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Comment by dingusdew | Hacker News Reader

And here I just want an electric car with manual roll-up windows.

We skipped the analog part of electric cars and went straight to digital. As pretty as the touchscreens are, I want buttons and knobs.

Every car has a screen now because California mandated back up cameras in new cars. It's bad business not to turn that thing into a touch screen and move controls to it.

Is the addition of a touch element to an LCD really that much cheaper than plastic buttons and knobs?

The thing is that if you're going to put a video screen of any size (not sure what the actual backup camera requirements are), you're going to use it as a navigation system--probably with Apple Play or Google Play--which is probably going to be a non-negotiable requirement for a lot of people at that point so it's going to be a touch screen anyway. And that means a lot of buttons are going to just be additional cost at that point.

I agree manufacturers don't have to dispense with most buttons because they can. My Honda Passport actually strikes a pretty good balance. It would also be nice to have better voice control but that's been a hard problem with voice assistants generally.

This was exactly my point. I didn't mean to sound like I was happy with it but the lack of buttons is directly related to the presence of touch screens which is a result of the requirement to have the back up camera. I don't think the CA regulators would take back that requirement but you can definitely file this under "unintended consequences".

In my last vehicle, I definitely chose one that had more buttons/dials than some of my other choices and it was a surprisingly high priority.

I'm not sure that the rules don't still allow the backup camera to display on the rearview mirror. (Don't see anything definitive on this.) In any case, most consumers really want an in-dash nav display (and other infotainment) at this point.

But the backup camera requirement may have nudged things along a bit.

> But the backup camera requirement may have nudged things along a bit.

It _definitely_ had a major effect on the low end vehicles. It raised the floor more than it changed the ceiling.

The navigation system on some cars are so atrocious. Impressively slow and inputting addresses can be a huge pain. I feel like a Raspberry Pi would have an order of magnitude better performance on many cars I have seen.

I haven't bought a car recently so I don't know what the landscape looks like, but I would think that even offering the possibility of a customization to have a more analog dashboard would be profitable. Even if you stick it behind a $1k upcharge I think you would see a surprising number of people opt for it. Doesn't need to replace the digital touchscreen in all cases necessarily, just be a secondary control mechanism.

Of course I'm sure we would run into situations where the analog buttons are an interface to the digital control system, so if the digital part is slow, some people might try to navigate using analog buttons too quickly. The digital interface hides that detail by design, if the menu isn't yet loaded, neither are the buttons you can click.

Car Play (and I assume Google Play) is a real game-changer. I understand Tesla's system is pretty good but any manufacturer system I tried to use in a rental car was awful.

I think most people are OK with a backup camera as it's a purely visual aid (an output), but putting actual controls of any sort (an input) on a touch screen in a vehicle is a terrible idea.

They need backup cameras because they have lost all the glass so they can pass the crash tests against the other 2,000-lb landwhales who also can't see them.

My number "2,000 lbs" was way off. That's the weight of a Fiat Panda. For another data point, the Hummer H2 is 6,000 lbs. Maybe I was thinking of kilogram figures? Anyway, you get my point.

For the first time in history you could have 800 VDC automatic windows and you’re just abandoning the opportunity?

Maybe not literally -- I'd take power windows and AC, that's it -- but I agree with your point.

Really, what dumbfuck decided that, because they're both "electronics", an electric car needs to be an iPad on wheels? Or that this concept is linked in some way with ADAS systems?

I listen to VW execs talking about how "EVs are software". Are they? Says who?

It's a fucking battery, a motor, a big-ass Buck/boost converter, and, in Tesla's case -- this element of complexity is legitimately good -- a heat pump. To exaggerate only slightly, I see no reason why any low-voltage ICs more complicated than an LM555 should be needed.

Chip shortage? We need high-performance MOSFETS, yeah, but the controller could come from a technology node circa 1979.

And then the insides are all "luxury". Everything comes with leather seats (which crack) and fancy interiors. No!! There is nothing wrong with the inside of a Camry. Give me that.

I thought Tesla started with a Lotus. Talk about bare-bones. What the hell happened?

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