BMW i Forums - View Single Post - What's the best luxury EV? BMW iX vs Mercedes-Benz EQS (Autocar)

Paladin1 · 02-16-2022, 08:20 PM

The good news is the continuing evolution of assisted (Level 2) driving and voice commands as automakers progressively use a touchscreen interface for car functions. Ultimately this allows the driver to make adjustments - more - safely when driving while fractionally removing their attention from the road. We still did this with the old, conventional buttons - many times you needed to look down or away from the road to find a button - we just adapted to, sort of, keep half an eye looking forward while glancing down or sideways to find the button. We also accommodated to "feel," getting familiar with where everything was located in a car so we could find a button in relation to something else by touch, but not all buttons allowed this. I particularly like BMW's implementation of the pop-ups to identify the Quick Set buttons on the iDrive screen when you touch them, so you can kind of "feel across the row" to identify what you want. But you still need to momentarily take your eyes off the road to look at a screen, just like with the Nav (here the HUD is worth its weight), or even briefly glancing at the instrument cluster - when you are looking at your gas gauge, you are not looking at the road. We all did, and do this, balancing taking our eyes directly from the road in front to look at something in the car for fractions of a second. The key is that "fractions," and where the something we are looking at is physically located. Good ergonomics is important - Audi elected for a touchscreen interface (replaced somewhat by physical buttons), but placed the screens basically at knee level, requiring the driver to look down, a long way from the front view.

I don't particularly care if a control button is virtual or real, as long as it's in my driving vision and I know where to find it. The fact that the car will keep me in my lane for the 0.25 seconds it takes me to push it, or allows me to tell the car "activate '"x" feature, it is a positive development in the evolution of cars, and it's becoming better with each generation.

02-16-2022, 08:20 PM	#8
Paladin1 Brigadier General 5642 Rep 4,539 Posts Drives: 2022 iX xDrive50, DGM Join Date: Jun 2019 Location: Midwest iTrader: (0) Garage List 2023 iX xDrive M60 [0.00] 2022 iX xDrive50 [9.00]	The good news is the continuing evolution of assisted (Level 2) driving and voice commands as automakers progressively use a touchscreen interface for car functions. Ultimately this allows the driver to make adjustments - more - safely when driving while fractionally removing their attention from the road. We still did this with the old, conventional buttons - many times you needed to look down or away from the road to find a button - we just adapted to, sort of, keep half an eye looking forward while glancing down or sideways to find the button. We also accommodated to "feel," getting familiar with where everything was located in a car so we could find a button in relation to something else by touch, but not all buttons allowed this. I particularly like BMW's implementation of the pop-ups to identify the Quick Set buttons on the iDrive screen when you touch them, so you can kind of "feel across the row" to identify what you want. But you still need to momentarily take your eyes off the road to look at a screen, just like with the Nav (here the HUD is worth its weight), or even briefly glancing at the instrument cluster - when you are looking at your gas gauge, you are not looking at the road. We all did, and do this, balancing taking our eyes directly from the road in front to look at something in the car for fractions of a second. The key is that "fractions," and where the something we are looking at is physically located. Good ergonomics is important - Audi elected for a touchscreen interface (replaced somewhat by physical buttons), but placed the screens basically at knee level, requiring the driver to look down, a long way from the front view. I don't particularly care if a control button is virtual or real, as long as it's in my driving vision and I know where to find it. The fact that the car will keep me in my lane for the 0.25 seconds it takes me to push it, or allows me to tell the car "activate '"x" feature, it is a positive development in the evolution of cars, and it's becoming better with each generation.
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