The biggest reason that cars have horrible UX is that consumers don't care about it. No one is buying one for how good the speedometer looks. Give me a good performance and MPG. Make the components last long and be serviceable. Make it look good on the outside. Put advanced safety features. Perform well in crash tests. A hundred more of these and maybe the car will be worth buying.
People here are delusional when they go oh, Apple can make a better Carplay integration and easily outsell Ford and Tesla.
> People here are delusional when they go oh, Apple can make a better Carplay integration and easily outsell Ford and Tesla
OTOH, why do most people buy a Tesla right now? "How good the speedometer looks" is a pretty good description. Performance is good, reliability awful, UI usability awful unless you like fancy computer graphics. As a car, a Model 3/Y has a lot of compromises and lacks many features other cars have. But that computer screen...
To be fair, "image seekers" (traditional automotive terminology) most likely comprise the vast majority of Model 3/Y buyers at this stage. This is an area where Apple has a strong history of success.
But I don't think it's a good fit, making cars is expensive and completely different from everything else they do.
But your list of good/bad didn’t include a single word about the Supercharger network, which is the #1 reason people who want electric vehicles choose Tesla, in my experience.
I agree that the big screen is annoying, but I put up with it so I can go on road trips and not rent a car or limp around searching for charging.
1. The Supercharger network means you can take them on road trips without worrying. This isn't the case for other EVs which use the Electrify America charging network.
2. They're basically iPhones on wheels.
Unlike every other car manufacturer, you get constant software updates and improvements. Since I bought my car, software updates have increased its power by 5%, improved its range estimation, increased charging speeds, and it now drives itself on surface streets (originally it only self-drove on freeways). The UI has also been improved. Similar to iPad OS's dock, frequently-accessed apps are automatically shown in one area. I can also pin apps (or menus within some apps) if I want. A ton of new features have been added. I much prefer the current UI to the version that my car shipped with.
This reminds me of the debate over physical keyboards on phones. For years after the iPhone came out, some people swore they'd never give up their physical keyboards. And yes, physical keyboards (just like physical buttons) do have a lot of advantages. But you can't change them with a software update, and you can't change them depending on context. For most use-cases, that flexibility outweighs the lack of tactile response.
You describe only one reason for choosing a car: utility. But cars are often chosen for other reasons: style, status, some cool factor or compelling feature. UX is generally not a dealmaker, especially since nobody outside the car sees it. But bad UX definitely can be a deal breaker.
For me, a good example of this is recent BMWs. The instrument cluster on 2 and 3 series models is hideous -- misshapen dials, poor color choices, bling where there should be understatement. The days of simply communicating only essential info elegantly are long gone. I simply would not buy a car with a dashboard that ugly. (These insights should matter to BMW since I've driven and loved their cars for 30 years, but oddly they haven't sought my opinion. Alas, it shows.)
This sounds like it’s written by a male engineer. Everyone in my life I’ve ever bought a car with/for has been focused on the shiny objects and features that were so ridiculous they appeared to be purely designed for marketing. People care. That’s why every surface is going digital, because people care. In fact, that’s a move towards worse UX, likely higher maintenance, yet only makes sense because it looks cool.
See smart tvs and good luck finding an old dumb tv these days.
That’s not to say I don’t agree with your conclusion. Apple has to do a lot more than make the best dash app ever to sell cars. But then again, they don’t manufacture anything themselves as is and do just fine. I’m sure they could find a Foxconn like partner in the automotive space.
They do at some point though, "does it have CarPlay" is actually a major purchasing decision now, when I bought our car I chose it over another very similar car mainly due to this one having CarPlay.
But comparing the UX of two cars' built-in systems when you're test-driving them for 15 minutes is hard, and reviews usually gloss over it, maybe mentioning how laggy it is or isn't and what whiz-bang new feature it has that nobody is going to use.
Unless you're Apple, it's hard to sell UX. But Apple is, well, Apple!
People here are delusional when they go oh, Apple can make a better Carplay integration and easily outsell Ford and Tesla.