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Comment by cwillu | Hacker News Reader

A start, but not far enough: anything a driver might be reasonably expected to do while driving should have a physical control.

Zero-force, zero-feedback, zero-travel controls should be illegal for such functions.

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Obvious limitation is something like Maps and media.

My guess ones that use mechanical dials (i.e. Lexus until ~ year ago) cause more distraction than touchscreen by simply being harder to use and taking more time to solve your problem.

Given how well chatgpt's voice recognition works - why not just put it on all cars!

> Obvious limitation is something like Maps and media

I would love to see some data to see how dangerous it is to operate Maps and Media apps on a touch screen while operating a moving vehicle. This is data modern automakers should have access to. I suspect the answer is that it does reduce safety.

Nobody has access to that data, even if you're excluded it to extreme cases like "an at-fault crash happening as the user was manipulating the map software directly". We can't bridge the gap between that and accident reports.

And that doesn't get into the more subtle cases, e.g. a crash that happens later due to an earlier loss of situational awarenesses.

It's also hard to quantify the opposite. E.g. I sometimes have to manipulate the map while driving, and resent the distraction. But afterwards I'm more likely to be in the right lane earlier, not be distracted because I'm trying to read a traffic sign in the 1-2 second window I might have etc.

There are enough sensors in a car to know when a collision has occurred. The car is capable of capturing touchscreen use metrics. Bonus points if you can find metrics for the same region/timespan for cars with tactile controls. You can then do any year 1 statistics algorithm to see if using the touchscreen is correlated with collisions. Yes, this doesn't prove causation. A correlation is enough to raise the flag about a safety issue.

EDIT: A decent statistical analysis will also uncover if using the touch screen is negatively correlated with accidents -- if people that use maps in general are less likely to get into an accident. This again won't prove causation but would be of interest to the general public and regulators.

Check how Mazda did it with their ring control. I love it in mine. No touch screen needed.

It's amazing that accessibility is such an afterthought that having a physical wheel that tabs forward and backward through a UI as the primary means of using it is unfathomable until it's actually implemented.

If it’s like the old BMW iDrive systems, it’s pretty good but I think it’s a bit like comparing a blackberry and an iPhone. Sure the physical keyboard on the blackberry has advantages.

> Sure the physical keyboard on the blackberry has advantages.

Yes, being able to operate it without looking at it and capable of navigating arbitrary 3rd party apps. And because the tab position is stateful you can perform complex actions incrementally. Touch screens win for phones but you would hate one as your laptop keyboard. It's not a better or worse situation as much as a fit-for-purpose situation.

I think a good mix of physical buttons and touch inputs is best.

I just wish Android Auto had an option to disable activity boundaries for spinning so I can spin from Maps to media, and use the joystick control for directional selection (i.e. it tries to find the next button in that direction). I was excited for Coolwalk but then never got used to switching between Maps and media with the joystick. In the end I just reverted to pressing the Nav and media buttons then spinning.

I've only used a Lexus that had a touchpad. I do however regularly use a Mazda with its commander knob, and it is far safer than a touchscreen in my opinion. You can do most navigation without looking at the screen, with just an occasional glance to confirm you're doing what you think you're doing. Whereas a touchscreen requires constant attention while you're manipulating the screen.

The only thing that annoys me about Commander Knob + Android Auto is that AA still forces attention breaks as you scroll through big lists (e.g. Spotify playlists) which is really stupid because you're not usually looking at the screen if you know you need to scroll say 75% down. You're just looking occasionally to see how far you've made it. By making the task take longer, it's reducing safety.

The biggest safety issue by far with Mazda+AA is Google's baffling regression in handling voice input for common tasks while driving.

>Google's baffling regression in handling voice input for common tasks while driving

Is it just me or is Google Maps voice input in AA completely busted now? I used to be able to press the "Search" bar on the touch screen in the app, say the search term and it would just show the results. Likewise for adding stops along the way. Now for the former I need to explicitly say "navigate to X" (or it says that it doesn't have a screen and refuses to do anything???) and for the latter I have to say something like "add a navigation stop at X", the assistant lists our the result (??????) and asks me which one I want to choose. Of course I don't see anything on the map in either case.

I can't imagine how bad it is when you

Oops, accidentally cut off the last few words.

Coincidentally it's back to working in the first case I described. Adding stops is still broken:/

My Mazda is so weird. Android Auto has a completely random load time. It could be a few seconds, or it could take over 1 minute. Often I don't know if left or right is the fastest way to get somewhere, so I'd like to check google maps or waze, but it won't finish loading until a while after I've guessed and committed myself. It'll play the radio instead of my phone audio at some starts, then usually switch to phone audio automatically. There are times when the map will "freeze". New frames are only rendered as a response to moving the knob. I have a USB cable and Bluetooth both connected (no idea why both). There is no logical place to put your phone (I bought a holder accessory, it's great). There's no physical music pause button. People who like car accidents and being careless and don't mind pointless death and destruction like to point out you can pause music by fatfingering the knobe through a bunch of menus.

This is probably Spotify's fault, but when you're in a song search, the "next song" button goes to the start of the currently playing song, instead of the next song. The "next song" button works correctly for all other Spotify list-ish things AFAIK, just not search. And search is obviously the place you need a skip button the most.

I haven't seen most of the issues you describe, but I do know that AA is incredibly finicky with the quality of cable you use. When I first bought my car I would use a random cable from Amazon and Mazda's infotainment would straight up crash (can't blame that part on AA though). Mazda's infotainment is pretty notorious for being terrible; that it takes so long to connect (and get past the safety disclaimers EVERY SINGLE TIME) is truly annoying. I will say that I just bought a wireless AA dongle off Amazon and since I got that it's a lot more reliable because I'm not swapping cables all the time, though my Mazda still will take a while to connect to AA, then start playing my phone music, then switch back to radio for now apparent reason. It feels like the two subsystems are competing.

> Given how well chatgpt's voice recognition works - why not just put it on all cars!

Because saying "roll down the left window" is still a fucking nuisance compared to a click of a button.

Open/Close all windows comes to mind. Fading audio forward/backward/center is a PITA on a Tesla. There's tons of things one should be able to automate - don't you have any imagination?

We do have imagination. And that's why we're saying that voice control in the car is bullshit.

And because you may be driving with your windows open, listening to music or having passengers and talking to them.

Because it still makes mistakes, and it's not always clear when a mistake has been made.

Wouldn’t it be safer to require all cars to have voice controls? Then the driver doesn’t have to move their hand off the wheel at all.

IMO, voice controls are good additional control modality, but not a good primary one, since the discoverability is zero. (And also they're usually just...not very good.)

Causing drivers to get road rage because they can't figure out the correct phrasing for voice controls probably also isn't a good idea.

Google Assistant still regularly misinterprets what I say <.<

Not to mention most voice assistants are fucking awful slow in language. It's like they pick a rural dweller as their speech model instead of a city slicker.

Just give me a button instead, it'll be quicker and less distracting.

Not all drivers can speak. Not all drivers speak in a way a voice control can reliably understand them. Not all drivers are in environments where voice commands can be easily understood, like loud music. If you are driving a car you likely have the ability to push a button.

Not all drivers can use their legs, they have cars specially fitted for them.

Yes, and so far as I know there is no physical control system to fit into these touchscreen cars.

Market opportunity?

And even when the driver can speak, use the language, be understood and the voice controls are reliable, sometimes they don't actually want to disturb the passengers sleeping in the car just to crack the sodding window open a bit!

I took a ride with an owner of a brand new BMW with glass cockpit and minimal buttons. He complained to the dealer about not being able to find any of the actions in the endlessly nested menus. The dealer's response: Use voice controls.

He tried it, and it's even worse than Siri in terms of reliability. Absolute unmitigated disaster.

I’ve yet to find any car where the voice control works speedily and reliably, unless using Siri via CarPlay.

(Siri is actually pretty great at accurately recognising words, it’s just not always so good at doing something useful with them…)

Even Tesla’s is really bad: “Turn off the wipers” frequently gets interpreted as “turn off the wife please” or other similar nonsense.

To be fair, many phrases that I utter (in the car or otherwise) are all also interpreted that same way.

Tell a Tesla to "go home" sometime, and it will respond what's obviously the best interpretation of your wish, namely playing Boney M's minor 1979 hit "Gotta Go Home" on Spotify. Fortunately, "stop wipers", "stop navigation" or in fact any kind of stop at all will instantly pause the disco assault.

Haven't used it extensively but BMW and Mercedes works reasonably well in German.

And that's presumably in english, which is likely the language which had the most money poured into having good voice to text and vice versa

Some reactions are instinctive and don’t require thought.

Imagine mid-sipping a drink and something falls out of a truck… garble garble garble —-crash.

Voice controls in an emergency wouldn’t work unless you require like 500 feet (maybe more) car to car separation. And then you have people with temporary voice conditions (losing voice) and permanent voice conditions (mute/dumb)

“Hey car, honk the horn”

“Hey car, signal left”

“Hey car, reverse”

You’re kidding, right? Even if this worked far better than Siri, it’s too slow.

HEYCARSTOP STOP STOPHEY CAR STOP STOP HEYCAR STOP

*bong* i don't have that answer

None of those controls are commonly located on a touch screen, which is the topic of the article.

> But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features like the European Union's eCall feature.

Those are exactly what is at issue.

This also needs to deal with multiple languages and regional accents for Europe.

If I, an American, rent a car in Germany, do I need to speak German in order to engage the windshield wipers? For that matter, navigating the on screen controls may also be problematic.

Here's a picture of a German car - https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dashboard-luxury-ge...

Do you know which button to push to get the hazard lights on?

It's remarkably similar to my Honda. https://www.sheehyhonda.com/honda-dashboard-light-meanings/ and my parents' Chrysler https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/chrysler/300/2019/photos...

I’m not sure Tesla ever launched this abomination, but:

https://www.theverge.com/22348668/tesla-prnd-drive-mode-park...

Yes, I have it. It's great. I much prefer a quick swipe on the side of the touchscreen to having a giant physical gear selector wasting a ton of space.

I honestly love just about everything about the UI of the refreshed Model S, from the yoke to the turn signal buttons to the on screen gear selector. Only thing I don't like is the horn button for the two times a year that I honk it.

Wasting what space? Sure, the gear selectors on a lot of cars are in the center console, and maybe I’d rather store something there. But I have never, in my entire history of driving cars, wanted to put anything right behind the steering wheel — first, it’s really awkward to get anything else there and second, any dangly thing there could tangle with the wheel, thus killing me.

So no, please keep the critical driving controls in fixed locations that are easy to access without looking away from the road or looking away. IMO that includes the horn, the turn signals, the wiper control, cruise control settings, and turn signals. And things I might want to adjust in a moderate hurry while driving should have fixed, tactile locations; climate control and sound volume are in this category.

My first car nailed all of this. Recent cars, not so much.

Pretty impossible to have a conversation with a passenger then.

"Break"

"BREAK!"

"BREAAK!!!!"

"OH GOD PLEASE BRAKE!"

crunch

Problems can occur if it the voice system brakes (pun intended). ;)

Instructions followed, car is now broken.

Like voice control is a reliable method of communication lol. Have an accent? Sorry can’t use your car. Mute? Cough? Lost your voice at a concert? Have the windows down? Come on…

I'm not entirely sure you've ever used voice controls.

I've never had experience with any car voice controls which didn't make me want to drive my car into a divider just to end the pain. Voice controls are so frustrating to use that I'm sure they are more distracting to use than even a touchscreen. I might be able to keep my eyes on the road easier with voice controls, but, my brain is going to be quickly annoyed and focused on trying to suss out why the voice control system is not understanding me, or am I using the wrong phrase, or do I need to put the windows up (impossible for me 6+ months of the year) so the car can hear me better?

It's like trying to pair bluetooth with a non-carplay (or non-android auto -- which I haven't used but heard good things about) with virtually all OEM and many aftermarket receivers. A uniquely frustrating experience which makes me wonder if QA departments at automakers actually exist.

Being able to honk the horn or turn the windshield wipers on from the back seat would certainly be an interesting feature, especially for people with kids.

"Alexa, honk at this asshole"

"Ok, calling Hank Armstrong"

On all cars I've driven voice control is not always on, you need to trigger it by pressing a button first.

Your reflexes are faster than you can speak. At least I hope they are.

I hope you don't have any speech impediments, accents, and english is your first language.

I've heard some of the newer cars have pretty good voice controls, especially on the more expensive models. However, the companies tend to put these behind a subscription wall, which I hate. I don't want my car to be always connected to the cloud. I'll do my navigation via my phone, and nothing else requires connectivity (except perhaps if I had an EV and wanted to schedule charging stops).

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