Why are many cars’ screens slow and laggy when a $400 phone can have a smooth performance?
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First, the electronics in cars has to survive a range of temperatures that would melt a consumer device. Cars are a very hostile environment. This limits technology choice. Second, everything in the vehicle needs to be certified and crash tested. There is tremendous liability for car manufacturers if something causes a crash or an injury. This makes manufacturers cautious.
Together, this limits technology choice and takes time and is very costly. Which means anything in your vehicle was probably invented and tested rigorously more than 10 years before it was designed into the vehicle, which was about three years before the vehicle was made. Your newest $400 device has components that were invented a few years ago, and the software was probably installed a few months ago… so it is about 3 generations ahead.
because many cars’ screens use like 10$ low performance components and/or components from bygone era (e.g. Hyundai IONIQ5 and many electric cars even use INTEL ATOM cpu from 2016 and older).
things are improving tho. as newer cars are using much more modern stuff from qualcomm, nvidia, intel, AMD.
on the other hand, they often still stuck in using super old OS. For example, hyundais love to use Android 4.4 (from 2013)
I work in the auto industry.
Car makers are *incredibly* stingy. Part of it is from a desire to maximise profits, part of it is from regulation.
First, profits:
Anything that costs money reduces profits. If a $1 processor will do the job almost as well as an $2 processor, the $1 processor gets put in the car. Very few, if any, customers will choose a car based on how responsive the screen is.
Second, regulation:
Cars are facing tough and even tougher fuel economy and emissions restrictions. Anything that adds weight increases emissions and decreases fuel economy. Worse yet, all electricity in a fossil fuel car comes from burning fuel, so anything that draws power increases emissions and decreases fuel economy. So a 5 watt processor gets selected over a 15 watt processor.
In the end, very few customers will go “I really like the new Ford, but the in-car screen is too laggy” so the manufacturers have no incentive to beef up the screen and two incentives to skimp on it.
I always thought one of the reasons was that they have to have hardware that is capable of operating in extremely hot and cold environments, and the development of that hardware is very behind.
Like in Canada, my touch screen still works when my car has been outside in -30c weather all week.. it turns on and boots up just fine.. leave a phone in that, and the screen will either be broken or extremely slow and useless for like 10 minutes.
So you are basically stuck with tech that has matured into operating at those extremes, and our phones are basically “cutting edge” comparatively.
Yalls cars have screens!?
I’m still cranking my window up and down
Because it’s cheap!
No need to treat the user with performance and convenience if user is stuck with the proprietary UI anyway?
(One of the reasons these atrocious iPads and tablets are so popular instead of physical buttons and haptic controls)
Try an aftermarket android stereo, the difference is insane.
I never liked touchscreen stereos because of how bad they are normally until I tried a pioneer stereo, the difference is night and day.
I wish car manufacturer would stop installing their proprietary infotainment systems, and instead simply partner up with Apple or Android to spec out and provide a good system. Bur gotta control their Stull and sell head unit for extra $1500 at a manufacture cost of $100 for them. It’s all about the profit margin, not your functional concenience.
Answer: The screen on the car isn’t the make-or-break feature for most buyers, so the company can cheap out in that area more easily. They outsource development of those to the lowest bidder and use the cheapest hardware they think they can get away with.
Phone manufacturers do that too, but they can’t get away with as much because the screen’s responsiveness is one of the biggest decision points for consumers.
Most car makers don’t give a hoot about the infotainment system and outsource it to the lowest OEM. Because it’s proprietary garbage, there’s little competition and they have no incentive to modernize quickly.
The car makers are at odds with the consumer: car makers want everything integrated and proprietary so that if something breaks, you have to go to a service center. Consumers want user serviceable, easily replaceable, inexpensive, modern equipment.
The best solution would be to have one tightly integrated system for crucial controls such as lights, ventilation, etc. A second infotainment system could be as simple as an Android tablet bolted into the dash. Far cheaper, but it doesn’t lock in the customer. Android Auto and Apple CarPlay try to bridge that by making the car’s built-in screen a “dumb” display controlled by the customer’s phone/tablet. But as expected the experience sucks because they don’t have any incentive to make that work well.
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