If We Don’t Stop Them, Car UX Design Will End Up With On-Screen Steering Wheels

Who’s in the mood for a chilling glimpse into our possible future? You are! I mean, I assume you are. The glimpse into the future I’m talking about is one that was suggested by a story from last week, where we were scrutinizing the ideas put forth by Rivian’s Head of Software. If you didn’t get to see the story, I think it can best be summed up by saying that his ideas that a voice-controlled interface that utilizes AI agents will be the future of human/automotive interfaces were received, um, poorly.

And not just by the erudite, sexy Autopian audience, either: the People of Reddit were talking about that story, and they came to much the same conclusions, too. Nobody wants to talk to an AI agent to do things in their car. And nobody wants every damn thing to be on some interface accessible from a menu on a touchscreen. And yet it’s still happening.

While we’re seeing some pushback, even legal-level pushback in some countries, there are still cars for sale today that require the glovebox to be opened from a touchscreen button, or HVAC vents that can only be moved by sliding your finger on a touchscreen drawing of a vent inches from the actual vent. We’re still very much in the middle of an era of automotive design and engineering that is being dominated by inane interface decisions, ones chosen because they fit into some perverse technological fetishes rather than anything that anyone actually, you know, wants.

So, with that in mind, I’d like you to join me in a little thought-experiment. Let’s just extrapolate from what we’ve been seeing already in the automotive world, and just imagine what may be coming next:

Touchscreen Control Steering

Cars have been using drive-by-wire steering for well over a decade now, so this is completely possible, from a technological point of view. And I bet there’s some sick bastards who grew up vigorously masturbating to scenes of people flying starships by gliding their fingers over screens on shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and now they have jobs designing car interfaces and you know some of them want to try this.

Just imagine it: no physical steering wheel, just an image of a wheel on a screen. And you use your finger to move the wheel, either by swiping right or left or dragging the on-screen wheel radially. It’d be awful! Just awful!

They’ll justify it by pointing out how there’s so much more legroom without the wheel, or that the car is “self-driving ready” or some other inanity. I hope if they do this they at least have a port so you can connect your Xbox controller or something to drive. Maybe even via Bluetooth, as long as you promise to make sure your controller is charged before heading out on the highway.

Toe-Touchscreen Pedal Interface

Why should hands get all the fun! Let’s really be sickos here and consider this: a lower touchscreen for your feet (which will need to be bare to use, but don’t worry, that’s not actually illegal) that replaces the pedals. Now we’re really getting somewhere! The areas for the on-screen pedals will allow for slider-like control to adjust intensity, and, unlike boring old physical pedals, will have visual feedback for how much they’re being “pressed.”

And, just to keep it exciting, we’ll make the throttle slider vertical, and the brake one horizontal. Look how futuristic that looks! These should be an aftermarket option of Cybertrucks already!

Oh, and as a little Easter Egg bonus for the old folks, the high beam control could be on the screen down there, too, just like in the Before Times.

All-Voice AI Agent Command Driving

What if we just take Rivian’s Chief Software guy at his word? Remember, the man stated this:

“The final north star I have is having voice [controls] become the primary means of interaction with the vehicle.” 

He pretty clearly believes that voice controls should be the “primary means of interaction” with your car. So what if we imagine what that would really be like? You could be sitting in your car, legs crossed, hands in your lap, and say

“Car, please select drive and apply the throttle to 18%.”

… and off you go. Maybe you’d say “wait, no, make it 45 mph” and the AI agent that controls your car’s LLM-based AI agent would say “Right, great idea. 45 mph sounds fantastic for this sort of driving. I’m sure everyone else in the left lane of this highway respects your careful and sedate approach to driving.”

Or maybe you can tell it to brake by yelling “Slow down! Slow down!” and it can tell you something like “Slowing down seems like a great idea; I really like how you’re willing to pause your progress to see what’s happening around you. That’s one of your best qualities. So, just say the word and I’ll be happy to slow down.”

And then you’ll yell “Stop stop stop we’re in a school zone there’s kids around please!”

…and the AI will tell you “Sure, happy to stop. Stop what, though? Music? Navigation? Your reminders? Just let me know, and I’ll get to stopping as soon as possible.”

By this time you’re already a good 200 feet into the playground.

Touchscreen-Control Sun Visors

This one may be less dramatic than something like Total Voice Control, but I think it’s just as stupid and, given the fact that touchscreen-openable gloveboxes exist, unsettlingly plausible. Here’s what we’re thinking: touchscreen-controlled sun visors. You can try to flip down the visor manually, but the motor that drives it will offer a lot of resistance, and if you insist and try to force it, you’ll hear some horrible crunching sounds and end up with a floppy visor and a $2100 repair bill.

The touchscreen controls let you swipe up or down to move the visor position, or you can rely on a photocell that reads the amount of incoming light and adjusts the visors for you, though in practice this usually ends up with the visors flapping up and down all the freaking time, like a slow-motion chicken.

There’s also a toggle to open or close the vanity mirror in the visor, and you can even use a special app on your phone to have full visor angle control from anywhere in the world, anytime!

These all sound absurd, I know, but the scary thing is that, based on the developments we’ve seen so far, none of these are so outlandish that they couldn’t happen. These crazy bastards in charge of modern automotive UX have severe touchscreen and AI obsessions, and they’ll take us all down into automotive control hell if we don’t push back!

We must not let these fever dreams become reality! Fight back! We can’t give up the future to this madness!