One of the more intrigueing items on display at the recently closed Detroit auto show was the all-video dashboard for the upcoming Dodge Dart. If you've read my blog for any length of time you'll know I'm not particularly keen on touchscreen controls - stuff you should be able to do without taking your eyes off the road (like changing a/c or fan settings) that gets buried in a menu-driven interface. Dodge have taken this to its logical conclusion with their new dash. The dash itself is a video display - which is sort of neat - but it presents w-a-y the hell too much information - so much so that it's now distracting. Their in-car controls for everything else are now driven with a touch-screen interface, thus showing they've learned nothing from Ford's experience with the MyTouch interface (and it's appalling customer feedback). Dodge have made it so you don't have anything haptic any more - no knobs, no buttons, so you can't even guess where a menu item is. Now they've forced you to take your eyes off the road to look at a screen to do everything. And given how most shiny surfaces in a car react to driving in sunlight, my guess is that a full 50% of the time you won't be able to see what's on the screen meaning it won't just be a quick look-see but a full-fledged moving-the-head-around attempt to see the most basic display. Stupid. See for yourself: Dodge Dart 2013 videogame dashboard
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