Car companies happily talk their jaws off about safety, and Volvo is always especially chatty about its ambitious plan to make its cars essentially death-proof by 2020. So it’s surprising that the Swedish automaker decided to stick a big, distracting touchscreen in the middle of the next-generation XC90.
The screen, about the size of an iPad, is the centerpiece of a “virtually button free” system that drivers can use to control everything from navigation to climate control to the radio. It will support Apple CarPlay, which will let drivers and passengers play music, use GPS, and send and receive calls, emails, and texts.
Volvo remains thoroughly committed to safety, said Dean Shaw, VP of corporate communications. Tasks that drivers need (or want) to complete immediately, like entering a navigation destination, can be done using the steering wheel, where you'll find most of the buttons Volvo didn’t banish (fewer than two dozen remain). Or they can use voice recognition. Drivers who opt for CarPlay can use Siri.
“Everything in a Volvo is there to make our cars safer and more pleasurable to drive,” Alain Visser, senior vice president, said.
But voice recognition systems aren’t a cure-all for distraction. A June 2013 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, conducted by University of Utah researchers, examined cognitive distractions in drivers. It found that listening and responding to a voice-activated email system was riskier than talking on a cellphone, whether handheld or hands-free.
“As mental workload and distractions increase, reaction times slow, brain function is compromised, drivers scan the road less and miss visual cues” like pedestrians, the report said. We can keep our eyes on the road, but it’s not much good if our brains are elsewhere.
Some tasks in the XC90, like turning on the air conditioning, will be done through the center screen. That’s why, Shaw said from his car, Volvo engineers worked hard to create an intuitive setup that minimizes the time drivers have their eyes off the road.
No matter how logical the setup, drivers must still look at the touch screen to use it capably. Such a system eliminated the big advantage of good old-fashioned buttons: You can find them with your fingers, then push them. Muscle memory allows you to do this quickly and easily. It’s possible that you’ll memorize the XC90’s touch screen well enough to do that, but you’re more likely to accidentally turn on the massaging seat while changing the radio station.
Shaw said systems that use only buttons are a thing of the past. Audi, BMW, Lexus, and others have buttons, he said, but they’re part of such complex systems that you have to look at what you’re doing anyway. Tesla was the first to move away from buttons altogether, giving the Model S a monster 17-inch console that controls just about everything in the car, including windows and door locks.
Volvo’s goal with its touch screen, Shaw said, was to “absolutely minimize the time you’re looking across.”
That assumes drivers can keep their eyes off the shiny screen in their peripheral vision. Drivers may not have to use the giant tablet in their car, but they’ll want to. We spend so much time looking at our phones that we can't even safely walk with them anymore. A 2012 study by the Pew Research Center found more than half of cellphone owners have bumped into someone, or were bumped into by someone, because they were distracted by their phone. In December, a woman walked off a pier in Melbourne, Australia, while checking Facebook. She couldn’t swim and the police pulled her from the water 65 feet offshore--and she was still clutching her phone, according to The Guardian.
We’re not worried above drivers plunging into the ocean, but the stakes are a lot higher for drivers than pedestrians.
Overall, the interior of the XC90, which will be fully revealed in August, looks great. It’s chock full of leather and wood and even has a crystal glass gear lever knob. But it would look better with more buttons.
