Please Stop Plopping Big Screens in the Middle of Car Dashboards ⇥ theverge.com

Sean O’Kane, the Verge:

Ford’s newly revealed electric Mustang SUV, the Mach-E, is quickly becoming one of the more buzzed-about car reveals of the last few years. But while the new EV looked competent at its LA Auto Show debut, the company pretty much whiffed on one really important part of the Mustang Mach-E: the software.

The performance and practicality of the Mustang Mach-E will be big determinants of its success, but the new Sync 4 software that will power the giant 15.5-inch touchscreen at the center of the dashboard will have a major impact on day-to-day life inside this car. That’s why it was disappointing that Ford didn’t offer much of a chance to interact with the software, and in some cases was actively discouraging people from trying to use it.

That’s pretty embarrassing, but so is the Mach-E’s approach to automotive interior design. Just go look at the pictures: there’s a big 15-inch laptop screen just sort of screwed into the dash. It’s not just Ford, either; Volkswagen’s otherwise nice-looking electric wagon concept has the same problem. I’d think it was case of these companies aping Tesla, but new cars from Mercedes-Benz, Mazda, and Hyundai — among many others — also have poorly-integrated screens of various sizes. The Mercedes and Volkswagen examples are particularly ridiculous — the integration of the display in the E-Class is fine, and the screen in our Golf sits perfectly in the centre console.

This is just lazy.