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Comment by rsync | Hacker News Reader

"The proportions are near perfect for the segment and Audi didn’t fall for the usual electric design traps."

... except for making all of the controls touch screens.

Physical knobs and buttons are more performant, more useful and more expensive. LCD screen are not a luxury - they are the opposite of luxury.

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I don't know why but I genuinely hate those side mounted cameras, like really really hate them. I don't understand what benefit it brings and my brain can only conjure up images of cracked screens, deep scratches or smudges, costly repairs.

The benefit is less drag, and therefore more efficiency. Tesla is trying to make them happen to. Not sure how I feel about the look though.

Besides that you don’t need the whole mechanics of the mirrors like moving and folding them. All this could be done with software. Dimming and heating is also not necessary and the camera could also be used for some part of the autonomous driving. I guess in 5-10 years many cars would have them

Surely heating is still necessary if the camera lens gets frosted up in cold weather.

Right? It's the only thing I'd hate about having a Tesla Model 3, if I could afford it, and it would be available in my country.

Scratch that, I'd also hate not having a HUD in front of me, it would more then make up for the lack of a dashboard IMO.

But yeah, a few basic controls for eg. for AC and oh.. a PHYSICAL BUTTON TO OPEN THE GLOVEBOX? :)

Anything that the driver wants to adjust while driving should have a physical realization and give haptic feedback. They shouldn't have to look at it to more than a glance to make sure they've got a finger on the right thing. Knobs, switches, buttons, sliders: all good.

Anything that the driver won't use while the car is in motion or the passenger wants to play with can be touch-screen, or VR, or gesture-driven, or activated by thinking happy thoughts. That doesn't present a safety hazard.

I thought I’d miss those things too, now I get all confused when I drive with a dashboard in front of me. The only sorta inconvenience is the glovebox, but honestly, there’s so much space in the middle storage that the only use of the glovebox is keeping stuff you don’t access all the time “safe” (if someone breaks in the car, they will have to break it too to grab whatever’s inside)

I'm afraid that ship has sailed. Tesla changed the expectation of buyers that touchscreens are more 'luxurious' so the market follows. I prefer physical knobs too, but don't blame car makers for following market trends.

Fortunately, some car companies are seeing the light of physical control. For example, Honda had mainly touch-only controls on the last generation Accord, but then added a bunch of physical buttons back for the 2018 model.

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