Have you driven a new car lately and wondered exactly why in the world someone decided a certain piece of tech belonged in it? It turns out that you’re not the only one, and we’re beginning to see some of this tech slowly leave cars. This also applies to Ram, which is now realizing that passenger dashboard screens might have been a mistake.
Last week, I had a hectic period of about 24 hours when I hustled with a bunch of other journalists and YouTubers to drive all of Ram’s hot new Heavy Duty trucks. Out there in the warm desert, I learned that Ram absolutely hit these trucks out of the park. Ram’s newest heavy pickup trucks make towing so easy and so comfortable that your grandma can do it and feel confident.
These trucks are also packed with fresh technology, too. You can drive one of these things with a 19,500-pound tractor hooked to the bed while the radar cruise control still works just fine. These trucks will help you back a trailer, see past the super-high hood, and immerse you in heavy bass tracks while cooling your tush from your leather throne.
It’s incredible how far vehicle technology has come, but some of it has felt unnecessary. One of Ram’s tech features is the availability of a 10.25-inch infotainment display just for your front seat passenger. Your passenger can use this screen to watch a movie or play games through HDMI, set navigation, play music, or play around with the truck’s cameras.
That sounds pretty cool and all, but do you really need it? Automakers are finding out that the answer might be no.
No Buttons For You
Ram isn’t the only automaker jamming arguably too much technology in vehicles. Back in 2021, I had the privilege of being one of the first to test out the then-new Volkswagen ID.4 AWD. I’m one of the few people who actually love the ID.4 AWD, but there was something that really bothered me about it.
For several decades, cars have had really simple ways to manipulate the controls for their HVAC systems, audio systems, and other vehicle features. But now everyone seems to be obsessed with minimalism. Volkswagen began ditching buttons for touch capacitive sliders and options behind menus on its screens. The brand even fussed with its steering wheels, replacing perfectly functional buttons with more touch capacitive pieces. Admittedly, the touch stuff in itself wasn’t too bad, but then VW neglected to give these pieces backlighting. Nobody wants to turn on a cabin light just to adjust temperature, Volkswagen.
If you visit a Volkswagen forum, you’ll find some bickering about this. While some people don’t mind the capacitive buttons, others hate how they accidentally hit the touch capacitive steering wheel buttons while turning or how they have to physically look at a control to hit it with their finger because Volkswagen decided to put the headlight switch onto a button bank rather than a dial or stalk.
Keep in mind that Volkswagen has also tried eliminating rear window switches on the driver door. Instead, you have just two switches and once again another touch capacitive switch to turn on the rear windows.
I know I’m beating on Volkswagen a lot here, but this has been a thing across lots of automakers. Tesla is infamously allergic to buttons and putting basically everything behind a central screen. BMW and Hyundai also leaned heavily on deleting buttons and putting their functions behind screens. [Ed Note: And Tesla is pretty bad about this, too, with the Cybertruck turn signal switches being the worst of any mainstream car IMO. –DT].
Who Asked For This?
But then you just have even more arguably useless features. Late last year, I flew out to France to test the new Audi S5 and found that car to be laden with tech that I wonder how many people actually use. Some of the new tech was legitimately cool, like the headlights and taillights that were basically super bright displays. Then, the lack of buttons reared their ugly head again. The worst of all was the passenger screen. It has a similar list of functions like the passenger screen that you get in a Ram truck, but I often wondered who, exactly, was it for?
It was fun to play with for a few minutes, but then I took note that I was still holding my phone while I was fiddling with the passenger screen. What’s stopping me from just using my phone for entertainment as I have regularly since I bought an iPhone 4 back in 2012? It’s not like the screen does anything my phone doesn’t.
This doesn’t even get into how pointless native operating systems tend to be inside car infotainment systems. Most people will immediately turn on Android Auto or Apple CarPlay while fewer people like myself will still use old-school Bluetooth. Do you even know all of the different apps your car’s infotainment system has? The last time I used a Ford infotainment system, its keyboard defaulted to alphabetical order rather than qwerty. Sure, that’s minor, but minor annoyances add up! Now we have Stellantis products that glitched out with pop-ups and BMWs with subscription-based physical options.
My least favorite automotive development has to be always-illuminated dashboard (i.e. gauge cluster displays that require backlighting always). I’ve lost count of how many cars I’ve seen driving around with their lights off, but their drivers were probably blissfully unaware because their dashboards were lit up like a Christmas tree. Sure, there’s a little green indicator to tell you that your lights are on, but that’s clearly not enough. [Ed Note: Also DRLs have become really bright making it seem like headlights are on when they’re not. The result: Loads of cars driving around at night with no taillights!-DT].
I won’t even get into voice or gesture controls, but I think you get my point. There’s a lot of unnecessary technology in cars today and few drivers are happy about it. Reportedly, JD Power has noticed that your satisfaction with tech has gone down and so have automakers.
[Ed Note: I just want to jump in here and note that I recently drove an updated Rivian R1T and R1S, and their over-use of tech — like idiotic electric vents, electric center console lid latch, and electric door latches — actually made them feel dated. These once-charmingly gadgety features now just feel old to me. -DT]
Volkswagen Gives Back Buttons
A couple of weeks ago, Autocar released a bombshell of a report seeming to suggest that Volkswagen regrets taking your buttons away. Now, the company is running back to buttons. VW design chief Andreas Mindt said, via Autocar:
“We will never, ever make this mistake any more. On the steering wheel, we will have physical buttons. No guessing any more. There’s feedback, it’s real, and people love this. Honestly, it’s a car. It’s not a phone: it’s a car.”
Ram’s Passenger Screen Is Lacking Fans
During the Ram trip, I spoke with Doug Killian, Chief Vehicle Synthesis Engineer, during a nice press dinner. Our conversation was more casual. I love seeing what engineers do in their jobs and what gets them excited. Killian was refreshingly honest, admitting that not everything is a home run. In our conversation, he noted that Ram might have discovered that passenger screens are a piece of unnecessary technology.
Ram found out from its customers that few people actually use the passenger screen. As I noted before, everyone is carrying around a phone nowadays, so a dashboard screen for the passenger is quite redundant.
Ram found out that a passenger screen might not be as useful as putting screens in the backseat. Most of the time, the passengers in the rear of the vehicle will be kids who will want to use those screens for movies and games. However, the person sitting up front will likely be an adult who already has a phone.
Another journalist at the event noted another problem. Some adults, and this includes me, sometimes get carsick when trying to operate one of these passenger screens. In my case, there’s even a 50/50 chance I’ll get sick using my phone as a passenger in a car. So, if you’re an automaker like Ram, you have a set of people who have no need to use the screen because they have a phone and other people who won’t use the screen because they don’t want to barf.
Ram also found that some people would rather just have another place for storage rather than another screen. In Ram trucks without the passenger screen, that part of the dashboard opens up to become a handy place to store sunglasses, lip balm, sunscreen, and other daily items that you don’t want to shove into a glovebox. This legitimately useful space gets lost to become that screen that apparently a number of people don’t like.
Nothing is set in stone yet, but Killian says Ram might explore options on what to do about the screen. Perhaps we might not see the screen in future trucks or maybe customers will get an easy choice. Want a Longhorn but not the passenger screen it comes with? Maybe that’ll be an option in the future. For now, Ram is aware that the screen seemingly has few fans and that the screen might have been unnecessary. It seems like more research will be needed.
Either way, these recent events are signaling that automakers are becoming aware that there might be a thing as too much tech. It’s seriously awesome what the cars of today are capable of, but maybe cars should be cars and smartphones might be smartphones. Maybe we’ll begin to see more automakers realizing that sometimes simpler really is better. Sometimes, if it’s not broken maybe it really doesn’t need to be fixed.
I feel this way increasingly but I guess I just chalked it up to becoming more cynical, and maybe I am. I don’t want all the tech interfering distracting and tracking me. Realistically the highest tech I “need” in my car is a Bluetooth connection to my phone. I’ve decided that I’m going backwards and just going to get a 90s or 2000s car with a double din slot. I can put whatever infotainment I want in it and be done. This will be the strategy for my next car and for the foreseeable future.
Where there is a screen, there is an opportunity to flood you with meaningless ads as well.
Since smartphones became a thing, other companies have been trying to put themselves in between you and the features they offer.
I remember when navigation became a thing on early Windows Mobile phones. Verizon tried disabling it and make you use their navigation app for a monthly fee. Obviously that didn’t last, and there were workarounds at the time to bring back the “free” option.
Now we have modern smartphones that are supercomputers relative to those early products, and car manufacturers are desperate to find a niche where they can insert themselves as a gatekeeper of some feature for a price. So enter second passenger screens, their own app stores, etc.
They know everyone just wants a mirror of their iPhone on the screen, and the passenger already has a 6″ screen (or maybe even an iPad) in their hand. But that makes zero dollars for Dodge, GM, etc. So they try something I guess.
I hate GM removing the headlight switch that they used between 2017 and 2023 or so. Always on Auto by default and quickly you could turn the switch to parking lights only if you were behind a small car to stop blinding them at least at the stop light. Now I have to tap on a screen that the steering wheel is hiding the visibility of that function all the time, and its a two step process.
Button ergonomics were solved in the 60s and 70s.
Sony advanced layout designs on video equipment later, with designs you could operate in the dark.
My best recorder was so good setting the timer was actually fun.
With a true ball bearing jog dial, I could program timer events in seconds.
Hard to believe now how good they were.
I had a turntable that had conductive switches that lit up when operated.
The only device that should have zero physical feel to the on off controls.
I hate touch screens including smart phones because I can never forget they are design fails.
My all mechanical Cummins has an added switch that controls the compressor, essentially a defeat for the auto selection in HVAC.
My friends use Cummins exclusively in their business and hate the new controls.
I’m looking at adding rear cameras, and looking closely at film production monitors, but open to ideas.
Re passenger screens, I saw British police cars with separate mirrors for the passenger seat.
This always seemed useful and brilliant to me.
Sometimes having a passenger able to see what’s going on seems useful.
The radio in my low mileage Camry is junk because the volume control failed, apparently like all of them now, yet the radio in my 1994 Corolla soldiers on.
The gee whiz digital media Kenwood in my Dodge is so bad I still can’t remember how to operate it after years.
I only try to use the radio, and often can’t without the manual. It will be scrapped.
If you suspect I am technology averse, my home audio includes a mixing board and patch bay.
And I just spent minutes making a minor edit on this screen.
Bad technology is rage inducing.
There are no excuses!