I think it’s safe to say that David’s recent review of the Tesla Cybertruck stirred up a shocking amount of emotion among our readers, Tesla fans, Tesla haters, and people who just wanted to say mean things to poor, sweet David. But that’s fine; that’s how the world works now, I suppose. For me, that review, especially the section about the Cybertruck’s user interface failings, reminded me that we’re currently living in an era when some genuinely bad ideas, human/car interface-wise, are happening. And we need to speak up. Specifically, we need to set some firm parameters regarding which controls can exist on a touchscreen display, and which ones should be forcefully and dramatically forbidden from existing in the flat, digital realm of a touchscreen. We need to be draconian about this, friends, because there are some very bad habits being set, and if we don’t nip this shit in the bud now, we could be plagued by annoying, useless, and perhaps even dangerous touchscreen-based controls for who knows how long. We must act.
I’ve picked five crucial controls that I feel have absolutely no business being on a touchscreen, and should be instead some manner of independent, physical control. I’m not including controls that are already legally mandated to exist separately and physically, like hazard lights, and instead am focusing on common controls that have been located on touchscreen interfaces, for reasons one can only guess at.
Okay, let’s get to it! I should warn those of you with high blood pressure or similar ailments to be wary when reading this list, as the act of imagining using a touchscreen for some of these things is maddening and could cause some manner of health issues, probably. Why take a chance?
Dashboard HVAC Air Vents
This one I find especially baffling, because there really is no possible justification that can explain why anyone would actually want to adjust their vents like this. The current, accepted way to adjust air vents is perhaps technologically crude, but it works extraordinarily well: you physically move the vent itself to adjust the direction it blows air, either by tilting it up and down for vertical axis control, or sliding a little lever that controls the vanes on the vent, directing the air on the horizontal plane. Sometimes, the vent is round/roughly spherical, and you can just move it on both axes until the air is blowing in the direction you choose.
This method is incredibly quick and visceral and takes almost no actual thought or focus. You decide you want more air on you, so you reach out and physically move the thing blowing air until it blows on you. It needs no explanation, it’s understandable in the most basic, physical way, informed by all your years of being a physical being, living in a physical world.
When you move air vent controls to the touchscreen, you add a needless level of abstraction to everything. I can accept setting the specific temperature or choosing defrost/defog or dash vents on a touchscreen because those are generally less immediate and visceral controls, but I can never accept moving the vents themselves. I mean, is this really an improvement over physically directing vents?
Here’s a video of someone using the on-screen air direction controls:
All that fussy pinching and finger sliding, and, sure, the guy there seems enamored by the novelty of the process, but I’m pretty confident in saying that, no, this guy is absolutely wrong. This is in no way better. It adds layers of complexity and removal from the actual actions, you have to get to this at least one level down in a menu, so it’s not always available, unlike physical vents the passenger and driver can’t just adjust them simultaneously and at will whenever, you have to focus your eyes on the screen to do this – it’s simply idiotic. It’s not better.
It’s just not. And, sure, there’s some technological wizardry going on to allow for remotely-moved vents actuated by touching a screen, as is explained in-depth in videos like this one:
…but, let’s be real here, who gives a shit? Nothing of value is gained here over just basic dash air vents. Nothing. In fact, it’s far worse, because you have to take attention away from driving to do this simple thing that you used to be able to do immediately, any time, and just with touch. If you prefer touchscreen control for adjusting air vents, I suggest you seek your clergyperson or someone for help, because you’re deeply, irredeemably wrong.
Glove Box Latch
This one I’ve definitely bitched about before, because it’s a miserable crime against humanity. There is no good reason any human being should be opening a glove box remotely via a touchscreen. Aside from perhaps a bit of excitement that some physical event is happening sort of remotely, which may prove a thrill for Amish or unfrozen cave-person car buyers or people unfamiliar with the magic of a television remote, I can’t think of a single reason why one would choose a touchscreen control for opening a glove box over actually just using a latch right there on the glovebox door.
I actually confronted one of the designers of a car that uses this depraved setup, and this is how it went:
There’s no advantage here. There’s no benefit. There’s only complications, headaches, and potential new problems caused by this insipid idea. Let’s just decree that this should never happen again. Ever.
Gearshift
Again we find ourselves in the situation where even if a touchscreen shift interface was executed in the best possible way, it adds nothing of value to the shifting experience. The only reason this would be chosen is because a touchscreen shifter can save some money, but – and this is important – I don’t give a shit. Let those bigshot CEOs eat some dogfood every now and then like the rest of us. Like delicious Ol’Roy, which has real peas and carrots! It’s not worth the indignity of having to squint at some fussy little icons on a screen and drag your finger in a little rectangle of space like you’re cleaning something crusty out of the inside of a shot glass.
Here, listen to what David had to say about the Cybertruck’s on-screen shifter:
“None of these are as bad as the Cybertruck’s “shifter,” because at least these are three-dimensional shifters. They can be used without requiring you to take your eyes off the road, and they offer a positive engagement that makes it easy to know which gear they’re in. The Cybertruck requires you to look at the screen, press your finger on the little cybertruck icon in that small vertical shifter “column,” and then slide it up to go into drive or downward to go into reverse… The shifter works, and it isn’t confusing like some shifters can be, but I still struggle to find a worse transmission shifter in the automotive industry. There’s a reason why the Ford F-150 has stayed with its T-handle PRNDL shifter despite the fact that it takes up a bunch of space and doesn’t actually mechanically connect to the transmission: That’s what Ford’s customers want. They want a physical, substantial shifter. Ram went to a rotary dial, and that received a bunch of criticism, though I think most folks are used to that now. But this “shifter” in the Cybertruck? One with minimal feedback to tell you what’s going on and one that you cannot use without looking — it may work, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the worst of the bunch.”
No one wants to shift on the dumb screen. And, I think there must be some safety-related rationales for having physical shifting controls, because even Tesla has a duplicate set of shifter controls above their rear view mirror:
Why’d they even bother with the silly on-screen shifter when they already had a shifting solution? This cramming shit onto the touchscreen, needlessly, is a sickness! A sickness!
Any Wiper Controls
This is another great example of touchscreen controls making shit more complicated for absolutely no good reason. The generally-accepted modern-car method of windshield wiper controls is via a stalk, usually working by a light touch causing the wipers to give one wipe, perhaps to clear off some splashed Kool-Aid if you’re driving past a location where that giant pitcher has just breeched the outer wall of a building, and then the other speeds are generally activated by moving the stalk up or down into however many notches you have, corresponding to wiper speed. Maybe there’s also a knob for setting intermittent wiper delay. That’s pretty much it, and in this common setup, everything is done via fingertips, and there really isn’t any visual component beyond actually seeing the wipers themselves doing their job. It generally just works.
And yet, in a car with some amount of wiper controls relegated to the touchscreen, the complexity level ramps up dramatically. Here’s an explanation of how Tesla wipers work:
Oy. How much of that was really necessary? Tesla does have some physical controls that can actuate the wipers, buttons or scroll wheels on the steering wheel, or previously, a stalk, but they still have the wiper speeds on screen by default, which makes no sense at all. When you need to adjust your wiper speeds, it’s usually because there’s rain, which is when you really don’t want to be taking your eyes off the road in the first place. And, yes, you can customize the scroll wheel to handle speed of wipers, sure, but it all just comes back to why did they bother putting the speeds on an on-screen menu in the first place?
This wasn’t broken, it didn’t need to be fixed, and the world will be better once teams of hired goons work over anyone who tries to stick any wiper controls on a stupid touchscreen menu. You’ll see.
Volume Control
There’s never a reason to put this on a screen. Ever. It should always just be a big, easy-to-find knob. Volume is one of those things that you want to change on the slightest whim! What if the Emergency Broadcast Whatever comes on, with its shrill tone of alarm? Then you want to quiet that alarmist shit up, pronto! What if Radar Love comes on? Then you want to crank that shit, right-a-fucking-way! You don’t want to fumble around in some stupid touch menu, like a toddler on an iPad, you want to full-wristedly crank that knob so everyone can fucking hear that you’re driving all night, hands wet on the wheel.
And what about when you may be lost, and need to focus on directions? Then you need to turn that volume down, so you can think! What if you need to comically drown out whatever bullshit your passenger is going on and on about? Then you need to turn the volume up, at just the right time, perhaps over and over, as they get more and more frustrated.
Look, I know touchscreens are here to stay, and that’s fine. They have their place, they can do useful things. But if these five controls end up on touchscreens instead of having physical controls, so help me, when I’m Emperor of America I will find every motherfucker responsible for this society-degrading rot and throw them in my UX gulags, which will be entirely controlled by stupid, overly complicated touchscreens, from toilet flushing to blanket covering to ferrying food from plate to mouth.
Don’t test me!
Onward Torch! The only thing necessary for the triumph of touchscreens is for good men to do nothing!
I get that a gear selector on the screen saves money. It’s still a stupid idea. But the screen-controlled vents cost more money, because you need actuators to actually move the damn things. That makes absolutely no sense, not even for the manufacturer!
There is one use case where this could be considered a positive – and that’s if each user of the car has a profile, and the vents are adjusted automatically by profile. That said, I’m still against it. We have it on one car, and I don’t think it is connected to the profiles (like the seat/mirrors are) so it’s just stupid.
I would definitely add blinkers and lights to this. Anything you need to adjust while driving needs to be tactile so you can feel it without having to look at it for more than a split-second.
Also accelerator and brakes. And steering.
Lights I can see either way. My car is set to auto lights and I just about never change it.
Not having blinkers on a stalk should be a criminal offense.
My car has auto lights too, and it’s almost always in that mode. But the switch to activate that feature needs to a physical one, in case you set off and realize while driving that your auto lights are off, and you are heading into a tunnel or something. Or if you find you do need lights, and your auto lights just don’t agree.
Hot take: We should go back to double DIN as a federally-mandated standard, anything that shouldn’t be physically ripped out of the car and replaced with Zune Carplay when it becomes the new standard has to be on the dash, separate from the screen. Any intrinsic car information can be displayed on the gauges, which have featured screens forever now.
Zune Carplay? You’ll take my LimewireOS setup from my cold, dead hands, buddy.
can we add headlight controls? some cars can’t turn the lights on / off unless you go through the touch screen… it’s baffling
Headlight controls on the touch screen warrant some Gulag time.
Sure, but the only options should be on and auto. Way too many idiots have their lights off, probably because some service monkey didn’t put it back in auto.
You need to turn your headlights OFF at night when entering a US military base (or at least you used to; don’t know if that changed yet). Guards don’t want to be blinded by your headlights as you approach.
And many states require headlights on in work zones and any time you are using the wipers.
Spot on. The clip of you interviewing Tesla Robin about the glovebox latch. Such smiley arrogance. Ugh.
It may have been smiley arrogance… Or it may have been:
“David you’re 100% abso-fucking-lutely spot on… But I got marching orders from my asinine boss that every car control has to be controlled ala Angry Birds (still his favorite game 12 years later); so if I agree with you David (on camera) I will lose my job, my wife, and the respect of my children. So yeah, I’m just gonna smile and politely recite the corporate pr bullshit. Oh yeah, and if you ‘like’ this virtual glove box latch, just wait for the next-gen cup holders buried in the developer menu.”
Non of these features is about making a car more convenient, it’s about someone justifying their job. Think Seth Meyers doing Rudy Giuliani’s voice: Say Boss, I’ve got a great idea!
It’s about saving $3.72 cents per car as well.
I cringed watching that vent video so now need to vent: This is stupidity at it’s finest; if you are someone who WANTS this, owns a car that has this, or uses this…you are the stupidest fucking idiot in the world! Get a life since you don’t have one!
This is not fixing anything…what was wrong w/ the way it was? Nobody needs all this shit. IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT!!!
Same w/ glovebox- So dumb and that guy in the video should be punched in the face
Same w/ the damn shifter: I think this makes me the most mad- this is the stupidest fucking thing ever made for a car and completely dangerous…the shifter should NEVER, EVER EVER be in a fucking screen!!! I want to smash it into a billion pieces…same w/ the wipers- they were definitely drinking the Kool-Aid when they put those in a damn screen…and of course the volume too- which I may need all the time now to drown out all of this bullshit noise of morons trying to change everything for the worse and going backwards…to the fools putting everything in screens:
GO FUCK YOURSELF DUMBASS!
Agree.
Once I gain entry into the glovebox, one thing I would like to find there is an analog, paper-based got-dang owner’s manual, dammit. A book. Good for those dead-battery no internet moments. More because perusing the digital manual of my new XC60 is clumsy and frustrating. The digital manual hides more information than it gives. Clicking back and forth in submenus does not provide near the utility of a book.
1000% agree.
Thank you
I like touchscreens! I use them to zoom in on interior shots of dashboards from ’90’s bimmers
Galaxy brain use of touchscreens. Brilliant.
Having a skeumorphic application that carries it the function ascribed to the button would be truly ascendant, and in a ridiculously roundabout way probably make it easier to use.
Yes, yes, but these are all clearly “cool”, according to, erm, colleagues?*
For me all HVAC controls need to be physical, but totally agree with everything listed here!
ALL HEIL EMPEROR TORCH THE FIRST! LONG MAY HE ILLUMINATE OUR TAILIGHTS WITH HIS WISDOM!
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head for most of these. Personally, I also prefer all HVAC controls to be button-based, but I get it. That wouldn’t be as big of a loss as any of these things you described. That would be honorable mention material, I’d say.
Volume knob is tough. I upgraded my 2012 Prius v with a 9″ aftermarket head unit, and it doesn’t have a volume knob. There’s only a couple models that had a volume knob on Crutchfield, and they were 10″ and up. As it turned out, mine, just being 9″, had barely half an inch of clearance between itself and the upper glove box lid to its right.
Nonetheless–there’s volume buttons on the steering wheel, which are a perfectly acceptable, tactile substitute for me. Additionally, the new head unit has way fewer volume increments– I generally have it between 7 and 15–so “cranking it up/down” is still easy, and I can press and hold a button to mute it, too. I think that covers the important stuff.
I will say, the one thing (the only thing) I could see some kind of vent aiming system be good for, is for a scenario that I recall happening often in the vehicles I learned to drive in (2010 Flex, 2005 Focus, later ’97 Econoline)– adjusting the vent requires leaning slightly forward to reach them, so if you’re trying to aim for your head, and then you sit back, and now it’s juuust off to one side, so you lean forward and take your best guess, then assume proper posture and see if it’s correct now…
Of course, that’s still not an impossible situation and any kind of touchscreen/servo-using solution to that is still overkill and engineering time infinitely better spent elsewhere. I’m just presenting one circumstance where I think it might be useful, but even then, if you have to lean forward to use the touchscreen…purpose is still defeated. So an actual solution would end up being, like, machine learning-based face identification and aiming at it…assuming that’s what you even want.
The vents are one of the rare cases where “hey, we can keep them mechanical to keep them easy, intuitive, fairly straightforward to repair, and not add complexity to newer cars for the sake of it”, whereas there’s a lot of other complexity that’s at least for a good cause.
I can’t imagine a car with touchscreen HVAC. I live in New England where the weather changes constantly and I do things outdoors, so I might be on the border of heat exhaustion or gangrene from frostbite and I need to be able to direct vents at specific parts and that can take some fine tuning or moving around to other parts as the first ones adjust that would be infuriating with a touchscreen. And what is it for? More weight, more crap to break, single point of failure, worse to use. I outright would not buy a car with any of this stuff on a touchscreen. I fully expect to have to build a kit car in the future and I would gladly give up safety I may never need to dispense with dealing with this kind of stupidity (and actual safety issue) on a daily basis.
I’m on the same tolerance (or lack thereof) level as you are. OEMs making my life more difficult so they can maximize profits per unit while they are also making lots of dollars total just doesn’t sell me on a car. I’d rather stuff modern powertrain tech in to an old chassis than drive this garbage.
Yeah, minus canbus systems, erosion of operational safety margins, plus reduced R&D lately, I love modern engines (or I guess that makes it fairly modern engines). I want them to run clean and be efficient, though I also want them to last and I’ll give up some power for that (especially if it comes with less weight even more so if it comes with better response and feel). I used to be the one championing modern tech (minus electronic throttles I have yet to experience being programmed well enough to match a decent cable in terms of lag and linearity), but the turn the industry has taken and seemingly is accelerating down, is anathema to what I liked about it and now we have reduced longevity from eroded safety margins, forced obsolescence through software integration, security issues from external communication that seems to be most beneficial to anyone besides the owner, a much lower standard of wear or damage to where a car becomes uneconomically repairable, and that disposability makes them less green.
Great stuff, Torch. If you don’t raise this alarm, who will?
It’s my baby callin’, says, “I need you here”
And it’s a-half-past four and I’m swiping into gear
I could not possibly agree more! Bravo!
I rented a Model Y, Despite having actually driven one before that a friend owned, it took me >5 minutes to sus out how to adjust the damned outside mirrors. And I am an actual computer engineer! That is completely unacceptable. Key car controls should be so simple and intuitive that my 76yo mother can get in the car untutored, adjust the mirrors and radio, turn on the headlights and wipers, start the thing, put it in gear and go. That is not really a high bar, yet so many cars utterly fail it today.
I had a VW Atlas recently that had an interface that made me want to kill someone. Took forever just to find the well-disguised and not at all obvious start/stop button, and whatever German rocket scientist decided that the appalling touch controls for the stereo volume should be *unlit at night* should be sent to a death camp. And the touchscreen itself was a complete hot mess of unintuitive pokes to get it to do even simple things.Like right there on the screen were what looked like buttons to turn the heated seats on. But NO, pushing that just brought up the seat heat controls. WHY!!!!
I am just completely over newer cars. Mid teens BMW and Mercedes with iDrive of Command is as far as I am willing to go, but the best touchscreen is NO touchscreen..
Jason, just last week, I was with a friend in his BMW 530i when the display came on and said “NO SIGNAL.” He had no nav, no audio (radio, CD, streaming) no cameras… if the display also included the controls you’ve mentioned, it would have been even worse. BTW, a few minutes later, the screen lit up and it has not done it again.
“Let those bigshot CEOs eat some dogfood every now and then like the rest of us. Like delicious Ol’Roy, which has real peas and carrots!”
FFS that stuff is $9.66 for a 22 oz can!
CEOs (and your dog) can have Armour Star Classic Homestyle Beef Stew 20 oz Can also with potatoes and carrots for $0.90 instead:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Armour-Star-Classic-Homestyle-Beef-Stew-20-oz-Can/38498822?from=/search
I always love it when you live up to your username. Well played.
also what the shit $9.66 for a can, even a pretty largeish can?
Yeah I don’t get it either. For that price you can get a few cans of Dinki-Di Meat & Vegies which is WAY better:
https://madmax.fandom.com/wiki/Dinki-Di
Or if the shipping costs are too high get a case of that Armour stew and cosplay:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kTdQfMT6baFZJRIHglcLs2N4BXVPDqrk/view
Ol’ Roy is Walmart’s house brand (whether or not it started out that way) and is one of the cheapest dog foods on the market, which, along with the sound and mental image of the brand name, probably is why Torch tends to use it as a go-to when he needs to refer to dog food in the text. (I can’t speak too much about the canned varieties, but I’ve seen the kibble and it’s definitely for the short-term frugal unconcerned about future veterinary expense.)
The link probably came up to the $9.66/can entry because it’s not in stock at your local Walmart. I clicked on it and first got $1.66 or something for a 22-ounce can, but it was looking at a store in Sacramento. When I changed it to my local store, it came up with a third-party Marketplace-style seller at the same high price. You shouldn’t be buying this anyway if you have the ability to buy or cook something else for your dog, and if you can justify $9.66 for 22 ounces of canned food, you definitely need to explore other options.
It’s fine for human children and guests, of course, but you can still do better for that price. And kids especially are better off with kibble to help reduce tartar buildup. (Remember – baby teeth or permanent, KinderKibble® keeps kids’ teeth sparkling and their breath fresh!)
Ah that makes sense. I’ll stock up on Torch chow when its cheaper.
I may have kvetched about this before, but the first time I encountered the method of ejecting a floppy from an old Macintosh, it put me off using Apple hardware… well, forever. I suppose Tesla hardware goes in a similar category.
Tesla and Apple are birds of a feather.
* 5 letters
* a, l, e in common
WAKE UP PEOPLE
Yes, but I was referring to the marketing. Positioning an inferior product at the leading edge of “cool” in order to mask it’s functional deficiencies.
at least sort of Tesla has a reason to be inferior, to offset the cost of the batteries
IT’S IN THE BIBLE!
But Apple is all about good design. /S
Well said, Jason!!! Another place that should not have controls is behinde the steering wheel. I can’t tell yu how any time I have accidently change radio stations when turning the wheel. Drives me nuts!!!
Are you driving while wearing oven mitts? I absolutely love the behind the wheel controls they are way easier to hit than ones on the face and I have never hit them accidently. Unless there’s some brand that puts them on the back of the rim, you are squeezing your wheel wrong
Knobs and toggle switches for everything! I want a car interior like an old airplane
I do love a good knob and toggle….