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GRINDING GEARS: Touch screen overload takes eyes off road

Finally, the Tesla Model 3 is beginning to roll out to customers outside the circle of Tesla employees.
touch screen
Nearly every new car comes with a touch screen these days, which can be helpful but can also lead to distracted driving, writes columnist Brendan McAleer. photo Lisa King, North Shore News

Finally, the Tesla Model 3 is beginning to roll out to customers outside the circle of Tesla employees.

As a result, several cars have made their way into the hands of independent critics, including Alex Roy, who drove one across the country from Los Angeles to New York in 50 hours.

Now, Alex is a bit of a lovable nutcase, and I wouldn’t really recommend trying to set your own long-distance EV speed records. However, the trip does prove that the Model 3 isn’t vapourware, that it functions reasonably well, and that most of the owners who are waiting excitedly for them will be fairly pleased.

Roy noted that the Model 3 he used had acceptable build quality, something that’s been difficult for Tesla to get consistently right, and a simple interior design laid out around a huge touch screen display, which handled most of the controls, including the wiper. His complaints? Mostly to do with the interface for the driver-assist functions, and the screen controls.

Happily, Tesla will be able to fix most of the issues with over-the-air updates, something the company does that you wish the rest of the industry would do. Here’s the bigger issue, however, and it’s not one limited to Tesla: the Model 3’s huge touch screen is designed by and for people who are used to using screens for most aspects of their life. It’s made for people who use smartphones and tablets every day.

So are the interiors of most modern cars, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes the company will use a pair of screens, as Acura does, sometimes they’ll use one large screen, or a smaller one backed up by conventional knobs. The problem with all these systems? To operate them, you have to take your eyes off the road.

Let’s go back to the Model 3 for a moment, and note its most egregious problem. Because the wiper controls are now a menu item rather than a stalk, changing the speed while driving requires a glance to the right. And perhaps more than a glance.

We know what happens when you get distracted by your phone when you’re driving, right? Maybe you get a ticket, maybe you get in a collision. It’s the current scourge of modern driving, and it appears to be getting worse.

Yet sometimes, the blame isn’t on the driver alone, but on the car company who – seeking to dazzle with gizmos at the dealership – doesn’t factor ease-of-use into the controls for the stereo or air-conditioning. Big, bright touchscreens are attractive. They look fresh and modern. And yes, they’re sometimes better than having a graphing calculator’s worth of buttons to sort through (Porsche, I’m talking to you here).

However, screens are also distracting, and when it comes to distraction on the road, the consequences can be severe.

Not all that long ago, optioning a car with navigation was the only way to get a screen in your dashboard. Remember the standard-size DIN panel, and the way the aftermarket stereo industry used to be vibrant? Once manufacturers started moving away from standardized sizes and distributed stereo controls, that mostly stopped.

Now, even a basic car will have screens for some functions. With multiple driving modes now also common for everything from BMW to Honda, those controls must be incorporated somewhere. Automakers apparently believe that we would like to see where the power is flowing from on our hybrids, or track our fuel economy over time in our vans, or watch how many Gs we’re pulling in a corner in our sports cars. We are overloaded with information.

We don’t need half of it, especially as we did perfectly well without for years. Almost everything needed can fit on a very simple heads-up display, including speed, which direction to turn if you’re using navigation, and perhaps fuel or charge remaining.

The good news is that the designers seem mostly to be getting better at this sort of thing. As an example, the new Honda Accord does have a large touchscreen, but everything from temperature to radio tuning can be done with a knob – you don’t have to look away from the road to turn down the heat.

Further, the Accord’s touch screen is mounted very high up, so it’s a flick of your eyes to the right, rather than having to move your whole head. Honda refers to their system as low-demand, which is the ideal any interior designer should be striving toward. Using your car’s controls should be as simple as possible, so you can use most of your brain power to judge safe speed, distance, and watch for the unexpected.

The problem is, I fear, that enthusiasm for a coming age of autonomous driving is going to have manufacturers pushing ever-larger screens into our cars for the foreseeable future. They want to treat us like unruly children in the back of a minivan, pacified with an episode of Paw Patrol.

Well, autonomous cars aren’t here yet, and they’re not going to be the rule for decades to come. We need fewer things in our cars, not added complexity to make up for drivers who can’t or won’t pay attention. We certainly don’t need to fiddle around with a glorified iPad to change our wiper settings.

Huge screens in cars will be perfectly fine once the steering wheel disappears. Until then, turn off the touchscreen and tune in to the road.

Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and automotive enthusiast. If you have a suggestion for a column, or would be interested in having your car club featured, please contact him at mcaleeronwheels@gmail.com. Follow Brendan on Twitter: @brendan_mcaleer.