[evandyk]

My parents, who are oldsters, just got a new car for the first time in well over a decade. They are very grumpy about the screens and sensors doing everything.

My car is also 13 years old now. I'm not sure I will ever buy another car if this one dies (just use Uber or rentals for those rare occasions where a car is useful) but if I do, I'd probably be grumpy too.

 

[afransen]

Offer me an EV that doesn't have a giant iPad on the dashboard, with traditional gauges and physical switchgear, without nannystate user overides, surveillance tech and data collection, plus a steering wheel that's actually attached to the front wheels, along with mechanical door handles and lock overrides, and I might be interested.

Let's go through this:

"Offer me an EV that doesn't have a giant iPad on the dashboard,"
I think pretty much all new vehicles have some kind of screen, if not touchscreen on the dash.

"with traditional gauges and physical switchgear"

What would these gauges show? Speedometer, sure. Battery state of charge, you would want translated to a physical gauge? Why?

Again, most gas cars these days don't have physical gauges.

"surveillance tech and data collection"

Most cars have abundant data monitoring and surveillance, with third party data sales being significant business for most OEMs.

"plus a steering wheel that's actually attached to the front wheels"

Pretty sure this is the case with nearly every vehicle. I am only aware of one vehicle with steer by wire, which is Cybertruck.

 

[evandyk]

Yeah. My parents' new car is a run-of-the-mill gas-powered Mazda, and it has too much screens and automations for them.

 

[afransen]

Meanwhile, 2026 seems to be an inflection year for robotaxi deployment. Waymo has been ramping up their offering pretty aggressively, and Tesla has started fully-autonomous robotaxi services in several cities in Texas (no safety monitor). They are prepping to launch in another dozen cities in the next few months and are validating their 'cybercab' two seater no steering wheel/no pedals vehicle with low volume production currently being used for this purpose.

 

[lenaitch]

My parents, who are oldsters, just got a new car for the first time in well over a decade. They are very grumpy about the screens and sensors doing everything.

My car is also 13 years old now. I'm not sure I will ever buy another car if this one dies (just use Uber or rentals for those rare occasions where a car is useful) but if I do, I'd probably be grumpy too.

We got a 2025 SUV and I am similarly dismayed at the touchscreen controls. They are much more difficult to use while driving as compared to physical controls. We also had the screen go down (warrantee) which means nothing is controllable.

 

[kEiThZ]

Offer me an EV that doesn't have a giant iPad on the dashboard, with traditional gauges and physical switchgear, without nannystate user overides, surveillance tech and data collection, plus a steering wheel that's actually attached to the front wheels, along with mechanical door handles and lock overrides, and I might be interested.

How much you willing to spend?

 

[picard102]

What physical controls are people looking for?

Climate? Now you set a desired temperature and the car maintains it. Shouldn't need to be constantly adjusted anymore.

Media? Most have physical controls on the steering wheel.

Turn signals? Still physical controls.

What's left, the Cigarette lighter?

 

[afransen]

Climate? Now you set a desired temperature and the car maintains it. Shouldn't need to be constantly adjusted anymore.

The one gripe I still have is that there should be a different set point for heating vs cooling. When the car is heating, I set temp to maybe 19C, and when cooling I set to maybe 22/23. It's only really something that requires changing during shoulder seasons when you might heat and cool in the same day.

 

[ssiguy2]

I'm dreading buying my next car. Mine is still fairly new, a 2019 Nissan Kicks, and half of the buttons on my computer screen I have never used. I know I'm dating myself but I would love to be able to buy a new car that just requires a license and not an engineering degree.

 

[ssiguy2]

On a more serious note in terms of the coming disruption of transit, I think AI will have a massive impact and I don't mean just in terms of technology for the vehicles themselves.

We have to expand transit but increasingly it will be a investment of diminishing returns. The vast majority of trips are still taken Monday to Friday for work and, for transit, that's the problem. As AI and the use of robots advances at a dizzying rate, employment will fall and hence so will transit ridership and we have to begin to plan for that. Much as many cities with declining populations have {finally} begun to realize that hoping some form of rebound in growth is delusional are reworking their urban planning based upon "managed shrinkage", transit must do the same.

AI backers always like to say how this is just another version of automation which we have always had since the start of the industrial revolution. That, of course, is a bold faced lie. We have always created machine that WORK for us to make out lives easier and more productive but AI THINKS for us and that is a quantum leap. Already VW is staring to employ robots in some of their European plants. Right now they are just doing basic lifting and movements in the plants but in 10 short years they will be on the assembly line. There are mass layoffs going on in the Indian IT sector as even at their low wages, AI is cheaper. Robots are already used in Japanese hospitals and elder care centres. Musk is quietly retooling it's Freemont plant for the Omnibus Generation 3 robot manufacturing that hopes to be building up to a million a year by 2030 and that figure will grow exponentially over the next 2 decades. The first 5000 will be Tesla itself but consumer sales begin early next year.

By way of AI thru robots, we are quickly "AI-ing" our way out of an economy and transit better be ready for it.

 

[kEiThZ]

What physical controls are people looking for?

Climate? Now you set a desired temperature and the car maintains it. Shouldn't need to be constantly adjusted anymore.

Media? Most have physical controls on the steering wheel.

Turn signals? Still physical controls.

What's left, the Cigarette lighter?

Giant iPad is terrible design. I work with aircraft. There's strict regulation on human-machine interface. And a whole field of human factors engineering to ensure that pilots can operate the aircraft safely. This means rules on physical buttons for certain functions. And even rules and guidelines for how many layers of menus there can be and how deep certain functions can be. All of this to ensure eyes outside the cockpit to the maximum extent possible. Indeed, a basic test for pilots before even a first flight in some cases, is to be able to find various critical controls blindfolded.

They current giant screens are terrible. You'll have your eyes inside the car more often and for much longer with each instance. For everything from changing the climate control to changing the volume. These are things should be done with physical controls to allow landmarking minimizing the time eyes are off the road.

For me, anything that involves the operation of the car and comfort of the driver, should be physical controls that done take eyes off the road. Infotainment on screen? Sure. And even here, a HUD is much preferred.

 

[lenaitch]

What physical controls are people looking for?

Climate? Now you set a desired temperature and the car maintains it. Shouldn't need to be constantly adjusted anymore.

Media? Most have physical controls on the steering wheel.

Turn signals? Still physical controls.

What's left, the Cigarette lighter?

You would tell us that environmental control of a vehicles interior is the same as a house? A vehicle that you might enter after it's been sitting in the subzero overnight or the August sun all day, where the upper part is mostly glass and the lower part, where you feet are, is a fairly enclosed space. Sure, they're just the same. I don't drive any fancy vehicles, but I'm not aware that features such as heated seats and steering wheel are thermostatically control, they are either on/off or set by levels. On my wife's SUV, you have to find tiny icons on a touchscreen, and if you don't, I swear the seat heater, if left on 'high' will do physiological harm to ones nether regions.

My truck has mostly physical controls, other than the radio. I can find any control, in the dark, w/o taking my eyes off the road.

 

[picard102]

You would tell us that environmental control of a vehicles interior is the same as a house? A vehicle that you might enter after it's been sitting in the subzero overnight or the August sun all day, where the upper part is mostly glass and the lower part, where you feet are, is a fairly enclosed space. Sure, they're just the same. I don't drive any fancy vehicles, but I'm not aware that features such as heated seats and steering wheel are thermostatically control, they are either on/off or set by levels. On my wife's SUV, you have to find tiny icons on a touchscreen, and if you don't, I swear the seat heater, if left on 'high' will do physiological harm to ones nether regions.

My truck has mostly physical controls, other than the radio. I can find any control, in the dark, w/o taking my eyes off the road.

Have you been in a car made in the last 10 years?
A cars climate control can adequately handle control of the temperature of your car without fiddling as you drive. If your heated seats are burning you, and not shutting off on their own, then you need to take it in for service.

 

[crs1026]

Have you been in a car made in the last 10 years?
A cars climate control can adequately handle control of the temperature of your car without fiddling as you drive. If your heated seats are burning you, and not shutting off on their own, then you need to take it in for service.

You are being quite dogmatic here.

A driver needs to be able to manipulate every control as conditions require for safety and not just comfort.

Temperature controls are a good example. I may change the temp several times over the course of a drive. Also switch from full defrost to blended defrost-low circ to high circ depending on the state of my windshield inside and out. AC on and off. Rear window and mirror defrost.

I may manipulate the GPS to assess route conditions and congestion ahead, even when I know where I am.

And select radio stations especially to obtain "traffic reports on the ones" while listening on and off to whatever sports commentator that may or may not annoy me.

Wipers go from off to single sweep to variiable (frequently juggling their speed) to low and high. Back wiper ditto. And trigger the washer, front or back or both.

- Paul

 

[afransen]

You would tell us that environmental control of a vehicles interior is the same as a house? A vehicle that you might enter after it's been sitting in the subzero overnight or the August sun all day, where the upper part is mostly glass and the lower part, where you feet are, is a fairly enclosed space. Sure, they're just the same. I don't drive any fancy vehicles, but I'm not aware that features such as heated seats and steering wheel are thermostatically control, they are either on/off or set by levels. On my wife's SUV, you have to find tiny icons on a touchscreen, and if you don't, I swear the seat heater, if left on 'high' will do physiological harm to ones nether regions.

My truck has mostly physical controls, other than the radio. I can find any control, in the dark, w/o taking my eyes off the road.

In Tesla, heated steering wheel and seats can be set to auto and controlled thermostatically. Works pretty well. You can also precondition the climate using the app so it's comfortable when you get in.