Advanced Driving Hub

So, a court in Germany has decided ->

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53666222

Common (and legal) sense at last

Good to see, although I can imagine Germany isn't exactly fond of Tesla. Wonder what the big German OEMs will make of it given their race to touch screens too?

It sounds more like the driver wasn't paying attention to the driving.

I'm not sure I like a touch user interface for controls that require very quick (and low attention) activation; they're inevitably slower. The software might mitigate this by presenting an appropriately sized scale line whenever the wipers are on, with a single touch, or touch and drag, anywhere along the line to change the speed.

Tangentially, I very much liked an earlier Skoda control for setting wiper interval based on the two previous manual wiper activations. Also not quick to vary but easy to do in two steps as part of normal driving.

Gareth wrote:Tangentially, I very much liked an earlier Skoda control for setting wiper interval based on the two previous manual wiper activations. Also not quick to vary but easy to do in two steps as part of normal driving.

Yes, I had a relay on the Elan that did that. I hate rain sensitive wipers, they seem to do anything but what you actually want. And that's across a range of cars/manufacturers. The caterham is fun. One switch position for intermittent and on. Turn it on for <1 wipe (ie on/off) sets it to intermittent. To turn off, turn the switch on and leave on for 2+ wipes, then turn off.

One of my lockdown projects was to add intermittent wiping to the tailgate wiper on my Yaris. I now have one of the programmable relays, similar to the one used by VAG. Much better than continuous wiping as the window rarely remains wet enough to support that.

One of things that I liked in the T.50 videos (available elsewhere) was that Gordon Murray has made a point of "no touch screens" anywhere in the car. Apart from not liking them, he considers them to be dangerous.

The rain sensitive wipers in my Renaultsport Clio work very well. However I never leave them in auto to turn themselves on/off. I switch them to auto as an intermittent.

The main gripe is the combined washer flick. Dirty gritty screen and you have to flick the arm to squirt the screen. The wipers then drag across a dry screen as the squirter squirts momentarily after.

GTR1400MAN wrote:The main gripe is the combined washer flick. Dirty gritty screen and you have to flick the arm to squirt the screen. The wipers then drag across a dry screen as the squirter squirts momentarily after.

That's just crap design and should have been identified and thrown out before production. The clue should have been in the name - Wash/Wipe. It boggles the mind how anyone could ever consider that to be acceptable and sign it off.

Strangely Brown wrote:

GTR1400MAN wrote:The main gripe is the combined washer flick. Dirty gritty screen and you have to flick the arm to squirt the screen. The wipers then drag across a dry screen as the squirter squirts momentarily after.

That's just crap design and should have been identified and thrown out before production. The clue should have been in the name - Wash/Wipe. It boggles the mind how anyone could ever consider that to be acceptable and sign it off.

I'm not entirely sure it is bad design, if you assume a conscientious (police) driver will clean the windows before setting off, and stop to clean if they get particularly dirty. I think it''s designed to handle light dirt or grease that might accrue during a journey, generally for use when it's starting to rain or already raining, rather than for comprehensively washing the windscreen.

The problem is that the system has trouble knowing how dirty the windscreen may be, plus to be effective it would need to take into account ambient temperature, humidity or precipitation, and wind-speed to know how much screen-wash, and how forcibly, to deposit, and then to work out how long to delay before starting to wipe.

I have long thought it amusing that in my sister's T8 XC90 (tank that does 0-0 rather fast!):
- you can't (as passenger) pull up the car's manual on the touch screen in case you are driving
- you can though use the touch screen to alter steering sensitivity / suspension settings / etc. - all without the driver noticing, while doing pretty fast speeds

not quite sure how those two logics are congruous!

Alasdair