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This keeps coming up on Hacker News. It's not that drivers hate touch screens. It's that most of them are terribly implemented. People hated smartphones until

This keeps coming up on Hacker News. It's not that drivers hate touch screens. It's that most of them are terribly implemented. People hated smartphones until Apple released the iPhone. Just think about smartphones before that. The UX was horrid. I suspect most people in this thread piling onto the hate don't own a recent model Tesla. I know that some owners aren't fans, but most are. There are three things that make the touch screen on Teslas work unlike other cars: 1. The UX - big responsive displays with fast processors and properly designed UIs. They aren't an afterthought like most other vehicles. Every time I drive a car other than my Tesla I too hate the half-ass touch screens. 2. There are indeed still physical controls still on the Tesla for important functions, e.g. drive control, wipers, and audio selection and volume. It's not 100% touch screen. 3. Automation and voice controls handle most of the cases where you'd normally need a knob or button, e.g. wipers and lights are automatic. And voice control seems to be using a state of the art API (Google?) so it works pretty well.

wildrhythms 4y ago
Taking your eyes off the road to adjust the AC is a terrible UX. And as for 'voice commands' bless your heart to imagine every car doesn't have screaming kids in the back seat or a driver with a heavy accent. I want a knob.
- natch 4y ago
  Fortunately AC starts out on auto which works great even while your kids are screaming.
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    Yes I don’t think many people actually often need to fiddle the AC settings while driving. And that would be a very seldomly used knob when you have a good automatic AC.
- shushpanchik 4y ago
  Last software update allows to map many functions to long-press of steering wheel button. So you can assign AC temperature to it, then you don't need to take your eyes of the road - just long-press left button and scroll up/down.
gonehome 4y ago
Yeah the Tesla screen is excellent. The issue isn't so much with touch screens, it's every other car company being atrocious at software and software design.

wildrhythms 4y ago

Taking your eyes off the road to adjust the AC is a terrible UX. And as for 'voice commands' bless your heart to imagine every car doesn't have screaming kids in the back seat or a driver with a heavy accent. I want a knob.

natch 4y ago
Fortunately AC starts out on auto which works great even while your kids are screaming.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  Yes I don’t think many people actually often need to fiddle the AC settings while driving. And that would be a very seldomly used knob when you have a good automatic AC.
shushpanchik 4y ago
Last software update allows to map many functions to long-press of steering wheel button. So you can assign AC temperature to it, then you don't need to take your eyes of the road - just long-press left button and scroll up/down.

gonehome 4y ago

Yeah the Tesla screen is excellent. The issue isn't so much with touch screens, it's every other car company being atrocious at software and software design.