https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_and_Alnic_M...
On a more serious note, there's a big difference between a vehicle like a car that is operated by one person, and a ship with a large crew with dedicated tasks.
Morning briefing by the Captain: “John, you’ll supervise and operate the bottom left corner of the Touchscreen. Adam, as a left handed sailor, you’ll stand right to John and operate the bottom right corner of the Touchscreen with your left hand so there are no collisions in case of emergency”
Aye, captain
A/C is automatic and I don't need to touch it the vast majority of the time. While driving the most I might want to do is adjust the temperature, and since it's not safety critical I can choose a convenient time. It's at the bottom of the screen so it is easy to do by grabbing behind the bezel and only requires a quick glance to align your thumb. In practice I glance at physical A/C controls when adjusting them too, so I don't see a big difference here.
If you really need to adjust the temperature so often and can't stand the thought of using the touchscreen, you can assign that function to the left scroll wheel.
That is good reasoning, but are you sure a high number of drivers are also waiting with adjustments, instead of fumbling on the screen while continuing to drive?
1. Physical controls that you can interact with without the need to take your eyes off the road
2. Touch screen that you need to look almost every time, much of the time while actually interacting with it. But you can mitigate that by using it more responsibly, waiting until you are at a stop, our out of range of anything you might need to react to (which might not happen for 10 minutes or even longer)
Then #1 is clearly the winner. Because 2 is more dangerous for everyone on the road (not just you with your own behavior, but everyone else that might act irresponsibly and hit you). We specifically craft laws to make people interact with their phones less (hands free only, etc) because "people must act more responsibly" is not a reliable solution.
I drive about a dozen different modern electric cars on a regular basis (carsharing) and all of them have at least a few of the above flaws (if not for AC then for something else that needs adjusting while driving).
This goes for tech in general and not just cars btw :)
It's like those scooters you can hire and leave (almost) anywhere, the benefit with a car is, if you park it idiotically, they can check that you were the last driver and forward the parking ticket to you.
There are some other carsharing services in the US in some major cities (e.g. gig car share in sf/seattle), but I would argue overall there's less carsharing now compared to 8-9 years ago. Partly the age demographics have changed, ridesharing (uber/lyft) rose in popularity, and carsharing in the us has had its share of profitability issues.
Peak carsharing in the US to me was around 2017-2018 (car2go, reachnow, limepod, maven, ...)
Of course those smart cars didn't really help either. They were great for parking and stuff but damn did it feel like driving a gocart. My foot was either at full throttle or no throttle.
...I do miss it though.
I liked carsharing from the stance that even if it didn't make me want to get rid of car ownership, it made me feel less inclined to invest as much into car ownership (i.e. keep an old used car with cheap insurance, use carsharing if my car needs maintenance or going on a trip where i dont want to worry about breaking down or if taking another mode of transit back.)
This line of thought kinda gets into the predicament of carsharing (and arguably rideshare/robotaxi) services owned by automotive companies - they're fairly deep in the business of selling cars much more than attempting a service business.
There are also a handful of "peer-peer" carsharing systems where you let other people use your car and I have no idea how insurance would work there.
so, physical control.
In my car, I basically never change the A/C. My dad used to have a same-vintage car for a while, but a different make, and it absolutely needed adjustment depending on whether the sun was shining on you or not, and possibly other parameters. They both had "automatic" A/C.
Now these cars are ~20 years old, maybe things have improved. I haven't ridden in my dad's ~2yo car for any long stretch during the summer to compare.
I just want a gentle breeze of slightly warmer or slightly colder air, damn it!
I'm not sure how much I agree that temperature is not safety critical. It's relative for sure, less safety critical than breaks or transmission, but it can still impact safety in certain situations. In the city when you have a lot of red lights and stop signs, it's not a big deal to wait for the next stop. But on a free-way when you've got a ways to go before you can make a stop then uncomfortable temperature can create a distracted or nervous driver situation. I suppose you could pull over on the shoulder if it were that big of a deal, but even that isn't the safest thing to do on freeways and it's recommended to only do that if you're making an emergency stop.
In my opinion this shouldn't even have to be a big deal. The only reason we're even discussing it is because car manufacturers are moving from tactile buttons to touch screens. People are accustomed to working these types of auxiliary systems without stopping and historically have been able to do so without taking their eyes off of the road. People aren't going to stop doing those things because now they have to use a touch-screen.
Can you imagine actually pulling over off the interstate to change your AC? Absurd. Totally absurd and disconnected from reality. Nobody would do it, they would take their eyes off the road and then it doesn't matter AT ALL whether the function they're trying to perform has to do with safety or even operating the vehicle -- it's a distraction, and that's sufficiently bad.
Can we stop putting distractions in front of drivers, in general? Please?
I'll forgive Android Auto and Apple's thing because people won't stop looking at their phones otherwise but the driver should be able to control the vehicle and everything they might want to do in it without looking away from the road.
And it's different if I drive with the top down depending on weather. I don't need to look at the buttons to do that now.
Yes, they can reassign buttons. But the core problem is distraction, which causes users to go to the touchscreen, which creates even further distraction by capturing their visual attention.
And quick changes of T or RH needing the user to crank up the heat, turn on the AC and direct the air to the windshield at full speed are very possible depending on where you are.
Imagine crossing a miles long tunnel under a mountain separating two weather zones.
Hands off my HVAC controls.
Yes you can. My last three cars have had a volume knob under the left thumb. My current car has a second volume knob behind the gearstick, and the A/C is the only analog dial along the center console. I can easily adjust both without looking away.
I don't understand how so many people have come across cars with seemingly terrible auto AC systems. Even my old 2000 Honda Accord had a competent auto AC system. I haven't had manual AC on any of my cars in decades. Whenever I rent a car it's always infuriating having to constantly muck with the AC system.
Works on my machine implies it's something special about that one device. My experience has been auto AC has worked fine with several different car models from several different makers across the last 24 years of car manufacturing.
My car can only turn AC on and off. What about me then?
I'm mostly arguing having AC controls on a screen aren't that big of a deal, because chances are if they're on a touchscreen they're auto, and if they're auto you really shouldn't need to ever really mess with them while moving. The only real exception to this would be defrosters, but I do agree there should be a least a physical defrost toggle button.
Functionality that might be needed when you drive (fogging up, change audio src, increase temp) should have physical interface.
So if you have auto AC it could go behind the screen.
But what I am afraid is that cars are sold with premium features as upgrades. So features that are fine behind screen would suck in cheaper models. And when looking at what BS automotive industry is pushing now (subscription services for physical features that are present), I am not hopeful this would be addressed.
I generally agree. Safety critical features need physical control options close to the driver's normal inputs.
> But I feel like we already had it with early screens and infotainment.
I have two cars. One with a big screen and few physical buttons, and one with a small screen with lots of physical buttons.
Because of all the physical buttons, the screen had to be a lot smaller. The vast majority of those buttons relate to actions I really shouldn't be messing with when driving or are connected to the auto AC system which as mentioned doesn't really get used. So it is a ton of wasted space on the center console.
On the other car, the screen is very large. There's still important physical controls related to driving and defogging and adjusting media and what not, but they're all immediately around the driver's area not the center console. This allows for the maps for navigation to be very large and easier to glance at. The interface for changing media a lot easier to use when stopped and wanting to actually look at what choices I have or have my passenger make changes.
At least to me, I'd much rather have the center console be filled with the map and actually used input surface rather than just have it filled with tons of buttons which generally still shouldn't be used when driving.
> Whenever I rent a car it's always infuriating having to constantly muck with the AC system.
Am I missing something or do these not make sense together?
If the AC controls are on a touchscreen, chances are they're auto. If they're auto, you probably shouldn't have to mess with them at all while moving.
Basic thermostat is somewhere in center console, which doesn't help much if your chest is blasted with sun. Also temperature you feel is different depending on humidity.
Both of my cars have glass roofs. Previously they had sunroofs. Lots of sunlight in the cabin.
I haven't had issues with automatic AC in decades in cars that aren't exactly luxury cars. It is a solved problem for at least every brand of car I've owned.
I'm still not adjusting the overall temp or vent activation or compressor on or off, I'm just setting it to max defrost and turning that off when it's done. Even when I drive to places where its below freezing every day, I'm still just leaving it on auto AC other than defrosting. Why would I need to adjust the AC while I drive when its snowing outside of defrosting? The AC can automatically adjust itself.
People say auto AC can't possibly work when its hot and sunny. People say auto AC can't possibly work when its cold out. And yet every car I've had for over 20 years of model years with auto AC has worked perfectly fine at 0F and at 110F.
“Hey Google, set the driver’s side heated seat to one”
“Hey Google, turn off the steering wheel heater”
Experiences with this sort of thing are subjective, but I’ve never had any problems with Google Assistant in the car.
"I'm sorry, could you please repeat your query?"
"I'm sorry, I did not understand that request"
"You said 'Heated Seat', calling closest contact 'Holly Smith'..."
"Hey Google, lower the volume"
"Calling $NAME_OF_DECEASED_PERSON_OR_RANDOM_RESTAURANT"
It would have been ~20x faster to just let me type it.
At least I had told him the general area, so we were getting there even while I kept repeating the address and maps was getting it wrong.