MK8 latest info

[SRGTD]

True.

I see what you did there - I’m old enough to remember the 1980’s

[fredgroves]

It clearly was the reason for that dreadful signature colour too...

[jv]

Gold.

[SRGTD]

Top Gear review of the mk8 Golf;

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/volkswagen/golf-mk8

[kmpowell]

Top Gear review of the mk8 Golf;

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/volkswagen/golf-mk8

"We’re slightly unconvinced by the dash – the screens don’t look very integrated, resembling an engineers’ test system that’s been hacked into a last-gen car. And their glossy plastic surround looks cheap.

And in many ways it’s annoying to use. There’s no volume knob, only a capacitive slider that sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t respond to your fingertip. Shortcut buttons to take you directly to screens for climate, driver assist, and park assist, which is good. Unfortunately they’re tiny, badly marked and not that easy to reach.

There wasn’t a whole bunch wrong with the Mk7 Golf. And actually, most of the time in the new one we longed for the clarity of the old car’s infotainment. While some of the new system’s functions are proper wow-factor stuff, the no-buttons pratfall dismays us."

That sums up 100% why I won't be going for a Mk8 Golf, and why I think the 8.5 will see the return of lots of physical buttons to sway back Mk 7 owners who will be in the market (if they are still interested) for a new car. If I were a betting man, I'd say VW 'locked in' the lack of physical buttons before the market started questioning/backlashing, and they are now stuck with it until LCI.

Personally I think VW have dropped a big clanger with this one, sure they will still sell but all the reviews are saying the same thing, so for those non company buyers/leasers, this, I think, will be a big factor.

[fredgroves]

If its only the layout of the screens AND VW have OTA software updates.... there is no reason why they couldn't have another stab at this.

Well, other than the car industry seem to be utterly disconnected from the digital world.

I did see BMW are releasing Android Auto support for the Idrive7 this month.... both free and OTA. So maybe someone in Germany understands you can actually do that.

I'm guessing VW didn't do proper user acceptance testing, or picked the wrong focus group to do it or just didn't give them enough test time.... or conversely they DID have an extended test, much longer than these journalists get the cars for and that after a couple of days of using it everyone found it made perfect sense.

Given the amount of seeming hate the Mk7.5's AID had when it came out - hate from people who had never driven a car with it. Once you have it, you don't want to go back it seems...

[SRGTD]

@kmpowell; that just about sums up my feelings on the mk8 Golf.

In Volkswizard’s recent ‘first impressions’ video on the mk8 (link posted by king monkey earlier in this thread), his initial view was that with voice control and the steering wheel buttons, it probably won’t be necessary to physically use the touchscreen much at all. He had the use of the mk8 for 72 hours, so it’ll be interesting to see if he still feels the same way after having used the car for a few days. Voice control is fine if it can recognise and understand regional accents and dialects, but the functionality in some manufacturers cars isn’t that successful at doing this.

I agree with Fred about UAT and focus groups - maybe insufficient testing time and the perhaps the profile of the focus group was wrong. I think many long standing, more mature existing Golf owners who may not be all that tech-savvy are likely to look elsewhere when they’re due to replace their existing Golf. I did read on another forum a while back that Honda went for the buttonless approach in one of their cars, only to revert back to conventional controls as part of an early facelift.

@fredgroves; I do think that acceptance of the AID is slightly a different scenario to acceptance of a touchscreen. With the AID it is just a display that you only need to glance at, so driver interaction is basically the same as it is with analogue dials. With a touch screen though, you’d need to physically locate and touch a specific area of the screen to operate certain functions that may be buried in a sub menu - all while driving and trying to focus on the road ahead at the same time.

Using the touchscreen in the mk8 Golf may feel entirely natural after a few days. However, as @kmpowell has said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see some conventional physical controls reappear in the mk8.5 either. Time will tell, although we may all be on the ID3 forum by then with a similar buttonless interior to the mk8 Golf.

I’m looking forward to Volkswizard’s follow up video review .

[fredgroves]

I am just thinking about my daily use of my Mk7.5....

I never touch the heater controls by and large (thats what auto climate does) except for defrosting the car in the winter... when i am stationary.

The headlights are on auto, the wipers on auto....

What else do I touch other than the actual driving bits? (pedals, steering, gearstick)

I wonder if we aren't actually over thinking this?

The main thing I touch is audio and sat nav and those are already touch screen....

[Watts]

So in the future cars will get the messages that the motorway gantries get? That'll be a fog warning then in bright sunshine for mile after mile after mile.......

[fredgroves]

So in the future cars will get the messages that the motorway gantries get? That'll be a fog warning then in bright sunshine for mile after mile after mile.......

Yes thats V2X.... its quite interesting, but i expect like everything like that the UK implementation will be rubbish.

Take the old fashioned RDS/TMC.... in France and Germany they use that perfectly - the messages are used for everything, precise and clear when the problem clears. Its amazing. It really works. Its 30 years old...

Here.... the roadworks aren't signalled, the things which are flagged are flagged hours after they happen and remain flagged for hours/days afterwards too.

The new V2x will probably turn out to be the same in the UK, but none the less it is interesting and the vehicle to vehicle comms will probably be the first thing you see work.

Things it is designed to do:

Forward collision warning
Lane change warning/blind spot warning
Emergency electric brake light warning
Intersection movement assist
Emergency vehicle approaching
Roadworks warning
Platooning

The latter is really interesting...

And those btw are V2X capabilities, not VW ones. Ie VW wrote just a compliant vehicle system for it, the nature and source of the messages come from elsewhere. Although I expect a Mk8 will do things like broadcast lane changes and braking etc.