While touchscreen infotainments are a form of entertainment they pose more problems as they get bigger for the Nigerian car owner.
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As the day goes by, newer released cars show that automakers are not relenting in making touchscreens bigger in cars. Some of them are as wide as 12 inches and more!
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For instance, the all-new Mercedes-Benz EQC giant screen spans the whole length of the dashboard. Many then ask the question: how would Nigerians survive giant screens in cars in a country where supercars cannot survive? How do we make sure that these screens remain healthy throughout the cause of owning the car?
Why Car Touchscreens are Getting Bigger
A typical car comes with three functions of display which include, primary, secondary, and tertiary display functions.
The primary display function is the basic display that allows car owners to monitor speed, temperature, and basic things. The secondary display allows you to monitor things like air conditioning that change frequently but can be accomplished quickly. While the tertiary display takes time to change and they are not fundamental to the driving of a car examples will be navigation with a map and the clock display.
The reason why touchscreen display and infotainment came into play in the first place was because of the ever-increasing tertiary display functions of cars with advancements in technology. Cars are getting more functions than mobile phones like music, controllable ambient lights, navigation, internet, and so on.
Using buttons to navigate through these functions requires lots of inputs that would waste a lot of time, which is why a responsive touchscreen became the grand solution. As such, it’s the main reason why cars are getting touch screens as a replacement for buttons.
Another reason why cars are getting these screens is to enhance the aesthetics of a car. These screens make cars look more aesthetically pleasing. The best example is the Mercedes-Benz EQC and the Tesla Model S.
Issues with Bigger Touchscreen for the Nigerian Car Owner
- They are a Form of Distraction for Many Drivers
Touchscreen infotainment screens distract a lot of drivers because of how engaging they can be, thanks to touch sounds and voice guides that get drivers so intrigued with what is going on on the infotainment screen. It is one of the leading causes of car accidents in Nigeria and all over the world
The Tesla screen, for example, has 90% of the car’s onboard function linked to the screen and it becomes impossible to not look at this beautiful screen as you drive.
Research by Transport Research Laboratory in 2020 on the type and length of distractions caused by touchscreens, found that choosing a track on Spotify had drivers looking away from the road for as much as 20 seconds which is enough time for the worst accident to happen to a distracted driver.
This is why automakers are now striving every day to give cars more safety and warning features to compensate for the distraction caused by these infotainment screens.
- Nigerian Car Owners Buy Foreign Used Cars
We live in a country where 80% of the cars bought have been used in another country for over 6/7 years. This won’t work well with the big-screen cars. Touchscreen infotainment systems lose their sensitivity. So, it will be hard for a used car to still retain a standard touchscreen infotainment system after a long time.
Also, touchscreen infotainment systems would be mostly made out of breakable materials and because of how exposed they are, they could easily break. When an original screen breaks, replacement doesn’t come cheap and easy. The fragility of these screens would play a big role in making cars incomplete when being bought in the foreign used car market of Nigeria.
- Nigeria Lacks Internet Community-dependent Features
A lot of these new cars with full touchscreen infotainment systems always have cloud-based functions that don’t work in Nigeria like the Tesla Car Summon.
For instance, Tesla blacklisted a car because it was shipped to Nigeria and Tesla Motors could not extend its cloud-based services to the car hence, some functions won’t work at all.
Teslas are able to do a lot of things that can’t work here in Nigeria like ordering parts themselves and searching for the nearest charging station. All these functions would have been impossible without the big 17″ touch screen.
What Will Nigerian Car Owners Do?
There is absolutely nothing that can be done to avoid the issues with cars that come with large infotainment screens. It is just best to avoid cars with big touchscreen infotainment systems when buying foreign used cars pending the time when automakers will perfect the quality and durability of these touchscreen systems.
For people that already have a giant touch screen in cars, you need to be very protective and defensive with it. Always alert your passengers about the type of screen you carry so they can be more careful when moving around in the car.
No throwing around of stuff, no random swinging of hands or leaning on the dashboard. While cleaning the interior also, you need to make sure water doesn’t touch the screen.
Conclusion
Big screens and advanced technology in cars are the future but we need to be fully ready to accommodate that change in Nigeria. These are some of the reasons why bigger car screens are hard to handle in Nigeria.
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