Is this something you see as a benefit? For me Tesla's overall aesthetic, including both their exterior looks and interior design, along with the absence of physical controls that go long with that represent their biggest downsides (outside of build quality).
I wonder how long Tesla can get away with not offering CarPlay/Android Auto functionality. The lack of that basic, cheap, and frequently used feature disqualifies any car from consideration in my view.
I find Saab's solution to be extremely elegant - on some, if not all models, there's a night mode button - what happens is that all non-essential instruments are simply dimmed to black (leaving only the speedo lit), until something happens which warrants your attention; the instrument in question will then come on.
Simultaneously, it dims all button backlights &c to just about off, so that you only get some assistance in locating the control you're after, not losing your night vision the moment you let your eyes stray from the road.
What's REALLY bad though is that other manufacturers rushed after Tesla and turned their brains off. Now we have a bunch of electric cars with crappy plastic interiors (light weight for range) and shitty tablets as user interface. Some are recognizing these horrifying mistakes that will cost lives but it will take years to recover because a lot of projects are too far ahead already to be changed or canceled.
I mainly speak from extensive experience with Volkswagen - the crappy capacitative touch buttons on the steering wheel will finally go. The new CEO Blume is not as blind as Herbert Diess - he doesn't view Tesla as the second coming of the iPhone, especially since Teslas continue to stagnate in quality and other manufacturers are quickly catching up.
Good luck outproducing Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen, BMW, Audi... time was Teslas ally especially because Toyota kept insisting on Hydrogen cars for so long and VW fucked up software development so bad with CARIAD that Konrad Zuse is spinning in his grave ready to produce energy for all EVs sold.
I credit Tesla with 2 things:
- Opening the EV market and pushing other manufacturers to invest
- Great engineering regarding battery and range (in the past)
The list of issues is longer nowadays and I am not willing to forgive quite as much as in 2014 with great alternatives on the market.
> Is this something you see as a benefit?
Yes. It's a distraction free operating environment. Tesla's aesthetic choices are semi-scandinavian/Ikea. Minimal doesn't have to be that style specifically. The early New Beetle did a passable job. The typical car is like MS Word with every ribbon open at once. A minimalist interior is focus mode.
I cannot activate most controls on a Tesla without taking my eyes off the road.
They also seemingly refuse to keep the GUI stable for more than three or four months at a time.
Multi-touch capacitance with tuned solid state haptic feedback and fused OLED display technology with very thin tempered glass is a wonderful thing, especially considering how far it has gotten since 2007) but it has remained resounding and disappointingly flat.
While manufacturers are working with different display dimensions and gentle curves or even folds, I agree there is a need for topologically shaped glass to bring the tactile affordances of traditional buttons to software enhanced user interfaces. I'm not a display engineer but I suspect that different glass thicknesses result in poor visuals so we will have to wait for organic magneto-laser displays.
The interiors though are pure trash. They look unfinished and designed by Rule of Cool, instead of practicality.