Are Vehicle Infotainment Screens Headed for the Scrap Heap?

[ZLoth]

From Gizmodo:

Are Vehicle Infotainment Screens Headed for the Scrap Heap?
Drivers are falling out of love with the tech-forward touch screens that have become commonplace in modern cars.

Today's tech-heavy cars are more advanced than they've ever been, and while some aspects of that shift are inarguably good, certain features have fallen out of favor with the public. One of the most prominent and problematic auto trends is the infotainment screen.

It's easy to see why touch screens and large displays initially caught on. They're sleek, enabling you to interact with your car in much the same way you'd interact with your smartphone. In practice, though, the tech is flawed, and drivers are pushing back.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

[ZLoth]

I'm in favor of having a "Vehicle Infotainment Screen", but lets keep it a reasonable size, not a monster size like they have on those Teslas. There should be room for haptic controls. And, lets keep it reasonable. The screen is meant to assist with backing up, displaying a map, and providing access to your audio apps. It is a good interface for the controls that you may not need regular access to, such as configuation controls.

Why should a car screen be able to display video when you already have a display device through your mobile device?

[Max Rockatansky]

I just want the ability again to option a car without stuff I don't want.  Big ass and difficult to use touchscreens would be something I would delete if the option was available. 

[SectorZ]

Gizmodo is conflating that all infotainment systems are touchscreens (mostly because they suck at properly reporting things).

I love Mazda's system, a screen I can't touch and I control either thru voice or controls on the steering wheel or near the shifter. The only problem with that is how bad Siri has become over its 13 years of existence, but that's not any auto manufacturer's fault, that's on Apple.

The Tesla and now GM nonsense of walling basic functions into the infotainment system is rightly facing backlash, but most companies actually drive their product and realize that idea should not happen.

[SEWIGuy]

Yeah my Optima has a touchscreen for the entertainment system, but also voice activation and buttons on the steering wheel. Haptic controls for everything else. It's great.

[1995hoo]

When I've rented Teslas from Hertz, I found it very frustrating to have to use the touchscreen to control the radio because I had no idea what the local stations were and there was no readily apparent way to scan them until I found one that played the sort of music I liked (I suppose I could have asked my relatives who live in that area, or perhaps done a Google search when I wasn't driving, but both of those options underscore the problem). There's probably some voice-control command you're expected to use, but someone who isn't an experienced owner has no ready way to know what that is.

[formulanone]

I love Mazda's system, a screen I can't touch and I control either thru voice or controls on the steering wheel or near the shifter. The only problem with that is how bad Siri has become over its 13 years of existence, but that's not any auto manufacturer's fault, that's on Apple.

We have a Mazda CX-50, and there's an option in Settings to enable the touch screen. Unfortunately the screen is set back far enough upon the dashboard that touching the panel effectively means coming too a halt. Might depend on the model year, though. That's been my frustration when renting the 3 and CX-5.

Honestly, very few of the variety of cars I rent are that much trouble to figure out after a few moments to days of driving. They probably just found the loudest Luddite for their story.

The actual scrap heap is when these bespoke tablets die out after 5-10 years and control many different functions. Some vehicles multiple ways to input controls like climate control but there's probably many others that will cease to function without buying a new one...that is, if the part doesn't go into permanent obsolescence a dozen year later.