The European organisation for crash testing and car safety, Euro NCAP has announced that starting in 2026, cars will need physical controls in their interiors to gain the highest safety ratings.
“The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes,” said Matthew Avery, Euro NCAP’s director of strategic development.
“New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving,” he said.
↫ Jonathan M. Gitlin at Ars Technica
Excellent news, and it’s taken regulators and safety organisations way too long to long to adapt to the growing menace of touch screens in cars.
Thank God. There are a few reasons why I’m not considering a Tesla, but this is one of the biggest technical reasons.
I didn’t read enough, its still pretty weak. But maybe this is just the taste of future regulation. Maybe it will dissuade other companies from getting rid of very basic controls that had been a standard for decades.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
One can hope, but it’s a cost cutting measure and once it’s gone it’s hard to get back. It’s ironic, but it could end up being a luxury feature you have to pay a lot more for.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
If this list is accurate, all of these items are physical controls in 2023 and earlier Teslas. Newer ones are dropping turn signals, that is true. But you might look into getting something a year old for a compromise.
And if you really concerned about display being on the side, there seems to be third party solutions:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=head+up+display+for+tesla+model+3%2Fy%2C+hud+dashboard (they would hook up to Carbus to get the info, but never used one).
Anyway, if this is the “blocker”, this might be some good news for you.
sukru,
I appreciate the links and you are trying to be helpful….but it feels kind outrageous to have to purchase 3rd party speedometers and other displays that should already be integrated with the stock vehicle. IMHO these after market addons don’t look that great. For such an expensive vehicle I expect more than a bare bones touch screen UI to do everything. For all the hype about distracted driving and banning smart phones while driving, cars with touchscreen UIs seem to pushing us in the opposite direction.
Alfman,
No worries. To be honest, yes they don’t look good, but also I have never seen any Tesla owner use one.
That being said, these are all about trade-offs.
Some of them do not make sense, like replacing Ultra Sound (parking) Sensors with Computer Vision, as physics make a good implementation impossible.
On the other hand not needing a dashboard might be a good one, since EVs no longer need any of the older displays, except for maybe speedometer.
For a comparison, this is what I found for our older nissan (not the same year, so it got even more convoluted):
https://www.nissanusa.com/content/dam/Nissan/us/manuals-and-guides/rogue/2023/2023-nissan-rogue-quick-reference-guide.pdf
Most of these are waste of space compared to modern alternatives, and even can be considered distractions.
Modern vehicles, for example, can fully automate headlights and wipers (except maybe needing a manual wipe on demand), whereas the old style vehicles still have complex stalks to manage them. And I had occasional accidental turn signals while trying to adjust them, for example.
That is only one of the archaic designs that has to go, and I can probably go over 80% of them which are no longer necessary today, but this would then be a long reply.
Still, those that are absolutely essential, like gas and brake, turn signals, horn, and emergency blinkers could stay mechanical. (This is one area Tesla goes too far, for example).
sukru,
While my preference is for displays/gauges to be in front of the driver instead on a touch screen in the center console, I really dislike the lack of tactile controls even more. A touchscreen not only lacks tactile feedback, but on top of that you have to navigate menuing systems. These things are all very distracting compared to a tactile control that gives immediate feedback without having to look. This is super useful when you’re driving a car!
Even when something isn’t “absolutely essencial” I still prefer having a way to control brights, cabin lights, and even temperature controls and radio etc. Tactile controls and other interfaces that don’t need anything more than a brief glace are much safer than a touch interface that forces operators to look for a prolonged interaction. This is exactly why using cell phones while driving have been banned in so many states and if we applied the same standard to cars then touchscreen UIs controls would have to be banned as well.
Alfman,
Yes, I had similar thoughts. However these new vehicles have different approach to doing things. Something similar to people asking “what would you do when you don’t have charge in the morning? Can you go to a gas station and be ready in 15 minutes?”, it kinda does not make sense when you are thinking the “new way”.
Here is the interior of Model 3:
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-A5F2B9D0-E7C8-40F5-9642-58F3657B123E.html
Again, the only thing you need is speed (actually also the current “gear”) which are immediately on the corner of your eye (yes could be better), but most of the time you don’t need to worry about it either, as the vehicle is very capable of adjusting its speed automatically.
Yes, these are annoying, but the larger touchscreens make it very rare.
Again fully automated (with manual override if needed)
Once again automated. The cars now have “driver profiles” and will automatically adjust to your comfort level.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-A2D0403E-3DAC-4695-A4E6-DC875F4DEDC3.html
Or more likely, it will “pre heat” (or pre cool) before you start driving based on your departure times.
I think you meant Spotify. Anyway, this is one area they left a very functional physical joystick:
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-DEB259CC-ABAC-4BFC-8D10-B7B1BBCFCB1F.html#GUID-D6AE7E0D-D622-4BCF-BEFD-4C1C1BDF8C5E
Yes, you need to have tactile feedback that you are adjusting volume correctly, or skipping to the next track.
This is one advantage of modern cars. They have not only hands free calling, they also have voice commands, and read aloud / transcribe text messages.
I have given examples from a Tesla model, but others would be similar. As long as it is done correctly (like the media “joystick”), and not overdone (Elon Musk throwing away sensors for Vision which is not ready), I am all for progress.
You say that, but just because you’ve got an EV doesn’t make other indicators less important. Fuel/remaining fuel, driving profile, fault/check engine, flat tired, etc may be important to see at a glance in one’s peripheral vision. While infotainment alerts could provide more detail, cars should not be designed around that as it encourage drivers to adopt bad (ie dangerous) distracted driving habits.
Again? The car automatically turns on cabin lights while driving? That really should be a manual operation, making that automatic could be really dangerous for the driver.
Even in cars that have this, it’s frequently adjusted and the touch screen makes it that much more dangerous for the driver to operate the vehicle.
I meant radio, but anyway overloading a control to perform a plethora of functions (radio/wipers/washers/phone/voice commands/turn signals/driving mode/etc) can be problematic in and of itself even if it looks neat and compact. It’s the same problem as overloading the display with a navigation system. Not as much of a problem when it has your full attention, but not great if you need to divert attention to use it.
I’m all for progress, but I don’t think we should ignore the fact that achieving minimalist interfaces through deeper menu navigation and mode toggles is less direct than a dedicated control. I concede that physically dedicated controls aren’t perfect either, but now that your forced to overload several functions with the same controller, muscle memory isn’t sufficient. You need greater contextual awareness of the control’s several operating modes – the documentation you linked to points out with nearly a dozen different functions with two controls. not only can this contribute to distracted driving, but in a time of panic it can actually increase the level of confusion if the controls accidentally enter the wrong mode.
Excellent news! Even though I believe carmakers are looking for loopholes.
spiderdroid,
The article says that aren’t a regulator….
My car is too old to have a touch screen…but like other commentators not having physical controls is something I strongly dislike. But with my next purchase, as with many other things where I find that negative choices have been made without me, I might find myself in a market niche that manufactures don’t care about unless we pay a hefty premium. It just sucks that this used to be the norm and it could end up getting further out of reach.
Would be so amazing. Touch screen controls are not just bad, they are very bad. I mean bad in every way. It’s like they kill the UX team, burned them, and scattered their ashes over the ocean bad. If you put a stupid touch screen in my face as “better”… well, let’s just say, the ocean is a big place.
Every time I see another object/device/vehicle with touch screen controls, my rage gets hotter. When I see it all over sci-fi, in “the future”, it enrages me. Especially in vehicles. Touch screens are good for certain things, and yet, capitalism and tech bros/morons seem hell-bent on replacing every physical control with a zero-tactile flat surface with a garbage UI. Even our damned microwaves have no buttons. Flat plastic film with a print, and membrane switches underneath, poorly aligned, and demanding pushing around like a clumsy oaf to find where the ACTUAL mechanism is.
Civilization collectively learned many lessons about good UI design, yet, here we are, still doing this BS.
I’m not against touchscreens in cars but they’re obviously not a replacement for every control & feature interface. The safety risk argument is legitimate. Physical/tactile controls have a static position and function. It’s easy to manipulate them without the need to take your eyes off the road. The same cannot be said for touchscreens. Use physical controls where it makes sense, use the touchscreen where it makes sense. This isn’t complicated.
friedchicken,
I agree with this in principal. I have little doubt there are many drivers just like me who prefer physical controls, but I worry that more manufacturers will sacrifice tactile controls and lean towards featureless dash boards as a cost saving measure. Middle class consumers are very sensitive to prices these days and new cars with distinctive tactile controls might simply fade out of existence.
I wouldn’t put it past them as offering tactile controls as a “premium” feature that you would have to pay extra for. If so, it wouldn’t surprise me if they applied a subscription model to such idiocy. It’s completely absurd any auto maker thinks it’s a good idea to charge subscription fees to customers for basic functions & features but that’s where we’re at these days.
It’s utterly insane how far this nonsense has gotten. The OBVIOUSNESS of the problem is bigger than the sun, but here we are, with cars that have controls that demand the driver to take their eyes off the road to operate things in the car.
Why do human organizations have to repeatedly re-learn the same lessons over and over and why do capitalists seem to be obsessed with doing stupid and dangerous things that make civilization WORSE?
dysamoria,
It seems like every generation has a limited capacity to learn from former generations and so we experience osculating learn & forget cycles.
As for the capitalists, this isn’t surprising at all since they have a huge appetite for profit and cost cutting is seen as a corporate mandate. If they can push it to the extreme and still convince customers to show up “Yeah these empty dashboards are cool and futuristic”, then their financial rewards will add up. A few bucks for every switch/indicator they removed.. If you don’t like it, tough because chances are your favorite manufacturers are considering doing it too.
Cost cutting doesn’t just affect the quality of consumer goods, it creeps everywhere.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/boeing-737-max-8-scandal-cost-cutting-addiction-squeezed-every-dollar-out-of-jet-until-disaster-struck