Ever had a (lightly) sleeping baby in the car? Glad it finally got to sleep after hours worth of crying? Maybe, just maybe, I don't want to risk asking a voice assistant to turn up or down the AC. Scenario also works for sleeping co-driver.<p>Buttons are fine. Even though I prefer driving EVs, the reliance on touchscreen/ voice for everything is just annoying. At least for the most common functions like volume control, AC and stuff.
Will it work if the company stops supporting it after 6 years or goes bankrupt? (<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-describe-chaos-to-keep-cars-running-after-bankruptcy-2024-7" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-describe-chaos...</a>)<p>This obsession with replacing robust proven solutions with brittle technological toys will never cease to amaze me.<p>I expect the true reason lies in the fact that they can charge a recurring fee for the AI assistant but not for the buttons. I also wonder about the impact on the car battery. There is no way a call to a backend uses less energy than a car button or a touchscreen.
<i>“It’s a bug. It’s not a feature"</i><p>Sorry, I have to disagree.<p>Touch screen is a bug, not a feature because it requires a shift in focus away from driving.<p>Physical controls provide tactical feedback and spatial assurance that the correct function has been selected sight unseen.<p>I shouldn't need to look away from the road to enable signals or wipers.<p>That said, I do agree with the potential of voice control for nonessential functions such as environmental or entertainment.
Tactile buttons allow a driver to <i>keep their eyes on the road</i> while making adjustments. People making these decisions likely only ever ride in the back seats of luxury black cars. Something needs to change, because the Idiocracy Slow Burn has been going on too long and it's only getting worse.
I am orienting myself on going from a gas hob in the kitchen to an electric induction one. Plenty of choice now of course, but what immediately triggered both my wife's and my own sense of “I want one of those” was looking at the few modern cookers with actual knobs on them, just like our gas hob has.<p>I've used induction hobs, but I've never found them pleasant to control with the touch controls. There is something so utterly ergonomic and pleasant about physical knobs and buttons. It doesn't matter that they perform digital rather than analogue, mechanical actions.<p>It's a premium feature, but at least it exists. It's disheartening that this is considered either a premium feature or branded as outdated.
Did they <i>really</i> anchor this idea with consumers? Or is it one of those “consumers just want a faster horse” things where they believe they can present users with what they really want rather than what they say they want?<p>Because I have never used a voice assistant even to set a timer when cooking pasta and I probably will never speak to a machine if there is an awkward button I could use instead.<p>I understand buttons are ugly and expensive. But a <i>few</i> buttons and dials for everything you need while driving seems like the perfect balance. You only need climate, wipers, lights, sound level, and that’s about it. Nav, setup, media selection etc can be touch.
This is where government regulation is immportant. EV manufacturers want to push innovation, and that's cool, but we're talking about vehicles here, things that might be the difference between life and death.<p>So let them play in their prototypes, but don't let them fill the roads with dangerous voice assisted vehicles that will fail in critical moments.
I'm surprised NHTSA doesn't mandate that the touchscreen be locked out while the car is moving because it requires visual attention to operate. I think future people will look back on this blunder and consider it up there with leaded gasoline.
> he said if a driver says “I’m hungry” the in-car assistant should be able to quickly direct them to a nearby restaurant that they might prefer.<p>Sounds like loner consumerism to me.<p>What if the driver making a statement to someone else in the car?<p>Does it respond only to the driver, or also to the bored kid wanting food simply as a distraction?<p>Why suggest a restaurant instead of, say, the sandwiches the driver brought?<p>Who gets to prioritize which restaurant to mention?<p>Why suggest a restaurant and not grocery store?<p>Or, make a statement like "you are five minutes from home, you can wait", or "what? You just had lunch 45 minutes ago and you've been complaining about your weight, so drink some water instead."
I'm really glad to hear a car exec explicitly state his opinions on this. Now I know that Rivian is dedicated to producing a product that I would absolutely hate to use, and I can eliminate them from my future car purchasing searches.
Why not both?<p>I like the buttons in my (now practically antique) 2007 Mazda 3, but voice sounds miles better than updating my car and ending up with a janky touch screen that takes my focus off the road, the layout and responsiveness changing randomly with OTA updates.<p>However this:<p>> For instance, he said if a driver says “I’m hungry” the in-car assistant should be able to quickly direct them to a nearby restaurant that they might prefer.<p>sounds like more adtech hellscape.
Give me buttons, give me knobs, give me sliders, give me levers, give me switches.I if I can’t operate my car systems by feel, then I can’t operate them while I’m driving.<p>First thing I did with my current car was replace the stereo with one that has physical playback control buttons, a physical volume knob, and Bluetooth. God I can’t stand touchscreens in cars.
This guy's opinions are a recipe for inferior product design. Maybe someone inside of Rivian can pitch him on programmable buttons. This way drivers still get the physical buttons and switches they need, but the chief software office can still preserve and grown his corporate fiefdom--which is what this is all about, I fear.
I have more than enough trouble to tuch any buttons in an fancy ui which is changing after every software-update. you have to search them, then you have to touch them correctly, all while the car is shaking or whatever. And all that while you have better use for your eyes in keeping it straight out of the car and observing the traffic outside.<p>Physical buttons can be "feeled". In the dark, when you know where they are and your muscle-memory got used to their position any you can keep your eyes ot in the traffic.
I think this only confirms he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. These auto designers really need to spend a few months at the NTSB or an air accident investigation agency before they are allowed to design cars.
Touchscreen/voice control are good mostly for manufacturers, since they allow reducing production costs while increasing profit. We must not allow them trying to convince us that their benefit is ours.
His brain is anomalous! Geez.<p>Humans have hands. Our hands are built-in, highly flexible, comfortable means of controlling things. I want buttons for my fingers to press. I want haptic interfaces.<p>Voice has to contend with other sounds and other uses of voice in the car. You ought to be able to drive a car if you lose your voice. If you can’t push buttons, though, you should not be driving.
It takes longer and requires more effort for me to vocally ask my car to change the fan/temp/seat (heat,cooling,position)/etc than to simply bump a switch/knob.<p>I love a screen for configuring my front dash and another one for maps, certain settings, etc. But you absolutely should have tactile interfaces for various things.
Stellantis' chief designer said something similar yesterday, believing voice controls are the future: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/NdVdr9mU_XA?si=P4keeOK9uXb2TgXc&t=2531" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/live/NdVdr9mU_XA?si=P4keeOK9uXb2TgXc...</a>
I wonder how hard it would be to design an EV like a horse and carriage, each with their own wheels. So that you could buy the best "horse" and still have a "carriage" designed how you like, instead of by idiots like this. And you could swap out the horse for longer journeys.
"Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. "<p>ridiculous. "turn the volume down!" might not work too well for example. And are we expected to say "high beam", "low beam", "indicate left" etc constantly?
"<i>Hey car, turn on the, hmm, front lights but not on full if you know what I mean</i>" is something that will need handled more often than one might assume... not easy.
"you would want to interact with your car through voice"<p>I stopped reading at this insanity. I'm usually listening music or radio, or talking to other passengers, I can interact with the car with easier, flawless and much faster buttons.
Delusional. Have these people never spoken to a human? The LAST thing, even less than fumbling on some touch interface in a moving vehicle is trying to vocalize commands.<p>Music too loud? VOLUME DOWN. VOLUME! DOWN!
“It’s a bug. It’s not a feature”<p>Typical Silicon Valley blah blah. The button is an evolution. A solution to a problem from before computers and voice assistants were a thing.
It's interesting to see all the comments about how physical buttons help keep your eyes on the road, but I’ve actually had the opposite experience. I'm probably not the typical driver, though—I tend to set everything just the way I want before starting a trip. While driving, I only adjust basic controls like the air conditioning, wipers, blinkers, and cruise control, all of which I can do in my Tesla without taking my eyes off the road.<p>Recently, I drove a Volvo and a Polestar and found that using physical buttons required me to look down to see what I was pressing. Even after over 20 hours of driving, I couldn’t adapt back to physical buttons scattered across the dashboard. I really missed the streamlined, contextual controls I’m used to.