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.
Modal controls? You must be kidding.
That is exactly what I want (not), a nice convenient button that does something, but you’re never quite sure what unless you try to read a bunch of obscure stuff on the dashboard.
The whole point of having physical controls in a car is not to look at them.
The Ram still has the pedestrian-murdering hood, so.
On the subject of electric vents: early 80s Mazdas like the 626 had a button that would swing the centre dash vents back and forth. Loved it on my old one, even though it was a bit noisy. I believe they were dumped in the early 90s due to cost cutting with nearly all Japanese makers.
Canada now has a law that dashboards cannot be lit up unless the headlights/taillights are fully on. So many people just don’t pay attention to that auto setting.
The other issue is in the rain or fog, auto lights aren’t coming on, leaving it to the often ignorant driver to turn them on manually.
My Benz with auto wipers used to always prompt the headlights/taillights lights to turn on automatically when the windshield detected rain.
As far as the NHTSA, maybe Trump can help?? ????
On my 2010 Prius the only way to get the dashboard lights to turn off is by turning the headlights on. Actually there is no dashboard, just a reflection of an ELD, so the dashboard only exists as lights. Turn the headlights on, and you can turn the dashboard off.
I like to turn it off, if I need to know how fast I’m going or where I am, I can look out the window.
Most recent cars I have seen, if the dashboard is not lit up, there is no dashboard.
Everything’s computer
I don’t really understand how anyone in a late model vehicle could leave their lights off. I think the vast majority have an “automatic” setting. You’re okay as long as you remember to check the setting after detailing your car or going to Jiffy Lube or whatever. Yet, I see them. Also, people with screens and phone connectivity using phone holders instead.
Let’s not forget these same people with phone connectivity holding their phone and talking on speaker, as opposed to….uh….using Bluetooth that’s been fairly standard for over a decade now.
Cammisa called much of this 3 years ago. I’m starting to think about a new Golf R, but there’s no chance I’ll trade in my Mk7 on a Mk8. If VW doesn’t get a Mk8.5, with buttons, on the street soonish they’ll lose me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGbPHp6QfkQ
The only use I could see would be letting the passenger update the navigation system.
I have said for years that there should be a button on the passenger door that enables making changes to the navigation while under motion. It could be a simple momentary button that’s out of reach of the driver, but easy to hold for the passenger.
Good idea!
Controls that require precise finger jabs can be a real problem for those of us with a hand or finger tremor. A large percentage of the population will face this issue as they age. Let’s get back to the days of being able to find and operate everything with eyes closed – I believe an early aircraft design objective.
Ooh, I hadn’t even considered that. I really like the double glove box, and losing half of it would piss me off even more than paying for this useless feature.
It’s such a weird choice, as by all appearances it seems like the screen could have easily been the door for the upper glovebox. I’m sure this was considered at some point but probably nixed in favor of some sort of packaging constraint, but jeesh what a missed opportunity.
A major reason the wife picked a XT4 over a XT5 was because it didn’t have those god-awful capacitive buttons on a finger-smudge attracting glossy black center stack.
If it weren’t for that alone I’m fairly positive she’d have gone with the slightly larger SUV so she could have a V6.
Hit a cord here.
I for one cannot wait for some automaker (Mazda?) to push out a car with an analog user interface with the tag line “Just Drive”.
Audi used to have a feature that you could hit a button and the screen would disappear into the dash…I loved this. These screens are a real distraction and especially annoying at night. At least my current Audi allows me to turn the screen completely off and select an analog look-alike dash behind the steering wheel.
Modern Mazdas do not let you use their infotainment system via touch. Sure, if you connect Android Auto or Carplay, the screen is touch sensitive, but the screen is just far enough away to make it uncomfortable to touch often, and the native stuff can only be controlled with a tactile knobs and buttons in the center console.
Since the CX-5 launch 15ish years ago, they’ve had that knob AND the screen was touchable, but in most of the cars since 2020, it’s knob only.
I give major credit to Mazda on this – they are shirking the pressure of the market to cave, as they’ve repeatedly said it’s less safe to have all these touch controls. Slowly but surely, people are coming around and starting to say Mazda’s system is nice once you’ve actually been living with the car and realize it’s not so bad to use a physical controller for the majority of functions. I’m in this camp, although I’m a little biased as I worked for a Mazda service department when Mazda Connect first launched, and enjoyed it from the get-go (it felt like a better implementation of iDrive to me).
Also, it means you can use Android Auto or Apple CarPlay via knob, which I actually enjoy. They’re fairly simple layouts and most things can be done easily and quickly without having to wave your hand around.
Chord! 🙂
A minor?
She said she was MY 2007, I swear!
You are correct! Thank you sir.
I believe you’re missing the point of the Ram passenger screen. It’s a sly way to allow the driver to watch YouTube videos or Netflix when not too busy texting.
The passenger screen has a somewhat narrow viewing angle to prevent just that from occurring. 🙂 Well, unless the driver sits in the passenger seat, anyway.
I fault Lexus for the driving with only DRLs and no headlights on at night. They started the always fully lit, no differentiation instrument panel in 1990 and everyone else followed.
And Honda does the green light that should indicate headlight use wrongly: it shows up when just the parking lights/sidelights are lit.
I don’t understand why NHTSA allows it. In the winter, on my 25-mile commute home, every night I come up behind at least two cars driving in the dark with no rear marker lights. I have yet to find a useful way to signal these drivers, who are exactly the ones who have no idea what I could possibly mean. Probably going to get shot.
My Mazdas won’t let me turn the lights off at all if it’s dark out. Not against that but when I see those people driving with no lights on, it makes it hard to flash them as just flashing the high beams doesn’t seem to get the point across anymore with the regular low beams being as bright as they are
Man, my wife’s newish CX-50 drives me crazy with that shit. I need to be able to turn off the lights sometimes! But if the car is moving at all, no, Mazda knows better. Don’t even get me started on the god damned electric parking brake.
I really don’t understand what was so bad about having a handle for the parking brake. Not just a Mazda problem obviously but c’mon now don’t make things harder than they need to be
The biggest reason why tech integration in cars sucks is because of the tiered supplier system. The “ideal” implementation of most (not all) of these systems is good in theory, but user experience is basically a 1000 details wrapped into 1 package. When the development of these systems is farmed out to bunch of third parties with their own separate incentives outside of producing a good car, the wholistic vision of the product experience suffers. From the software side specifically, each component is speaking a slightly different dialect and when you multiply that by the number of parameters these systems control, you have to severely limit the functionality to make the feature even work.
This is why the car companies with the best tech integrations (Tesla, Rivian, Xiaomi, many of the Chinese OEMs) and the most vertically integrated.
This isn’t necessarily true, though. Let’s take Toyota and Lexus – their Toyota Connected software team is internal, it isn’t farmed out. The only instance of this where I can see your point being true is vehicles with Android Automotive (not Android Auto) that then have a manufacturer skin over it. That is a very, very small subset of manufacturers (previously only Volvo and Polestar, but now the newer GM products due to launch).
I bet this article made some auto engineers’ days. If you think you hate stuff like this, imagine what the poor guys & gals who design, develop and test this sh*t think of it
We’re a jaded bunch and I’m only on the program managment side of the engineering 😛
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: we don’t need much more than hot/cold and loud/quiet. Okay, those things also need an on/off, and maybe a skip track on the loud/quiet machine. But that is STILL only 4 buttons and 2 sliders. I will be accepting no late submissions or function creep. No sir. 4 buttons and 2 sliders.
“Fell in love with a girl, I fell in love once and almost completely…”
[Deep cut]
Are you saying the hardest button to button is one that doesn’t exist?
You have made a man in a boat very angry.
Can we get an article about which cars have the ideal level of technology?
I have a 2023 chevy bolt. In my opinion, it has the ideal amount of technology, including a 10″ touchscreen and physical buttons for the most frequently used functions. It has apple carplay and android auto, and a mechanical gauge cluster with a small screen. There are quite a few “touch screen only” buttons, but they are for less frequently used functions for audio, hvac, and info systems. Overall, I think it strikes a nice balance between sleek and functional.
My only real qualm is that the PNDRL are on the center console. If they were on a stalk or the dash, it would free up come console space. Also I wish I had sprung for the wireless charging pad.
Current gen Toyota Siennas (and other Toyota models I’m sure, I’m just most familiar with the minivan) strike a similarly good balance. The last couple Mazdas I’ve been in have been quite good too. I like their volume knob right where your right hand naturally rests.
Similar story in my Chrysler Voyager. Medium sized screen for maps, music and more occasional vehicle functions, while there are mostly physical controls for HVAC, volume, traction control, hazards, etc. My one gripe is the seat and steering wheel heaters are touchscreen functions and should really be buttons. But they are at least always present on the top of the screen.
It seems as though the “boring” vehicles are actually the ones that are better in this regard. Sort of how I like “boring” visits to the dentist, doctor, etc, it’s better to have nothing weird or different going on.
1994 Honda Accord…just what you need and no more.
My base model 2022 tacoma, my wife’s base model 2023 rav4 and my daughters (you guessed it) base model 2020 corolla all have a small center screen for apple CarPlay, and a tiny little screen (not touch screen obviously) in-between the speedo and tach for the basic digital speed readout and adaptive cruise setting. Everything is physical. No capacitive touch. You can close your eyes and adjust volume/on-off audio and climate control. Like ‘Who Knows’ says below, it seems like boring mass-market cars seem to find the balance best (not in all cases, but many).
MK7 VW GTI. Physical buttons for everything except certain adjustments for the radio settings. Real parking brake lever, real HVAC controls, auto up and down for ALL FOUR windows, stick shift, sliding and height-adjustable center armrest, REAL tach and speedo, and holy shit cool tartan plaid seats. My only issue is that they took away the backlighting for the dome light and map light buttons. Bizarre.
Mk7 Golf. I was the cranky man who didn’t want any of that fancy stuff that’s going to break. None of it has broken, and it turns out I love it all. Physical cpntrols for volume and AC, right at hand, though both of them feel a tiiiiny bit cheesy. Exactly the right buttons on the wheel, all of them with just the right feel, especially Next Track. One push window switches. Touch-to-lock door handles.A reasonably-sized screen ON THE CENTER STACK, which I use twice a year to change the clocks to and from Daylight Savings time. No lane keeping, cruise control that does exactly what I tell it and nothing more. CarPlay, though I do have to go to one extra (physical) button to go from the car’s media systems to that screen. I might like emergency braking, but nothing else. Apparently the Mk8 lost most of that.
The id4 capacitive everything was the biggest reason we ruled it out when test driving EVs.
There were other reasons sure, but as soon as I tried the volume slider, I noped out.
Yep, same. I’ve been a VW/Audi guy for decades but driving an Ioniq 5 and an Id.4 back to back, you’d swear VW forgot how to design a usable vehicle interface. Admittedly, I have a 2025 Ioniq 5 that reintroduced hard buttons on some of the very important daily functions like heated seats, steering wheel, etc. I would not have liked the previous interface. But even beyond that, the stupid “gauge cluster” in the ID looks like an illegible fisher price toy compared to the integrated one in the Hyundai.
In my opinion, automakers have taken the wrong cues from technology and software developers by adopting the illusion of progress with change for the sake of change. We don’t need new ways to do the things we’re used to doing every year with UI refresh that doesn’t offer any real improvement other than being different. In terms of cars, it’s usually a step backwards in usability.
It usually is in software too. Tech people are largely terrible at interface design, so when they decide they can do something “better” they’re usually wrong.
I don’t think automakers are really taking cues from anything other than, “Oh shit, we can just put all those controls in a screen? Fuck yeah that’s cheaper. Let’s take away as many physical controls as we can before people start to bitch.” Now they’ve found some of the limits.
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.
Same.
Let me know when you find a good, affordable, apple car play double-din head unit. All the one’s I’ve found appear to be super cheap quality, lack a real volume knob, or cost close to $1,000.
I’ve used Pioneer’s lower-end NEX units for years and had excellent luck with them – no glitches, freezes, weird behavior, and they cost about $4-500 a pop. Unfortunately, they don’t have a real volume knob, but at least they’re real buttons and not capacitive simulacrum.
Hell yeah.
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.
My ’24 equinox has the little knob to the left of the wheel for the lights, and my wife’s EVquinox lost it (I think the ’25 redo of the gas equinox gave it the new screen and all that crap the EV got in ’24). I use the light controls all the time. There are too many scenarios of dusk or dawn plus some sort of weather that require me to manually turn the lights on.
Automatic headlights should be much more sensitive to light levels (because most drivers aren’t as attentive as I am) and that goes double for when they get rid of the physical control.
Is there no sensitivity setting on your vehicles? I’m not as familiar with the newer Chevy products in this regard, but my previous Lexus and current GR Corolla have sensitivity settings for the auto headlights.
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!
I’d say we pretty much reached peak physical interface design in the 90s. The 70s and 80s saw an explosion of logically laid-out buttons, knobs and switches that were easy to use and figure out, but often fiddly due to the sheer number of them.
By the late 80s and through the 90s, ergonomics and UI design were a thing, and various discrete controls were being grouped into simple, logical combinations* that made operating complex devices quicker and easier — and it was leaking into car designs as well. Even complicated stereo head units had controls that could be found and operated without having to look at them each time. HVAC controls were largely standardizing on recognizable knobs or sliders.
Forward-thinking designs were even starting to move some controls off of crowded stalks and onto clearly identifiable buttons or dials on the instrument binnacle that could be operated without having to fully take a hand off the wheel.
The screen-based replacements are a poor substitute; they look nice but they aren’t “progress” at all, especially for cars. Touch screens can work fine on a computer-operated device that’s stationary and for which the operator has the luxury of taking time to look at the screen. Mainly, they can remove the need for using a mouse and keyboard to navigate through a UI. But I’d hate to have to operate a car with a keyboard and mouse; the touchscreen replacement isn’t an improvement.
*The most egregious exception, however, being the means of programming radio station presets on a Technics receiver from the late 80s that I have. All the controls and buttons are perfectly self-explanatory. Except for how to assign radio stations to a set of buttons. I always have to look it up in the manual (Which I’ve managed to keep all these years…), and it’s maddening.
I had the opportunity to try out IBM’s version of the Xerox software that Apple copied.
This was pre mouse and monochrome, but almost everything was straightforward.
You could just sit down and use it.