Volkswagen will restore physical buttons to the dashboard in its latest compact car, part of a wider move away from touchscreens.
In a particularly retro touch, the new ID Polo will even have a volume dial.
For a decade or so, automakers rushed to replace knobs and switches with screens, Autoblog noted in October, but users largely disliked them: Controlling the air conditioning, for example, required delving through submenus while driving, which was both difficult and dangerous. Research found that using touchscreens took longer and distracted drivers.
Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and VW have all announced plans to return to more tactile controls, and US and EU regulators announced last year that cars with touchscreen controls could get worse safety ratings.
This seems like an obvious improvement and I kind of want everyone who thought otherwise to be banned from working in decision making roles.
It’s way cheaper and easier to not have to source the buttons. The bean counters saw Tesla get away with doing it on the touchscreen, so they figured they’d get away with it, too.
I think you just move a lot of cost and resources towards software instead of actually making it cheaper.
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not quite - they’re changing things back because they think they will make less money if they don’t, as a result of safety ratings being affected by their shitty cheaper screen design
that’s a bit more clear than the way you worded it, which could be understood as they are choosing to do this of their own volition because they think that it is safer and the best decision
I know that’s what you were trying to say, but that last sentence just needed clarification, because I want this to be very clear that they do not give a fuck about safety, they ONLY give a fuck about making money. also see: blinding LED headlights
Thanks to these visionary titans of industry we’ve now got 10+ years of used cars with HOT GARBAGE interfaces. Guess they learned their lesson eventually but the used market is screwed for a long time.
Did they really need research to realise that?
They needed research to realise the cost was greater than the savings.
Touchscreen interfaces are absolutely wonderful if you are a car manufacturer, as they massively accelerate the designing process; slap a rectangle in the centre console and start manufacturing the car, you have until first units are sold (or even way later, yay updates) to figure out how it looks and works. And you don’t need to make and assemble hundred little dials and buttons either, just a single screen.
Same goes for the speedo etc display, but there at least everything is purely visual and being customizable is actually a benefit for the user too.
they have to
it’ll be a law in china in the future
And EURO NCAP (who make safety ratings for cars) have said they’ll stop giving 5 stars, if a car has no physical buttons for essential controls (i dont reclal what they believe is essential though)
apparent it’s
turn indicator signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, and the horn
Nature is healing?
Not till we have robust, strong, public transit and walkable communities and the majority of personal cars are gone.
So long as I can keep my sports convertible for weekend cruising (350Z Roadster Touring 6MT in Daytona Blue), sign me the fuck up.
Nature is healing indeed.
I wish they sold this model in the USA. We need a good selection of compact models
Please bring this to North America. Please god.
Nope. Trucktards won the war.
Who knew that would happen eventually after sensor screens failed time and time again at worst possible moments?
Peak control design
Now get rid of point-source quasar LED headlights. OK, we get it, science now allows us to get every electron in every atom to emit bazillions of photons every picosecond. That’s nice. Like AI, we don’t need it and no one asked for it.
the fact that blinding headlights are rated as “safer” is a prime example of how fucked up vehicle regulations and evaluations are
it also creates the opportunity to see just how much of a jackass the average person is - if you flash your brights at them because you can’t fucking see, they’ll turn their high beams on back at you. and you can see posts all over the internet where people love flashing people back, like there just isn’t any defense for that behavior. and the funny thing is that it often doesn’t even make a difference, because the high beams are no brighter than the low beams, they’re just aimed higher - so if the low beams are already hitting you in the face, turning the high beams on isn’t going to hit you more in the face
We need to go even farther, not go back.
Brighter headlights are better for safety to allow drivers to see more …… but clearly humans can’t be trusted with them. Active matrix headlights are the best answer.
I find it fascinating to drive with high beams on, but watch a dark spot in my headlights follow oncoming cars so I don’t blind them. Everyone should have them
I agree with all of this except the end.
People absolutely asked for AI. I hate it, but it’s false claiming it wasn’t desired. Tons of people in STEM fields dreamt about it for years.
The people wanted actual reasoning AI, not generative AI. They didn’t expect us to devote most of our nominal economic activity toward a few big tech companies to get it. They didn’t expect them to assert that text generators are ‘reasoning’ and when called on it declare that it’s not reasoning as humanity has known it, but here’s some buzzwords to justify us claiming it’s a whole new sort of reasoning that’s just as valuable.
Even though it’s not intelligent at all, chatGPT seemed groundbreaking when it arrived. Big promises were made and implausible amounts invested, and it doesn’t really seem to have gone anywhere since. It’s the same thing, just a bit better.
And I’d be more ok with LLM technology in general if not for:
- The rampant copyright infringement
- The overcommitment of financial and actual resources
In and of itself, ok a neat little trick with some utility so long as it isn’t taken too seriously.
Well… We still don’t have AI. We got language and picture generators…
And I never said we did, so what’s your point?
Tons of people in STEM fields dreamt about it for years.
Not a native English speaker but “dreamt” is past tense, so they stopped dreaming, implying they stopped because now we have “AI”.
If they used to dream something that they are still dreaming about, it is still “dreamt” in past-tense.
If I still “play” baseball every day, and I referring to a game, I say “I played baseball,” because it is in the past. You would not say “I play baseball game last week” even if you are still currently playing baseball.
Make sense? I mean this politely too, you mentioned English not being your first language.
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Wrong. See the Nobel Prize to Google Deepmind team.
Prediction and pattern recognition is not general AI. This is just what LLMs and image generators do. They find plausible continuations starting from a noise to better fit the disired outcome. They don’t have real contextual knowledge about a domain. To them everything is just numbers that can be manipulated until they fit better. They don’t just instantly know the correct or incorrect answer because of a deeper understanding on the matter.
I’m in STEM and have published a few AI based papers. I don’t want this in my house, car, or healthcare.
That’s great, and I am also in STEM and agree with you. But we’re only two people.
Yeah and I’ll counter-vote one of you.
I’m familiar with the use and the limitations of LLMs so I’m familiar with use cases where it adds value and where it should not be allowed
Realistically the biggest issue for consumers is privacy: most of the generally available LLMs hoover unprecedented quantities of personal data. But they don’t have to. There are choices that respect your data
There’s an underlying dystopian theme here that goes beyond LLMs and voice assistants where the technology for collecting personal data keeps getting more intrusive far beyond the nightmares of the general public. They have no idea how much they are losing and the harm it can do
I agree 100%, but the fact still stands that plenty of people absolutely want it, even if they don’t understand and are wrong about what it is.
Time for some cassette futurism design!
Unironically I want this so bad, I’m one of those Gen Z guys who grew up around old tech but I love my clunky 1970s-1990s tech. There’s just something viserally satisfying about sloting in a tape.
I added a old radio with a Minidisk player into my car when the radio died
Fucken hell the fuck did you find a minidisk player? That’s unironically awesome, though whenever I see minidsiks I think of Starship Troopers.
Ebay, although it is a Japanese version of headset so you have to get a fm frequency shifter to make it work with US radio st
I meant no irony either and I can point at one good reason for cassette futurism design: the soundscape.
My pencil is ready
EDIT: This is not a euphemism
My PEN IS working.
8-track would be interesting. ;)
Tangentially relevant. Anyone seen the new Microbus? It’s appalling. They gave it angry headlights like every other stupid generic car on the market. A hideous grille. And it’s got a giant flatscreen tv for all the interior controls. All in a 60s throwback vehicle specifically chosen for its nostalgic character. How do these people get promoted into decision making roles???
How do these people get promoted into decision making roles???
Never forget the VW emissions scandal. These cats are all about the bottom line; re-packaging nostalgia in only the most marketable way is exactly how and why.
is this the new one? It has the angry headlights lmao
I saw it in person at the weekend, and tbf it did look kinda cool, but I am not a car guy
The car I drive now is the newest car I’ve ever owned. It’s a 2006 Suzuki Grand Vitara, V6 AWD. I like everything about it. I’ll keep it running as long as I can.
This is what a car should look like inside. Everything in reach, physical knobs I can set without looking, no distractions. Peak design:
No internet account required, of course, which also means they can’t nerf my car from the other side of the planet, or charge me for 50 more HP, or heated seats. The most sophisticated display is the red LEDs that tell time, outside temp, and real time MPG. Also, I like having a car I actually own, Suzuki doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t want anything to do with them. It was a one-time transaction, like a hooker and a john. We’re not in a fucking life-long relationship.
Cars should not be this inside. While I agree it’s cool and futuristic, it is not practical. Form should follow function, everything about this is the opposite:
Wow that’s a very cool looking cabin on the Suzuki!
We had an Opel Vectra from the same year, with leather cabin and manual 6 shift gear. We really liked that car, and would have kept it longer. But safety regulation required some pretty expensive repairs to keep it legal, and the yearly tax on petrol cars that don’t have high mileage is becoming pretty significant here in Denmark.But our VW ID.4 is a far cry from as bad as the EV you are showing.
Everything required for everyday driving has buttons and levers like traditional cars.
VW is already doing it pretty well IMO, improving further on it to include for instance air condition is nice, but no biggie IMO.
But again your Suzuki look REALLY nice. 😎
I hope regulators pay attention to technology this time instead of just reacting.
My car has controls with no physical buttons but I can control with voice assistant. Technically that means I can do it without taking my eyes off the road but it’s physical buttons are much better
ID.BUZZ with physical buttons, 4WD and an upgraded heat pump (the current one is designed for ID.4 sized cars) would be the perfect car for me.
The ID buzz needs significantly more range for me to consider it.
How much range do you need? My Chevy Bolt has a range of ≈350 miles, and it’s rather mountainous around here.
The id buzz has notoriously bad range, even worse than advertised, I think real world testing puts it a bit over 150 miles on a charge
AFAIK it’s partially due to it being built on the ID.4 chassis
Touchscreens are so dangerous. Glad to see buttons coming back.
