for the glovebox out of something nice instead of, you know, crap. Though, with that advice in mind, if I was offered a choice between a conventional glove box latch made from composite material sourced from the hydraulically-compressed feces of convicted sex offenders or a menu-based touchscreen glovebox release, I’ll have mine with the pervert shit plastic, thanks so much.
What if you get pulled over by a cop, and they tell you to turn your car off, like they do, but then you have to explain to the already tense cop that you need to turn your car back on so you can open the fucking glove box door so you can get your documents? Depending on the cop and the circumstance, this can only make things worse.
What’s the problem this was supposed to solve, again? Opening a glove box was too obvious? Too easy? The mechanism was too long-lasting and cheap?
Carmakers are fundamentally like huge, dumb animals. When they do bad things, you have to be firm and forceful and tell them NO BAD, loudly and often, and that’s where we are right now.
So, GM: NO. BAD. BAD COMPANY. Stop. The right thing for GM to do right now, at this very moment, is to recall every single fucking Lyriq out there and retrofit a real glove box latch onto these. I do not care what it costs. It’s worth it. They should also send fruit baskets or cookie assortments or something to every owner that had to deal with this horseshit even once along with a formal apology. And the company should pledge, hand on the gold-covered skull of William Crapo Durant, to never, ever pull this shit again.
You know what? Make Tesla do it, too. Recall every Model 3 with this stupid touch-screen glove box release setup and go through the same shit I said GM should do, but swap William Crapo Durant’s skull for Elon’s groin or something.
Any other car maker who has committed this atrocity should do the same, but I’m not going to look up who else may have done this because I’m a caring, tender human and my very soul can’t take the onslaught of knowing how far this bullshit has spread. It just has to stop. Now.
I’m very curious to see if anyone disagrees with me in the comments. Could there be people out there who like this insipid horseshit? Is it possible? Could there be masochistic, perverse simpletons out there who want to navigate a fucking touchscreen menu to open a lid inches from their fucking stupid fingers? That can’t exist. There have to be more Sasquatches that read this site than blighted morons who somehow, perversely want touch-screen-menu based glove box latches. In fact, I hope there are. I’d rather spend time with Sasquatches, any fucking day.
So, again, to all automakers now or in the future: DO NOT MAKE GLOVE BOXES OPEN FROM A TOUCH SCREEN MENU.
NO. BAD. STOP.
“while one of Doug’s many handlers surrounded him”
Please, we all know that Doug’s “many handlers” is nothing more than Noodles wearing a hat and tie.
My entire theory on Tesla is they’re the most cost-cutting carmaker in existence, but because they package the cost-cutting so neatly, it turns a moan into awe.
F*cking magic.
That is 100% what they’re doing. Every function moved to the touchscreen is a function they don’t need to manufacture a unique button for, or borrow from someone else’s parts bin. Screens are cheap to buy in bulk, especially if you’re just doing one big screen, and you can’t spot the parts bin they’re from.
Pro-tip: if you carry an ???? in your car, you can always gain access to the glove box.
AXE. IF YOU CARRY AN AXE. Apparently, we can’t do emojis up in hurr.
Also particularly handy for getting a dinner table at Dorsia…
Dorsia is fine, but have you tried Texarkana? The mud soup and charcoal arugula are OUTRAGEOUS there.
What’s wrong with a regular door handle again?
Not fancy enough. Don’t say plebeian things.
I’m actually kind of impressed they still label it “glove box” on the touch-screen. Sewwww pedestrian. Why not complicate things further and affix a label along the lines of “Dash Container: Large”, or even better “Very Important Vehicle Document Vault”, and then seriously up the bullshit factor by having a number pad appear on screen and making the user type in a combination. Of course, the combination only works if it’s in the range of the key fob, which is subscription based.
Just a sec, I’m going to go join Demuro vomiting behind a tree.
In my wife’s car, it could be labeled, “excessive number of napkins compartment”. Imagine the greasy fingerprints all over the screen as you just want a darn napkin. Good thing the center console is full of napkins too. The key to the wheel lock is in there too, somewhere under all those napkins.
Let me explain to you just how utterly fucking stupid this is from EVERY perspective.
Let’s start with manu-oh wait. Torch already covered 90% of that. The other 10% is adding the glovebox button introduced a bug that took 6 days to fix in the middle of the release sprint and had to be prioritized over everything else (including fixing Carplay being completely broken by a commit last sprint) because it caused the display to quit working completely.
Oh, you think I’m joking? I am 110% serious. This shit happens more and more and more frequently, the more stupid and needlessly complicated this shit becomes, and it’s being written largely by fresh college grads or outsourcers who literally copy and paste code they found on the Internet blindly.
Now let’s talk about what happens when it breaks. “Oh, you just use the computer to release it without the display.” Ha ha NOPE. The motor’s shorted – and those motors are one of the more failure prone areas of any car. Plus it’s in a very high heat area (right near the plastic uninsulated HVAC ducts) which further degrades lifespan, particularly grease. So nope. Motor’s fucked.
“Well just pull the emergency release.” Oops, it’s hung up too because of the motor failure mode. This happens a lot. With everything. Power windows are especially fun when this occurs where the motor fails and half-cocks the window in the frame.
So how do we fix it? Disassemble the entire fucking dashboard. No, not “part” of it. The entire dashboard all the way down to the crash bar has to be removed. “You’re making that up!” Yeah, no, I’m not. I actually handled a LOT of glovebox repairs, because it is by far and away the #2 source of drivability complaints and because both GM and Chrysler had very severe quality problems with their gloveboxes. (ProTip: don’t want an obnoxious rattle, don’t store coins and a metal tire pressure gauge in your glovebox. If that still doesn’t fix, then come see me. I did a LOT of loose screw and broken plastic repair.) Also, we have to pull the glovebox that way when the lock breaks.
Because these newer cars ‘hide’ the hinge and assembly attachment points behind panels, those panels have to come off. GM uses two ‘hidden’ designs now. One is the slider-style, where the ONLY way to release the glovebox is to gain access to sliding rails on BOTH sides of the glovebox, which are inside of the glovebox retention frame. Which means, you guessed it, you absolutely must be able to get the glovebox open. Or you have to pull the entire frame, which requires pulling the entire dash to gain access to retaining screws.
Know what you have to do on a Cadillac ATS if you need to access anything behind the glovebox even if it’s not broken? You have to remove THE ENTIRE PASSENGER LOWER DASH ASSEMBLY. Every single piece of trim, trim anchors, two airbags, and the entire glovebox housing. And for improved physical security, the hinge is behind and underneath the door, with the securing screws inaccessible without being able to fully open the glovebox and disconnect the damper.
These motorized shitshows of unreliability? Well, for one, they break constantly even without Tesla’s notoriously abysmal QC, and even dumber customers. Who are bonkers for hanging 5+ pounds of shit off the glovebox door. Which loads the shit out of the latching mechanism and guarantees failure. But aside from that? You’ll find lots of idiots claiming you just use the manual release behind the end trim panel. Guess what happens when that doesn’t work because the entire mechanism’s broken?
You have to remove the entire dashboard and center console assembly, including the passenger airbag and the glued-on iPad. That is the only way to gain sufficient access to remove the glovebox assembly, because the anchoring frame runs all the way from the door to behind the iPad. On the old ones where the iPad was actually integrated and they had an IPC, it was just the passenger trim. New ones with the glued on iPad, nope, you have to take the entire dash out. Which also includes dropping the steering column.
And I will fucking remind you, THIS IS THE BARE MINIMUM TO GAIN ACCESS.
I would rather deal with a Chrysler 2.7 with imploded plastic intake than even drive one of these abominations.
This needs to be done with hidden cup holders, interior door handles and sun visors.
It’s an instant-gratification gimmick for people who have lost the ability to stop for 5 seconds and determine if they like a feature because it’s cool or just different. When it comes to cars, different does not equal better unless it’s done by the French.
You know what is cool? A glovebox release that’s integrated with the trim of the dash. The second-gen Audi A3 and Saab 9-3 come to mind.
We have a couple of 2007-2013 GMC trucks at work and the upper glove box release was fairly integrated into a trim line. Well, integrated for a truck at least. I can’t see it being that much harder to make it look even better on a vehicle for a more particular buyer.
Poor, poor, Jason. I’m sorry, but you are going to toss your turret higher than a T-90 when GM makes the glove box door button a subscription-only feature. Tsk tsk. Some souls are too sensitive for the world our corporate overlords are fashioning for us.
Well, it would certainly inspire me to “move fast and break things,” likely with a crowbar. Pop that sucker open, destroy the latch, install a $1.98 screen door hasp from the hardware store with wood screws. Done.
I have a RAM 1500 and I have very little to complain about (I’m used to the rotary transmission selector now), but I hate that the controls for the heated and cooled seats, as well as the heated steering wheel are in the touchscreen only. At least it pops up on the screen for a few seconds when you start the car, but they could have put a dedicated button in for those.
Also, there’s no “off” button for the climate control outside of the touchscreen. Everything else for the climate control has a dedicated hard button, except “off”.
So this one, I can actually explain in a way that will be both “oh okay that’s not bad” and “WHAT THE LITERAL FUCK, DODGE?!” sense because I’m very intimately familiar.
So first of all, the HVAC off button thing was a conscious UX decision. Basically, it’s very uncommon to turn off the HVAC. Especially on automatic systems. So rather than reserve a button spot for an extremely infrequently used button, they put it in there. See? I told you there was a ‘not so bad’ part of it.
Now, I’m gonna ask you to take a look at your center console buttons. There’s either so few buttons (the shared-with-GC double 7 button racks in early 4th gen) or there’s so fucking many buttons or a giant screen and so few buttons (latest 4th gen with the big screen.)
Buttons eat up valuable real estate. They don’t eat up wiring or pins so much, because they’re CANbus signaling modules in fact. But they eat up physical space. Physical space being taken up by the gigantic screen.
Which is why they went back to so few buttons. They needed room for the big screen. And for cost and complexity reasons, Rams all use a common lower button module. The one with your park sensor, traction, and tow/haul switch is used whether it has the giant screen or it has the small screen. If you have the small screen, then you only have heated seats and optional heated steering wheel, which get a physical button. Located dead center of the big screen.
You see the problem there.
Now here’s where it gets so very “WTF” with Dodge. See, the small screen setup actually has like… 4 or 5 HVAC module frames. Want to guess what the small screen ones have?
Physical buttons for heated and cooled seats, steering wheel, and a climate control off button.
But then we also loop back around to: look at your giant screen version. Where, precisely, do they have room to add 3 or 5 or 6 physical buttons? They can’t do it around the hazard switch because those ‘blanks’ are actually used on the TRX and other trim levels. They can’t make the button area wider, because there’s no physical room without a total redesign and retool of the entire dash pad. They don’t have any physical room left on either side of the screen without making the buttons inconvenient or too small to operate.
There’s just nowhere to put the buttons unless they do the REDESIGN THEY SHOULD’VE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE. (Seriously, they glued on a gear select to the steering wheel, they couldn’t glue on a button for steering wheel heat?)
Perfectly explained. It’s still annoying, but it makes sense (just as you started by saying). All in all, they are really minor gripes. I think the ergonomics for the RAM are some of the best of any vehicle I’ve owned. I even like the rotary gear selector, since it frees up space for the center console (which is just a great design). I wouldn’t trade that giant screen for those physical buttons. I love the simplicity of my MG, but I also love all the gadgets and comfort built into my truck.
HEAR HEAR, TORCH FOR PRESIDENT. Of GM, at least.
Good. Good. Let the hate flow through you.
Recently drove my cousin’s Tesla and when I got in, I wanted to adjust the side mirrors – took multiple steps AFTER my cousin was even able to remember what menus to go through on the touchscreen to find the adjustment menu, then you had to use buttons on the steering wheel that weren’t intuitive at all. And don’t get me started on the fucking HVAC controls in that thing.
Give me simple controls please. Especially on an EV – I want simple physical controls (door pulls that aren’t electronic, manual glovebox releases, analog gauges, manual trunk releases) that DON’T REQUIRE POWER FROM THE BATTERY TO FUNCTION. Isn’t it in a EV’s best interest to reduce the amount of things requiring power from the battery? Doesn’t that increase range and reduce complexity?
I read the headline and thought to myself “I didn’t know that touchscreen gloves even had latches much less box latches”
Touchscreen gloves are pretty great by the way. When you need them you need them
This is one of the 9000 examples of the “change for the sake of change” tech brainrot that permeates the EV side of the car industry these days. Just stop it already. We don’t need to over engineer complicated solutions for problems that don’t exist.
95% of people want a car/EV that has buttons, switches, handles, et cetera. No one wants to drive a damn Apple store and the sooner the folks designing EVs get this the better. Stop trying to be Tesla.
The type of people that are into Teslas aren’t going to consider other options anyway. Telling them to consider another EV would be like trying to tell a dude who’s walked into a Ford dealership looking for an F350 Big Balls Of Texas Edition that what he really needs a hybrid Maverick. You might be well intentioned but it’s not worth your time.
Cars are an emotional purchase and people want what they want….why cater to tech bros when you could cater to the millions of people who want an EV that doesn’t come with a learning curve?
Lot of facts here. The sooner the powers that be get this beaten through their skulls (maybe taped to a rubber hose or some other bludgeon) the better.
I remember back about 10 years ago, I tested out a lightly used (green!) C6 Audi A6 Avant. I loved a lot of it, but the one thing I really didn’t understand was the location of the glove box release. It was a button up high near the infotainment screen rather than a latch on the actual box. It confounded me that this design was so non-bauhaus that I thought: man, no way am I paying for this repair when the button eventually breaks, because it will almost certainly cost $1000 and require coding to repair. Coming from a VW Passat of the early 2000s, I knew too well of the strange decisions VAG were making that resulted in costly repairs.
Should have known it would get to this point. Why make things simple when you can make them way harder for no reason at all. As others have said, it’s a solution in search of a problem.
Yup, my C6 Avant has that button. So far, no issue. I think it’s a cosmetic thing. Most glove box release handles just don’t look all that great and they were going for a smooth uninterrupted surface. At least they put a physical button and not some function in the MMI’s “Car” menu…
My MKX has a glove box button on the passenger side of the center console. It’s at least close to the glove box, but it’s annoying as hell when I want to open it and have to remember where the button is.
But what if I want the glovebox to open, but do not plan to reach a couple inches farther to actually touch the glovebox or anything in it? For some reason?
(I know, manufacturers are probably touting this as security, since someone breaking into your vehicle won’t be able to access the glovebox unless they can turn the car on, but locking gloveboxes exist already.)
Someone breaking into a car is fine with breaking into a glovebox as well. I’m sure the glovebox latch can be overcome with a small screwdriver.
DISRUPT THE WORLD: Burry the door unlock deep within submenus of submenus.
That is horrible.
I FUCKING LOVE IT.
Touchscreen interfaces are great. At some things. This is not one of them.
BAD GM!
I think this should be the mantra for touch screens:
If it would take one button stab or a quick turn of a knob to activate it without a touchscreen, don’t put it on the touchscreen. Like finding the right song? Takes several button presses, that’s fine. Turning on the steering wheel heater? One button, keep that shit off of there. Adjusting a bunch of rarely used settings? Yeah, touch screen that. Changing the temperature? That’s a quick dial turn, keep the dial.
I think there’s room for a compromise solution in which the glove box latch is controlled by a touch screen but absolutely no function of any other aspect of the car is.
As oft mentioned, I and the bank own a 2019 Cadillac CT6. It has this “feature” right there on the dash/screen right next to the 4-way flashers. Not a hassle to use but does leave yet another finger smudge on the glass. Possible advantage? Not having to lean all the way across the car to reach the glove box latch? I’m actually pretty ambivalent. I’ve long since accepted that all the electronic stuff is a waiting time bomb, so it will quit along with everything else sooner or later. Of course the same could be said of a mechanical button, albeit, a whole lot later on.
If you’re opening the glove box, presumably you want to access what’s inside. That requires you to lean across the car, regardless of how the glove box was opened.
I’ve got a better example than the above:
What if you’re in an automobile accident and you need to get your documents out, but the car has cut power as a safety measure?
Well I guess the first responders will have to carry around a 12V battery as well as refer to GM’s ICAR documentation before touching the car so they can ensure they only cut the HV system lines and not the LV system lines. Good thing that’s in the owner’s manual! Oh wait. It’s not. And also the manual is in the glovebox.
Oh wait. The HV and LV lines are physically collocated in the unibody.
Guess you’re fucked.
100% this.
I recently rented a Tesla Model S just to try one out. I was not impressed.
It was a 2015 model, so the glovebox opened by pushing a small physical button on the dash, which is find, I guess, although why wasn’t it located, you know, on or near the glovebox?
But the most hilarious thing to me was that you could use a voice command to “open glovebox”. Could you use a similar command to “close glovebox”? Hell no! You had to use your grubby mitts, like some kind of filthy animal to shove that bitch closed.
This solution in search of a problem is just ridiculous and I agree with you – the fate of Democracy depends on us stopping this now!
“Let’s minimize the cost of building new cars…except not.” While a manufacturer will cheap out on things that matter, they add cost in with this bullshit. I’m wholeheartedly in agreement with you, Torch! Good job calling this out, even if it was a little too late.