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European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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The main reason why I didn't want high end packages for our last car was, that I am a cheap bastard. The second reason is, that I think touchscreens in cars are one of the dumbest ideas imaginable.
There are places where touch controls make a lot of sense. Cars is not one of them.
My stove also has touch controls and I'd like a stern word with whomever designed it because it's the biggest fucking bullshit. I've burned myself on those controls, I've had the stove turn itself off and refuse to turn on again because of water splashing onto the controls, I've had it turn on and glitch out because I've cleaned it off with a slightly damp rag.
When I'm driving I absolutely don't want to dig through non-tactile menus just so I can adjust the climate or turn on my heated seat. Plus, the lack of tactility sucks for blind people. Sure blind people won't drive, but imagine having to ask the driver to change your AC for you? In the dark of winter with ice on the roads that's just horribly irresponsible of whomever designed it.
Look at Mr. Fancypants over here who can afford a heated seat subscription.
lmao I wish. I'd fucking never support that kind of behaviour. I don't have a car, but my roomie has a VW Golf with subscriptionless heated seats.
I happen to have a pretty decent inside view into the whole "heated seats" bullshit too. See, I used to work for a company that did a lot of work for Stellantis. You literally can't fathom just how much administrative bullshit work goes into the customisation of packages and spec sheets. It's a constantly ongoing thing, thousands of man hours are wasted on it. Things change between markets, and in some markets it affect insurance levels and whatnot, so there's just so much underlying complexity beyond "oh I want a red car with heated seats." I've legit no idea how it came to be as complicated as it is, but it's mindfuckingly idiotic. When I left I believe Stellantis was working on replacing the system with their own, but I somehow doubt that it's an improvement.
They are saving incredible amounts of money by flat out removing options and having them unlocked through a subscription fee. Lots of work is removed just from an administrative view, nevermind the fact that the manufacturing chain gets streamlined and money is saved there too.
On top of that, you're paying for the seat, it's not like they're including features out of the kindness of their hearts, you're paying for all of the hardware, and then they're trying to pretend like they're doing you a favour by letting you "pay for it when you need it." It's 100% a scam, and the EU isn't going to do shit about it because among the perps are some of the most valuable German companies, and they happen to hold the German government by their balls.
The benefit of unified hardware and not having subscriptions can be easily combined: just replace subscriptions with a one-off charge for any feature. Warranty void if enabled not in a dealer shop. I think that would create much less noise than offering a monthly sub. Yes, I know, not great for the quarterly results, but then - so much less hate from your customers. And yes, touch screens in a car should wait until there is a full, proper self-driving capability in place.
The fact that a heated seat subscription idea didn't completely end the consumer market for the manufacturers attempting it shows us that too few people are awake to impact their income. The manufacturer will do whatever they want, including recording every possible thing they are able to inside the vehicle.
I am afraid you are right. Am driving a non-connected old car, and intend to buy a new one without that crap.
I do struggle to understand why the general population is so untroubled with this constant privacy breaching creep (a bit less worried with subs as when it comes to monies, people are a bit more alert). I have a lot of smart friends who click the "agree to everything you want from me" button everywhere, and they see no issue with it.
Sure, but you'd still be ripping people off. If your car has an option to unlock heated seats through microtransactions, you've already paid for heated seats.
The definition of rip off may vary. Still, that would be a saner marketing approach, in my view.
As I understand, all the businesses are trying to replicate the IT-born business model of subscription for features. It should not be a thing in the real world, and I hope these managers come to sense, the sooner the better.
The way I see it, if I have to pay extra for a feature I've paid for, then it's a rip-off. Like if I booked a hotel and then got told that I need to pay extra to have a bed, I'd be pretty miffed.
Say you have options to have regular seats or heated seats, as well as leather or fabric seats, that's essentially four options. By making all seats heated and locking the usage via software, you've cut the amount of options in half. That reduces complexity during assembly and ends up cutting costs. You're still going to charge the customer at least the full price of the seat, though. It's not like you're charging for
seat - heatinghoping that the difference would be covered by those that actually choose to subscribe.There's also the question of; what happens 10-15 years from now? Nintendo closed the store on the 3DS in March 2023. The console was released in February 2011. At what point will you no longer be able to use your heated seats because the manufacturer has stopped updating the API for your car, and you're no longer able to pay for it? How will that affect resell value?
I hate this sort of practise in smartphones and software. A car is order of magnitudes more expensive than a mobile game. If they want to apply mobile game tactics to vehicles, then the cost of the car should be comparable to a mobile game as well.
The car owner has every right to use every hardware capability physically present in the car, "enabled" or not. Manufacturers have no right to deny warranty claims based on owner modification, unless they can prove that said modification caused the failure.
The day they try to sell me a heated seat subscription is the day I put a heated blanket with a cigarette lighter plug on my seat.
And after thet, they will turn the lighter socket into a subscription model.
Do cars even come with lighter sockets any more?
Sockets, yes (often more than one, in fact). Lighters themselves, probably not.
The socket has evolved well beyond its initial use heating up a cigarette lighter.
Probably? I confess I don't know. Car accessories that use them are pretty common tho, so probably.
I use my 12v socket to power my portable air compressor.
Most do. But it might just be USB sockets around the dash area or center console. Still probably at least one 12 V one somewhere and often one in the trunk.
If I had read this comment even just a decade ago, I'd have thought it was clearly satire.
But in 2024? Nope.
Thanks capitalism!
"The intent is to provide drivers with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heated seat configurations."
I think touch controls make sense in cars, but only for navigation and advanced settings, like for how long the headlights should stay on when you leave the car, should the mirrors fold when you lock the car, stuff like that.
Everything else should have a button.
Touch is still shit. Especially the much worse version cars have to use to be rated to manage heat and cold for decades.
It's not too bad with a little joystick like a Lexus has (no clue who else does). But touch screens for anything in a car are awful.
Absolutely, I agree with this. Controls one might want to operate while driving, or that have frequent usage should be available as tactile buttons/switches/dials/what have you. If it's something I'm like to set once or twice a year, or in my lifetime, it might as well be in a software menu somewhere.
Touch controls on induction stoves do make some sense though. It simplified cleaning a lot when all you have to clean is a single large pane of glass
I think there are ways you can execute touch controls well on induction stoves, but in our case I just don't agree and overall I prefer actual tactile controls.
The controls lack tactility, so if you're blind you have no way of operating it. It's also so stupidly set up, if I want to turn the top-left plate on to max, I have to hold the power button, then select the plate, then press the minus button twice, then press the plus button once, alternatively just press the plus button 9 times. The child lock has a tendency to automatically activate after I wipe it down, so if that's engaged I have to disengage that first. Now if I were blind or visually impaired, it would be a nightmare to operate.
Before I got somewhat used to this stove I'd keep moving hot pots onto the controls. This is obviously a user error, but it makes sense because I've spent the last 20 years cooking on electric stoves. Because of the inertia in hot plates, if something is too warm you move it off the plate, usually towards you or to the side. This stove has a fairly small cooking area, so if I have something cooking on the other plate, I'll drag the pot towards me. Since it's induction I don't actually need to do this, but try to change a habit you've gotten used to by doing more or less daily for almost 20 years - it takes time.
As a result the stove would turn off, or glitch out because it doesn't handle multiple inputs, and then the controls would be too hot to touch.
None of these things would be an issue if instead of having nine buttons it had four knobs. Also I keep calling them buttons, but they're completely flat, non-tactile surfaces.
Oof, sounds like a nightmare. I have an IKEA induction stove and it's literally just four sliders that you click where you want the heat to be. 100% power is at the right of the slider. There are a couple other buttons (multi-zone heating, timer, etc.), but you don't strictly need them.
So it's way less frustrating and I guess a bit more accessible for people with bad eyesight, but for people with zero eyesight it still doesn't work.
The only induction stoves with physical knobs I saw online were several grand. Maybe there's business to be made by selling "touch-to-physical" conversion kits for appliances... Or I guess bumpy decals would work as well.
Agreed for induction, but I'd mich rather use one or two minutes more cleaning the knobs than having to almost cook my finger on this 60-90 degree Celcius hot conventional stove's touch surface to change the plate from step 7 to 4 for 10 FUKKEN SECONDS! OUCH!
Having to restart it 2-3 times during cooking because it got confused (pan moved slightly to the side) is also rather annoying.
Edit & tl:dr: Touch works decent on induction, just please keep it far away from any conventional stoves.
Anyone who stills sells a conventional stove in 2024 needs to be jailed. Induction is so damn cheap now (229 € entry-level fullsize at IKEA) and better in every way that trying to sell a resistive stove else is just a scam.
Alternatively, a combined oven+stove unit where the knobs are on the front panel and can be pushed in when not in use. That way you have a single pane of glass and knobs that aren't an annoyance when cleaning.
Man I HATE touch controls, especially on stoves. Any time I use them I bitch and moan chronically.
This is an accurate description of me.