The Manufacturers hopefully.

Indeed. As I constantly say, the person who devised a system where you have to navigate a multi-menu touch screen to turn on your lights or heated rear windscreen needs locking up. He can keep company with those who gave type-approval to such a system.

Clamping down on who?

The Manufacturers hopefully.

Don't let the Government fine us for turning our lights on!

A large proportion of the blame lay with Tesla showing other manufacturers how to save money by simply sticking an giant ipad on the centre of the dash and removing many switches , dials and wiring. Just as distracting as using a mobile phone. And an opportunity to turn your car into a revenue generator with "subscriptions". And appeals to todays yoof brought up on an addiction to smartphones and social media, marketing ideal.

The place for information is directly in front of the driver, ideally, head up displays which means you are looking in roughly the right direction all the time.

Why have a central screen anyway? It would cost very little to give the front passenger their own screen or a facility to link their phone directly to the infotainment to control as a guest.

Heater, a/c controls and other functions on a touch screen are dangerous. Software designers forget that most people are right handed and UK drivers have to use their left hand fingers to control the touch screen, many of which are laid out for LHD drivers. Akin to trying to write with your left hand at a distance when you are right handed.

I also wonder how a giant Ipad stuck up on its own in the middle which presumably is very stiff and unforgiving compromises passenger safety in a crash.

I also hope people realise that long term support for these screens will be time limited, the same as with smartphones. People are in for a shock when they fail out of warranty. If they control any functions that are MOT required (lights for instance) then you'll have no alternative but to pay the thousands asked, they will not be plug and play but have to be coded in by dealer only equipment because of built in security protection

Edited by brum on 06/01/2021 at 14:56

Can anyone point to a car that has the heated rear window and headlights on a touch screen? Everything I've ever seen has physical buttons for HRW and demist options. If it has a touch screen, it will almost certainly have climate control - just set the temperature once and set it to Auto.

The touch screen is inevitably for changing settings and selecting media - and this can usually be done via voice activation or steering wheel buttons.

I'm pretty sure I've driven Citroen and or Peugeot courtesy cars where the heating and ventilation was on a touch screen. If it was my own car with climate I might have fussed with it less but the previous occupier must have been hypothermic. I'd still need to adjust the airflow for demist. Not just first thing but when the car steams up in wet weather etc.

I'm left handed but still found it difficult to manage.

My Skoda just has the radio, a phone interface and some diagnostics/settings but I'd struggle to select a destination then make a call to it. Too fiddly by far.

Can anyone point to a car that has the heated rear window and headlights on a touch screen? Everything I've ever seen has physical buttons for HRW and demist options. If it has a touch screen, it will almost certainly have climate control - just set the temperature once and set it to Auto.

The touch screen is inevitably for changing settings and selecting media - and this can usually be done via voice activation or steering wheel buttons.

Tesla model 3

m.youtube.com/watch?v=1vAqolyemqE

m.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ROrgDJE8o

We tried a 308 SW some years ago and the touch screen controls were terrible, never wanted to try anything like it again. But earlier this year we tried a Volvo which had touch screen heater controls but at least Volvo had placed them permanent view along the bottom, you did not have to search menus to find them. After a couple of days we were satisfied we could cope with those.

Still prefer the knobs and button on the Superb.

More on this from Autocar's feature on their website.

The design of the interface obviously has a bearing on the distraction. TRL used Apple CarPlay and Android Auto phone-mirroring screens for its study because the look and action is common to all screens that offer them, but car makers approach their own design interface in many different ways. A test this year by Autocar sibling brand What Car? ranked 20 screens, with the MG ZS EV’s 8.0in touchscreen marked the worst for distraction and the BMW 3 Series with Live Cockpit Professional the best.

The test concluded that all screens were worse than physical buttons for time taken to enact a task. For example, adjusting the heater fan on a touchscreen rather than a dial or physical switch can take more than twice as long, while zooming out on sat-nav or finding a radio station can take up to eight times as long.

Clamping down on touch screens? I don't think so. The trend on new electric cars is a screen right across the dash. The latest being the Mercedes EQC which has something they refer to as a hyperscreen which controls nearly everything including a cinema.

Just because they're right across a dashboard doesn't make them right or even safe.

I don't like buttons on steering because their location is never fixed, unless I am on straight road.

That's generally when you are meant to be using them though

Here it is the ultimate touch

Sorry unable to load tge picture of the MB from the Autocar email

Can someone help please ?

You can't post a picture from an email directly - you would need to host it somewhere and then post a link to that.