[viraptor]

This may be quite hard to learn for a while. Especially the less often used options. I'd be interested to give it a go though.

For now the best car interface I've used was voice recognition. It usually works great, because it's not a general purpose text dictation. It only needs to recognise less than 100 words and it's not that hard to do. For example I'm not a native English speaker, and I can't get google voice input to capture most of the sentences correctly - it's simply not usable for me at the moment. But I'm quite happy to use voice commands in a Prius - I don't think I've ever used more than 4 or 5 of them, always perfectly recognised.

[debt]

Voice seems to be the best and safest user interaction for vehicles. If the voice software knew the car was in motion or at a difficult intersection perhaps it could change it's tone and sense of urgency. It does make me think if there will be VI(voice interaction) designers in the future.

[aestra]

I find voice controls extremely distracting, mentally. It takes your focus off the road just as much if not more, I believe. Plus, I always have to repeat myself a bunch because I believe they are programed to recognize a man's voice.

[matthaeus]

Do you have an iPad? Save a bookmark to your homescreen for this URL: http://matthaeuskrenn.com/new-car-ui/prototype/