<story><title>The Touchscreen Infotainment Systems in New Cars Are a Distracting Mess</title><url>https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/car-technology/a26016348/car-infotainment-distraction/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>userbinator</author><text>I wonder if there will be a resurgence of &amp;quot;dumb&amp;quot; cars once people get tired of and become more aware of the disadvantages of these overly-complex systems, like has happened with phones; IMHO one of the very few things a touchscreen is useful for in a car is a GPS, because that&amp;#x27;s a relatively complex system which can&amp;#x27;t really be simplified to physical controls. Everything else should really be knobs and switches. How much of a market would there be for a &amp;quot;dumb EV&amp;quot;, basically the exact opposite of a Tesla but still electric, with only the bare minimum of electronics and software? Imagine a car whose interior looks like one from the late 70s&amp;#x2F;early 80s, with all analogue controls and indicators, except that it&amp;#x27;s actually an EV.&lt;p&gt;The other big disadvantage is the failure mode: if the screen fails, a whole set of functionality becomes inaccessible, whereas a single switch failure won&amp;#x27;t affect any others.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andysinclair</author><text>&amp;gt; The other big disadvantage is the failure mode: if the screen fails, a whole set of functionality becomes inaccessible&lt;p&gt;Yep, the touch screen in my car cracked recently and the AC got stuck on a very low setting and was constantly blowing out cold air - there was no way to adjust it without using the screen.&lt;p&gt;It is not only the single point of failure that is annoying but the fact that to control the AC you need to use the touch screen in AC mode which mean switching from GPS mode or radio mode etc. Very distracting when driving.&lt;p&gt;Car designers: Please give us more knobs!</text></comment>
<story><title>The Touchscreen Infotainment Systems in New Cars Are a Distracting Mess</title><url>https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/car-technology/a26016348/car-infotainment-distraction/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>userbinator</author><text>I wonder if there will be a resurgence of &amp;quot;dumb&amp;quot; cars once people get tired of and become more aware of the disadvantages of these overly-complex systems, like has happened with phones; IMHO one of the very few things a touchscreen is useful for in a car is a GPS, because that&amp;#x27;s a relatively complex system which can&amp;#x27;t really be simplified to physical controls. Everything else should really be knobs and switches. How much of a market would there be for a &amp;quot;dumb EV&amp;quot;, basically the exact opposite of a Tesla but still electric, with only the bare minimum of electronics and software? Imagine a car whose interior looks like one from the late 70s&amp;#x2F;early 80s, with all analogue controls and indicators, except that it&amp;#x27;s actually an EV.&lt;p&gt;The other big disadvantage is the failure mode: if the screen fails, a whole set of functionality becomes inaccessible, whereas a single switch failure won&amp;#x27;t affect any others.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dpifke</author><text>&amp;gt; Imagine a car whose interior looks like one from the late 70s&amp;#x2F;early 80s, with all analogue controls and indicators, except that it&amp;#x27;s actually an EV.&lt;p&gt;Something like this?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;transportation&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;7&amp;#x2F;27&amp;#x2F;16052118&amp;#x2F;bollinger-b1-electric-sport-truck-outdoors&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;transportation&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;7&amp;#x2F;27&amp;#x2F;16052118&amp;#x2F;b...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>