I read like halfway through the article and felt like this hardware was, in classic German car fashion, very over-engineered for the relatively simple purpose of sending one of 5-6 signals to a transmission controller.
These overcomplicated shift levers that you need to watch a video to understand seem to be an industry fad — one of them in a Chrysler product (IIRC) killed a Star Trek actor a few years ago.
Tesla uses a little lever with four possible momentary positions. There is no way to feel whether you have actually selected the correct mode. You’re choices are to either look at the instrument cluster and read the gear status or to actually try driving the car.
This is made worse by the fact that, on level ground with creep off, park and drive behave identically unless someone presses the accelerator or tries pushing the car.
On the flip side, I’ve driven a BMW with a really amazing 2D joystick with software controlled detents corresponding to buttons on the infotainment screen. I’m not convinced it’s a good idea, but the engineering is awesome.
Every manual transmission I’ve ever driven has given an incredible amount of tactile feedback when you get it wrong.
You know you’re parked because you’ve pulled a (relatively) big lever.
A little knob or momentary buttons make me uncomfortable. I’d be waiting for feedback but never receiving it.
Another example of waiting for something to happen, then nothing happens is start/stop engines. My foot goes down, nothing happens, I give more fuel, still nothing, engine starts and we’re really going. I’m sure I’d get used to it, but I don’t like it. Just do what you’re told, car.
I don't like it but that's because there is little intelligence deciding when it should stop in the first place, though you can kind of regulate it by being extremely light on the pedal.
I've driven some cars with start/stop and while it was a bit of a different feel for it originally I managed to get the timing down pretty well to have the car do what I wanted. Start/stop isn't driven by a random number generator you can figure out when it'll kill it and how long it goes from getting off the brake to the time it starts. Then it's just like every other tool in the car.
In comparison, Mazda I drove had much much simpler approach - grab the stick, push it all the way forward for Park, push it all the way back for Drive. That's it. The "unlock" button was under the index finger so you just grabbed it naturally.
(In general, Mazda felt much better thought out inside than VWs, BMWs and MBs I drove.)
I know different people have different expectations for UX but for me that BMW had few of none UX flaws.