What's happening with touch screens is total mess due to car designers trying to circumvent regulations (e.g., can't have that screen in front of a driver, or projected over the windshield) - so they are forced to move it to a side, which makes operating it while driving more dangerous.
But even button's design is falling prey of it, with buttons hidden way below the top of the dashboard, made of the same size, etc. It takes forever to scan & find the right button (e.g. internal air) while driving.
And I don't see it as just some recent trend (although there's much more of it). Even 10-12 years ago, this way already a problem.
One example of stupidity: Toyota Sienna 2013 has brightness control for its media screen (which also shows back up camera) via a touch screen button. Turning brightness at night works ok - but then turning it back on during day light is impossible - nothing is visible on that dimmed screen!! Latest Toyota Sienna has all of the climate control buttons (8?) in 1 row, very low, of the same size, barely visible signs on them - recipe for disaster...
I wish these designers and execs would have their kids life depend on it - I wonder if that'd change their thinking...
Why are people so exceptional lazy that they would put other people at risk while they wait for a machine to do something for them, rather than reaching up and wiping away some of the condensation so they can safely operate the vehicle? Are people really this astonishingly incompetent?
I rail against touch and ambiguous controls in safety critical applications more than most, but continuing to drive when you can't see properly is akin to get-there-itis.
With low visibility slowing down in the middle of the road is not save either though, given that those behind you don't expect it, and that few people keep sufficient distance. Same with standing on the side in such conditions.
In the described situation I think the best option is to be able and use the right buttons quickly, sticking to the original subject of the discussion. The option that would let you safely keep going with the flow is the best one I would say, under the given conditions.
Even if a million scenarios and alternatives can be thought of, what's the point of derailing a discussion focused on a particular subject? We only have a few hundred comments of room here, I think there is more value in keeping the focus.
And while the ideal scenario is of course that no problem arises, and second being that the problem is swiftly and efficiently resolved.. given those scenarios do not occur, and you have to decide between "keep going without seeing the road" and "putting hazards on and slowly coming to a complete stop", the latter definitely seems more reasonable in every way.
Of course specific scenarios where stopping will be less safe can be thought up, but statistically speaking, I dont see how an uncontrolled multi-ton moving object would be more safe that a stationary one.
Yes, obviously, but poorly designed or failed equipment does not absolve you of your responsibility to drive safely.
> Even if a million scenarios and alternatives can be thought of, what's the point of derailing a discussion focused on a particular subject?
The topic is road safety and the point is both pertinent and revealing. The attitude in your comment and others are highlighting basic failures in driver training, independent of the equipment design.
Honestly, I think you should reflect on your attitude here before you end up a road traffic statistic.
You are already operating the vehicle in traffic in bad conditions for yourself and everyone else, and still need to be able to operate the vehicle and still need to be able to see no matter which of the possible reactions you believe is least-risk at that particular time.
Whether you judge that the least-risk response is to turn on hazards and slow down or even stop right in the road where other drivers who you can not see are not expecting it, whether you can find a place to pull over and see it clearly enough to be absolutely sure there is not a child standing there, or to make no changes to current behavior at all so that you are the most predictable to everyone else, you still need to be able to operate the vehicle and see the road and other vehicles in order to do any of those. None of your suggestions gets around that, even coming to a full stop with hazards on.
Your theory also depends on other drivers to see you and your hazards. Where is the hazard control? This whole discussion is about poor controls.
Even if they did exactly what you who were not there presumes to declare they should have done, it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change the problem or solve the problem or work around the problem.
I mean this in the most charitable way possible - you should refrain from driving until you rectify this issue, either through self reflection or remedial training. Until then, you are a danger to yourself and others.
I agree with you on this -- but that is not how people behave. Just because people should behave that way, doesnt mean they do. People have a natural inclination to try and fix the problem by giving up a bit of attention -- that is bad for all of us who are affected by these decisions -- and this means -- fix the design.
Another situation - narrow intercity winding roads, 0 room for safe stopping of car for next 2km. Again, asking for a crash especially in situation when your windshield fogs which is usually during heavier rain.
Yet another situation - driving in even semi-dense traffic in any bigger city. Again, no place to just stop and block others safely.
I could go on for a while. Not always the smartest move.
I do believe though that if we took literally all possible scenarios and weighed them by the probability of them occuring, the results would show that a stopped vehicle is safer than a moving vehicle whose driver can not see.
In fact, I feel confident in saying that based on this comment, you are an unsafe driver and should voluntarily undertake remedial training, as you are unfit to be on the road.
Quotes appropriate, because I don't believe this is about safety, usability, or even aesthetics. It's about reducing the number of parts on the vehicle, i.e. lowering cost. It's car manufacturers deliberately making driving less safe to save a few bucks.
Re Touch screen, I agree - that's pure cost cutting. But that's just crazy. I'm surprised regulators are not preventing it.
Regulators are, from a long time, paid by car manufacturers.
One famous example is Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the new Star Trek movies. The new Jeep shifter design made it less obvious whether you put it in neutral or park, and so it rolled toward him when he got out and pinned him to death.
This is awful news to me. I've driven a wagoneer that had the spinning knob for the shifter, and yeah, I wasn't a fan.
I had the opportunity to drive a Tesla recently, and I was pretty blown away by how hostile the ux was. Even the indicator stalk has no tactile feedback leading to me indicating left then right multiple times after completing a simple lane change (as I pushed it slightly too far for the lane change mode so it didn't shut off automatically). Don't get me started on things like the AC and window wipers being behind the touchscreen, it's like they designed it to require a copilot.
It's driver aid features also get easily tricked leading to random steering corrections and slamming on the brakes. I'd love to know if anyone's analyzed the rate of rear end collisions compared to older/simpler cars, as I suspect it could be statistically higher.
It was also fairly amusing parking it in the garage - it seemed to mistake our dog for a motorbike and the other vehicle as a truck with the 3 of us colliding, glad it didn't try and automatically phone in the "collisions"
It baffles me that they were ever considered “luxury” cars except as to price.
Funnily this happens only in my model 3, not my X (I bought them before Elon went crazy). Both have automatic wipers on.
Nothing spells out "luxury" better than misadjusted panel gaps..
Not surprisingly, companies that have been making cars forever are pretty good at making cars. Cars have always been a very competitive market, so you didn't have the kind of absolute stagnation you see in some other industries. Tesla just gave them a kick in the butt to make electric cars.
That's true, and they are insanely fast. But I will never forget when the Model S was released and was competing against flagships like the 7 series and S class. When I tried one out, my overwhelming first impression was: this is it? And that was 2012. And it's still basically the same car!
AIUI, it turns out that the ability to select drive vs reverse is considered safety critical, so it has to work even if the infotainment system is not operational. This involves something along the lines of a dual-port touch sensor so that an independent, higher-reliability system can detect the gesture to change direction, and the hardware for that is not free. And the “gear shift” stalk was simple and cheap.
I haven’t tried it in an appropriate model Tesla, but I suspect you can trigger an infotainment reboot using whatever the current button press combination is, and then, before it finishes rebooting, select drive or reverse by swiping the left edge of the screen, and it will work.
Score one for car regulations doing the right thing? Maybe, but this all misses the mark, because how many people will know to do the ridiculous swipe on an invisible target when the need to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle and their infotainment system isn’t working.
(I don’t know about newer Teslas, but infotainment glitches on older models are common.)
That was Tesla's sales pitch. Model S was no competitor for Mercedes-Benz S-Class. It competed against the E-Class.
Success is self limiting. It makes people start to engage in magical thinking about their own abilities and vision.
Tesla is upper middle class (model S) or lower, just with potentially more horsepower in some models. It has great straight line performance and thats about it, but then ie dragsters should be in ultra-luxury class by that logic.
The vehicle keeps also falling apart. The wheel covers keep falling off because the clips keep breaking, even though there has been no damage that should have caused it.
On the previous one they were about seven or eight repair attempts for the window failing to roll up so I was unable to secure the vehicle and they kept failing to provide loaners when it was in for service.
This is for the model X and model S, which is supposed to be their “luxury” vehicles
By the way, if you would like to lemon your Tesla, please read your purchase agreement for the email to send your request. You get back all of the interest, payments, tax, registration and everything.
Lemon laws are laws that provide a remedy for purchasers of cars and other consumer goods in order to compensate for products that repeatedly fail to meet standards of quality and performance. Although many types of products can be defective, the term "lemon" is mostly used to describe defective motor vehicles, such as cars, trucks, and motorcycles.
https://www.wordsense.eu/lemoning/ It's number 5 here ^
At this point it feels like you're misunderstanding the chain on purpose.
First time riding in both. The road noise in the Y made it feel really cheap. Rough ride. Generally cheap feel.
The Kia was much smoother, quieter, obviously more premium materials.
It's really simple, Tesla people will tell you the car is built around a computer while other manufacturers stick a computer in their car. They're correct, and that's not a compliment for the Tesla because the ergonomics as well as the fit and finish were clearly an afterthought.
Kia EV6 GT Dry Michelin PS4S Summer 255/40-21 255/40-21 64,4 66,9 68,8 67,06 Tesla Model Y RWD Dry Michelin Pilot Sport EV Summer 255/40-20 255/40-20 64,5 67,1 68,7 67,09
Source: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HOwktdiZmm40atGPwymz...
If price and fuel wasn't a consideration (diesel cars and fuel have crazy taxes around here) I'd end with Toyota 10/10 times.
The current Model 3 seems to use about 25kWh/100mi. The off-peak rate (PG&E EV2-A) is 31c/kWh, giving $0.078/mi.
Tesla is winning, but not by a ton.
Supercharging seems to be a bit more expensive than home charging. Gasoline is less expensive outside California. Electricity is much less expensive outside of the investor-owned utility territories. Heck, Palo Alto (not exactly a low cost area) only charges $0.21c/kWh.
Where I live in Norway, this morning diesel is around $1.85 / l (so around $7 / gallon) and that is on the cheaper side since the pandemic ended.
I’ll take a Toyota Century over a Tesla any day of the week.
Facts are definitely treated as misinformation by a certain class of people these days, that's for sure.
The most obvious example is they have few ways to customize the look of your vehicle. A model S has what 7 colors and 2 kinds of wheels vs 2025 EQS 450 with 18 colors and 6 wheels to choose from. The Bens then has 23 Upholstery options and 4 independent trims and that’s before all the odd option packages.
Tesla used to operate an exclusive charging network which was a premium feature, but they opened that up to other manufacturers.
CCS2/Type-2 were adopted as EU standards with enforcement to start this year, although it sounds like it's more of a "the charger must have this, but can have others".
You clearly haven't sat in a loaded '25 Camry.
I really dislike using a touch screen while driving, as it makes me take my eyes off the road more than I'd like. I also just like how physical controls feel and make more sense. I was gifted the book, The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman, back in college and it really stuck with me how unintuitive many physical controls are in cars, as well as poorly designed doors on/in buildings (Norman doors as they are often called, in honor of the book).
You never need to touch the AC controls when driving thanks to auto mode. In the worst case you can use voice control, which you can again trigger from a physical control.
The 3D visualization is completely separate from the code that actually runs FSD, auto park, and other driver assist features, so just because it shows something wonky like a motorbike doesn't mean that it's what the car "thinks" it is.
I have physical buttons for changing the temperature, driver's side and passenger's side, and they don't get used even one in three times we get into the car -- but I'm still glad for the physical controls.
Honestly, after setting my car to my preferred temperature months ago, I never had to touch the hvac ever since. No idea why people keep wanting to fiddle with theirs.
I think some people would do well travelling a tid bit more.
> People don't feel hot or cold based just on ambient temperature
This is well known, and it is why sun-load sensors have been commonplace in cars for decades.
Automotive engineering is quite mature.
Never got in the car having one layer too many and having to turn down the temp? Or the other way around: not enough layers on and realise 10 minutes into the drive that it’s a bit chilly? Is your preferred temperature the same as the one of you passenger? Or you get in the car from a massive rain and you need to blast that aircon and bump the temp to deal with humidity completely obstructing the windshield?
My thermostat just works. I don’t live in an extreme climate, so layering isn’t a thing. The car has a button specifically for defogging your windshield, so that is treated separately from climate control. You can hit max if you want drastic temperature change, but it’s a heat pump so thermostat is the only way to go really.
See, you don’t. It’s okay.
“It barely ever rains in California. I don’t understand why we need wipers. And when it rains once in 10 years, I can stop… I don’t understand why everyone cannot just stop. Why do we spend money on those little engines and wipers.”
By the way… there’s nothing preventing auto aircon and having a manual dial to change the setting rather than through a touchscreen. It safer. You know, in case if you have to. Which you don’t have to, apparently. That’s cool.
The AC auto button takes the needed action to get to the temperature you set. In On Tesla this was mostly set and forget.
Does it also do seat heating/cooling automatically?
>In the worst case you can use voice control, which you can again trigger from a physical control.
Does it understand my accent or do I need to learn to talk like an American?
I have the opposite experience. My friends Teslas blow me away with their drivers assistance stuff. But the German and Japanese cars I’ve driven - absolute garbage, bordering on deadly. Random braking, not braking even with traffic stopped in front, aggressive collision prevention in places like parking lots, suddenly losing recognition of lanes, and other things. I believe these companies outsource the high tech stuff - not sure to whom - but I suspect they aren’t a tech company.
One person's "context sensitive" is another person's "mode confusion".
https://shemesh.larc.nasa.gov/fm/papers/ModeConfusionAnalysi...
What? The benefit of CarPlay is that I can use my map app of choice. Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, whatever. In 5 years of daily driving I rarely used Tesla’s maps and opted for my phone connected via Bluetooth.
The difference between changing to a different input source or changing a track or adjusting the audio settings between the two is night and day. I don't have to have my phone plugged into a USB port, which is flaky. The Lexus automatically goes back to the map after a few seconds.
I don't understand the appeal of having your car screen be a dumb terminal for your phone. Maybe it's better if you use Spotify or Apple Music or something, I don't know.
I get into a rental car, I connect my iPhone and use CarPlay, I don’t have to worry about leaving my contacts data behind or anything else, and I am already familiar with the UX.
That is why Tesla and Rivian and GM don’t offer CarPlay, even though it is free and easy to implement. They don’t want people to be able to easily switch cars, they don’t want to just be a fungible appliance.
But as a consumer, I do want them to be a fungible appliance.
And lack of CarPlay, especially due to how convenient SharePlay is with other car passengers.
Autopilot has also been sufficiently good for the price at which the car is sold at. At $40k, I did not find a competitor with a better version of lane assist.
https://www.carscoops.com/2025/02/vw-ditches-base-2025-id-4-...
I was comparing a 3 row model Y AWD with tow hitch to AWD Pro ID.4 and ID.4 was coming in close to $50k, both with the federal tax credit. And the ID.4 lacked the 3rd row seating. I am also biased against European vehicles because I assume they will be more maintenance/expensive. I had a bunch of people recommend Model Y to me, and I trusted Tesla's electric vehicle making experience more than VW.
But it’s crazy to claim Model 3 and Y are not competitively priced products that are usable for many, many people.
And I will also say I would not currently pay extra for a high end Tesla. But on the cheap end, and with the far superior buying experience without a stealership in the middle, it is welcome competition to the incumbent automakers.
You should upload a video of yourself doing it. Do it right now if it’s not a Nazi salute.
I’ll wait for your upload.
Lucid, Rivian, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Hyundai/Kia, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, and BMW all have design studios in California. They don’t all have this problem.
Do we really think that Tesla engineers and product managers have never seen rain or snow before? And if so what kind of lame excuse is that?
Aren’t some of Tesla’s biggest markets in cold weather climates? Places like Canada, New England, Scandinavia, Germany, and China (Beijing).
I have a Model Y and a Toyota Highlander (so not just accustomed to the hostility), and I prefer the hands-off approach in the Tesla. No reason to lie.
I also don’t see much reason to buy a Tesla in 2025. There are better quality interiors for less money. The only thing Tesla has going for them is acceleration (if you pay!) and that is only relevant on a racetrack to push the car to it’s limits. Any normal EV is plenty quick for daily driving.
Tesla base (no extra cost) acceleration is really good for anyone but speed junkies. I’ve had plenty of people (non-gear heads, non-speed junkies) white knuckle when I showed them what my model y is capable of.
The best part is that the acceleration is punchy all the way from 0 to about 105-110mph.
Other than that, I think the “religious wars” over Teslas give folks a warped view of reality. My comments to anyone who is thinking of getting one:
- Test drive one for yourself — this will be the most telling. Sometimes the showroom will let you borrow one over night. I knew I was getting mine after about 2 minutes of a test drive.
- Learn about the controls. Reading the manual helps when you get one… there are tons of cool, functional features.
- Try to go in with an open-but-critical mind. If you test drive with an overly negative disposition, you will almost certainly hate it. If you go in with an overly positive disposition, you will be blind to potential faults (e.g., for me, a yoke steering wheel that some models have is a no-go).
Note that refreshed model y is coming out in May or so, and it seems like the options they chose are fairly optimized.
On my model y and (I think) the new model y releasing in May:
1. Physical controls (stalk button and scroll wheel)
2. Stalk
3. Voice or top level of screen, although the auto-temp is good for me 99% of the time
The extent to which some folks fixate on these issues (at least for the model y) makes me think “religious war” or “neurodivergent”. It’s unnecessary fear-mongering.
I've been hearing for years from Tesla fans about how perfectly amazing the cars are but I doubt they will suddenly be right after yet another redesign.
Many people just hate touch screen controls. Maybe that is kind of a religious war with car enthusiasts, like auto vs manual. But a lack physical controls are a huge deal for some people. It's like if a dev tool doesn't have a cli.
I'm not even a car enthusiast and I refuse to get a car without decent physical controls.
Interesting choices. None of those are driving controls.
Presumably lights and wipers are on stalks. What about cruise control and related functions?
If you must stop suddenly on a motorway, the hazard lights give additional warning to following vehicles. Switch them on as soon as possible. This is especially important in low visibility or at night.
Fans are also essential. You obviously don't live in a climate where the windscreen can fog up unexpectedly.
> the volume, the heating on each side of the car, the fans and the hazard light".
Volume - scroll wheel
Heating - voice or screen, screen can be top screen for most functions (it’s editable for most-used functions)
Fans - same as heating, adjusting direction is top screen
Hazards - physical button near rear view mirror
> Presumably lights and wipers are on stalks.
Lights - stalk
Wipers - stalk and scroll wheel
> What about cruise control and related functions?
Autopilot (adaptive cruise control with lane assist) - right stalk and scroll wheel
Note: Article isn’t opening for me (hug of death), so I can’t refer to it.
I haven’t had to change heat/cool settings, I have it set to 70F and I haven’t had to adjust it.
I don’t think there’s any other modern car getting so much scrutiny. Ironically it is making it so much better than competitors they basically have no chance to catch up.
[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-worlds-best-sell...
[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62919131/tesla-has-highes...
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1gyznda/t...
Would you take that bet?
And just from visual inspection, it is evident that there are numerous surprises with the iSeeCars study that are difficult to explain. For example, why is there such a huge difference between Model 3 and Y fatality rates even though the cars are similar in most respects?
Another thing to note is that the number of fatalities is only a handful, often under 10 in a year. The standard deviation of the Poisson distribution would already give error bars of 30% at least, making direct comparisons between models meaningless.
Finally, if you read the accident reports, most of the fatalities are head on collisions with drunk drivers and not wearing seatbelts. Having physical controls for hvac or whatever has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Because money?
Nobody's that naive.
Like 40% of people used to smoke. 40% of people are obese today. I’m not comparing these things to teslas in terms of harm (though funding musk is societal harm) but they prove that consumers can make very very bad choices and IMO do all the time
The vocal minority acts as a valid canary, probably most of the time.
Sorry, we all have our opinions and perspective, but money isn't the only value judgement.
I want my speedo in my easy line of vision on any vehicle I drive. I want to be able to demist my windscreen by reaching for a button I can find without taking my eyes off the road.
Just because people buy something doesn't mean they love every aspect of it.
We recently switched to an ID Buzz because our family outgrew the Y. The interior is a huge improvement over the Y (which, fair, it is a more expensive vehicle) and CarPlay is just objectively better than Tesla’s infotainment, but the rest of the software is pretty meh. I really miss a lot of little things like phone keys and a built in dash cam, though.
The one thing that I think should be improved in all cars is that I want to use the AC auto settings but still have the air come out of the bottom vents and not into my face only.
A well designed user interface for an automobile should be discoverable and intuitive for anyone that’s driven a car previously.
My argument would be that 'tools' should be designed solely with the purpose of enabling them to work in the most effective way possible. That is often not immediately intuitive at all. Go open up e.g. Unreal Engine and you're going to struggle to do literally anything. Maybe after an hour you might figure out how to put a square on the map. The same is true of something like Maya or any other really powerful tool.
Obviously things should not be unnecessarily hostile, but it often simply turns out that there are 'revolutionary' ways to do things that weren't really done in the past, and so somebody coming from that past will often find themselves out of their domain, at least for a few moments until they learn and/or have things explained.
A car is not a 3D modeling or game world building system. They’re functionally much simpler and don’t really benefit from added control complexity.
I could accept that to never repeat the "mistake" as an apology from VW. But what about those who were supportive of it? We could go back to HN / Twitter history and read more than half of comments at the time thinks physical buttons are old and dump, Tesla has the future done right. That was in the mid 2010s.
Every single time those loud and hype constantly and consistently have it wrong. And every single time, like a PR machine they would go and hype the next wrong thing. But no one would hold them accountable. And the cycle repeats.
Because of that we have suffer from absolute crap over the past 10 years from Car manufacturers. We are lucky a few Japanese Cars manufacture hasn't caught the hype and stood ground. Thank You Mazda.
https://electrek.co/2022/05/27/tesla-owners-less-likely-cras...
So we can conclude you are saying is not true at least as absolutely as you claim. Touch screen interfaces are not fundamentally less safe.
Other car makers only see the initial sales and jump on the wagon to copy and undo what was learned over many years to be safer only to then creep back many years later.
Same thing with Apple and removing the ESC key in favor of the touch bar or only having USB-C ports on a power user laptop with video over USB-C still being uncommon in conference rooms.
So much wasted time and resources.
Soon we will have removable batteries in phones and there will be people that have never seen this before...
At least no one died not being able to plug in their laptop in a conference room but someone probably did die operating the AC and hitting a deer because they had to look down.
These workflows, from quickly adjusting lcd brightness or toggling bluetooth to utilizing functionality in the Maps app, have devolved from almost-total muscle memory with one or two taps to multiple times that and all over the place on the smartphone display.
People are obviously going to use their phones and heavily navigate with Maps while driving, no matter how much PSAs and campaigning happen. It's sort of like the developers are causing car accidents in the name of shipping off their users' engagement metrics back to the mothership.
Very much this. My favorite is so small, but so, so silly. Google Play used to have a search bar at the top of the home screen. If you click it now, a little message pops up saying search has moved to a different tab. So you click that tab and STILL have to click the same area of the screen to perform a search. So many moronic design choices at these companies.
I followed some introductory course to UX a few years ago, and this seems to go against the very essence of what I remember of it, which is mainly "put things where the user expects them, officialize the desire paths"...
The one thing that struck me configuring my spare Samsung first time was this approach of hiding setting under sub-screens. For example how you can handle Wifi in One UI: you go to settings, in connections section you have Wifi entry with switcher. An entry that look like static combines 2 options. Tapping on text opens sub-screen with another on/off toggle and advanced setting hidden under three-dotted menu. Then, once you connect to a network editing its settings doesn't open by tapping on network name but by sprocket on right. And if you want to change ip, dns settings that's another tap below under drop-down section. Of course this is all approach for demanding users and regular ones will handle stuff from pulled-down notifications widgets but still - mos of the stuff is indeed deeply hidden.
Updates break older apps, change the UI/UX, it's really an interesting situation we're in at the moment.
Edit: Clarified "them"
Everyone should own a car window breaking tool, like a resqme. https://resqme.com/
Tesla arrogance was shown with their semi truck design with the drivers seat in the middle of the cab.
[1] https://futurism.com/the-byte/four-die-trapped-burning-tesla
How does that ever get past safety standards?
(There was actually another HN thread about this recently - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39691780).
I keep a Resqme in the car glovebox - my other half used to do a lot of interstate driving, and I was always worried she'd be trapped in the car. The Resqme has both a seat-belt cutter, and also a centre-punch for easily breaking the side windows.
Although a tiny piece of ceramic at just the right speed will shatter any window.
And I recommend a spring-loaded window breaker, as opposed to having to, like, physically hit the thing against the window.
It was not Tesla that started it, they just went all in on stuff that was already happening in industry.
Capacitive and touch interfaces were supposed to be much cheaper because you can the same thing and then software define the function.
Every auto maker wanted to have one widget for all functions.
I do not like Tesla since they began making cars, and declared that "8 cameras should be enough for everybody". While I like trains a lot, I don't prefer hype trains and popular lines.
> It was not Tesla that started it, they just went all in on stuff that was already happening in industry.
They went all in because they needed velocity, and everybody panicked and copied them without understanding the problems. Even Ford (the company which has a special simulator to measure cognitive loads of the dashboards they design) did the same mistake, without looking for the problems first, like Radon water jugs.
> Capacitive and touch interfaces were supposed to be much cheaper because you can the same thing and then software define the function.
> Every auto maker wanted to have one widget for all functions.
I know. It's always about the monies, not the consumer or technology or whatnot. Enshittification, IOW.
If it is expensive too, then they become a fanboy!
How else could the industry pour out bigger and bigger crap with huge earnings otherwise? Poeple love shiny and famous crap!
The rest is just PR to sell inferiority as a feature.
The steering wheel on modern Tesla's has those godawful turn buttons instead of a proper indicator stalk.
Fine for (most of) the US market but wildly impractical for anywhere you need to use the turn signals mid turn. Anywhere the road system uses roundabouts for instance.
To some extent this is just US parochialism leaking out into the rest of the world, but it's typical of Musk style design to not really think through the reasons for existing design choices.
It takes a special combination of hubris and immaturity to just cast much of that aside without very careful and thorough consideration. The results of doing so speak for themselves.
They now reverted that back in the Model Y refresh. Just the indicator stalk (the rest are still gone)
I've driven one with an indicator stalk.
> Fine for (most of) the US market but wildly impractical for anywhere you need to use the turn signals mid turn. Anywhere the road system uses roundabouts for instance.
... but it was "smart" and didn't physically move and it was useless except for 90 degree turns. I call this the "designed in California" disease.
Incidentally, we should be glad Apple abandoned their car plans too.
Yes. Teslas used to have a proper indicator stick.
They sacrificed usability for stupid and superficial appearances, those idiots!
They do use touch screen functions --- but mainly for setup and configuration --- not for basic controls while driving.
It's illegal to use a touch screen phone while driving in many areas --- and for good reasons. So why is it ok and legal for manufacturers to mandate the use of their built-in touch screen while driving? Seems contradictory to me.
I love my Ioniq I think a lot of ways it’s a better package than Tesla’s but I still miss the physical buttons from my Honda. I can’t get close to a button and find the right one by feel when it’s a capacitive panel
I regularly drive a fairly new Elantra where all the essential driving controls are still physical with tactile feedback.
My favorite is the environmental control. A single, big easy to find knob to adjust the temperature without your eyes leaving the road. Turn left (counter-clockwise) for colder, right for hotter. The car takes it from there and selects heat or a/c as needed with an appropriate fan speed. You can still adjust manually but I rarely do so.
Emphasis on 'overall package'
I don't know how any auto designer could both regularly drive a car and not immediately reject the idea of eliminating physical controls for wipers/lights/temp control/sound system.
Everything was a button/knob.
Probably the best car instrument panel I've ever used/seen.
https://i0.wp.com/saabblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Sa...
(Quite simple - kills all instrument lights except speedo. If something happens which requires your attention, the relevant instrument comes back to life. Makes driving in the dark much less exhausting)
IIRC, the instrument panel was design by Saab aerospace division.
https://cdn.elferspot.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/16/ABE8...
Countering the hidden/inaccessible nature of touch screen buttons is the obvious point but also the return to physical buttons stops engineers from randomly moving controls with each new software update - that's what ruins things with much regular desktop software: you learn something, the layout is committed to memory and then three months later the feature is moved!
It's then massively harder to find - you almost never find yourself thinking "ah thank you for moving that, now it's better!"
The car was totaled on the freeway, so I bought a new Pontiac Firebird stick. One day, I stepped on the clutch, turned the key to start it, and nothing happened. Oh crud. I tried all kinds of things, it was totally dead. Suddenly, the engine did turn over and run.
It turns out, there was a switch behind the pedal, and you had to press the pedal all the way to the floor to trip the switch which enabled the starter circuit.
Some things were just too clever for me!
Jesus of piston rings, forgive them, for they know not what wear they put on their bearing surfaces
With a manual transmission it is possible to start the engine without the starter if the car is moving. You press the clutch, put the transmission into whatever gear makes sense for the speed, release the clutch briefly. You can do it from a dead stop by pushing the car if you're on a level surface, on a hill, or at highway speed.
Most cars for decades now have had some form of disabling the starter unless the clutch is pressed, and pressed all the way.
That does make sense in the normal case when the car is not moving. If the car is parked, you usually do not want the starter to make the car move. If the clutch is not pressed all the way, then the car might move when the starter turns over the engine.
That car apparently also disabled the ignition, or maybe they were trying to use the starter instead of pop starting. Can't tell which from what they said. You could do it either way in that situation where the car is already moving at higway speed.
"Don't allow starter without clutch" isn't always right though, just usually. It can be useful to intentionally use the starter to move the car. My 97 4runner has a factory button on the dash specifically to allow the starter to run without pressing the clutch one time. (it resets for each turn of the key) Instead of disabling the spark, in this vehicle they disable the starter if the clutch isn't pressed. Turn the key all the way and the starter just doesn't go.
The option to override that is intended for getting the vehicle unstuck from mud by using the starter motor to craw very slow in low gear, slower than the engine can go. But I only ever use it to start in neutral without getting into and back out of the car, usually to warm it up in winter but sometimes while working on it or wanting the engine for electricity temporarily while camping or working or something.
Automatic gears are a great thing. I live in Europe so I learned to drive using manual gears. I find driving automatic gears is less stressful and easier. I kind of prefer it.
Anyway, electric cars have no need for gears / clutches. And they have regenerative braking. One pedal operation is pretty nice.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/03/carmakers-must-bring-ba...
https://phonewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/ne210_kx_nt...
https://www.instagram.com/p/CKb34qtg0cf/?igsh=MTc3Y3Jpc2gwbD...
We just got a clean 2013 Honda CR-V (loaded LX-L model) and it's got buttons & knobs (and dial gauges!). Really nice car, it feels like a Lexus inside.
There is a small touchscreen, but it's mainly for the XM radio & Nav.
Anything more than that should work with voice command -- or it doesn't belong in a car.
Our secondary, very short trip car, is an old 2008 VW Polo and although it has physical AC and recycle air buttons, they chose to make them be toggle buttons as opposed to ones you can feel/see are pressed in or not.
They have a backlight to indicate their “on” status but (and maybe it’s worse because it’s old) you can’t see the backlight in bright sunlight and I have to shadow them with my hand to see.
The final annoyance with this is if I turn off the car with the fan speed turned to “off”, when I next start the car it has forgotten the on/off state of each of the two buttons.
So these buttons, although being physical, are almost as bad as soft touch buttons. If they had just made them buttons which are either pressed in or out, all these annoyances wouldn’t exist.
Obviously the Polos would have changed completely now, but I haven’t checked VWs much though as in South Africa you get considerably less car for your money compared to most other brands, but VWs still seem pretty popular for what I can only guess is status symbol reasons.
And it gets even more clear when you enter the present days and add additional inputs like voice control or defaults associated with a personal keyfob.
This is manufacturers inventing a meaningless distinction.
The value of controls that perfectly implement your wishes is not great over controls that you just fucken set, even without the terrible ergonomics that the former brings.
I can understand them in phones, tablets or other small and generic devices, trading ergonomy for portability; the net effect on UX could be positive. But in the context of cars (i.e. large and specialized) I see only net negative UX.
All that money that didn't go into the drive train (because all the parts of a high performance ICE drivetrain aren't that much different from those of, say, a Dacia), it went into maintaining an absolutely large zoo of upsell options.
Do we consider things like air conditioning, heated seats and so on something the driver absolutely needs to change while they drive?
We now need stricter regulations to what extend car makers can embrace the "Software Defined Vehicle" vision without compromising safety. It must be ensured that the driver isn't playing with the touch screen during drive (in non autonomous driving mode) for longer than few seconds.
'Apple' aesthetic is the worst thing to have happened to industrial design.
Dedicated buttons are far easier and faster to operate. Plus if your tablet cracks open you can still control most features. (I think).
For a while I drove some bigger pickup trucks. (Long ago). They often bragged that the knobs and buttons were big enough to be operated with gloves on.
Pretty great when it is cold out. and really easy to operate too.
Modern cars do need a lot more buttons so making them smaller is nessescary.
Reminds me of the guy who used to work with me. He would get on and on about how people don’t need cars because he can manage on a bicycle everywhere. Everywhere being a gym, work and a university. His whole world was about 10km².
At least my GLI has a physical volume knob and physical heater controls.
For some of us a car ride is how we zen out. If you make them anti-zen you will lose customer goodwill.
I’m still a little mad at VW for dieselgate but real buttons puts them back on the list.
Climate control (albeit shared between media with a button to switch between the two), heated seats, heated steering wheel, various buttons on the steering wheel. Heck, add in Carplay with Siri and I rarely, if ever, have to touch the screen on a drive.
I'd love for the backup cam to be integrated with the mirror as a standard feature. It's available aftermarket. Then a screen isn't really needed at all. It's just one more expensive thing that can break. It would be nice to be able to swap it out with a sub $200 head unit like the good old days.
Car audio was my intro to DC electronic systems in the 90's and I learned a ton from it.
<https://web.archive.org/web/20040403224019/http://www.urbanl...>
(And decades later I simrace barefoot where there is essentially no useful pedal feel... in VR, so all physical interactions are completely blind - no touchscreens!)
It's illegal in some places?
I'm in India and I learnt to and mostly always drive barefoot. If I try to drive with shoes it just doesn't feel right. I can't get the tactile feedback right. Have to get used to it I suppose. But then I don't really wear shoes that much (slippers do just fine for most of my day)
Or go on a long trip to somewhere more northern and you'll have to either learn to drive in thick boots or freeze.
For private drivers it is not illegal per se. But if you have an accident, they (police, prosecution, insurance) will quickly blame it on unfit shoewear.
There is (legally accepted) consensus in Germany and Austria that a regular, closed shoe without heels gives you best control.
Barefoot is IMHO treated unfairly, if you're used to drive barefoot. And living in a country where people wear shoes most of the time, they will assume you're not used to it.
For the hills I use shoes with a soft sole to “feel the road.”
At least in Europe most Ford models also have kept most of their physical buttons.
Not mentioned: wipers, shifter, and signals. Everyone here should consider these vital to driving the car.
Touchscreen had to be added, during the big move from buttons to touchscreen. It didn't just appear out of thin air.
(Not) Having physical buttons then is a cost factor.
That said. It would have been nice if they had made the plastic a bit more premium. The cheap shiny chreaking plastic isn't great. The redeeming feature is the swipe feature for me.
Good buttons will be better.
Cheap plastic crap will review well but won't necessarily be any better to use for me, at least for the steering column buttons.
