For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, with most of the ire directed toward in-car infotainment.
I absolutely refuse to buy a car where the only thing in the dash is a single big touchscreen. This is a really cheap and lazy way to design a car. It’s not fancy or futuristic. It’s turning an engineering problem into a cheap software problem.
If electric vehicles 10 years from now don’t re-engineer buttons, dials and knobs into their cars I am just going to walk 30 miles every day.
The touchscreens are cheaper, that’s the main reason they are becoming common. Honda has already realized they are an issue, and has been going back to physical buttons.
The horrifying part is that often physical buttons are mere affectations now anyway, and instead everything is still controlled by the central computer system. Like I was comparing Hondas to Subarus and while the latter had physical buttons where the former had touchscreens, whenever the computer is busy then e.g. the volume knob still gets entirely ignored. I still like it better, but it is not really better, instead it just “looks different”.
As far as I’m concerned the man point is tactile feedback. I don’t want to have to take my eyes off the road to switch between screens and find the right menu item to turn on the AC while I’m driving.
Mazda has had it figured out in my opinion for years with their dial setup. Most of the important stuff is on the wheel itself, but you can control the entire center console with an easy scroll dial and like 4 buttons surrounding it, and all the traditional stuff has physical buttons right near it. Their cars have other drawbacks, but the interior design just makes sense to me.
Driven a few Mazda 3’s and the wheel / button placement is great. Lots of things within fingers reach. One thing I’m not keen on is the sports mode button, that should totally be on the steering wheel, where right now it’s on the middle dashboard.
I guess the idea is you want people to think about switching this mode on/off so it disincentives them doing it all the time maybe?
Another bump for Mazda. Their recent engines are phenomenal as well. Really well made naturally aspirated 4 cylinder with a normal 6 speed automatic. They drive fantastic and feel very well engineered. No more cheap ford parts. Best bang for your buck right now in my opinion.
The Mazda system was a complete deal breaker for me. You have to locate the hotspot on the screen, then fiddle with the knob to get it over the right spot, then select. Way more aggravating than a touch screen.
If you use Carplay or Android Auto, it reverts to a touch screen anyway. The whole system was a muddle.
Lexus and Audi have both dropped their puck controllers due to customer feedback.
I don’t even want my entertainment that way. At least let me control the volume via a physical button.
Personally I don’t want the screen at all.
