Import some commies, they know how to build good public transport.
the EU is already passing legislation to require core functionality isn't hidden behind a touch screen.
good public transit is more likely to happen and I'd put my money on subscription based self driving taxis.
subscription based self driving taxis
Can't wait until the Lime Scooter can travel 80 mph
Yeah i have hated it for years My personal car is old and has buttons for everything but still a touch screen if I want it.
My work car is like dealing with an ipad to change the volume etc. It's not safe
Touch screen steering is surely coming.
It will save the corporations tons of money not having to manufacture a steering wheel.
They'll sell it as a "high tech feature" and use it as an excuse why the car is more expensive than last year
Surely having a physical steering wheel is a requirement otherwise they'd have already innovated with driving solutions before now.
Oh, there have been attempts. Joystick controls, for example, in Mercedes concepts (F 200, SL R129 Concept, Vario Research car), or in actual farming vehicles. Recently, several automakers tried yokes. For now wheel is the cheapest (and simplest) way to make a car steer, we'll see some funky shapes probably.
edit: also if steer-by-wire takes off, I imagine physical steering linkage would still be required. In that case it wouldn't save money.
Not every car is a piece of shit. Mine has a touch screen for configuring parameters I honestly don't think you need a dedicated button for, like "lane drift alert volume" and those can only be done when the car is parked.
Everything else either has a button as well even if they had to dig deep into the plausible locations to get there, like "press the button on the end of the turn signal to disable lane centering while adaptive cruise enabled", or it only allows voice communication while in motion, like the typing based commands for navigation.I think the only time I've wanted to use a setting that didn't have a button was when I was on a stretch of freeway in traffic where I didn't feel keen on pulling over if I could avoid it, and I got gunk on one of the radar sensors. Since it couldn't get a coherent reading it refused to turn on cruise control since it was set to adaptive. I had to drive without cruise control for a while until I pulled into a gas station and was able to clean the gunk. The setting to disable adaptive cruise control was touchscreen only, and locked out when the vehicle was moving.
So I get what you're saying but at least from my point of view that's still too much unnecessary shit, mind you I think cup holders are optional but hear me out. The problem isn't the touch screen per-se it's everything else reliant on it cruise control, lane assist, and back up cams are all either unnecessary or in the case of the back up cams a failure of design. All a lot of folks want is a basic as shit car where the most complex thing inside of it is the door ajar light.
In many ways cars are too computerized they have so many points of failure that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we see a generation or two being bricked because of another capacitor or CPU plague. That's also not getting into their shitty interiors, I fucking hate my grandmother's car but maybe Ford in particular is bad. Point is they have too much shit going on maintenance wise and frankly speaking lots of folks just want what amounts to a 2001 era car, enough electronics for maintenance while still being relatively easy to repair and replace hell for backup cams you could even have a cool popup screen.
But maybe I'm just a biased asshole who is a borderline luddite and only has really driven cars from the early 90s to 01, point is I will labatomize any new car if I am somehow forced to use one.
everything else reliant on it cruise control, lane assist,
That's stuff's on buttons in many, many cars.
back up cams are all either unnecessary
They really aren't. With thicker pillars (for better safety, but also sometimes for design purposes) the more cameras you have - the better.
You can still buy incredibly simple cars, just look at PSA, Dacia/Renault basic models or Fiats that have been in production for years. Hell, Mitsubishi ASX turns 15 and all they did was stick a big screen for a radio. Suzuki S-cross imo is the sweet spot, a small screen for 2 functions (radio/phone audio, camera) and physical controls for the rest.
Or just don't buy new cars. I think you'd like VW Up, big selling point of it was the lack of a navigation system because they get outdated so quickly, so instead there's just a nav holder.
So buy a car without those things, or don't use them. It's not like you can't drive my car without those things, and every one of them, barring the camera for obvious reasons, is controlled by a physical button. Better yet just don't drive. If more people took public transportation we'd be better off.
I don't particularly want to drive. When I do, I'd prefer to have climate control, not need to crank a window, and for the car to be able to tell me someone is going to clip me when I'm backing up. No matter how small the support bars are, the driver will never have as good a view as the radar sensor mounted on the side of the rear bumper.
Backup cams aren't a solution to a design that limits visibility, they're a solution to "most people won't turn their heads when backing up". People like their necks more than they like their neighbors kids.
It's one thing to say that you want a no-frills car, and another entirely to say that car design peaked 30 years ago, and even further than that if you want a car that isn't impacted by electronic component failure.
