> What do you think the best implementation would look like? Seems it would still have to strike a balance.

Somehow a small amber light (in the shape of a fuel pump) and a chime has worked for decades and there haven't been hordes of drivers stranded as a result. Something your grandmother could easily understand.

10-15 year old cars maybe give an additional small information message in the cluster easily dismissible with a steering wheel button.

No, the problem has been the mass importation of tech industry rejects into the car companies, as if the car companies haven't been quietly and successfully writing embedded software for 50 years, who brought their terrible habits with them. Like a need to "reinvent" UIs every six months.

Cars are safety-critical machines. They are not a place for "creatives" to experiment with UI design.

Sadly marketing drones think everybody wants a Tesla-style "everything is a screen" design whereas a 1999 Toyota pretty much had it right.

This isn't difficult. It requires no "innovation". Analog tach and speedo with idiot lights for critical alerts (there is literally an ISO standard for this) should be mandated by law. Substitute tach for a battery monitor in an EV.

EVs are the worst of both extremes. Either the entire interior is a touchscreen or you have something like the Slate, where there isn't even a radio. A room full of geniuses and what they come up with is a bluetooth speaker holder. Unbelievable, you can't throw in a DIN radio like a 1987 Datsun? Why can't EV manufacturers build a "normal" car?

> a little clumsily

s/a little/very/;

> What do you think the best implementation would look like?

We already had one! Dashboard indicator lamps have been an international standard (ISO 2575) since 1982.

> But it's also dangerous for a driver to run out of fuel on the highway if we didn't catch their attention.

Yes, it is. But the key word is "if". The product folks involved in making these UI/UX decisions were more concerned with whether or not they could (read: "chimp attract" for "feature parity" to "drive sales") than with whether or not they should (read: "should we be manufacturing two ton death machines that act like nannies?"). Where is the research that provides the answers to the questions "how likely is it that the driver isn't aware of how much fuel is in the vehicle?", "are our customers really as stupid as we think they are?", or even "what's the downside of training our customers to accept a more mindless state of existence while piloting giant metallic flesh-tearing bone crushers packed full of explosive hydrocarbons and squishy humans?"

> The general public though… uh oh!

You can come down from your ivory tower at any time. We have tacos down here and we all enjoy them.

To quote the late, great Lou Holtz, "they put their pants on the same way we do". I don't think there's ever been a time in all of my years on this planet that I've gotten into a car to go on a highway journey of any length and not looked at the fuel gauge. Oftentimes, my passenger will even ask me how much gas is in the tank. Glancing at the fuel gauge should be the first thing that any motor vehicle operator looks at when climbing into the captain's chair. Maybe I'm at that stage of life where I'm no longer capable of comprehending the manner in which the younger generations experience the world, but getting into an automobile and driving off without knowing how much fuel you have is like walking out the front door without confirming that your shoe laces are tied.

This constant othering of "the general public" without any research to back it up really grinds my gears, to use a contextually appropriate idiom. Please stop.

> What do you think the best implementation would look like? Seems it would still have to strike a balance

Others have explained how the old tech worked well. But let's assume new tech (touch screens), and see what can be done.

There are urgent messages and non urgent messages.

Non urgent messages can be shown when starting the car and requiring the driver to acknowledge them. low wiper fluid - non urgent. This could be a list requiring ack for everything. Recently on my BMW they got the smog check year wrong, and it kept warning me for months before I realized I could change the date for the alerts - same should be possible for low fluid - Ok, I acknowledge, but stop warning for next 14 days (or 2 months).

Urgent messages have to be blocking.

Low gas would be non urgent when you have 50 miles of gas left, but could become semi-urgent (more prominent) when you have less than 50. Also, this is where the tech could be useful. If the car has internet and knows there are no gas stations within 50 miles, or whatever the current range is .... it should make it super prominent. That knowledge processing, aka AI in modern era, would be so awesome.

But it requires design for usability, not one catch all solution.

I have never been especially bothered by fact that warning for low wiper fluid was well getting somewhat less wiper fluid... I don't use much, but it never felt like critical lack of proper early warning.

My car has only a small dashboard screen with some information and when something is alarming it is colored yellow or red for significance and pops up filling the screen, then after a little while minimizes to a little warning icon corresponding to the issue matching the color. Or I can hit a close button on the steering wheel.

Distinguish between what used to be red and amber lights.

For years, vehicles have had a little light that comes on when you are below about 50 miles of range. It's next to the fuel gauge. I've always heard it called the "walk light", which I presume is a reference to the fact that, if you don't do something, you may have to start walking soon.

My car has a little screen in the dash where it usually shows my range, or the current temperature - information that I check when safe to do so, but never very urgently. This is the perfect place for a warning about low wiper fluid.

As for forward collision warnings, ehhhh. Maybe that should beep loudly, but it should almost never be wrong! (A false alarm could easily mean I slam on the brakes and get rear-ended, so that has to be balanced with the safety advantage of the true alarm.)

Glad I asked, y’all are great, thanks

Those warnings just don’t need to exist. I have a car from 2002, it has none of those and it’s fine, totally fine.

There is a fuel gauge I look at to see my fuel level, when I’m out of wiper fluid it just doesn’t work (I have extra in my trunk so no big deal). I don’t need a noise to tell me there is a car in front of me, I’ve been driving this car every day for 15 years with no accidents so obviously a collision alarm is not required for safe driving.

How about we stop infantilizing people and expect some base level of competence.