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The one thing I really can not get over with Tesla is the dashboard. That giant screen that looks so misplaced. Cars always used to be the pinnacle of thought

The one thing I really can not get over with Tesla is the dashboard. That giant screen that looks so misplaced. Cars always used to be the pinnacle of thought out design. And Tesla is supposed to be catering the more stylish crowd I think. I wonder how they decided to place a standard screen to the right of the driver. It will be interesting to see if other car manufacturers will adopt this design decision. Then it would be a bit like in the smartphone world, where ugly camera bumps on the back are the norm now. There are almost no physical products that you can not get in a nice design these days. Everything seems to exist in perfectly designed versions. Headphones, tables, knifes, socks, glasses, lamps, bed sheets ... It's fascinating that phones are the one type of product that fell off a cliff. Will cars be next?

Neil44 7y ago
Didn’t someone call for the patent office to be closed in the 1800’s because everything had already been invented?
- ddebernardy 7y ago
  No, the story is apocryphal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Holland_Duell#Everything_that_can_be_invented_has_been_invented https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Holland_Duell#Everythi...
vinay427 7y ago
It may have fallen off of your cliff, but not mine and apparently not a lot of other people's. I will be the first (or I guess second) to admit that some controls should be hard buttons for ease of use while looking at the road. This is something that I hope they improve on, though the steering wheel scroll wheels are already often geared for the appropriate context-dependent function. However, Tesla manages to hide nearly all of the other car's functions behind fewer layers of menus than in modern BMWs or similar, in my experience, making it far easier to access the more arcane items. For example, adjusting the auto high-beam sensitivity or detailed HVAC preferences seem a lot easier on a touchscreen where buttons are laid out logically enough.
Theodores 7y ago
That giant screen idea is the future. Sure people with ICE vehicles need tactile controls rather than touchscreens but the Tesla Model 3 is different. The giant screen could be taken further, e.g. a generic USB3 tablet that just runs the Tesla app. You could then take the screen out of the car with you or, if you lose it, just get any old tablet and shove it in there.
- masklinn 7y ago
  > Sure people with ICE vehicles need tactile controls rather than touchscreens but the Tesla Model 3 is different. The tactile controls have nothing to do with ICE (none of them even deals with ICE itself) and everything to do with human behaviour and basic safety, namely the need for fixed positioning, direct interaction, and feedback to enable manipulation of those controls while attention remains on the road.
tomp 7y ago
Buttons belong on the wheel or the driver's door (things like "unlock doors" and "all 4 blinkers").
- masklinn 7y ago
  > Buttons belong on the wheel or the driver's door (things like "unlock doors" and "all 4 blinkers"). Both of those controls belong to the central console as it's useful for the passenger to manipulate them.
zaroth 7y ago
I find the Tesla Model 3 aesthetically beautiful, and other cars rather grotesque in comparison. It’s extremely forward thinking and intelligent design, allowing for the user experience to constantly improve and be enhanced with the regular software updates to come down. There are now dozens of features in my car which didn’t even exist when I bought it. UI refinements actually improve my driving experience one month to the next. This is a level of service which is impossible to provide with a hard-wired UI. It’s also crucially important to acknowledge that all the main driving interfaces are tactile buttons immediately within reach. Steering, blinkers, wipers, high beams, gear select, AutoPilot, cruise speed, volume, track selection, follow distance, windows, and hazard lights are all perfectly positioned physical controls. There is only a single control which might require a time sensitive activation which is on the screen, and that is the defog. Tesla also does a remarkable job automating away the need for many tasks which in other cars might have you reaching for a knob or switch of some kind.
- helpPeople 7y ago
  This is one of those things that you can't trust a customer to answer truthfully. You say you like it, but when Ford or similar does it, it's annoying. It's not that Tesla quality is good either. It's one of those things that we tell ourselves we like. I believe there isn't a correct answer, but rather our psychology decides what we like rather than true performance
  - zaroth 7y ago
    I understand what you’re saying. Personal bias is hard to self-monitor. But on many objective measures Tesla’s touchscreen is worlds apart from any of car touchscreen. It is iPad-like responsiveness as far as touch recognition and refresh rate. I always said I would never want a GPS/Nav system in a car, because what would be the point?! Low quality maps, no decent POI, no decent user input for querying POI, bad routing, no pinch-to-zoom in a complicated intersection, slow to load, etc. My wife’s Mercedes has Nav and we used it exactly once. By contrast I always use Nav in the Tesla because I can map to Work or Home in two taps in 1 second, boom, the map routes and zooms to show the overview and I have a traffic aware route with an accurate ETA. The live traffic lets me see if traffic is slowing ahead on the highway. Often times I will slow down to the speed limit when approaching a red zone ahead on the highway. Someone behind will swerve around me and accelerate hard just to come to a screeching halt around the bend. Craziness. I think “build quality” and “materials quality” is way more subjective and harder to quantify. But the screen interface is on a different level.
Dumblydorr 7y ago
That's like, your opinion, man. I think the only way Tesla could improve their design is a few more buttons. Other than that, I love love the design, sleek and minimal is 100% my style.
princeb 7y ago
i wonder when we will go straight to the next era and make the steering wheel and accelerate/brake pedals touchscreen features rather than a physical control. this will be as revolutionary as apple taking the number pad out of a mobile phone.
mcv 7y ago
> "It will be interesting to see if other car manufacturers will adopt this design decision." Some are intentionally moving in the opposite direction. Using touch screens apparently distracts from driving, as you need to watch them to see what you're doing. Simply tactile controls are more intuitive.

Neil44 7y ago

Didn’t someone call for the patent office to be closed in the 1800’s because everything had already been invented?

ddebernardy 7y ago
No, the story is apocryphal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Holland_Duell#Everything_that_can_be_invented_has_been_invented https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Holland_Duell#Everythi...

vinay427 7y ago

It may have fallen off of your cliff, but not mine and apparently not a lot of other people's. I will be the first (or I guess second) to admit that some controls should be hard buttons for ease of use while looking at the road. This is something that I hope they improve on, though the steering wheel scroll wheels are already often geared for the appropriate context-dependent function. However, Tesla manages to hide nearly all of the other car's functions behind fewer layers of menus than in modern BMWs or similar, in my experience, making it far easier to access the more arcane items. For example, adjusting the auto high-beam sensitivity or detailed HVAC preferences seem a lot easier on a touchscreen where buttons are laid out logically enough.

Theodores 7y ago

That giant screen idea is the future. Sure people with ICE vehicles need tactile controls rather than touchscreens but the Tesla Model 3 is different. The giant screen could be taken further, e.g. a generic USB3 tablet that just runs the Tesla app. You could then take the screen out of the car with you or, if you lose it, just get any old tablet and shove it in there.

masklinn 7y ago
> Sure people with ICE vehicles need tactile controls rather than touchscreens but the Tesla Model 3 is different. The tactile controls have nothing to do with ICE (none of them even deals with ICE itself) and everything to do with human behaviour and basic safety, namely the need for fixed positioning, direct interaction, and feedback to enable manipulation of those controls while attention remains on the road.

tomp 7y ago

Buttons belong on the wheel or the driver's door (things like "unlock doors" and "all 4 blinkers").

masklinn 7y ago
> Buttons belong on the wheel or the driver's door (things like "unlock doors" and "all 4 blinkers"). Both of those controls belong to the central console as it's useful for the passenger to manipulate them.

zaroth 7y ago

I find the Tesla Model 3 aesthetically beautiful, and other cars rather grotesque in comparison. It’s extremely forward thinking and intelligent design, allowing for the user experience to constantly improve and be enhanced with the regular software updates to come down. There are now dozens of features in my car which didn’t even exist when I bought it. UI refinements actually improve my driving experience one month to the next. This is a level of service which is impossible to provide with a hard-wired UI. It’s also crucially important to acknowledge that all the main driving interfaces are tactile buttons immediately within reach. Steering, blinkers, wipers, high beams, gear select, AutoPilot, cruise speed, volume, track selection, follow distance, windows, and hazard lights are all perfectly positioned physical controls. There is only a single control which might require a time sensitive activation which is on the screen, and that is the defog. Tesla also does a remarkable job automating away the need for many tasks which in other cars might have you reaching for a knob or switch of some kind.

helpPeople 7y ago
This is one of those things that you can't trust a customer to answer truthfully. You say you like it, but when Ford or similar does it, it's annoying. It's not that Tesla quality is good either. It's one of those things that we tell ourselves we like. I believe there isn't a correct answer, but rather our psychology decides what we like rather than true performance
- zaroth 7y ago
  I understand what you’re saying. Personal bias is hard to self-monitor. But on many objective measures Tesla’s touchscreen is worlds apart from any of car touchscreen. It is iPad-like responsiveness as far as touch recognition and refresh rate. I always said I would never want a GPS/Nav system in a car, because what would be the point?! Low quality maps, no decent POI, no decent user input for querying POI, bad routing, no pinch-to-zoom in a complicated intersection, slow to load, etc. My wife’s Mercedes has Nav and we used it exactly once. By contrast I always use Nav in the Tesla because I can map to Work or Home in two taps in 1 second, boom, the map routes and zooms to show the overview and I have a traffic aware route with an accurate ETA. The live traffic lets me see if traffic is slowing ahead on the highway. Often times I will slow down to the speed limit when approaching a red zone ahead on the highway. Someone behind will swerve around me and accelerate hard just to come to a screeching halt around the bend. Craziness. I think “build quality” and “materials quality” is way more subjective and harder to quantify. But the screen interface is on a different level.

Dumblydorr 7y ago

That's like, your opinion, man. I think the only way Tesla could improve their design is a few more buttons. Other than that, I love love the design, sleek and minimal is 100% my style.

princeb 7y ago

i wonder when we will go straight to the next era and make the steering wheel and accelerate/brake pedals touchscreen features rather than a physical control. this will be as revolutionary as apple taking the number pad out of a mobile phone.

mcv 7y ago

> "It will be interesting to see if other car manufacturers will adopt this design decision." Some are intentionally moving in the opposite direction. Using touch screens apparently distracts from driving, as you need to watch them to see what you're doing. Simply tactile controls are more intuitive.