- Rivian's Chief Software Officer says that physical buttons are antiquated controlling vehicles with your voice is the future
- The change hinges on AI solving "broken" voice assistants
- Rivian owners aren't sold on the vision, though
In the age of the touchscreen, many automakers are slapping a big ol' tablet-sized display to the center of a dashboard and calling it a day. This has led to another phenomenon: in-car minimalism. Tesla is one of the pioneers in this department—I mean, just look at the Model 3's stripped-down interior which people are outfitting with accessories to bring functionality back to physical controls.
Then there's Rivian. The EV startup's Chief Software Officer, Wassym Bensaid, recently unleashed a hot take on the public that takes things a step further. His opinion? In-car buttons are so out and voice controls are in.
Bensaid shared his take during an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. He explained that Rivian's design philosophy is centered around the digital experience—the same justification that Rivian gave for not offering Apple CarPlay in its vehicles—and that physical buttons are becoming an "anomaly" in modern cars.
Now, Bensaid isn't talking about moving all of the controls to the touch screen. In actuality, Rivian has all but done that already. He thinks that the future of motoring is taking things a step further and moving to a voice-centric control plane.
“Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. The problem today is that most voice assistants are just broken," said Bensaid during the interview. He later told TechCrunch more after stepping off the stage. “The final north star I have is having voice [controls] become the primary means of interaction with the vehicle. The reality is that the vehicle is so feature-rich, that even if we do a fantastic job in the UI, there will always be prioritization that we need to do in terms of having things one or two menus behind.”
Ultimately, the goal for Rivian is to have every single vehicle control accessible through a voice command. This doesn't mean getting rid of all buttons, at least that's not what Bensaid implied, but instead creating a multimodal way to augment the user experience rather than having to dig through menus on a central touch screen.
That being said, it seems that the Rivian community isn't exactly sold on Bensaid's vision. "Yes to buttons, no to voice," said one Redditor on the Rivian Subreddit. "I used to be able to control my fans and temperature without taking my eyes off the road in my button car."
"Voice control should augment, not replace physical controls in this setting," said another.
The majority of complaints online revolved around common uses like trying to engage the voice assistant over loud music or performing specific in-car tasks (think repositioning seats and adjusting the AC). The point that people are trying to make is that there are just certain functions that don't seem to be well-suited for controlling with your voice.
Many complaints were of problems surrounding most modern voice assistants, something which Bensaid admitted are "broken." But, again, the goal is to develop something that solves these problems in the future, potentially with Artificial Intelligence and partnerships that Bensaid can't yet talk about.
Rivian's buttonless approach tracks with its vision of a tech-first approach to its digital in-car experience. However, that doesn't mean everyone is going to be on board. After all, a voice command just doesn't give that same tactile experience that pressing a button does. And until Rivian can prove that this tech works flawlessly, it's going to get some pooh-poohs from the peanut gallery.
Is Rivian taking the right side of history, or will its innovative thinking cause a bout of negative attention when it's getting ready to push for more market share with its snazzy R2 and R3 platforms? Let me know in the comments how you feel about a voice-controlled car.
