// Hiding critical/often-used buttons behind touchscreens for the sake of minimalism (and cost?)
I see this one written of often but I don’t see it on my 2 year old Toyota or cars I’ve borrowed/rented. I literally never had to access the touch screen for a critical function.
Assuming this problem does exist on some cars, it seems easy to avoid as I’ve avoided it without trying.
// On that note, poor physical layout in general (genuinely thinking that you can rate cars’ on a “hazard-light-button-placement index”)
I’ve definitely experienced the moment in a rental/borrowed vehicle where it took me a bit of scanning around the dashboard to find the blinkers button. But this seems to just be variance across manufacturers. Eg my Toyota is consistent with Toyotas that came before it even if that’s different than some other manufacturer’s internal consistency. Is the author really struggling to find the blinkers on a vehicle he’s already familiar with?
// Cars are getting too big; why are manufacturers pushing “crossovers” and SUVs on consumers and why are consumers buying them? I could write pages on this point alone.
One thing here is that this is a single man who can’t relate to the needs and desires of other types of customers. I loved small cars as a single man and love my mid size SUV as a dad of two and on certain occasions wish it was bigger.
Cars are getting bigger because through marvel of technology that has become economical to manufacture and operate. Eg my SUV gets nearly 40 mpg whereas a few decades ago that was economy car territory.