Living with a car from the present - 2019 Bolt EV

It's a style thing. The Bolt interface is made of very bright colors and balloon-shaped text boxes. Everything is rounded. The color bars for the efficiency rating are a little unnecessary and chunky. I think some of that is because it's designed to fit on a smaller screen (either that or the HVAC controls are ENORMOUS), but even then the color pallette is a little garish. 

Here's what is basically the same display from the Tesla. It has more room to work with so of course it's laid out differently, but you see the more subtle color gradients instead of solid, bright colors. It's a more technical look, more grown-up. It's not black and white, but it's not yelling at you.

I've worked in interface design for a long time :)Like I said, if GM wants their products to be viewed as premium, I think the Bolt interface could use a tweak. It presents good information. It's just done in a way that's fun! and young! and less "I am a serious piece of hardware". If you were shopping different EVs, you would probably subconsciously view the GM as being less sophisticated than something with a more restrained and pared down aesthetic. 

I have worked in interface design for a long time. I may look at it differently than some others. I think interface design is going to become almost as important as exterior sheetmetal design when it comes to winning buyers.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but honestly I prefer the layout of the bolt. 

But I love color. I wore a bright pink shirt today. I don't think I could tell you something looks garish unless it's an orange car with yellow stripes and blue lug nuts. So perhaps it's a style thing. 

We have a customer who had a bright blue Caterham with orange wheels. You would have loved it. He loved it. Not everyone did.

I checked with tunawife. She definitely is sensitive to bad color combinations and what you may call garish. 

She likes the bolt screens and thinks the Tesla screen looks ugly. No kidding. 

I think it looks like graph paper. I'm a nerdy engineer, I love graph paper, but that screen didn't look better or more premium. It looks boring. 

tuna55 said:

I checked with tunawife. She definitely is sensitive to bad color combinations and what you may call garish. 

 

She likes the bolt screens and thinks the Tesla screen looks ugly. No kidding. 

 

I think it looks like graph paper. I'm⁶ a nerdy engineer, I love graph paper, but that screen didn't look better or more premium. It looks boring. 

 

As an engineer it (tesla) looks like work. It looks like some program for natural frequencies rather than something fun.

Mad_Ratel said:

tuna55 said:

I checked with tunawife. She definitely is sensitive to bad color combinations and what you may call garish. 

 

She likes the bolt screens and thinks the Tesla screen looks ugly. No kidding. 

 

I think it looks like graph paper. I'm⁶ a nerdy engineer, I love graph paper, but that screen didn't look better or more premium. It looks boring. 

 

As an engineer it (tesla) looks like work. It looks like some program for natural frequencies rather than something fun.

I am an engineer (not sure what this has to do with anything), I like the Tesla screen way better. The Bolt looks like something GM or Ford would come up with. 

The two screens are showing different data. One's a simplified summary of the last drive. The other is more of a datalog. Obviously they're going to look different, it was just the closest comparison I had to the screenshots that Tuna provided. 

But get past the "graph paper" thing and look at the style. Gradients vs bold contrasting colors. Fine lines vs chunky ones. More consistency in the treatment of text - heck, just the amount of text The icons are much cleaner and simpler on the Tesla, they're busier and brighter and sometimes surrounded by another bright color and/or a text label on the Bolt. This is all usually interpreted as being more upscale, and that's my point. Not that it's ugly or that everyone should like one more than the other, but that it's a design language that's associated with a different point in the market. Bang and Olufson vs Sony, Tiffany's vs Jareds. If GM wants their cars to be viewed as upscale, this is something that needs to be addressed.

It's quite possible that we will have "skins" in these screens before too long - if we don't already. That way those who want big bright buttons can get them, and those that want a more restrained look can get that. I think you can do that with the gauge clusters on some cars, it's a logical thing to extend to the primary interface as well.

I see what Keith is talking about (I think). The Tesla display appears to have better resolution and more colors so it seems to be a nicer piece of kit.  Kind of like comparing a high end tablet to a $70 Chinese knockoff.  And I'm not saying Tuna's Bolt or its display is a cheap Chinese knockoff, just trying to come up with an example...

As an engineer, and a driver, I find the Tesla screen too detailed and intricate and the Bolt screen too much like a 90s video game. The Tesla screen looks like my job; the Bolt screen seems dumbed-down for the typical Chevrolet buyer who's headed down to Bob Evans for a few sides of breakfast sausage and a glass of sweet tea.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

You make an excellent point.  Jaguar has always had an upscale look on their analog dash.  It's the grouping of the switches and the clustering of the gauges that provides that class.  
 Today's cars don't have that look with digital instruments. Eventually Class will tell.  Some manufactures are happy with a Pachinko  Parlor  style while others tend to go more towards the Airliner Style 

( sorry if that reference dates me). 
 However real class will tell eventually and it won't be the burled  walnut with leather look of the 50's - 60's 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Sorry dude, I'm not picking up what you're putting down. I prefer the Bolt. I'd say the same if I owned the other. It does have some skins already. I like this one the best. I'll send a picture of the others in a few days if I can remember. I'm not buying the "upscale" issue. 

I work in an industry where "style" is co-mingled with a lot of verbal masturbation.

I clearly see Keith's point...  and Tuna's. Pure personal preference. The cool thing about this type of display is that it could easily be changed without having to rebuild the dashboard (ie. the "skins" mentioned by Keith). 

I apparently have not been expressing myself well. My point is not “Tesla is soooo much better than Bolt!!1!”  It’s that the design language used here is not a premium one and I made the mistake of using The Enemy as an example. 

 I don’t care what your personal preferences are, this is a matter of the impression given by the design language. Think Toys R Us vs Tiffany’s, or the reworking of the McDonalds palette recently. Heck, think of the exterior colors you see on economy cars vs luxury sedans. I know that everyone on the GRM board is above such trivialities as fashion or design cues that are not 100% rooted in function, but it’s a real thing regardless. It could be a choice on GM’s part to try to attract the younger buyer. It is not styled as a premium product.

And you know what? The car is not trying to occupy a premium spot in the marketplace. But if GM wants to go there, they may want to revisit their design language. That was my original statement.

Anyhow, I’ll stop. Tuna and Tunawife love it, and that’s what matters in this specific case.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Just to clarify, I totally get your point, and it's not just because I have some bias against Tesla. I just don't agree. That's a possibility that you don't seem to have considered. 

You do have more exposure to it than I do. All I have is two screenshots. I’ve posted the reasoning for my statements and it’s based on a couple of decades of working in interface design. Other opinions are obviously valid although I’d be interested in actual reasoning other than “I don’t agree”.  A shot of the screen in the context of the rest of the interior would be good to see. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I'm not sure that makes sense. This is not a demonstrable hard scientific fact which can be repeated from person to person. You have your opinion, and some experience being making things look upscale. I'm simply saying that it doesn't look upscale to me. I don't know that I can, or that anyone else can, justify that opinion.  

I have given the reasoning behind my observation, including examples and exactly the details that were leading me to this observation. I should have gone with examples from another industry, like the Jared’s vs Tiffany’s comparison I put together and then deleted because I thought it would be misconstrued.

The fact that I chose the Tesla was a mistake. I apologize for the derailment. Back to wiring up chargers and filling the trunk with stuff. 

Nope. Still not getting what I'm saying. Had nothing to do with Tesla. Show me both screens months ago and don't tell me which is which, I won't be able to say one is upscale and one is not. 

Hopelessly out of order. Here it is finished. I like it. 

I had a little help. She turned seven a few days ago. I needed help threading the wire through since I left it long. It turns out that I had enough wire from the install. 

Here is the back of the unit. One cord to the outlet, the other to the car. 

Here is the inside. Just switching the wires on the right. 

This terminal block broke. I'm not sure if I should replace it in kind or get something else. 

Any more driving impressions? How is it working carting the TunaKids around? 

In reply to tuna55 :

That installation definitely looks more upscale, and has a premium feel about it.  

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Ha!

In reply to dj06482 :

Basically it's a new car. It drives and rides very nicely. It works, it's comfortable.

Not a whole lot differentiates it from a normal car, really. If you haven't, drive an EV sometime. No matter how "fast" they are, the immediate response and lack of any transition during acceleration is amazing.

I'll also say that this car is ridiculously stable. It doesn't get buffeted around by the wind, it tracks completely straight. The transitions during corners are solid.

Let me explain that last one. When I drive an old car like the Honda, it definitely has a "parts flying in loose formation" feel to it that MG guys speak of. Turn hard, and you're holding on while it digs for traction. When I drive a new car like the minivan or any other new truck, it has a couch-like feel. When you preturb it, it almost feels a bit underdamped, as if it really would have preferred to be left alone and is reluctant to turn, so you get a body lean, turn, body lean back. Like you're driving an upright cooked noodle.

The Bolt is solid. Maybe the weight distribution, maybe the suspension tuning. I haven't driven it in real anger yet, but for aggressive on ramps and abrupt lane changes and whatnot, it seems utterly unflappable.

I really like that.

What I wanted was a stress-free way to cart my sack of meat back and forth to work, eighty miles per day. I got it.

In reply to tuna55 :

We used to joke about the LTD LeMons car, when you turn the wheel, it didn't really make the car turn, just lean.