Walking into a new car showroom in 2024, it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the massive screens. The center display has grown from ten inches to fifteen or seventeen inches. The instrument cluster has been replaced by a single large LCD screen. An entertainment screen has been added in front of the passenger seat. Some models even feature foldable large screens hanging from the rear ceiling. The number and size of screens are becoming core indicators by which automakers compete on product strength. It seems that the larger and more numerous the screens, the more "smart" and "premium" the vehicle.
But does this "arms race" actually make sense? Or is it a collective straying from genuine user needs? A growing number of users and testing organizations are raising questions. The first issue is safety. When nearly all functions - from climate control temperature and rearview mirror adjustment to driving mode selection and seat heating - are buried in second-level or even third-level menus on a touchscreen, any adjustment while driving requires the driver to take their eyes off the road to hunt for the target icon on the screen. Those few seconds translate into dozens of meters of "blind driving" at highway speeds. Research has shown that fully touchscreen-dependent operation more than doubles driver reaction time. More concerning is that some automakers, in pursuit of minimalist design and technological flair, have eliminated physical buttons for functions as critical as airflow direction and defogging in severe weather. A real-world test by a Swedish automotive magazine found that performing a sequence of operations - turning on defogging, adjusting temperature, and fan speed - using only a touchscreen in adverse weather took more than three times as long as using physical buttons. Some countries' traffic safety agencies are already considering imposing restrictions on the complexity of touchscreen operations in new car safety rating systems.
The second issue is the learning curve. Physical buttons and knobs, after brief use, become muscle memory, allowing drivers to operate them entirely by touch while keeping their eyes on the road. Touchscreens, with their deep menu hierarchies and inconsistent logic, vary dramatically not only between brands but sometimes between different models from the same brand. Every time a user changes cars or the vehicle receives a system update, they must relearn the operational logic. Moreover, unlike smartphones, the average user spends only one to two hours per day in their car, making it difficult to develop the same level of operational fluency. For users less comfortable with electronic devices - older drivers, for example - this feels less like driving a car and more like operating an unfamiliar, complex computer. This cognitive load is itself a form of driving distraction.
Voice control was supposed to be the perfect solution to the safety problems of touchscreens. In an ideal world, drivers would never need to touch a screen, only speak commands, and the vehicle would handle everything. But reality is far from ideal. Voice assistant recognition accuracy might exceed 95 percent under ideal conditions, but in-car environments are rarely ideal. Wind and tire noise at highway speeds, conversations among passengers, music playing through the sound system, and regional accents and dialects can all cause voice commands to be misunderstood or not recognized at all. More awkwardly, many users simply cannot remember the precise syntax required - "set air conditioning to 23 degrees" and "air conditioning 23 degrees" might yield different responses, while natural language like "I'm feeling warm" may not be understood at all. Users must learn the "correct phrasing" like learning a new language, which is itself a poor experience. Consequently, many users eventually abandon voice control and return to touchscreen operation - and with it, the safety risks.
Some brands have begun reconsidering this blind pursuit of more screens. Mazda has reintroduced physical buttons and knobs on some new models, with its head of design explicitly stating that "touchscreens are not suitable for driving scenarios" and arguing that visual resources during driving should be allocated to the road, not to screens. BMW has retained its iconic iDrive controller, combining it with touchscreen and voice control to form a multimodal interaction system that allows users to choose their preferred method based on context. These approaches demonstrate that true intelligence is not about replacing all physical controls with screens, but about finding the human-machine interaction method best suited to the driving context - an organic whole that integrates touchscreens, physical controls, voice, and gesture control.
The future direction of smart cockpits may not be larger screens, but smarter perception and more natural interaction. When the vehicle can identify the driver through seat sensors and cameras and automatically adjust seat position, mirror angles, climate temperature, and music playlists based on their historical settings, the driver may need no operation at all after entering. When the vehicle can determine which occupant is speaking through an in-car microphone array and respond only to that person's commands, voice control becomes dramatically more practical. When you only need to say "I'm feeling warm" rather than the precise "set air conditioning to 22 degrees," interaction becomes truly natural. When the navigation system can automatically plan the optimal route each weekday morning based on your calendar and real-time traffic conditions and push a reminder, you may not even need to open the navigation app. In these scenarios, screen size becomes far less important. What matters is that technology serves people, not that people adapt to technology.