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Comment by ec109685 | Hacker News Reader

It’s amazing how long it has taken car companies to copy the signature features of the Tesla: styling that doesn’t scream “ev vehicle”, over the air updates, long range and large touchscreens.

I am happy to see some real Tesla competition.

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Huge touchscreens are a cheap way to avoid the expense of designing an ergonomic dashboard. Manufacturers don't care that they're a UX nightmare, ruin night vision, or take the driver's attention away from the road. They just care that they're cheap, and give salespeople a "feature" to point out.

Bingo. I think a flat touchscreen is something of a cop-out. If I'm driving at 80kph or higher I don't want to have to look at a screen, I want to feel for a knob.

With all the regulation around cars and driving already, I'd love to see regulation around controls. It makes 0 sense to me to ban cell phones because they are distracting, but then allow giant touch screens in the car with no analog dials/switches for common features.

It’s amazing how long it has taken car companies to copy the signature features of the Tesla

It's been covered a bit on HN but Tesla rather famously uses displays that are not suited for automotive use. I imagine part of the lag time is that Ford actually went with a display that's designed for the kind of heat cycles a center console display will experience.

Tesla still has some advantages afaict: on the Mach-E pre-order page, it seems that once you pick a trim, it's final; on a Tesla, it seems that things such as 'Autopilot' are available for purchase later on at a higher cost whereas someone ordering a basic Mach-E today will not ever have the option to get enhanced driving features.

I would pay extra not to have any updates or touchscreens.

Updates have to be opted into.

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