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Comment by decimalenough | Hacker News Reader

Maybe try using the "myToyota Connect" app for a day, or most any legacy carmarker's touchscreen UI, and tell me who's the worst at improving their technology.

Although I do agree with Woz that not having a physical latch for opening the glovebox on the Tesla is the stupidest thing ever.

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The Model Y, 3 has no physical latch in the back seat to exit. As an owner who primarily sits in the front seat this was a significant oversight on my part. And I won’t be making it again.

What? How does one exit the car then?

One often doesn't.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91227786/teslas-latest-tragic-fi...

Four friends died on October 24 in a Tesla Model Y that caught fire after crashing into a safety barrier on Lake Shore Boulevard in Toronto. After the crash, it appears the car’s electronic opening mechanism stopped working, preventing the occupants and others from opening the doors.

There are emergency release latches. The location of the front one is obvious-ish, the rear one is not obvious at all.

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-A7A60DC...

Except you don't nees to. On a Toyota tou van just use Android auto, and never deal with the Toyota infotainment thing.

Also, the car hás plenty of physical buttons, so I only ever interact with touchscreen for maps.

I have the mstick4. If you have android auto, it is amazing. https://www.m-gears.com/

> or most any legacy carmarker's touchscreen UI

Cars do not need touchscreens to operate. They never had to so far and worked just fine.

23 Miata, generally mazda is good with physical controls on safety/driving apparatus.

Once a week (more lately), a random picture takes over car's entire UI. As in, it is stroring backup cam data, and randomly showing a photo from weeks ago until I restart the car.

Not a "deal breaker", but I functionally cannot use maps, music, the clock.

"cars do not need toiuchscreeps to operate" yeah but i paid to be able to use the car's features.

I own a Mazda CX30 since 2021 and the most important buttons are all physical. There is still a screen of course, but it is not a sensitive one. Basically, after a few weeks, you reach most of the buttons through muscle memory. You never need to move your sight out of the road to start your music or anything else... So far, it has been a great experience

It's a great experience when the head unit and screen work.

My muscle memory is very much fine, however I can't put it into practice when the screen turns into a static photo from my rearview camera from some date in the past, until I restart the car.

I have experience the same on a few cx30 rentals in same age range, you def got lucky. Or me and a few thousand others got really unlucky.

> Cars do not need touchscreens to operate.

Any car that requires me to interact with a touchscreen to do anything that I want to do while driving is, in my opinion, not fit for purpose. Of all of the malfeatures that have been incorporated into modern cars, I think touchscreens are in the top three list of the worst.

or you can just talk to the car and voice-control whatever you need done - safer than both touchscreen or physical buttons

* argue with the car as misinterprets everything

I agree that the lack of a latch was dumb, but effectively having two gloveboxes in the center console, that are bigger and closer than the tiny glovebox has left me never actually needing to open it.

Why? It’s perfect - I can keep sweets and some sharp items away from kids behind a passcode.

What’s actually weird is you can’t disable/block Netflix. Kids didn’t quite figure out they can just have unfettered screen time in car just yet tho.

I’ll just add that adding second screen in back nowadays is bonkers. In my circle most of kids have 0 screen time. Screen is an antithesis of clean and quiet car.

As for rate of improvement - Tesla maybe got 1 or 2 decent new features over last 2 years of my ownership. My list of ideas when I bought it was about 20.

Using? That's already advanced. Try to login to myAudi app for a day, then we talk. Everybody on HN chats on fancy new frameworks and AI and languages, while whatever they let out in the word is laughable at best.

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