I'd like to see everything controllable through the touch screen, but then have plenty of physical buttons and knobs that can be programmed to map to elements on the touch screen.

That way, if there is a software update; and there is a new feature it can be mapped to a button by the user in the way that they want.

Unreasonable, IMHO, for a car meant for consumption by the masses. Few people actually care about that stuff in the real world

Then provide a reasonable set of defaults and then most folks don't have to worry about it :)

> physical buttons and knobs that can be programmed to map to elements on the touch screen

Agreed, this is the end game.

The original CTS (circa 2003) did this. It had four buttons and a rotary dial on the steering wheel that you could assign to the functions of your choosing. This was a groundbreaking usability enhancement at the time. They also had a dial on the ceiling for the sunroof where you just turn it to the position you want the sunroof to open to (ex. 50%) and then the sunroof would open that amount. It was brilliantly simple and elegant.

Unfortunately, Cadillac went in reverse for a number of years afterwards... dropping the customizable buttons, dropping the sunroof dial, making touchsensative (but not actually tactile) physical controls. Finally, this year they have gone back to real tactile controls!

BMW has been using assignable buttons for over a decade now. I loved having one button to go to my favorite radio station, another button to call my wife, another to set the nav system to navigate home. The buttons are also sensitive to resistive touch, so if you put your finger on the button without actually pushing it, it will tell you on the screen what that button has been assigned to. I think BMW does tactile controls better than any other car I've owned. Not that many BMW owners use them, but even the signal light wand is a delight for tactile senses.

There may be other automakers who do the assignable button thing too, would love to hear from anyone who knows of others.

I was a little disappointed in the controls in the new volvo I bought last year. They have a mix of touchscreen controls and a limited number of tactile buttons and knobs. They got really close to getting it right. They at least need to make the screen configurable so you can put your most used functions on the home screen.

Fiat-Chrysler got this right at least. Their UConnect system has a system bar along the bottom of the screen that is always visible and you can decide which buttons you want there (heated steering wheel control, surround cameras, etc). If I wanted to bring up the surround cameras on the Volvo as I'm pulling into a parking space, I'd have to swipe right, tap cameras, then switch the surround view, with slight UI delays in between each of these gestures -- not ideal when pulling into a parking space. BMW (and the new Corvette C8) have a dedicated tactile button for this, Chrysler lets you put that "button" on the home row of the touchscreen... both are much better solutions.

Hopefully the automakers are coming out of a learning phase right now and things are about to get much better as everyone has tried terrible touchscreens and learned why there needs to be more buttons.

That seems like the kind of nerd wish that 99.99% of buyers would never use and would make it impossible to drive somebody elses car.

Its like people who insist on working with dvorak in a company but much worse.

Jaguar/Land Rover have been starting to do this. They have knobs where the knob label is a tiny screen and they change function based on the context of the menu you are in.

lower parts count as well. More commonality possibilities between vehicles are possible. the ability to add and remove features at different prive points without having to add/remove as many physical parts is huge. They price compete on bolts and screws...removing a button is a huge cost savings when multiplied by you

Munro and Associates is a company that does reverse engineering and costing work and it's wildly interesting to learn about: https://jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-company-that-tears-cars...

Ya, Volvo has gone to a unified interface for their whole lineup. The standard stuff can be controlled with a few knobs and buttons and all the minor differences between models and trim levels are controlled on screen. I'm sure it saves them a ton since the part count would be very low now.

They've done a pretty good job at it too, but it needs to be customizable to be great. If I ordered the surround camera option, I want that to be easy to access, not buried a few gestures deep. Chrysler nailed it, they let you rearrange the touch screen icons and have a bar along the bottom where you can put items that are always visible. They also have more buttons and dials.

I would think that would be where good context aware software would come into play.

Shouldn't it just automatically show the surround camera when I am in reverse or in some parking mode? I feel like that could be a setting or a soft button that appears when appropriate.

> Shouldn't it just automatically show the surround camera when I am in reverse or in some parking mode?

For the past couple years, US law requires that they default to the backup camera when in reverse (which is dumb, but that's another discussion). At least surround view is only one tap from there. Other manufacturers still do this better by showing both the backup camera AND the surround cameras at the same time and the Volvo screen is plenty large enough to handle this since other manufacturers with smaller screens do it well.

It should do it in parking mode, but it doesn't! The car even switches to a top view illustration of the car to show you the ultrasonic sensor readings when you're close to stuff (ie. when you're parking) but it doesn't turn the surround cameras on!

And customers apparently like them, when deciding what to buy.

You can't use the market as an example of it, because the producers shifted in (almost) unison, and bundled it with other more valuable features.

The same thing happened with 3DTVs -- the manufacturers all decided this was the next big thing, and shifted all their production to it, and it turns out.. it wasn't. But we as consumers had a 5-year drought where you simply couldn't buy a new TV that wasn't 3D. The same is happening with SmartTVs today -- if I want a new TV that isn't bottom-of-the-barrel tier, my only option is Smart.

When I got leased a VW Jetta a few years back, you had the option of no-touchscreen.. but that was the lowest-featured car, so you have up 10 other things for it.

You can also find the same thing in MacBooks with the touchbar -- once it was out, your only real options were to buy it, or throw the baby out and buy nothing/windows.

You can't judge whether customers like them, because it's bundled to other far more valuable aspects.

The Macbook touchbar holds a likely never-to-be-surpassed record for "The World's Most Useless Touchscreen". I literally cannot imagine how this UI abortion got to market. To me, the touchbar was the canary that Apple's innovation days were done. Sometimes, it's really NOT a good thing to "think different"(ly)...

Apple replaced the function keys because they were increasingly disused (and to increase the BOM and consequently the margin in absolute dollars.) The Touch Bar gets used more often. The default modes aren’t to everyone’s taste, but they’re easy for inexperienced users (based on our user observation) and power users like the potential to customize (check out BetterTouchTool if you haven’t yet.)

It looks real nice on a render.

I never buy this argument. I'm sure we could've focus grouped seat belts and no one would've liked the experience but thank god we have them now, for the better.

We did "sorta" focus group seat belts, and I was there to witness it.

Before laws mandated the use of seat belts, most people didn't use them. My mother bought a Volvo 122 in the 1960s, and people marvelled at the three-point harness.

But it's not like US manufacturers rushed to take advantage of Volvo making the patents freely available, and nor did Volvo take over the world by storm.

Some cars had alarms that nagged the driver if the seat belts weren't done up. I recall my uncle routed around this by looping the driver and "shotgun" belts -behind- the seats and fastening them.

Left to their own devices, large numbers of people prefer convenience and low price to safety. Only by regulation did the mass market adopt safer cars.

So I completely agree, no, people did not like wearing seat belts. They only did so when their option to forgo safety was removed.

p.s. I recall watching this PSA in Ontario. Everyone laughed about it, but soooooo many young men then went out and drove their muscle cars sans belt. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sri9j3PA5vE

Customers often don't have much choice. Most people don't make car buying decisions based on the head unit.