Various bits of auto news
By Layton Dorey
Due to a busy travel schedule, I haven’t had the time to devote to driving and researching a vehicle for an in-depth review over the past few weeks. So, this month’s column will be a bit of news and some personal views.
2025 Canadian International AutoShow
I was fortunate enough to be in Toronto during the period this show was open to the public and to be able to attend. While at one time this was a regular occurrence, the Covid pandemic and moving to Halifax conspired to make this the first AutoShow I’d been to since 2019.
They don’t get any less exhausting! Amidst all the shiny metal, polished glass and gleaming (fake) chrome, it’s easy to be dazzled by pretty much any of the hundreds of vehicles on display. After hours of jostling with the crowds and elbowing my way through them, however, nothing ever seems as appealing as the exit doors.
In terms of what appealed to me at the show, my overall most favourable impression was of the new Subaru Forester. This new Forester strikes me as the best looking Subaru since the fourth generation Legacy (2004 – 2009), with a cohesive overall design that’s both cleaner and sleeker than past Foresters.
Cadillac also packs a punch with the new Optiq. Joining a growing range of EVs from this storied brand, the Optiq will be the “entry level” EV SUV for Cadillac. The fantastic exterior design is complimented by a beautiful interior that creatively incorporates a mix of textures, including some fabrics on the dash, doors and centre console. That bold exterior is also available in some bold colours, which I welcome as an antidote to the limited palettes we’ve seen from some brands (confession: my car is silver).
I’m sure others would find much to be impressed by, but these two vehicles really stood out for me. Also notable about the Subaru and Cadillac displays is how boldly Subaru was positioned, at the entrance on the main level, and how seemingly hidden away Cadillac was, deep in the bowels of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Once I got down that far, the Cadillac stand was easy to spot, but a less dedicated show-goer could easily have abandoned the effort long before getting to it.
Other things that stood out to me included how bold, and odd, Audi’s display was. Situated alone on a mezzanine level, the rather dramatically staged exhibit featured only locked vehicles, leaving show-goers to peer through the windows to see the interiors. I’ve experienced this from ultra-premium brands (think house-level pricing), but never a mainstream brand like Audi. Perhaps they aspire to a higher status?
Buttons are back!
Anyone who has experienced a vehicle designed within the past few years will have noted the growth of in-car “infotainment” screens and the migration of controls to those screens. In some vehicles, this move to screen-based controls has meant that even basic functions, such as adjusting the temperature or audio volume, require tapping rather than touching. In the most extreme cases, even the turn signals and window controls have necessitated use of the in-car screen.
Car makers love the move to screen-based controls because it saves them considerable expense. Fewer small plastic bits to engineer and manufacture, and fewer spaces for those bits that have to be accommodated in complex dashboard moldings. All those spaces need facias to accommodate those bits, and then there are the mechanisms operating the bits that need to be engineered, manufactured and attached.
The costs can ad up, but when all the controls are on a screen, there’s only the one thing to accommodate.
Consumers, however, are generally not as enthusiastic. While initially screens looked like the future, the more people use them – and the more that gets moved to the screen – the less people like them. Most drivers are realizing that finding and activating a screen-based control takes more attention – and time – than using a physical control. This is not only inconvenient but can also raise safety concerns.
Automakers are starting to notice.
Signaling a stunning acknowledgement of the obvious, when announcing that VW would resume using physical buttons and knobs for “important” interior controls, VW’s head of design, Andreas Mindt recently noted that “It’s not a phone: it’s a car.” Mercedes, too,
has come to the realization that they are in the business of making cars not phones, with their chief design officer, Gorden Wagener, admitting that “screens are not luxury.”
Rather than just charging ahead with stripping physical controls from their interiors, Hyundai apparently took the sensible approach of researching consumer preferences *before* finalizing a wholesale transition to screen-based controls. And guess what? Hyundai vice-president Ha Hak-soo recently shared that they discovered that consumers are not as enamored of screen-based controls as car makers were. “When we tested with our focus group, we realized that people get stressed, annoyed, and steamed when they want to control something in a pinch but are unable to do so.”
Not every carmaker appears to have been swayed by the recent trend to “screenification”, as Aston-Martin’s design director Miles Nurnberger was recently quoted noting that “If you want to turn the volume up and down, temperature absolutely—the minute you’ve got to go into a screen and tap for temperature, you’ve lost the customer. You’ve lost the experience.”
China’s Xiaomi offers an accessory “button bar” that can be fitted below the screen on it’s SU7 sedan, offering physical access to temperature controls, the stereo and select other features. This works particularly effectively as many younger Chinese consumers consider physical buttons “old fashioned” and prefer screen-based, or voice activated controls.
My last vehicle had screen-based temperature controls buried in a sub-menu. When I mentioned to the salesperson that this seemed inconvenient, he suggested I just use the voice-activated feature to change temperature. This felt weird and awkward to me, and I never adapted to it. Perhaps I’ve become old, but when researching my new vehicle, physical temperature (and other key) controls were a priority I was unwilling to compromise.
Editor’s Note: To read more auto news from Layton Dorey, click here to go to his Notebook column page!!
Layton Dorey is a new Macdonald Notebook columnist. He will write about the local auto indiustry and test drive vehicles to write about each month. (The Notebook).
Layton Dorey of Halifax, formerly of Toronto and Detroit, has been a market research professional for more than 25 years, working throughout North America and globally. Throughout his career, he has done extensive work in many industries, including advertising/communications, and one one-time stint in automotive. When not working, he enjoys international travel and sailing. Layton Dorey was raised on Point Pleasant Drive in the Halifax South End
