Swedish take a look at finds automobile touchscreens are worse than buttons

A quite studious Swedish automobile magazine has confirmed one thing we’ve just about taken as learn within the Prime Gear workplace: touchscreens in automobiles are literally sort of garbage.

Vi Bilägare (We Automotive Homeowners) pitted 11 trendy automobiles towards one another, in addition to a 17-year-old Volvo V70. As a result of Sweden. But additionally as a result of the V70 doesn’t have a single touchscreen, so it’s the yardstick. And the upshot? You in all probability simply need an outdated Volvo wagon.

For the take a look at, VB drove trendy automobiles from Nissan, VW, Volvo, Subaru, Mercedes, Hyundai, BMW, Dacia, MG, Seat and Tesla – and the Volvo V70 from 2005 – at 110kph (about 68mph). Whereas on the transfer, the take a look at drivers needed to do easy duties drivers are inclined to do on the transfer – reset the journey laptop, activate the radio and discover a sure station, bump the local weather management up a few levels, run the seat heater, flip off the centre show and so forth.

Previous to setting off, every driver familiarised themselves with tips on how to obtain every job (better of luck in any other case, proper?), earlier than rolling out on a closed runway to see how lengthy it took to do – and the way far they drove with their eyes off the street.

As a result of the headline possible blew the suspense, we’ll simply come out and say it – the Volvo V70 completely dominated the take a look at, with its driver getting all of the duties performed within the area of 10 seconds and 306 metres. Attempting to do the identical with the worst-performing automobile – the MG Marvel R SUV – its driver wanted 44.6 seconds and 1,372 metres, or greater than four-fifths of a mile.

However that’s simply MG proudly brandishing the wood spoon it received a long time in the past, proper? Eh, not a lot. Spend large on a BMW iX (overlooking that face and the truth that the Ioniq 5 exists) and also you’ll triple the gap you want along with your eyes off the street simply to vary just a few settings on the fly. When you did get an Ioniq 5… effectively, that’s not nice for on-the-fly changes, however then neither is a Seat Leon, VW ID.3, Nissan Qashqai or Tesla Mannequin 3, taking between 717 metres (Tesla) and 895 metres (Seat) to get the job performed. Even the comparatively good Subaru and Mercedes took twice so long as an outdated Volvo wagon with all the identical toys.

Truthful play to the Mannequin 3 right here, contemplating that management of all of its options and meters happens in a single touchscreen, but it managed a midfield outcome. Even when that midfield outcome was smashed by a classic Volvo.

Fortunately, it’s not all unhealthy information – the Volvo C40 took 417 metres earlier than it was set for bum-warming with the display screen off and heater up, and – excellent news! – the Dacia Sandero took simply 414 metres, the least of any touchscreen-equipped automobile.

So, the upshot – in order for you a brand new automobile with a display screen and never an outdated Volvo – is be certain that its producer hasn’t tried to cram too many options into it.

Photographs: Glenn Lindberg/Vi Bilägare