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No beating around the bush
Referring to Matt Prior’s totally justifiable hammering of the ergonomics of the Volvo EX30 and the subsequent letters of support (22 November), nobody has commented on the real reason car makers, with their usual level of self-justifying hypocrisy, are moving to touchscreen or ‘gesture’ controls: they’re cheap. It has nothing to do with the rubbish their marketing departments spout. It’s about cheapness, pure and simple, and it needs to stop.
Andrew Montague missed the point in his response: yes, you can do a lot of these things before you set off, but the point is that you used to be able to do them any time without distraction, and what if you want to change something while on the move? They aren’t safe!
The other thing that needs to stop is the use of so-called safety devices that seek to take control from the driver. I’m thinking of lane keeping assistance (really? Why? Unless, of course, you just bought an EX30 and want to change the radio station) and collision avoidance braking. Neither of these is intrinsically safe, as one is capable of trying to reverse the driver’s input and the other simply isn’t advanced enough to be reliable yet can slam the brakes on all by itself.