Lexus has seen the future ... and ... I have no words

[Knightshade]

Agreed. I owned a 2006 and an 2008 IS250. Whenever I had a loaner with that trackpad or joystick thingy for the interface, I was trying to figure out which of the nine circles of hell I was in to deserve it.

Yup... I traded in my 08 IS350 on my Model 3.

That said- it did have a few interior features that beat what the Tesla has... including the vented seats and a 12v socket in an actually useful location up front....also the automatic wipers worked better. That's about it though.

 

[mspohr]

Does it have a tape deck also?

8 Track!

 

[CT200h]

I owned a 2015 NX300h , track pad is universally not liked. The rest of the dash and controls was very usable , great seats and seat position.
But yeah too many buttons. Though I think Tesla could have added a few buttons to the 3 quick access.
But hey I may change my mind once I own one , all I have done so far is a couple test drives. I had 40,000 miles in the NX300h
My BMW X5 has both a rotary knob for the screen I drive , and it’s a touch screen , very easy to use both.

 

[ngogas]

Buttons galore.

 

[WolfHero]

They have come so far since 2011:

Hey, that's exactly the same as my old 2013 CT200h before I traded it in for Model 3D

 

[CT200h]

Seems like lots of previous Lexus owners now have Tesla S ,x or 3 ......
Lots of previous Toyota owners too. You would think they would get the message.

 

[Shizzrock]

Man, that dashboard looks horribly outdated. The model 3 really left all the other manufacturers in the past.

 

[Lozza12]

Literally no one else in the industry thinks fool cells will be a thing except Toyota but they seem hellbent on driving their company off a cliff trying to push the things. I don't get it.

You know how you could be wrong - most non-EV drivers don’t get the paradigm shift that is charging at home each night or topping up at a DCFC.

They are familiar with the idea of purposely “filling up” the car every week. They want to “only take 5 mins” to refuel, ignoring the fact this is like having to make a phone call at a telephone booth.

For this reason BEVs may still lose to fuel cell cars, even though it seems crazy.

Sorry about the thread hijack. Agree the Lexus dashboard looks like the bridge of the Titanic.

 

[Knightshade]

Seems like lots of previous Lexus owners now have Tesla S ,x or 3 ......
Lots of previous Toyota owners too. You would think they would get the message.

When I had my Lexus in for a free service shortly before I got rid of it the service writer asked if I wanted them to inspect it since that was coming up in about 60 days.... I told him no, as I expected not to have it much longer.

He asked if I'd like to speak to a sales person about trading it in to them for a new Lexus, and I explained that they didn't sell anything I wanted anymore, so no.

He asked what I meant and I pointed out that the "new" version of my same car was measurably worse in several ways (they're still using the same now 13 year old engine, but have made the car significantly heavier and slower for example) and the one version they DID offer with better performance (the IS-F) was discontinued a few years ago.

Plus, thanks to the free loaners I've had from them, I was able to learn their version of radar cruise control kind of sucks too.

 

[rachelhikes]

Literally no one else in the industry thinks fool cells will be a thing except Toyota but they seem hellbent on driving their company off a cliff trying to push the things. I don't get it.

There are about 6,500 fuel cell cars in use worldwide. Most of those are Toyota Mirais. A Mirai is basically a Prius beaten long and hard with an ugly stick, given a $30,000 price hike (and that with massive subsidies), and made dependent on an expensive, hard to handle, and wasteful fuel source. The Mirai is a truly terrible car built on a truly terrible idea.

 

[novox77]

I do not know if I would agree with view on that. If interface is controlled (like this one) with limited options, it is always easy to interact with a jog dial, rotary control, esp while driving. Ofcourse it would be expensive compared to cheaper touch screen.

Think of frustrating Climate control in Model 3, think of meaningless button for transmission selector switched on Acura.
Tactile feed back, positive control of settings, able to use muscle memory is always easy using physical controls ergonomically. Think of Gear selector on typical automatic, you know the gear by feel, you do not need to look at that stick, neither need to confirm what you selected is correct.

UX design/Ergonomics designers can probably throw more light than me though. I am giving my feed back based on experience with various cars over the years.

UXer here. Some points of interaction indeed can exploit proprioception and muscle memory, particularly those that require a grip, or can be accessed while gripping something. However, for most buttons in the center console area, these require extreme spacial awareness of your finger in space to press without looking. In other words, from an eyes off the road perspective, many of the functions on a touchscreen are no less distracting than, say, hitting the RECIRC button on a traditional dash.

That said, many people hate the numbing feeling of touching glass. There's something satisfying about a depress of a button. There's even an art of designing how that press feels, mushy vs clicky, etc.

What Apple proved quite well is that the sacrifice in tactile feedback was well worth the flexibility of rendering endless combinations of a user interface underneath that pane of glass.

In another thread, i suggested that Tesla could redesign the homelink buttons so that the buttons corresponding to your garage bays could be displayed from left to right (instead of the vertical list it is now), which maps to your actual garage bays. Further, if the buttons took up most of the screen, you could indeed select the right bay without even looking at the screen.

While such a design would be atypical for a typical tablet interface, it makes so much sense for how the screen is used in a car...

 

[rachelhikes]

The most important thing Tesla can do to improve the controls isn't to fret about which button goes where on the display, but to make the car smarter. For example, I don't have to worry much about where Tesla puts the seat warmer button if the car learns what settings I like under what conditions and defaults to them automatically. (Hey Tesla, just because I had the seat warmer on when driving home the previous night and the temperature was in the 50's, doesn't mean that the next day when I get in the car and it's in the 70's that I still want it on. Figure it out. This one isn't even hard.)

 

[AceSkywalker]

Its preference. Some people prefer buttons and knobs to a "just a touchscreen tablet". Same goes for not having information overload.

I'd be more than happy to have a simple car with a basic screen that shows gear selection, time, speed, range, and radio information. Internet connection optional and only for features like location tracking and mobile app controls.

 

[rachelhikes]

What Apple proved quite well is that the sacrifice in tactile feedback was well worth the flexibility of rendering endless combinations of a user interface underneath that pane of glass.

True. We've already been through this. The Blackberry lost. Overwhelmingly.

We don't know exactly how many physical controls will be left on cars once the dust settles, but we know it won't be many compared with current designs. The advantages of a large display that can simultaneously present a lot of information to the user, as well as a dynamic interface, are just too overwhelming compared to the use of that same real estate for dedicated hard buttons and knobs.

 

[rachelhikes]

Its preference. Some people prefer buttons and knobs to a "just a touchscreen tablet".

Preferences aren't fixed. Lots of people preferred these, once upon a time. Nobody prefers them anymore.

 

[lolder]

Its preference. Some people prefer buttons and knobs to a "just a touchscreen tablet".

Also said by people that thought the electric self-starter unneeded and liked to shift gears. Touch screens are difficult to use when you're driving a car. You don't have to drive this car. Many of the main buttons are along the bottom where you can grasp the underside of the screen to steady your finger. Every single function can be set to automatic and the nav and media can be voice controlled. When you consider how much cheaper to make this is it's mind boggling.

 

[AceSkywalker]

Preferences aren't fixed. Lots of people preferred these, once upon a time. Nobody prefers them anymore.

There's a difference. A phone is something that you engross yourself onto and pay full attention to. Something in a car that takes any attention away from eyes on the road isn't best. I find my phone mounted on my dash a distraction and often just put it away. Having that large 17" screen next to me digging through menus isn't much better.

That's why I find myself disagreeing with the notion that every car in the future is gonna embrace the ultra minimalist single large screen.

 

[AceSkywalker]

Also said by people that thought the electric self-starter unneeded and liked to shift gears. Touch screens are difficult to use when you're driving a car. You don't have to drive this car. Many of the main buttons are along the bottom where you can grasp the underside of the screen to steady your finger. Every single function can be set to automatic and the nav and media can be voice controlled. When you consider how much cheaper to make this is it's mind boggling.

My point exactly - the Model 3 is not a car that is meant for the manually driven world we live in today. The interior points towards a future where manual driving is optional, if not illegal and reserved to the annals of history.

 

[rachelhikes]

Having that large 17" screen next to me digging through menus isn't much better.

I'm curious: What are you digging through menus for? After having set up the car, when driving I don't dig through menus.

 

[AceSkywalker]

I'm curious: What are you digging through menus for? After having set up the car, when driving I don't dig through menus.

I currently drive a very old car that only has a tape deck for reference. I find myself turning the turning and radio knob for radio very frequently - that I can do without looking away from the road. Same goes for the constant adjusting of AC settings and vents.

Personally I just find screens in vehicles VERY distracting.