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In things like smart TVs, smart fridges with LCDs on them, and infotainment systems in cars, this is sadly the exception and not the norm. Hardware-oriented manufacturers push a product out the door and things frequently get little or no updated after that. I'm willing to bet money that in ten years from now, a lot of 2016/2017 model year Toyotas that ship today with some sort of infotainment touchscreen system in them will be still running the exact same software. In fifteen years from now such cars will look as quaint as the cars from the 1980s with full LED dashes:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Vfd_car....

3 comments

> In fifteen years from now such cars will look as quaint as the cars from the 1980s with full LED dashes:

Those are vacuum fluorescent displays and not LEDs, and were used in new vehicles (at least by Ford) until the early 2000s. They are still a great choice for vehicle instrument panels and are commonly used for aftermarket retrofit units (see for example http://www.parrautomotive.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/p...)

Is it sad that I prefer that relatively clean and functional full LED display over a lot of the modern touchscreen infotainment junk?

No, I agree with you. I think a touchscreen has no place in a vehicle, as working one will always be a distraction while driving. I don't need to look at physical buttons to be able to feel when my hand is on the "next station" button, but I have to look at a touchscreen to perform the same task reliably.

I've been really enjoying my Mazda 3's setup though; it's got the touchscreen thing, but it actually turns the touchscreen off while you're driving, and has a little dial near the console that you can move around like a joystick to manipulate the controls. This sounds weird, but is highly intuitive, and once I knew my way around the controls I could easily work the display blind, with my eyes still firmly on the road in front of me. I'm OK with a compromise like this. The system isn't perfect, but the input method seems like it achieves the best of both worlds.

Having had two touch screens in two different cars, and having my first car plow into a tree because I was trying to use one, I can agree. They are highly distracting.

My 2002 Nissan has physical buttons and also little feeler dots to enable completely blind operation, and the information is displayed high on the dash so you don't have to look far.

But by far the best experience I have had with in car entertainment was a simple bluetooth link to my phone and a physical volume knob on the head unit.

Hop in, start driving and the music is automatically playing what I was listening to wherever I was before. Volume up or down as appropriate, eyes never leaving the road.

Auto manufacturers are restricted from OTA updates due to agreements with their dealer networks. Tesla has no such restriction.

Not true http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36478641

It is rather messed up that a broken infotainment system can kill the climate control.

If your infotainment system is down but there is nothing physically wrong with the AC compressor or fan system it should not prevent you from using the AC in 43C weather. That's as close as I've seen yet to a touchscreen-system software problem breaking the mechanical driving functionality of a car.