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Comment by rco8786 | Hacker News Reader

I continue to be genuinely shocked that we don't treat touch screens in cars the same way we do as phones in cars (that is to say, it is literally illegal to use them while the vehicle is moving in most places because the distraction is such a danger). Moving away from tactile in-car controls has to be among the more boneheaded things we've allowed that industry to do.

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It's a cost cutting move. One touch screen is cheaper than 30 individual buttons, and ultimately many people have died because of it. But I'm sure GM would never do anything sketchy or illegal to lower cost or increase revenue

The touch screen is one thing. To your point, arguably it's no incremental cost.

But I don't buy that electro-mechanical latches and actuators and wiring cost less than a dumb latch.

Not having an accessible mechanical latch in the front of the glovebox hatch means it’s now a single smooth surface. That’s way cheaper to injection mould than something with a hole in it.

Also, the mechanical latch mechanism needs to be strong enough to withstand hard use over many years. AND it needs to be made in a shape and finish that fits the design of the interior. AND it needs to feel good in the hand. AND it might need a lock in it, either due to expectation or regulation.

Suddenly a simple little solenoid and metre of thin gauge wire starts looking pretty cheap.

I call BS. The cost of any difference in the dies for manufacturing the glovebox will be amortized to cents over a run of thousands of glove boxes and it's not like each wire you add to the wiring harness and connector that needs to be connected doesn't also have incremental costs associated with it.

This design is an aesthetic choice, though certainly motivated parties could spin at as being cheaper (I suspect it's close to a wash).

Another aspect of the touchscreen button, and no one else is mentioning, is the elimination of the valet key. Auto makers for years have had to machine an entirely separate key. The only difference being that it can start the car, but cannot open the trunk and the glove box. Presumably, this electronic actuator wouldn’t need the need for a separate valet key.

Not that I’m endorsing any of this, I have a model Y, and detest how hard it is to open the glove box.

How is a manual glovebox latch more expensive than an electronic latch?

I think there must be consumer demand for this feature. Oh how luxurious it must feel to never have to use a manual latch unlike the unwashed…

It's not. But at the margin it is. If you already have a touch screen display then adding a button costs next to nothing on a per car basis.

And there are a ton of solenoids in cars so they can probably reuse one and save the cost of the manual latch.

Not to mention the Apple-esque design ideals that eradicated headphone jacks. You now have a cleaner looking passenger side of the dashboard.

None for me, thanks.

Auto-manufacturers are still buying manual latch mechanisms in bulk as well for their non-luxury cars.

A demand for Apple-esque design seems more plausible!

Or say, most manufacturer want to be like Tesla

> there must be consumer demand for this feature

That’s assuming competence. Design that follows consumer demand requires actual research work performed by the design team.

It’s much easier for product designers to simply follow the design decisions of the “market leader. It’s what their higher-ups may even be requesting or requiring.

This pattern explains such user-hostile decisions like the loss of headphone jacks, or curved glass displays that distort edge pixels and don’t accept glass screen protectors. Or car maker’s trend to remove tactile controls with a laggy, convoluted touchscreen UX.

> This pattern explains such user-hostile decisions like the loss of headphone jacks, or curved glass displays that distort edge pixels and don’t accept glass screen protectors. Or car maker’s trend to remove tactile controls with a laggy, convoluted touchscreen UX.

Curved glass displays cause phones to break more often which sells more phones, removing headphone jacks encourages users to leave bluetooth enabled which is used for data collection and tracking. People are making money from those design choices (at our expense), but who is making money by removing tactile controls and burying their functions behind menus? The screens and OS are there either way.

Older tesla model s:

- can't flash the headlights at oncoming cars.

- can't let the passenger in without touching the touchscreen several times (lock door handle, unlock door handle, THEN door presents itself on unlock)

- can't turn on the defrost/defog without using the touchscreen (and that requires attention to locate the control). The new UI that just came out puts these on submenus.

The new model S with the square steering wheel is even more of a dumpster fire. no stalks. Turn signals are buttons on the steering wheel. wipers too. and additional things like PRND on the touchscreen / center console.

That’s why I specifically said “we allowed the industry” to do this.

It’s also cheaper to build cars without seat belts, airbags, catalytic converters, backup cameras, etc, etc, etc

I have a car with a touchscreen all in one for audio and such.

I have to use bluetooth to connect my phone, rather than being able to just use USB. When starting the car, it loses the connection, and sometimes can't reestablish it. And like 1/10 times it asks me to stop the car to be able to pair it again.

Especially annoying if it happens when I want to use GPS through my phone.

(My record was having to stop -> start my car 3 times)

> When starting the car, it loses the connection, and sometimes can't reestablish it.

We are long past the point as an industry when we should have collectively declared Bluetooth a failed experiment.

This old thing. Bluetooth is a technology that works fine for me and millions of others every single day. That is not to say it always works flawlessly. Seemingly every time I am forced to use Windows or Teams, it doesn't work. And if I had a car like the parent where it was my only option, I would also be annoyed.

But let's say I agreed with you, so us and what industry would declare it failed? Some Bluetooth consortium, i.e. the same people who make 99% of these devices with likely unbelievably buggy implementations hacked together in the minimum of time? Society at large? Consumers? Some union of software engineers?

I am very sympathetic to people's lives been made more annoying by technology that doesn't work, just as I am to people's lives being made worse by technology that does work. Unfortunately, I don't have a solution, either.

(Maybe right-to-repair could be a starting point for open-source efforts to change products where incentives don't align. Doesn't help much with firmware though.)

I use Bluetooth every time with my car and I never have a connection problem. I use an old iPhone and my car is 5 years old.

It may be an issue with GP’s car rather than the protocol itself. Turning your car off and on for Bluetooth sounds particularly stupid. I can unpair and pair my car without restarting it.

I don't know, but I'll bet there's a lot of iphone-specific workarounds compiled into the car's code.

I can unpair and re-pair without restarting it as well. But then sometimes there is no sound coming through, or it requires me to turn the car off anyways.

I agree. Not only that, but I find the interface on my phone much better so sometimes I find myself holding my phone instead of using CarPlay...which I admit is even worse.

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