this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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Sorry, I know this is controversial and I'll probably get down voted to hell, but I love my model Y Tesla and I think the full self driving is amazing (I didn't pay for it, there's a free trial this month). Musk is an idiot and an asshole but there's a lot more people working at Tesla that made some amazing vehicles.
Just to be clear, "Full Self Driving" is the marketing name for the product. You are instructed to keep your hands on the wheel at all times and Tesla accepts no responsibility at all if it screws up (unlike Mercedes, who takes responsibility for their level 3 autonomous driving service).
And for other people who happen to read this, the only reason Tesla may seem ahead with their technology is that they just don't care about safety. Tesla won't have a safe product until they actually accept responsibility for their product's failings.
Their infotainment system and app are pretty great compared to some other brands.
I'm currently driving a VW id5 and it's like they've never designed any kind of software interfaces at all. Example:
Not to hate on VW engineers but goddamnit guys. Get your shit together and hire a UX expert. Shortly drove a BMW 1 series before the VW and the infotainment was a lot more practical to use.
I really don't get why automotive electronics makers are allergic to having a proper UX team, other than no one else in the industry has one either so it's not a competitive disadvantage.
My suspicion is that it's because the shots are called by people who worked their way up doing automotive electronics. As in the microcontrollers inside of engine control units. So UX is kinda foreign.
which is hilarious because they're pushing us to touch screens when these devs all grew up on physical interfaces, you know, the ones that worked? goddamn give me switches and knobs any day over touch screens
As best I can tell, the touchscreen is added at the concept phase by folks who mostly know what's going to make people look at the car and want to buy it, several years before the car hits the market and well before the actual car electronics teams are involved.
So, yeah, car UI/UX sucks right now because we're seeing all of the things added to cars a few years ago in response to Tesla and implemented by people who think that just because they programmed a random car-focused microcontroller back in the day that this means that they understand all of the layers involved in a modern Linux or Android or Windows embedded car electronics unit including layer 8 of the OSI stack (meaning: interfacing with humans)
But, yah, dono. I don't actually have my own car. My spouse got a Mazda a bunch of years ago now and it has actually a pretty good touchscreen interface with physical controls such that if you want to dig into stuff, you can touchscreen but all of the common stuff is switches and knobs. The generation before that had way way too many buttons and it was just gag-me-with-a-spoon. The generation after that removed the touchscreen because the leadership at Mazda decided people were just not to be trusted with a touchscreen and I feel like they went a little too far in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, in airplane cockpit design, they put great pains into having you be able to navigate by touch where necessary such that all of the knobs are differently textured or shaped. And, as I said, I don't actually have my own car, but I have to say that if I did have a car, I'd want it to be designed like that.