Hacker News Reader

Comment by Niksko | Hacker News Reader

There are two things going on here:

* The author seems to be a bit older * The author drives an older car at home

As a younger person who drives an old car, I too had to spend some time reading the car manual to figure out how to adjust things like automated breaking and steering assist when I rented a new model Camry on a trip earlier this year. The Tesla likely has even more features, but the idea that you can just jump in to a brand new car and understand everything about how to use it seems far fetched.

Couple that with someone who is older and perhaps doesn't have as much intuition for digital user interfaces and you get what's in the article.

View on HN

The safety features like forward emergency braking are relatively new and were forced to market quickly because of regulation. Between 1946 and 2016 the interface for a car was mostly the same, save for Citroen being weird until they were bought by Peugeot, and GM for that brief period in the late '80s where everything had to be a steering wheel "pod." The two biggest changes really were changing the headlight switch from a floor mounted pedal to a button or stalk knob starting in the '50s, and going from keyed ignition to push button start in the 2010s. Otherwise turn signals were on the left stalk and wipers were on the right, gas is on the right, brake center, clutch left, manual was 1,3,2,4,5,R (add or subtract gears as needed) and automatic was P, R, N, D, L, radio controls were left dial was power and volume while right dial was tuning, and the three dials below that controlled interior heat, A/C, and defrost. If you drove a car in 1973 and went into a coma you could wake up and drive a brand new car in 2003 no problems. If you went into a coma in 2003 you wouldn't be able to do the same with a 2023 car.

> The Tesla likely has even more features, but the idea that you can just jump in to a brand new car and understand everything about how to use it seems far fetched.

Tesla's just have terrible UX. Quit making excuses.

I bought a 2021 Range Rover with all the safety features of a Tesla. It has sophisticated software with a big touchscreen but it also has knobs for the normal stuff. I was comfortable using the car immediately and found cool new features for a couple weeks. It was pleasant getting used to it.

>The author seems to be a bit older * The author drives an older car at home

I mean, given the prices of cars nowadays, I highly suspect that any car buyer is going to be on the older side.

When did everybody forget the difference between break and brake?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com