Volkswagen reintroducing physical controls for vital functions
318 comments
·March 8, 2025yalok
zelphirkalt
Sounds to me like Material design/theme in software UIs. Very flat, sometimes cannot see what is a button and very little feedback, compared to those Windows 98 style buttons, or default browser buttons.
fibonachos
My wife’s 2015 Honda has a similar setup for the climate controls. One morning the windshield fogged up after a few minutes of driving when the cabin was warming up on a cold day. Not being my daily driver, I had to look low on the dash to find the defogger button, while driving in the rain. Nothing bad happened, but I remember feeling a little helpless in the moment. That nothing went wrong was really just pure luck.
closewith
You could always have pulled over.
cafeinux
You still have to see where you're going to pull over, and it's not always possible.
jajko
On highway, in dense traffic? Sure you can put the car in emergency lane, but that's a risky place to be increasing risk of accident on its own, plus traffic police comes immediately if they see you / are called for such car.
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.
peeters
> to this pursuit for better "design"
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.
yalok
No quotes, just my observation - that the buttons are more optimized for the good look (symmetrical, sleek) vs usable. Building a plastic molding form with some shape/tactile difference shouldn't be significantly more expensive.
Re Touch screen, I agree - that's pure cost cutting. But that's just crazy. I'm surprised regulators are not preventing it.
hulitu
> I'm surprised regulators are not preventing it.
Regulators are, from a long time, paid by car manufacturers.
globular-toast
Thank you. I think lots of people assume touch controls are for design, or to be cool, or maybe just "modern". It's just cheaper, though. That's why you see them on all generic Chinese made electronics (even stuff that could have no electronic component at all, like a fan).
SilasX
>I wonder how many people have literally been injured or died due to this pursuit for better "design".
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.
genewitch
He was also in a movie with Patrick Stewart.
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.
mnahkies
It's great to see this change in direction.
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"
anon373839
Teslas are 100% about cost-cutting. Flimsy, cheap, uncomfortable - but they do make those goofy spaceship noises! The lack of normal knobs, buttons, and stalks is just more of the cost-cutting.
It baffles me that they were ever considered “luxury” cars except as to price.
jajko
Luxury? Where the people live? Luxury looks and feels and costs and drives differently.
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.
mv4
I own a Tesla and I've never considered it a luxury car. It's a high-tech car.
null
toynbee_cunt
[dead]
karlgkk
Model S is a luxury car. Model 3 is a luxury car to people who think Hyundais are nice.
DecentShoes
I love my Model 3 but the lack of a rain sensor is just dumb cost cutting
pests
I always joke about that to my buddy when I'm driving in his M3. Be the sunniest nicest day out, the wipers will randomly turn on going crazy.
null
silon42
forget sensor, a normal wiper lever would do
api
Tesla's claim to fame was being the longest range fastest EVs. They were pioneers in this era. Then they started investing in weird niche vehicles like the Cybertruck and dubious AI stuff instead of improving their regular cars, and the rest of the auto industry caught up with EVs.
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.
anon373839
> Tesla's claim to fame was being the longest range fastest EVs
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!
dboreham
> Then they started...<doing stuff Elon thought was a good idea>
dzhiurgis
[flagged]
joshribakoff
I am lemoning my second Tesla in a couple hours. Part of the criteria was that they have attempted to fix rattles and squeaks multiple times and the issues keep returning and they keep causing additional issues when they attempt to repair the original issue.
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.
mullingitover
My biggest 'wtf' moment was riding in back to back uber rides with a Model Y and then a Kia EV6.
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.
bdangubic
I own two Teslas and they are great! But definitely not premium. you are paying for brand, they are “premium” only because people have been willing to pay high price for a brand. car itself is as far for premium as it gets compared to other actual premium cars in the same price range
eitland
People still choose to drive around in 20 or 30 year old Toyotas.
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.
kube-system
> Sit in a Toyota and you’ll understand what is cheap.
You clearly haven't sat in a loaded '25 Camry.
Lio
I’m sure not you’re really describing the premium segment.
I’ll take a Toyota Century over a Tesla any day of the week.
whoknowsidont
>Stop spreading misinformation.
Facts are definitely treated as misinformation by a certain class of people these days, that's for sure.
whateveracct
My 2008 Civic feels better made than the Teslas I've been in tbh.
al_borland
This is one of the main reasons I don't think I'd buy a Tesla. Even the car I have now, I bought at the end of a model year, before a major redesign, because a lot of tactile controls were going away.
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).
_huayra_
I remember reading that book when it clicked how frustrating the doors at my grad school uni could be: they had what is clearly a "pull" handle on both sides, but it only opened one way. They just added signs that said "Poussez" (push in French) on the push side because clearly no one thought about the design before installing it! It's unbelievable in the decades since that building my office was in was built, no one thought "hey let's put plates on this side so you CAN'T pull".
sejje
I haven't read it yet, but I see this book recommended all the time on here, so I snatched it at a thrift store the other day for $0.25.
natch
fyi, it’s a myth that you must use the screen to control things.
readthenotes1
That book is incredible...
cafeinux
Am I the only one abashed by the fact that the reverse engine trigger is a slider on the touch screen? That's probably the last control I would have thought about putting on the touch screen.
dhosek
I got a ride on Lyft a few weeks ago where the driver had a Tesla and I had a hell of a time just figuring out how to open the door to get in.
seb1204
I don't know what you are on about but I put it down to being unfamiliar with the car. I've driven a Tesla model 3 for 3 years and the context sensitive buttons in the steering wheel are too notch. Want to change the windscreen wiper speed, press button on the left lever, roll the wheel. I have driven Hyundai, BYD, Nissan, Toyota and Xpeng cars recently, all new models and all have buttons and dials overload all dialled to the 'auto' setting. What's the point. I'm all for sensible buttons but they need to work within the car over all UI. A Toyota Corolla has 10! Buttons in each side of the steering wheel. I need to take my eyes of the road to get the right one.
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.
rsync
Good design doesn’t need explanations or instructions.
A well designed user interface for an automobile should be discoverable and intuitive for anyone that’s driven a car previously.
somenameforme
Let's say I don't agree (and indeed I don't) - why?
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.
SlightlyLeftPad
I think I agree although, great design also pushes things forward in a thoughtful and intuitive way.
porphyra
Wipers have physical controls on the wheel/stalk.
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.
ForTheKidz
For those of us who don't own a tesla, what on earth is "auto mode"?
porphyra
You set the temperature and the hvac adjusts the fan speed and turns on the air conditioner or heating as needed.
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.
seb1204
AC auto mode is not a Tesla special thing. Most car AC have had this setting or button for many years. E.g. a 2011 Ford Territory has it.
The AC auto button takes the needed action to get to the temperature you set. In On Tesla this was mostly set and forget.
neogodless
The car knows better than you what you want your climate settings to be.
Hamuko
>You never need to touch the AC controls when driving thanks to auto mode.
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?
seb1204
Yes, you can control the seat heating from the voice control. If you have seat heating on, on a regular basis the car profile also remembers.
Yhippa
Is it just me, or is it really annoying to have to move your eyes down and to the right to see your speed? I assume people just get used to it over time.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
I'd really dig a heads-up laser display in cars. I should always feel like I'm piloting a fighter jet, even the artificial horizon and ammo count should be in there
lotsofpulp
I drive a Model Y almost every day, and I don’t feel inconvenienced by any of the digital controls, except the lack of volume knob if you have a passenger and they want to control the volume. I simply don’t need to adjust anything except music.
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.
tapoxi
I have an ID4 around that price, it keeps the lane and has a lane change assist. Is there any special sauce to autopilot?
seb1204
Even a current Toyota Corolla has lane assistance but turning it on, settings etc are just better at the Tesla model 3 I drive. Lane keeping is good, haptic and audio feedback are good. The Toyota has haptic steering wheel feedback that I have not figured out yet, it steers but also leaves the lane. The Toyota chirms/acoustic sounds appear to me not used consistently across different functions, sound too similar or not warning enough. Admittedly this can all be personal choice and getting used to.
blackeyeblitzar
I would be shocked if ID4 had comparable driver assistance features. Even Audis are pretty shaky and unreliable. Tesla’s seem to be a few generations ahead
lotsofpulp
ID4 was at least $10k more expensive in Oct 2024, with worse driving performance.
speedgoose
[flagged]
nixass
[flagged]
snotrockets
Hyundai and Kias have good ADAS, and can be had for less then a Tesla.
whoitwas
Windshield wipers, turn signal, heat? I feel like you're being dishonest or just accustomed to the hostility.
f001
Or live somewhere with no weather and moderate temperatures so no need for any of them minus the turn signals. It’s my pet theory of why tesla’s auto wiper setting is so bad: they’re located somewhere without rain/snow or without varying amounts of rain/snow.
cwalv
Depending on the model year, it may have a stalk for turn signals. The same stalk has a button on the end to trigger the wipers (rarely needed because they're auto-sensing), and then wiper speed/mode can be adjusted with the dials on the steering wheel. Heat likewise has an 'auto' mode that does what you'd expect.
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.
yurishimo
If they live in SoCal, 2/3 you listed might not be relevant. Paired with the battery degradation in cold climates…
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.
csa
> Windshield wipers, turn signal, heat?
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.
lotsofpulp
Wipers and turn signals are physical controls, I don’t find them much different than any other car.
I haven’t had to change heat/cool settings, I have it set to 70F and I haven’t had to adjust it.
dzhiurgis
You are severely misinformed. Heat is a finger flick away. Rest are physical controls.
porphyra
Honestly, it seems like people who clamor for physical controls are a vocal minority --- Teslas sell very well [0] and owner satisfaction is very high [1] despite the loud complaints from non-Tesla drivers online. It seems most people who actually drive Teslas are happy with them, and even controversial things like steering buttons take 5 minutes to get used to.
[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-worlds-best-sell...
[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
redeux
Maybe it’s part of the reason that Teslas are involved in more fatal accidents than any other car manufacturer.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62919131/tesla-has-highes...
nixass
> Teslas sell very well
Someone's been sleeping for last 12 months
stfp
Do we believe that “people buy them and they like them” should be the end-all argument to judge everything? I think it’s a datapoint but it doesn’t mean that the thing is good for society or people themselves.
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.
42lux
Citation needed.
sschueller
This whole thing started with Tesla. Re-inventing the wheel because they think they know better. Musk's MO.
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.
boneitis
I don't have much experience with non-tactile driving HUDs, but what always gets me is how, with every major version of Android, all the basic, essential functions take increasingly more screen tap counts in different places on the digitizer as they get buried deeper into submenus, calling for ever more amounts of your sensory bandwidth.
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.
jmholla
> I don't have much experience with non-tactile driving HUDs, but what always gets me is how, with every major version of Android, all the basic, essential functions take increasingly more screen tap counts in different places on the digitizer as they get buried deeper into submenus, calling for ever more amounts of your sensory bandwidth.
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.
cafeinux
I almost never use the Play Store (I have my apps and haven't installed new ones for some years) so I didn't notice this, but I just tested and confirm this feels freaking dumb.
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"...
mmackh
There is a large burden that smartphones have to carry by having to facilitate, or be in some way involved, in every aspect of our life. And at the same time, industries involved in producing these products, have to stay busy and employed. So we end up in a situation where everything stays in constant flux.
Updates break older apps, change the UI/UX, it's really an interesting situation we're in at the moment.
exar0815
Working at a large Tier 1 Automotive supplier for most European OEMs but Tesla as well, it was a not-complete-joke to make show prototypes that massively hinted at Tesla or had some misleading branding and leave them accidentally lying around, when you wanted to increase your chances of selling it to any other OEM. Also, when you sold something to Tesla, you could already prepare RFQs for all others basically the day it would be released. Stopped since Musk went Bananas, now noone wants to be associated with them. At all.
Edit: Clarified "them"
bloopernova
Certainly people have died because their electric windows wouldn't work when the car was submerged in water. If I were world dictator, I'd mandate manual override levers for electric windows.
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.
cafeinux
Tip of you find yourself having to break a car window and you don't have this kind of tool: supposedly, you can remove your headrest and hit the window in a corner with the metal rods to break it. I don't have the luxury of being able to try, nor have I ever had the necessity to try, so take this with a grain of salt. But if there's any truth in there, better to know about it than feeling helpless.
throwaway494932
People have died because their Tesla had electric doors and they couldn't open them after an accident [1]
[1] https://futurism.com/the-byte/four-die-trapped-burning-tesla
lowlevel
This is happening on other cars with electronic door handles too... not just Tesla.
bloopernova
holy crap, their doors won't open without power?!?
How does that ever get past safety standards?
amelius
Those tools often don't work because the glass in many cars consists of layers of glass and a polymer. That gives it some nice properties but it's unbreakable even with a sledgehammer. I don't know about Teslas but I wouldn't be surprised if they again threw safety out of the window here literally.
seanmcdirmid
You want point of pressure tools to break the window, not a sledge hammer. My wife made me buy them for our car.
indexerror
I have always assumed that I could just kick the window to break it open in a situation like this.
fatboy
When I was a kid I worked in a double glazing factory. Some of the old timers demonstrated just how hard it is to break a piece of toughened glass to me by whacking one with a bit of wood right in the middle of the pane, really really hard. Nothing happened. Then the dude tapped it really quite gently with a glass breaker in the corner (where it can't flex as much he said) and the whole thing exploded into those little cubes you see on the ground in dodgy car parks.
victorhooi
Car windows are probably harder to break than you think...lol. Also - consider the situation where the car is in, or partially in water, and pressure differentials.
(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.
aequitas
There is a mythbusters episode about exactly this that is definitely worth the watch.
bluGill
windows are normaly tempered glass. You can't kick them out.
nixass
Tesla absolutely botched on so many things when ti comes to making cars safe. What is even more mind boggling is how people accepted it and don't see anything wrong with that.
bayindirh
They moved fast and broke things. Incl. but not limited to bumpers, windshields, bones, necks and families.
ozim
As much as Tesla hate is now being popular.
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.
mihaaly
Masses buy crap if it is famous and shiny and have bells and whistles a lot.
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!
croes
I doubt they thought it would be better, it just cheaper because you can fix it later in the software.
The rest is just PR to sell inferiority as a feature.
lm2s
Interestingly almost everything VW will reintroduce is already physical on Tesla, no? The only thing with no physical buttons on Tesla are the temperature and fans. Or am I missing something?
pja
> Interestingly almost everything VW will reintroduce is already physical on Tesla, no? The only thing with no physical buttons on Tesla are the temperature and fans. Or am I missing something?
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.
jqpabc123
"Traditional" auto controls have been refined by over a century of trial and error and real world testing.
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.
darkwater
> The steering wheel on modern Tesla's has those godawful turn buttons instead of a proper indicator stalk.
They now reverted that back in the Model Y refresh. Just the indicator stalk (the rest are still gone)
amarcheschi
Not having tactile feedback on turn indicators by stock is absurd imho
nottorp
> The steering wheel on modern Tesla's has those godawful turn buttons instead of a proper indicator stalk.
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.
nytesky
Loyal at the back door manual operation. So dangerous in emergencies. Need to remove a panel to operate??
mihaaly
I recently bought an iPad as the previous one was probably 10 years old and the screen died. The button on the front is dearly missed. Having that new damn thing on the dedicated shelf and I casually touch the button one handed to bring it to life is not there anymore. Have to hold it down for that damn side button. Also never be sure anymore what way is up and which volume is up and down. It it worse than a fussy child always want to be picked up, to be used two handed. All, the, time.
They sacrificed usability for stupid and superficial appearances, those idiots!
modriano
How did it take this long. I was a regular reader of Car and Driver magazine from 2002 to 2006 when I was in high school (in a Detroit suburb) and I remember them absolutely dragging the BMW iDrive system that eliminated a ton of physical controls and took the driver's attention off the road. I've kept my 2010 car largely to avoid getting a system without knobs and buttons that I can learn and use without looking.
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.
WalterBright
I learned to drive on a stickshift that I put together myself (with a bit of help from my buddies). As a result, I knew how everything worked, and drove it for many years.
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!
psd1
You were flooring it on start?
Jesus of piston rings, forgive them, for they know not what wear they put on their bearing surfaces
jqpabc123
Hyundai for the win.
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.
kgermino
Tho most of the “physical buttons” on my Hyundai are non-tactile, capacitive buttons.
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
yokem55
The '25 ioniq 5's bring a lot of the buttons back. The climate ones are capacative, but are dedicated buttons.
jqpabc123
I haven't driven an Ioniq yet but it sounds like they too may have taken a turn down the wrong path.
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.
Izikiel43
Mazda as well
yibg
+1 for Mazda. And also for keeping an actual shifter instead of knobs or buttons.
bgnn
This! I love the UX in my Mazda 6.
LightBug1
Yep - people think of Tesla first for EV's, but (for the overall package) Hyundai are far ahead.
Emphasis on 'overall package'
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alberth
Years ago I had a Saab.
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...
lb1lf
And night mode! A killer feature I’ve missed on any car I’ve driven since.
(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)
jonahhorowitz
Yes! Night mode was great on long road trips. I've honestly thought of buying a gently used late-00s Saab instead of anything new.
swamp_donkey
My recollection is it also dimmed the areas of the Speedo that were far from the current speed
alberth
I totally forgot about that, yes - was amazing!
IIRC, the instrument panel was design by Saab aerospace division.
m000
Early '00s was the peak of car dashboard UX. After that it has been mostly regressions, sold as "innovation".
gloxkiqcza
It was sometimes mocked but I actually really like the 1st gen Porsche Panamera center console full of buttons as well
https://cdn.elferspot.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/16/ABE8...
CamperBob2
Amen. And if anybody mocks my Gen2 Macan with 100+ physical buttons and controls within reach of the driver, they will get mocked right the fuck back.
dismalaf
Saabs had amazing design, especially the interior "cockpit". Miss them.
petee
Same, and they all had great sightlines. When I bought my 9-3 as the dealer was going out of business, he told me what a huge deal it was internally that they didn't offer cupholders in the US, the idea being that you should be focused on driving not drinking. US dealers pressured them into finally adding that ninja popup before they went out of business
abruzzi
I don't know if they still do it, but I loved my old Saab 99 with the ignition switch in the console between the front seats. Intead of locking the steering, it locked the gearshift in reverse. It didn't make anything work better, but it made the end user experience feel different/special.
petee
They kept it for a long time, I had an '87 900 and a '04 9-3 which had a fob but still plugged in and turned in the center like the old ones. I liked the position; I heard it used to foil car thiefs who couldn't figure out where the ignition was
b0ner_t0ner
SAAB (Svenska Aeroplan AB) started out making airplanes.
dismalaf
I'm aware. And they still make planes.
Vinnl
Presumably like other auto makers will also do, with Euro NCAP giving lower ratings to those who don't?
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/03/carmakers-must-bring-ba...
BrenBarn
We can only hope it's the start of a trend. I can't think of a single car feature I would want on a touchscreen instead of a physical control, except I guess something like GPS (which I don't really consider a car feature, but maybe that's just because I'm getting old and curmudgeonly).
precommunicator
Any feature that you have to fully stop to activate and is not often used IMO would be fine on a touchscreen, e.g disabling ESP.
jonathanlydall
It’s not just having physical buttons that matters, they must also not have other poor design decisions.
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.
usrusr
State at bootup is a legitimate trade-off decision though: some states you want to survive a power cycle, others you want to reset, and still others you'd want to have a user-configurable default state. Momentary + indicator makes all of that easy, whereas a mechanical off state with powered reset on bootup (or on shutdown) would be a pretty wild "no expense spared" approach. Momentary + indicator vs mechanical toggle really is more than just penny pinching, it's more like not burning wads of banknotes.
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.
psd1
Or you could just turn the button off manually.
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.
ipcress_file
Peak UI design in cars hit around the 1980s. All that's needed are a small number of physical controls: headlights, turn signals, wipers, heat/AC, etc.
Anything more than that should work with voice command -- or it doesn't belong in a car.
svelle
A feel like people are missing that this change isn't just for the touchscreen but especially for the abysmal capacitive buttons on the steering wheel VW introduced with the Golf 8 and the id models. One of the worst design decisions I've yet to see in a car. Right next to their decision to put a capacitive slider for volume and/or heating right below the touchscreen where you'd usually rest your fingers when using said touchscreen while driving.
technothrasher
The Porsche Macan's whole center console went capacitive touch a few years back. It is atrociously bad compared to the earlier cars with physical buttons. It's impossible to find any of the "buttons" on the expanse of smooth surface without taking your eyes off the road.
yakshaving_jgt
I have a 2012 Cayenne and the cockpit is truly a thing of beauty. It feels like being a pilot. I hope they bring the buttons back. Photo attached for context.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CKb34qtg0cf/?igsh=MTc3Y3Jpc2gwbD...
AceyMan
+1 your Cayenne
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.
I wonder how many people have literally been injured or died due to this pursuit for better "design". And it applies not only to touch screen (which is a total madness), but to real buttons as well - those buttons need not only to be physical, but have different form/some tactile differentiation.
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...