this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Replacing physical controls with touch buttons continues to be an incredibly dumb idea. Luckily several other manufactures who hopped on the trend are realizing it was a bad choice.
Is nobody gonna mention this horrible KITT steering wheel?!? That damn thing is dangerous.
Yeah round wheels are not a fuckin style choice. It’s so you can grab it anywhere in any situation. This steering wheel looks fuckin deadly
They are the worst drivers by infractions. Dead wheel is a culling tool.
You can’t even grab 10:00 and 2:00 on it. Looks like the closest you can get is 4:00 and 8:00
10 and 2 is actually no longer taught. 9 and 3 is the new thing
Or 8 and 4.
Keep those arms away from the airbag's path
The only way a yoke would make sense is if it was drive by wire and could vary the ratio of the wheel dynamically depending on speed.
Oh, I think I would hate that. Variable turning seems so bad for intuition to me.
If poorly executed yes. If done right it may be really awesome. Just like your steering gets stiffer at higher speeds. But obviously I never tried it (although I bet you could rig a simulator to test that theory)
It’s a yoke because top tier race cars use yokes and Elon thinks his teslas are that for some reason. Completely disregarding all the setup and engineering race cars have that make a yoke the more viable option than a wheel…
The funny thing is that they put it on the S/X without changing absolutely anything else, then brought out the Cybertruck with steer-by-wire (where a yoke might actually make sense) and put a squircle on it.
I’m still gobsmacked the Cybertruck is now a thing. Does nobody remember that we were ridiculing the design of that monstrosity 15 years ago?
Like it disappeared for a while, and now it’s suddenly in production with no changes, nearly two decades later? I feel like I’m from a Mandela universe.
They also don't ship with the yoke by default anymore, the default is a regular round one and have been for a while.
I am a Knight Industries 2000 with a 1000 megabits of memory and a one nanosecond access time.
Ever seen what real life F1 car steering “wheels” look like?
They aren't meant for public roads, just like Teslas.
Oh absolutely not. Just mentioning it in reference to the way the KITT yoke looks.
TBF KITT could self drive just fine so he didn’t need a very functional “wheel” heh.
I think that’s why Tesla designed it this way. They were relying too much on self driving and not a human driving it.
Those are way more sensitive so there is no need to turn hand over hand. The downside is that that sensitivity can be really hard to handle at high speeds.
Couldn’t the sensitivity be adjusted based on the speed? Doing a hard turn during high speed is a very bad idea anyways.
Yes it could and that is what Lexus is doing.
https://youtu.be/agMrewRJTow?si=_M55DbNd3I4uUvMu
But Tesla is not doing that, so there you still have to turn hand over hand even though you don't have a round wheel.
I figured that it already exists, it's not like that's rocket science. Tesla not doing the obviously right thing is also not surprising.
You mean those extremely dangerous, highly specialized cars that require a trained athlete to drive?
Not sure why you got down voted so much. Yeah those “wheels” look horrible. But I guess they are professional drivers. And all those buttons and knobs!!?
Likely assumed I was defending the musk mobile rather than just making conversation. I spose I should have been more explicit.
F1 racing is a way different type of driving than “normal” driving. Less need for lots of turning the wheel quickly and more need for controlling car features.
It’s great for Tesla, for one reason - modularity.
If your input/control has a physical button, that immediately needs independent wiring, assembly steps, A THOUGHT OUT PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PLAN, another BoM item to build the car/widget, and usually markings that limit its use for other functions (present and planned).
Tesla can bury controls and change interfaces as much as they like on the main touchscreen, or even add new features. It’s still trash for driver usability except when parked for all the obvious reasons, but hey they get to ‘push’ new features over cellular networks as they’re developed. Y’know, instead of selling a complete product in the first place.
No it doesn't. It just needs a PCB and a microcontroller connected to a CANbus. And that's what we've had for decades.
I don't really understand this either. Like yes, it is, but if we're taking that approach, why not remove the door panels? And the trunk liner? And that pesky center console? Oh what's that, these are all valuable features of the car?
Wiring/PCB header or connector/common data hub yes - but my point was that has to be thought out ahead, and cannot be modified afterwards in the same way touch screens can
BoM complexity and cross commonality is a challenge in manufacturing. It’s why we see all these ‘global platforms’ among automakers trying to build one unibody core subframe for all or most of their cars, adding different panels and roof assembly for an SUV or sedan respectively. Fewer parts to stock and build is a cost saving (for the manufacturer, don’t expect them to pass that saving along) - same with tactile controls.
Of course it does. The entire vehicle does. They don't just not make the entire vehicle because they have to think about it. They think very hard about these things.
There's no reason you should have to modify anything. It doesn't matter how you modify touchscreen controls, they will always be inferior to physical buttons and dials.
So make them all use the same controls? You don't need different climate controls or shifter controls or wiper controls for different vehicles. Many OEMs have standard controls across their entire lineup already.
Wiring/PCB header or connector/common data hub yes - but my point was that has to be thought out ahead, and cannot be modified afterwards in the same way touch screens can
BoM complexity and cross commonality is a challenge in manufacturing. It’s why we see all these ‘global platforms’ among automakers trying to build one unibody core subframe for all or most of their cars, adding different panels and roof assembly for an SUV or sedan respectively. Fewer parts to stock and build is a cost saving (for the manufacturer, don’t expect them to pass that saving along) - same with tactile controls.
The (capacitive) turn signal buttons are on the steering wheel, not the touch screen. You’re thinking of the mirrors, wipers, etc., which is not what this article is about.
Not really as far as the touch controls on the steering wheel goes. The icons are static and can't be changed, so their functionality is kind of tied to the icon.
As for configuring additional controls for them, it's exactly the same as if they were physical buttons, it's all a wiring harness going to the computer either way, what that computer does with the input signal is not any less configurable for a physical button. The limiting factor is the static icon, not whether it's touch/tactile.
In regards to selling incomplete products, this is unfortunately not even limited to Tesla. All car manufacturers release several updates and bugfixes for new cars, they just can't send them OTA, they need to get them in the shop. My colleague's VW ID4 has been in the shop for no less than 3 SW updates to fix various bugs and add basic features such as battery preheating for DC charging, it fucking shipped without that!
As a user experience designer, we were having this discussion 15-20 years ago.
I’m so glad everything we brought up at the time was completely ignored. Warms my heart.