Dumb cars, or at least analog controls for most of the dash, are being recommended by every safety devision because smart cars have been on the road long enough now to prove that they’re a legitimate danger. Turns out taking your eyes off the road in order to fuddle with the AC is a legitimate safety concern. Who woulda guessed.
Manufacturers may try to fight this, but if it becomes a class-action lawsuit, it would be a pretty clear cut case. Especially since most countries in Europe will require analog due to these safety standards being implemented, it’d be cheaper to just give every model analog controls.
The weirdest thing for me is that it’s possible to have climate controls permanently available on touchscreens to avoid having to dig into menus; and yet only like a handful of cars do that. If you’re going to remove the physical switches; at least make sure there’s a way for me to adjust the temperature without fumbling through menus
My car (Renault Megane 4) does this to some extent, they're always available from a menu that slides up from the bottom with a single touch and you can also pin the most relevant ones (fan speed and output vents) on the front screen.
The defrost and recirc functions also have a physical button and the temperature has a physical scroll wheel.
This is still bad because if the screen breaks you can never ever change the vents settings again or even see what the temperature is set to, but it's better than nothing I guess.
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u/waytowill 13h ago
Dumb cars, or at least analog controls for most of the dash, are being recommended by every safety devision because smart cars have been on the road long enough now to prove that they’re a legitimate danger. Turns out taking your eyes off the road in order to fuddle with the AC is a legitimate safety concern. Who woulda guessed.
Manufacturers may try to fight this, but if it becomes a class-action lawsuit, it would be a pretty clear cut case. Especially since most countries in Europe will require analog due to these safety standards being implemented, it’d be cheaper to just give every model analog controls.