I tend to have the same opinion, but at the same time I'm not convinced:

- I bought 1 year ago a new car for 80k $ => that's not cheap and in my opinion putting 4 extra buttons (up/down) or 2 extra knobs to control the temperature of the two front seats wouldn't have been an incredible engineering challenge that would have added hundreds of $ to the cost (which was anyway high).

- we have ~100 buttons that all work reliably on our keyboards, which are connected to our PCs/notebooks with just a single cable => I admit that in a car there is the extra challenge of temperature variance (car parked in the Sahara or somewhere in Iceland), but I cannot think that that's an engineering wonder (worked fine during the last 100 years).

Therefore maybe the trend is driven by designers: make everything shiny & slick, risk of having the own work thrown into the trash when taking a step back to do usability tests vs. physical controls so let's just forget about that.

I wanted to mention that. Sure, the way auto electronics were traditionally installed was expensive but a keyboard is $20 by itself, a midi music keyboard designed for wear and having buttons and knobs is ~$150. A modular system of instruments and controls that fits around the steering wheel and has a single cable coming out could not be that expensive.

Changing to something like would require a lot of adjustment of electronics processes - different chips and voltages to allow the modularity and single cable, I would guess. But touch-screens also need this I would imagine.

Although I suspect the addition of backup cameras has given automakers excuses when it comes to rear visibility.

I hate Electron as much as the next average HN user, but isn't the benefit of Electron actually kinda for the user as well as the developer, in the sense that Electron is basically a one-stop shop for porting to other platforms?

For instance, Microsoft Teams is written in Electron. This means the application is pretty damn well identical whether users within my company are using Windows or Mac computers. There are advantages to that.

I'd say for myself, Unity is a great example of where, basically; if I went 'native', I would really only be supporting one platform, like I used to when I did game dev in the late 90's and early 00's. But Unity gives me the power to flip a switch, and then all my friends can play pretty much the same copy of my game on any platform of their choosing.

It also means if there are bugs on one platform, they usually show up on another as well; making QE and addressing bugs a little bit easier, making for a better user experience.

Not a fan of Electron, just saying that there are benefits to the user for using such a system.

Disadvantages too. Unlike a website, I want the software on my computer to take advantage of the native UI and other features unique to the OS. If Electron didn't exist MS would still build teams for multiple platforms. It would disadvantage small developers but the majority of users (who use well known software developed by large companies) lose out on the prior mentioned benefits thanks to Electrons existence.

2022 Honda Civic but with physical buttons probably doesn't move the needle because car buyers are price sensitive and because 2022 Honda Civic with screen is still better than alternatives.

I had a 2017 Honda Civic Hatchback. First year of the new model design, it had a touch sensitive volume control... After that, I think it was the 2019 and up all Honda's came with a volume knob AS A DIFFERENTIATOR because the UX was so bad without it.

I wonder if someday we'll have an open-source car, sort of like the framework laptop. I think it would be amazing. Think of the robust market that has cropped up around custom PCs and custom bicycles.

It does take way too long to boot up.