SoylentNews

fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

Toyota just announced [toyota.com] a voluntary recall – meaning no government force is involved – of more than a half-million (591,000 to be precise) Toyota/Lexus models with the 12.3 inch touchscreen because the display may “go blank on start-up:” [ericpetersautos.com]

This is bad news because it’s not only that you can’t see anything – other than a blank screen – you can’t control the things that are only accessible/operable via tap/swiping the touchscreen. When the screen goes dark, so do the tap-swipe controls and since there are often not back-up ways of controlling some of these things, you may no longer have control over such things as the AC/heat controls and the audio system controls.

This is one of the risks you buy into when you buy a vehicle that has a touchscreen display. The display, like most electronic things, works until one day it doesn’t. When that day comes, you may no longer know how fast you’re driving – because the LCD speed display went dark and now you can’t change the radio station, either, because the controls were on the screen that just went dark.

Affected models are basically all the models Toyota (and Lexus) sell since they all now have touchscreens in lieu of instrument clusters, which are becoming a relic of the rapidly receding world of about 15 minutes ago.

Original Submission