I've been showing off my Model 3 for the last month that I have had it and recently one of the people looking at it was wondering when the first case of distracted driving was going to make it to the courts for these cars with large (and potentially small) monitors as a primary human/car interface. Has anyone heard of such a case going to court?
My response to this question was that many cars these days have screens/monitors that have touch or other interfaces that require the driver to interact with it to change various settings while driving. One of the main use cases is GPS navigation. Of course, interacting with these interfaces before you start driving is preferred but I'm certain there are many times people do this while actually driving. I also mentioned that when you are operating a radio, with all of the physical buttons, it is not much different than pushing a couple of locations on a screen. It is similar with the climate control, IMO. I honestly don't feel I'm distracted much but my wife thinks the newness of the car does contribute some distraction just trying to find various settings. I'd still think this is an issue with any new car's user interface whether it be full screen, buttons or a combination of both.
There are definitely times when navigating through some setting (like to change form % battery remaining to miles remaining) that require way too many button presses. I'd suggest Tesla just toggle those value when you press the battery/miles/% in the upper right of the driving portion of the screen.
My response to this question was that many cars these days have screens/monitors that have touch or other interfaces that require the driver to interact with it to change various settings while driving. One of the main use cases is GPS navigation. Of course, interacting with these interfaces before you start driving is preferred but I'm certain there are many times people do this while actually driving. I also mentioned that when you are operating a radio, with all of the physical buttons, it is not much different than pushing a couple of locations on a screen. It is similar with the climate control, IMO. I honestly don't feel I'm distracted much but my wife thinks the newness of the car does contribute some distraction just trying to find various settings. I'd still think this is an issue with any new car's user interface whether it be full screen, buttons or a combination of both.
There are definitely times when navigating through some setting (like to change form % battery remaining to miles remaining) that require way too many button presses. I'd suggest Tesla just toggle those value when you press the battery/miles/% in the upper right of the driving portion of the screen.