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Comment by jokowueu | Hacker News Reader

Main reason why I didn't buy a Tesla was because of touch screens .

I really hope they will not be the norm in the future for other cars

I rented a model X and was blown away by the drivability of the car. It’s truly one of the best driving experiences I’ve had in my life.

However i very quickly developed disdain for how much of a dependency there was on the screen. It made the car feel very vulnerable and was super annoying.

It was great for the gps though.

Same here. Made a test drive of the Model S, love almost everything about the car and would have bought it for sure if it wasn't for the unholy touchscreen that felt outright dangerous to use. I don't understand how it's legal to even put essential controls behind a touchscreen and I don't understand people who drive Teslas daily.

What essential controls are you using from the touchscreen while driving? The music player? Navigation?

Windshield wipers.

At least on Model S 2020 the windshield wipers are controlled normally on a stick to the left of the wheel. Maybe it's an EU/US difference.

2021 has no stalks on the steering column.

I have the 2021 model 3, you have a physical button to fire them off once (and to do the cleaning cycle), but to manually set the speed you need to use the touchscreen. There is an auto mode, of course, but sometimes you do need to adjust it manually.

I agree… and to amplify the point, pressing the physical button, in addition to kicking off a needed wipe, also brings the adjustment right up unobtrusively on the screen in case it’s needed.

And then, not that anyone needs to touch the screen normally (because auto mode as you say) but if they aren’t all triggered by such a possibility and want to, those multiple layers of on-screen UI (that the haters are always imagining having to click through) simply are not there because it’s already been surfaced.

A driver can even learn to use it with muscle memory without looking, since it comes right up in the same closest corner of the screen with the same layout every time. Again not that anyone would ever need to because auto mode.

I don’t know why people have to have such strong opinions on things they know nothing about.

OK, got a little excited ranting there :-)

Oh you can just leave those on auto and just tap the handle on the left if you need it

Windshield wipers literally have a dedicated physical button and are usually in automatic mode anyway.

In the newest models the drive selection is on the screen. There's a 'hidden' set of touch selectors down low on the console but they aren't intended for daily use.

https://youtu.be/dJdhzFCVkg8?t=49

Nevermind the touchscreen controls, that wheel is something else. I can't believe it's even legal.

Wow, that looks awful.

> You have to actually hold it down, you can't just tap it in neutral. That's actually a nice safety feature.

The car has no physical shifter, but a long press is a safety feature? My eyes rolled back into my head...

To be fair, I hate to be distracted by screens even while driving. Even if the car could drive itself with 100% safety while I was operating the device, being forced to look at a screen for a long while just to find the equivalent of a physical switch (or, in the future, to watch a movie?) leaves me a bad taste.

The dashboard of a Tesla is covered with unused surface, so it makes very little sense to put no physical commands on it, and then over-fill a tablet UI with those in the strangest places. The "big tablet" trend just sounds like an interface for digital addicts.

On the other hand, Mazda's infotainment systems (https://m.faz.net/media1/ppmedia/aktuell/technik-motor/27493...) fix at least part of this, which makes me guess what my next car will be.

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