- Hyundai is slowly backing away from the all-screen approach to interior design.
- Hyundai Design North America Vice President Ha Hak-soo said that people “get stressed, annoyed and steamed when they want to control something in a pinch but are unable to do so.”
Honestly. I’d be fine with a touchscreen for things you wouldn’t likely be adjusting on the go anyways - but basic stuff like the radio and AC/Fans should always be easy to distinguish, don’t need to look away from the road to operate buttons. Making basic stuff require touchscreen is inconvenient at best and outright dangerous at worst.
I recently got a Kia Niro and it has buttons on the wheel for most of the basic functions of the touch screen. Really handy
Give me a manageable handful of physical buttons with defaults but that I can customize. The pendulum swung too far. There is a Place for touch screens and buttons in cars. They can live in Harmony. Personally, I never want to see a climate control physical button except maybe for my passengers microclimates. I set a setpoint and set the fan to auto like I do in my house. Let the car adjust to the preferred setpoint. Heated seats / heated steering wheel? Programmed parameters. Stereo controls? Hell yeah, let’s get tactile - don’t make me look at anything for that. I don’t mind the idea of voice controls too, but I’ve never met one in a car that wasn’t frustrating AF. Prefer to leave that out until the tech improves.
Conversely, I want the ac controls on physical buttons because when I’m in driving and am in direct sunlight, or when I’ve just jumped in the car after doing some heavy work, I want ice cold Antarctic air blowing on my face. The ambient temperature of the general cabin is irrelevant to me. I do not want to be hunting around through menus to find the ac fan control slider.
I’m not opposed to a big Max AC button. Use it rarely because the car usually knows to crank it up, but sometimes I agree this button is nice.
I don’t want my car to know anything. I want it to do what I say and only what I say without question. I’m thinking of getting a 70’s truck.
My wife’s Ford Edge has the worst of both worlds. It has buttons for the stereo and AC but they’re all flat capacitive buttons so they barely work when you touch them and you still have to take your eyes off the road to find them.