I’ve test driven a few higher end EV, and the objection I can’t possible get past is the lack of physical controls. I guess Tesla made “everything on a touchscreen” popular, but I really hate it. I hate it in the Tesla, but it’s even worse in other models. The screen in the Tesla at least seems decently made to me, but the one in the Taycan I drove was a laggy PoS.

From the drivers seat of the ICE car I currently drive, I can use my hands to control basically everything without taking my eyes off the road. This hasn’t been possible in any of the EVs I’ve driven. I think some of the more affordable models have more traditional central consoles, but I don’t really want a low end EV…

I expect all my sales objections to EVs will disappear over time, as the technology and infrastructure improves. But that’s one I’m never getting over. I just can’t imagine I’ll ever buy a car where everything’s controlled by touch screens.

That is one of the things I liked about the F150 Lightening. The interior of the Lightening is almost the same as the F150 gas truck.. Which i love.

I thought I would hate that too but got over it quickly with the Tesla. All the controls you need while driving are on the wheel voice control works really well too

>>voice control

No thanks.

I do not have an Echo, Google Home, or any other voice automation. I have no desire to replace all my UI's Knobs, and switches with Voice Control

I have no desire to talk to my home or my car.

As many times as speech-to-text on a phone has garbled my message, it gives me the shivers to think about controlling my car with voice commands. "NO! I only said inverse, not reverse!"

I hate speech to text on my phone and never use it but works really well in the Tesla. Was shocked frankly.

Out of curiousity, what would you be telling the car to inverse?

I’m open to the possibility that I’m just being a Luddite about it, and tbf ICE cars have also been slowly adopting some of the same design patterns. But I don’t think I’m ready to gamble on buying an expensive new car just to find out whether I’ll get used to it.

Perhaps I’ll be forced to adjust one day. Perhaps the world is just leaving my preferences behind. I do complain even more passionately about touchscreens on blenders…

I kind of think we'll eventually have tactile touchscreens eventually. Like folding phones, but the technology extrapolated 20 years from now.

EDIT: Here's a proof of concept from 8 years ago. I think this would be nice to have on my Tesla. Best of both worlds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JelhR2iPuw0

Before I clicked that I was thinking “I hope that isn’t tactus”. They tried to make a phone case with the tactile touchscreen and never got out of production hell. They laid off everyone involved and pivoted to making coatings for other screen manufacturers. The struggling startup I was working at at the time hired one of their engineers after the layoffs. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it.

Your view is a common misconception about Teslas. Teslas have ample physical buttons and other physical controls. You actually don’t need to look at or touch the screen while driving.

In a Tesla, you need to interact with the screen (or the voice control) to:

* Control the wipers

* Adjust air con

* Adjust the stereo

In the newer model, the blinkers are controlled by some horrible touch sensitive buttons on the front to the steering wheel.

There’s no misconceptions here at all. I went and test drove one and that’s how it works. You can go watch some users guides on YouTube of people explaining all of this.

Wipers: automatic, overridable with a physical button. Wiper washers, also a physical button. Voice control also works. No need to use the screen. Doesn’t mean you can’t use the screen of course. You absolutely can look if you want to. But no need.

Air con: automatic works great. No need to adjust. Absolutely no need to look at it either. Of course you can optionally do so if you really want to. There might be voice control for this too but I haven’t even had a need to try.

Stereo: There’s a button for adjusting the volume and navigating to the next song, and back to the beginning of this song and then, if clicked again, to the previous song. Also plenty of voice search and voice control options. And sure the screen may optionally be used if you want, but no need.

It would be unfair to expect anyone to learn all these things from a test drive. But that’s no reason to assert that they positively do not exist.

But I don’t want my car to automatically decide what I want the temperature to be, or when I’d like to use the wipers.

The buttons on the wheel can be used to control the stereo, but the functionality of those buttons on the steering wheel is context-dependant on… what’s happening on the screen.

Now, it’s fine for you to like these design decisions. They’re very popular cars, so it seems likely that a lot of people do. But I can’t stand them, and you’re not going to convince me that they don’t exist.

I guess It’s also possible that I’m just very stupid, and I’m using it wrong. In either case, as a consumer, my preferences are for cars that are designed to be more suitable for the stupid.

All these things are up to you. You can invoke the wipers whenever you want to, by pressing the physical button provided for that purpose.

You can set the temperature by voice control. Or… you could buy another car.

What the buttons do is dependent on modes that do happen to show up on the screen, but you can switch those modes using voice commands.

>I guess It’s also possible that I’m just very stupid

Unlikely, and I don't think so, but I'd say it's possible to miss some things in a test drive or two. I'm still learning new things about the car after two years of driving it. It takes a lot of complex work to make things simple.

It's also a moving target. You can say "it doesn't do X" but next week it might, with a software update.

Meantime, there are other cars, so it's all good! Sure it's true that some car models adopt patterns innovated by others, but I'm sure some cars will remain strictly manual control for those who want that.