Think I'm Out

@boreal I was surprised at your comment and headed over to the Nobe Web site www.mynobe.com It is a different animal, but I took one look and had my deposit down within an hour! That is sweet!

When I watched the video and saw how that thing handles on an ice track covered in deep snow, I was totally sold. While I like the never charge idea of the Aptera, I've got plenty of panels on my roof, and I don't have to move those around all day to catch the sun.

From what I gather from Nobe's founder, he is making one of the safest cars out there, and he isn't going to compromise to please the suits or for marketability and mess the thing up by changing the design or making the thing bigger. (Aptera getting bigger turned me off to it that tiniest bit. It's already plenty big inside. After I put a deposit on Nobe, I found out Aptera was getting bigger, and that may be the deciding factor on which car I get. I do also love retro, and this is retro-futuristic. Some people have called the back end a Jetson's look and the front end James Bond (the Sean Connery one, I would think). That fits me. And I do love the simple, very-retro interior and controls. That is not a complaint against Aptera. Aptera's controls fit it, don't you think. Kind of what you would expect of a Batmobile look alike, but not the 1966 one, which is what I would go for.

Anyway, @boreal , thanks for the tip!

I am not to worried about the location of the center screen, for if it were too much out of my sight periphery, I would must put a heads up display HUD on the dash above the axis of the steering wheel. They are usually less than $100 and keeps ones eyes and attention on the road directly in front of the car. I know many comparisons are being made to the Tesla set-up. But in that example, please remember that the long range goals of Tesla is to have a self driving car which would allow one to focus more on a center screen for information, games, and live video. Other car manufacturers will give each passenger access to their own screens. I find it no more difficult to drive among my cars, some having a clutch/stick shift. We are all fairly adaptable.

I “hope” it is just a matter of getting use to it

I.e., “I’m old and got use to our present higher end vehicles “arrangement”Both have automatic lights an wipers so typically don’t need to touch that.

Our preset audio typically comes on when we start the car. Several other preset channels on the center screen but can’t remember when I touched those ( also voice controlled)

My wife’s car is the sane with touch bottons on the left side of the center screen

So maybe “for us” not a big deal

I work in infotainment system testing, and I'm right there with ya, Boreal.

I'll have to test-drive one to be sure, but my general feeling is that touchscreens are only appropriate for navigation and some audio. Maybe it might be okay to stick HVAC controls in there, because there's never a pressing need to adjust those.

But everything that you might need to do while driving: Lights, signals, wipers, audio volume/mute, gearshift/park, and the door locks, absolutely must be on individual tactile controls. To do otherwise is dangerous.

I don't believe myself to be exceptionally immune to distraction. I don't believe that I can magically navigate a touchscreen while keeping my eyes on the road. I don't believe that every other driver on the road is an idiot while I, exceptionally, am not. I know I'm human. I know how human attention works, and how we fool ourselves about how we think it works and drive into trees happily convinced that we were paying attention the whole time.

I don't believe I can beat the odds, I wish to tilt the odds in my favor by careful design and engineering for those factors.

Aptera now says: "This does seem to be an issue for some who like devided controls. But for updating and simplicity of vehicle architecture there are many reasons to keep all the vehicle controls between the steering wheel and the center screen. I don't see this changing, but we may offer a second HUD display option and tactile button attachements to the center screen in the future if enough people would like them."

That's currently on line 453* of the typo-riddled Aptera FAQ Spreadsheet.

*Numbers change when they delete lines from above.

While I am not a fan of touch screen interfaces, Aptera has to use them for the first version. Changing to a traditional mechanical switch dashboard is a lot more engineering and a lot more parts and would delay launch by at least 6-12 months. That could kill the car entirely. Many electric cars have been sold with a touchscreen interface, so it has been accepted by the market. Aptera needs to concentrate on making sure they get the basic properties (range, charging, reliability, 3-wheel handling, etc.) right for the first edition.

How did you submit this post? Teletype?

I must admit, the current Aptera interior does give me concern. The Model 3 was designed with the intent of the car doing most if not all of the driving, so that one could safely poke around on the touchscreen. However, Aptera likely won’t have that level of self-driving, so unless most basic controls are out front full-time and not buried in a menu or other screen, this poses some safety risks.

In the Model S with auto high-beam enabled, the high beams won’t engage on my road. Best I can tell, the car needs to read at least a 35 MPH speed limit sign to engage them. My road is 25 MPH. If I forget to disable automatic high-beams (as I borrow a friend’s Model S from time to time, don’t own a Tesla myself), I either have to use a hand and hold the left stalk towards me to manually switch to high-beams or poke through 3 different screens to disable the feature so that I have control of the high-beams.

Changing exterior lighting is at least 2 taps (Controls -> Lighting bar), but Controls is an easy button to press in the Model S as it sits in the corner of the screen with a physical border around the edge. In my Bolt, though, exterior lighting is controlled by a knob below the left vent. A flick to the left shuts off all lights (turns them back on at night, too. In the daytime, it just turns the DRLs back on), a click to the right enables marker lights, and one more is headlights. In Bolts with auto high-beams (Intellibeam), there is a button on the left stalk that enables/disables it with one press. All A/C controls in the Bolt have buttons present full-time. Most are physical controls, but a few are touchscreen (On/Off, Recirculate, Heater/AC enable, heated seats) and live on the bottom of the screen all the time.

Perhaps where Aptera can improve over Tesla is to have most vehicle controls prominently and permanently in the bottom bar and the left third of the screen? If most functions (lighting, HVAC, wipers, etc.) live in one place and don’t move around or be buried behind a menu, muscle memory can be learned even for a touchscreen and calm some people’s hesitation. It takes much less time to glance at a screen for a control when it is right where you expect it than to open a menu or poke around for it because it moved in the last software update.

Maybe a better way to put it is when I am on a collision course with you & your grandkids/grandparents, would you prefer I have controls I can activate with or without looking?

Response recorded for future lawsuit.

My point is: Which driver would you prefer to be careening towards yourself or your grandkids/grandparents : One with controls he can grab without even looking, or one who must look away?

But when you're dead you'll realize it's all okay because the driver's interface was "popular", & produced an interior beautifully uncluttered by useful controls.

Ya! In those 4 seconds you mention, you travel eighty-eight feet, at 60mph. But of course you can't hit anyone in only 88 feet, so it's all fine.

The video that borea! linked does a rather good job I think in explaining the touch screen and driver interface software. Gotta admit, I'm impressed. However, it also inadvertently demonstrated the problem a lot of us have with touch screens, as opposed to tactile controls. Near the beginning of the vid, there's a shot of Brian in the driver's seat. The shot lasts maybe four seconds and Brian spends those seconds pecking away at the screen. Admittedly, he's not actually driving and the car is not in motion, but his full attention is focused on the screen, as it must be in order to perform the multiple touches required to perform his task. To do that while driving would be inadvisable at best. When driving, one sometimes you have to be able to "see" with your hands as your eyes are otherwise occupied. I do realize that the design of the Aptera is still in flux at this point and in any case I'm sticking with them. I just hope they don't become too enamored with all the gee-whiz of the touch screen and remember that until full self-driving is perfected, the self part of all that is going to be a person who needs to keep his eyes on the road.

The basic direction in new models of almost everything is to replace mechanical controls with software controls. This allows upgrading remotely, freedom from many mechanical problems, lower weight, lower costs, faster production, etc..

While we are all used to certain knobs and switches, the more reliable and likely future direction is toward software controls wherever possible.

Interesting that the new Ford Mustang E has a gigantic Volume knob sticking out in the bottom of the control screen!

There's no stalk control for the wipers on a Model 3? How about the horn? I get the haptic feedback thing, but I can get over it for the controls not necessary to drive the car.

There's no stalk control for the wipers on a Model 3? How about the horn? I get the haptic feedback thing, but I can get over it for the controls not necessary to drive the car.

Just because you’re used to something doesn’t mean it’s the best. I don’t miss my Palm Pilot or Pager one little bit and I’m happy with AC & automatic transmission now that I have them.

I can only relate what is going on with the Model 3 for the Model S has a different instrument and control layout. The large 15 inch screen houses all your interface readouts and almost all of the "switches". In many cases some of the vital visuals are on the far right of the screen, such as turn by turn navigation and ones speedometer. For some shorter individuals, part of the screen might actually get hidden from direct view from the steering wheel. You will find this when the seat is moved close to the dashboard and the steering wheel is retracted out towards the driver and in a low tilt position. In California, it is illegal to be viewing text messages while driving because it distracts the driver from maintaining a view of the road in front and in his peripheral vision. Why make us look to the far side of the car's display? The blind spot detectors which sense cars in your bilateral blindspots are on the center display not on the side view mirrors which is almost internationally standard on most vehicles. One normal glances at his side view mirrors when lane changing and it only seems logical if something is outside of the mirrors view, that it display that on the mirror. How many people would feel that it is a normal reaction to look towards the center line of the car to know what is going on in ones periphery? That same valuable center screen must share screens with infotainment and climate control and it is often slow to need to switch views. But these are minor complaints. Each of your cars do take getting used to when switching between them. It will depend upon ones adaptability. If Aptera plans only a center screen and it is located outside of my focused peripheral vision, I will just op to mount a small transparent HUD (heads-up-display) above the center visual line centered to the steering wheel. This is only my personal opinion, but a tangible one. The Aptera is still conceptual since nothing is in production yet. It has still not been even tested out. In actuality, the first owners will be the beta testers which is why I delayed mine until a year out.

I know we can't be sure of what's coming, but I wanted to see what reader boreal doesn't like about Tesla. I have no idea what the issue might be.

What controls are on the steering wheel stalks? I would think you would quickly want to turn on the wipers if you got splashed in traffic or maybe the headlights if you came upon a tunnel unexpectedly. Aren't those on the stalks like normal? Then the HVAC, nav screen, radio/entertainment, what else on the center screen? I've never sat in a Tesla let alone driven one. So, what are the issues?

I personally like the nostalgic look of the Nobe. Our group has many Alfa's, and Fiats. Is the Nobe in production now? Have they been granted sales in the US? There is another car, the SAM which is in production in Poland for the past few years, but cannot be cleared for licensure and registration here in the US.

I actually don't see much overlap in the use case between Nobe and Aptera. The Nobe is a fine looking city car, but other than that the cost and performance don't fall in the same league as even the 25 kWh Aptera. And the safety is a huge difference. For most people they aren't in competition

We have a '20 Model S. The user interface is intuitive and easy. How's that Blackberry workin' for ya?

We have a '20 Model S. The user interface is intuitive and easy. How's that Blackberry workin' for ya?