Tesla 3 and Tesla 5 dash

[HomerS]

Not a fan of the laptop sized all-in-one accessory screen

[peter31a]

Talk about distracted driving! The law makers have their noses in all aspects of automotive design and yet they let Tesla get away with this type of control system where you have to take your eyes off the road to accomplish any type of adjustment. And it's not just Tesla. A lot of others, especially high end cars, you have to take your eyes off the road just to turn the fan speed up or down or adjust the temp a couple of degrees.

[iamsuperdan]

Distracted driving? Hardly.

The controls aren't any different than having physical knobs and switches. The only difference is that they're on a touch screen instead of being a physical switch.

Just like every other vehicles on the road, once you learn where all of the controls are on your car, it's easy.

Most of the complicated screens aren't accessible while the vehicle is in motion, or even shifted out of park.

And a lot of these high tech vehicles make it even easier. You push a button on the steering wheel and tell the car what you want it to do. 

"Turn the AC on.

"Set the cruise to 120."

"Call home."

 

It's pretty simple. 

 

[peteski]

We are inching towards self-driving cars. In those vehicles there will be no need for a typical car dashboard and controls. The car will take care of the mundane task of driving and monitoring all of its systems. I suspect that most of its functions will be voice-controlled. It will also be prone to being hacked or hijacked, but that is a subject for another conversation. 

In those cars a large touch screen will be perfect for its occupants to enjoy their social media banter and other entertainment.  There will be no driver to speak of. Heck, we will probably have implants which will allow our brains directly  to interact with our computing and communication devices (which are basically one and the same already).  I'm not ready of all this, but many are.

[martinfan5]

I changed my mind after thinking it.

Edited July 11, 2018 by martinfan5

[Spex84]

"The controls aren't any different than having physical knobs and switches."

Actually...from an interface design perspective, touchscreen controls are a completely different animal than physical knobs and buttons. Screens are visual, while knobs and buttons are tactile. Poorly designed tactile controls (ie the fields of identical buttons seen in many cars) aren't much better than a touchscreen, because it's impossible to differentiate between them. But well-designed tactile controls can be used "blind", while the driver's attention remains on the road. 

The absolute worst vehicle interface design would be one that draws the user's attention from the road, without the user being aware of it. This is possible with tactile controls as well as touchscreens (ever tried to manually locate a radio station with a dial/knob and realize you're just about in the ditch?) but screens tend to have a mesmerizing effect that buttons and knobs do not.  BMW's iDrive knob was pretty widely panned at the time for being the worst of both worlds--drivers got frustrated with it, and that frustration took their attention off the road.

In short--I hate the way screens look, but I'll grant that a well-designed interface could potentially make use of them. The specific problem I see with the centralized screen is that it guarantees the driver will have to look away from the road to get information, and there is a risk that the driver's attention will "stick" there longer than is safe. 

What I would like to see is a move away from tech-evangelism towards interfaces that integrate the best of both tactile "retro" controls and modern touch-screen technology, with the intent of making the driver as effective and safe as humanly possible.  I know many car companies are already sinking a lot of time into this kind of human-factors driven design work, incorporating research on human cognition, reaction times, sightlines etc etc....and I can't help but wonder if Tesla just disregarded all that stuff in favor of a design that's edgy.

*edit*  Dan's mention of steering-wheel controls combined with voice controls is a good one--those are both systems that a driver can use without having to look away from the road. 

Edited July 10, 2018 by Spex84

[Rob Hall]

The problem I find with touch screens is they require your attention..can't control buttons on one by touch only, have to actually look at the screen.  

With my Jeep, I do find myself using the redundant steering wheel controls for audio (volume, channel, etc) as much as I can rather than the touch screen when in motion.  And the climate controls have redundant buttons and knobs for most functions.  I do like the phone integration for making and receiving calls...alas, I don't have the latest version of UConnect that has Apple Car Play. 

 I can't imagine driving where there everything is controlled via touchscreen...be in trouble if the software fails or the screen gets cracked.. 

Edited July 10, 2018 by Rob Hall