A while back, someone made the case on this website for cars with no digital screens. We look at screens all day anyway, and they’re distracting and just plain lazy design, the author posited.
The author in question was, er… me. So allow me to set the record straight by disagreeing with myself.
Yes, car makers’ screen addictions have got out of hand and I enjoy the zen of simple cars, but for the vast majority of mainstream cars, touchscreens are essential to harnessing the inherent complexity and something that customers want.
The Ineos Grenadier demonstrates as much: its interior looks like the flight deck of an airliner. You know, the things that require multiple years of study and training to learn how to operate.
I firmly believe that certain essential, often-used functions should ideally be controlled by physical buttons, like the interior temperature, seats and useless mandatory driver assistance features.
But the tyre pressure reset, the setting for deciding whether the speedo should be in miles or kilometres, the equaliser for the audio? It’s stuff you adjust once and then forget about, so a screen is perfect for them.
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You've missed one problem with touchscreens, that is peculiar to wide-screen displays in (expensive) RHD vehicles from LHD-centric manufacturers...
One has to reach across a considerable distance from the steering-wheel, with one's left hand (i.e. not the dominant one, for 85% of us right-handers), to reach and attempt to tap the left-most screen icons, which tend to include the most frequently-used ones (like "<", to back out a menu-level).
That is "truly" distracting when it has to be navigated on the fly.
That depends on who did the software. I have driven LHD and RHD versions of many cars and decent companies move the icons depending on the drive side, but others don't bother. But don't expect Autocar to mention this, they are too busy enjoying the freebies to be critical.....
I've often wondered if that was the case, thanks for solving my question.
Observations as a March 2025 Toyota/Audi buyer...
Regulation and tech make today's models so much less desirable.
CarPlay/Android Auto in combination with Siri/Alexa are a joy but I want buttons for my HVAC [shout out to Toyota and the Landcruiser 250.... nailed it.] but I don't need a touch screen to open a boot, adjust wipers, turn on fog lights [btw, switch your f.ing fogs off you dozzy tw*t]
If I want cameras, give me a button, heat/cool my seats, open the tailgate, give me a button ....and none of that haptic rubbish.
Audi/VW, what were you thinking... and by the way, steering wheels are supposed to be round... you.... you.... MUPPETS!!!
As for electric steering, fly by wire throttle, dynamic headlights [FAIL], dynamic cruise control [FAIL], lane change assist [FAIL], driver attention monitoring [DOUBLE FAIL], these simply aren't fit for purpose. In the Audi/Toyota these are half finished and things would be so much better for a simple 'PERMANENT' F-off switch.
Big fan of autocar but journalism is only as strong as the trust and belief we place in your opinions and we the people can smell b**ls**t at a mere sniff of the brown stuff.
If you you want to be taken seriously, if you want to build and retain an audience start, being more critical and more vocal, we'll all thank you for it.
I agree on lane change assist, driver attention monitoring. But on our latest family cars (2022 Volvo and 2024 Porsche Panamera Hybrid ) the matrix/adaptive headlights work well, adaptive cruise control is fantastic (even better with the innodrive lane centering and I don't mean the lane keep which is annoying) and the electric steering and drive by wire allows all manner of helpful systems including remote parking and the various semu auto drive systems. I recently did several hundred miles on a bank holiday motorway with just my finger resting on the steering wheel, feet flat on the floor and the car did the rest. When I finally got to the interesting B road, I took over and was still fresh to enjoy it!
The touch-only thing felt (and kinda literally was) as if your employer took away your computer when tablets came out to save money. A dumb move that felt really wrong, especially in luxury cars.Some luxury cars used to introduce a new weird control system every few years (voice, rotating knob, trackpad to write letters with your fingers...) and kept all other legacy systems redundant to keep conservative buyers happy when they bought the same model for decades.Then came Tesla, fooling first-time luxury cars buyers with those futuristic looks, that were actually well hidden cost-saving measure to compensate for the cost of the batteries.
I think voice control is fine because your Eyes aren't looking at a screen,surely most of us can manage to drive and talk at the same time.
If only voice control consistently worked for all-comers...
My wife and I both speak English quite fluently, but from (different) mixed-accent backgrounds, and we both laugh and despair at how often "voice-control" gets things wrong--different things for each of us--in our two most recent vehicles (one Japanese, one German, both somewhat premium and otherwise well-regarded)