The industry-wide transition to all-electric powertrains is affecting more than just what’s under the hood – it’s also affecting vehicle design, including interior layouts and vehicle HVAC system controls. Many automakers are moving towards fewer hard buttons in lieu of additional infotainment screen controls, including Cadillac. However, in our opinion, that’s the wrong move.
It wasn’t always this way. Previously, Cadillac did it right when it came to curved infotainment screens and HVAC controls – the Lyriq certainly comes to mind. Inside the Lyriq, drivers are met with a wide, horizontally oriented screen mounted across the top of the dash that stretches from the driver’s-side A-pillar to the edge of the center stack. Below the screen, immediately next to the steering wheel, you’ll find a series of hard buttons to control the HVAC system, including vent direction, temperature controls, A/C, window defrosters, and the like.
The interior of the Lyriq was refreshing when compared to the interior layouts on offer from rivals like Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Now, however, it looks like Caddy is moving in the wrong direction, ditching the hard buttons in favor of additional controls only accessible via the infotainment screen.
That includes the interior control layouts seen on the Celestiq, Escalade IQ, and the Vistiq, all of which will feature the same digital HVAC control panel / screen mounted in the front of the center console. In our opinion, this type of button-less layout kills one of Cadillac’s key competitive advantages in the EV segment – physical HVAC controls.
Of course, the move to screen-only controls is likely an imitation of Tesla’s control scheme, which is well-known for moving everything onto a screen. The lack of physical controls also helps to reduce Cadillac’s dependency on microchips.
Nevertheless, we’re a fan of keeping at least some physical buttons in the interior for things like the HVAC controls. Do you agree? Let us know your opinion by voting in the poll below, and remember to subscribe to GM Authority for more Cadillac news, GM electric vehicle news, GM technology news, GM business news, and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
For the past 35 years, when I purchase a new vehicle, I set the temperature to 72 degrees in the dealer lot and never ever touch it again. GM long ago perfected the automatic climate control and my Cadillac even has automated heated seats and rear window defogger. I’m fascinated my the mystery of how it knows exactly what to do. People that are always fiddling with the controls have issues and should just focus on driving.
Funny. I had the same exact impression in my XT5 when I first got it (yes I am a millennial that loves my Cadillac). I set the auto heated seats and auto defrost and certainly feel like I don’t have to fiddle with it as much as I do in my Rav4. Like it knows what I expect from it. Though I will bump it up from 70 to 72 on colder days.
IMO the XT5 has the best layout with just the right number of buttons. It”s too bad GM doesn’t think it’s worth continuing.
When you have buttons, it enhances the look of the build quality in the interior. My XT5 has nice metal toggles for the temperature and fan speeds which are nice to the touch and unique to its interior. Several other luxury cars have nice knurling to the knobs and if you go really high end, like Rolls-Royce, you have even leather wrapped knobs or Range Rovers with ceramic switches. So something like touching and operating a switch can even add to the luxury experience. You dump everything on a screen, it just ruins the character of the car for me. Instead of it showing itself as “innovation”, it screams “cost cutting” to me at the expense of the vehicles character (like the soulless interiors in Teslas). Touching the screen in my 2022 XT5 feels no different than touching the screen in my half priced 2016 Rav4. And this is not even mentioning the issue I have mentioned before of people needing to get their Teslas towed because their screens locked up on them.
Redundancy adds cost, complexity and another avenue for failure. For example 10 years ago, one of the manual HVAC control ‘buttons’ fan speed went out on my HUMMER H3 – turns out there was a soulless computer attached to those 3 big rubber knobs that I had to replace, not just the one knob – buttons are cosmetic – there are computer chips running everything. As is well documented, over 80% of the content in a GM vehicle is supplier sourced. Legacy auto design is very complex and involves incorporating numerous supplier content, each with separate proprietary software and then try to integrate that with their own hardware/software – hence the issues we see with Ford, GM, VW, etc. Toyota not as much since they remain in 2007 and are averse to new tech. Tesla (and the Chinese) make their own content and integration is seemless with one central CPU (Tesla has an alternating redundant CPU) allowing for OTA updates on nearly every aspect and they use about half as many wires and microprocessors throughout the car. This has a massive impact on cost reduction and reliability. All windows on Tesla’s have auto up functionality (not just the driver) and NHTSA determined that this was too dangerous (despite zero reported injuries) and required Tesla to reduce the force of the window – simple OTA update within a week. No legacy auto could do that, it would take an actual recall and the supplier would have to formulate and disseminate the fix (software and/or hardware) that would be done at a stealership costing GM millions. You can have your leather wrapped everything with at least one microprocessor behind the curtain, but I much prefer my ‘soulless’ Tesla. Not sure how 100 year old buttons scream build quality or modern, but to each their own. I understand changing auto temp by voice or screen display may be difficult for some, Buick still has a lot of buttons and knobs. BTW your claim about Tesla’s screens locking up is way more rare than the 60 Blazer EVs bricking. You can hate Cadillac’s Tesla-ish new direction, but GM needs to find a way to be profitable in the BEV space, and bringing more tech in house is imperative – hence, eliminating redundancies, lack of Apple Car Play, etc. GM is experiencing growing pains in this arena, but will improve as they have recently made some great hires. I think the Cadillac IQ has the best interior set up of any GM car – I’m no GM hater as I also have a 20′ Colorado ZR2 Duramax (sh!t interior-don’t care), but I love turbo diesels.
Apple doesn’t charge manufacturers for CarPlay
Its about who gets the data, GM or Apple – GM is trying to integrate data into its own ecosystem rather than other competitors that are developing BEVs like Apple.
Per GM Authority: My first question got right to the point – why did GM decide to ditch CarPlay and Android Auto?
“The primary reason is that we’re looking to create a comfort level around the [EV] charging experience. With Android Auto or Apple CarPlay environments, the vehicle energy model or road segment data is sending energy usage and everything else associated with it to the phone, and it’s pretty difficult to off-board it from the phone,” Buffa explained. “So what we have built in[to the Blazer EV’s infotainment system] is really accurate data around battery health and battery monitoring and everything else that comes with it.
Then send the data to two places: the phone and internally for GM use.
The Lyriq also has the ability to adjust the climate with voice control. I can’t imagine that feature wouldn’t appear on the newer iq Cadillac models. Either way, as above posters have noted, the Cadillac auto climate works really well.
I said it years ago when the touch screens first appeared. They will become the UI and eventually no buttons. I think a mistake, but it is cost. Buttons are actually pretty expensive. But they do offer something a touch screen cannot mimic. Muscle memory. I can touch a button without looking. Honestly we all miss a bit, but then those nerves in our fingertips adjust the finger to just the right spot. Not happening on a touch screen. But again, agree with the article, it is a mistake. It differentiated caddy in a good way.
buttons are safer as well vs. reading an iPad while driving
RIght on. Until cars are fully autonomous we need physical buttons.
My next EV is going to be a Kia since they’re the only ones retaining physical buttons in their EVs.
If you live in a cold weather state. Automatic Climate Control expells defroster heated air. That’s infuriating when driving in a snow storm. If the windshield is cold. The windshield stays clean. If you like wipers in winter, enjoy the frustration. In Winter, I rarely use A/C/C.
I’m getting a neural link brain implant and won’t need buttons or touch screen.
For me, it is the guest passenger to my right that is often the problem. I have set my Buick Envision HVAC controls of comfort and very seldom need to readjust them. If I pick up someone one of the first things they do is to start messing with the controls. If it is cold outside, they move the temperature control to 80, or, if it is a hot day, to 60. Then they turn the fan up. My Buick maintains comfort so well, it would be better to make the controls less accessible, especially to a passenger.
Think “buttons” are the least of their challenges…..
And if the screen malfunctions, then what?
It would NEVER happen in a Cadillac, right?
(Sighs at 2019 Cadillac CTS CUE screen that is frozen and will cost over $1K to repair)
Real buttons are welcome – especially when they control something that is used when the vehicle is not on. In this case, GM could have made soft buttons for the HVAC. I am glad they didn’t. I do wish I didn’t have to power-up just to open the glove box… I’ve convinced myself this oddity is a “security feature” as there’s no other secure place in the passenger compartment to store small stuff.
It helps when I read the manuals… Re: Glove box opening: “With the vehicle off, press the Volume control or Rotary Infotainment Controller on the center console to display the infotainment screen. Select the Glove Box button.” Would still prefer a real button/latch.
The driver needs the ability to touch and identify some controls without looking. Touch screen takes this away from the driver. If it is imperative to eliminate buttons and knobs, make sure it is replaced by something that keeps driver eyes on the road (such as voice controlled HVAC).
Eliminating physical controls is a great cost-saving measure, but I’m a consumer, not a manufacturer, and I want what’s best for me: physical controls. Cadillac is fully aware, but they must’ve determined they’ll lose more designing and making controls than they will from sales lost over a couple years due to poorly designed user interface.
Well, you got it right, for most misleading article name. Kudos, you got my click.
When I’m driving and it is -20 C I do like not having to take off my winter gloves to adjust the heat.
I agree 100% that it’s a mistake to remove the physical HVAC buttons. It isn’t just EV’s though. I recently bought a new, completely loaded Lincoln Corsair GT ($67K MSRP), and it has no physical HVAC buttons. I thought I’d be ok with the HVAC controls in the infotainment screen, but I was mistaken. If I’m driving along with the seat heat on 3 and I want to turn it down to 2, I press the seat heater button on the screen. For whatever reason, it switches the seat over to cooling on high (3), then I have to hit the button for heat again twice to get the seat heater to go to 2. By that time I get it set properly, I’ve been staring at the infotainment screen so long, the car usually warns me to focus on the road, since the BlueCruise camera sees I’m not looking ahead. That was a simple, single push of a button on my 2018 Edge Sport. Physical HVAC controls will become mandatory for my next vehicle.
I can adjust the knobs and switches with my gloves on, no true with a touch screen.
To those who prefer controls on the screen, when you are up to 10 visits to GM with your new Lyriq for software issues like me, you might change your mind. ☹️
GM is great at “let’s fix what’s not broke”