Hacker News Reader

Comment by slovette | Hacker News Reader

And here I am moving from a Tesla back to a Toyota and feeling.... relieved.

Still feeling a little sad. But there’s just something ultra comforting about tactile buttons that each do a single thing and not even a hint of unnecessary complexity masquerading as “clean” or “modern”.

View on HN

It's good ergonomics and safety. Not needing to look at the screen and fingers is just better.

Overdoing touchscreens and blue lights in dashboards are ergonomic UI failures justified by fashion.

I happily sacrifice backup cameras/aux input/Bluetooth/etc. for a truck with pretty much all orange incandescents.

I’m in a similar boat - I’m looking at new cars but want zero screen nonsense and minimal bells and whistles. I would love to contribute to electric cars but all the ones I have test driven have unsafe dash UIs for something as simple as adjusting the cabin temperature. I have driven Audi SUVs for quite while because I have dogs and like to ski and play outside (and even those have had absurd UIs since the mid-2000s), but I may just end up with a late 90s Tacoma - easy to fix, decent all-wheel drive, super-safe and intuitive dash interfaces... the electronic UI future/present is hideous to me and inferior to physical knobs and buttons. Mazdas also look like a decent option.

In my opinion, BMW has found a decent solution here, there are still physical buttons for everything, but it also has a touch screen. That way while driving you can use the physical controls, and when stopped you can use the touch screen.

I just went and drove an X3 Hybrid based on your note - I actually quite liked the interface. The options are still a little overhwhelming, but it's far less invasive than most of the other cars I have been looking at.

Out of curiosity, did you ever try the voice commands in the Tesla? I'm used to these systems being garbage, but Tesla's is quite good. I've moved to using it entirely while driving, even using auto-pilot.

Never assume that it's equally easy for anybody to use voice commands. Or that you won't ever catch a cold.

Just imagine that when you'll be at a certain age, mind control will be the thing you'll be told "but it's so much easier", even if you'll not be able to master it.

isn't it still faster to just move your hand and rotate the temperature knob than using a voice command "XXXX increase temperature by X degrees"? Using muscle memory feels to me like using the least resources while articulating a phrase utilizes more resources.

I'm sure it is faster to use your hand. But I'm not sure faster is the right metric. Safety is probably higher on my list, and I'd say voice commands are safer than taking your hand off the wheel for any reason.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com