The giant tablet screen that sticks out like a sore thumb is the opposite of minimalistic, or minimalistic in the worst way.

I wonder how long Tesla can get away with not offering CarPlay/Android Auto functionality. The lack of that basic, cheap, and often used feature disqualifies any car from consideration in my view.

I don’t love that I have to use the touch screen to open my glove box, and I certainly think there are a lot of UI issues (and the lack of integration with phones beyond regular bluetooth), but one thing I appreciate is that there aren’t any blinding dash lights. I can see a lot better at night in my Tesla as a consequence compared with any other vehicle I’ve driven.

I have not driven many cars, but I feel like there is usually a dial adjust the brightness of dash lights. At least in Toyotas.

Hah, I had a Camry for 10 years and never knew it had such a dial!

You should read the instruction manual to the over $30k machinery you purchased. There's likely many features you didn't realize were there.

Joke’s on you. My Camry was only $25k new.

Congrats on being one of the 10,000, but given that my '81 VW Vanagon has adjustable dashlights, I'd not buy a modern car if it didn't have that feature. Rheostats aren't exactly cutting-edge technology (though I'm sure a modern car uses software to run the driver that sends commands down the CANBUS, which then...)

Relax. I didn’t say they don’t exist or that my Camry didn’t have it. I’m just saying I didn’t know it had it.

I have a dedicated glove box button in my Tesla S. It's one of the few dedicated buttons.

Most cars (all?) have the option to dim the dashboard backlight.

I find Saab's solution to be extremely elegant - on some, if not all models, there's a night mode button - what happens is that all non-essential instruments are simply dimmed to black (leaving only the speedo lit), until something happens which warrants your attention; the instrument in question will then come on.

Simultaneously, it dims all button backlights &c to just about off, so that you only get some assistance in locating the control you're after, not losing your night vision the moment you let your eyes stray from the road.

I had a Saab 93 estate (station wagon, for the benefit of non-UK residents) with this feature and loved it. I'd often use it and then also dial the brightness all the way down. Really helped to reduce visual fatigue when driving at night.

The Nissan Leaf lets you dim the dashboard lighting really far down. I’ve never had a problem with visibility at night.

People ooh and aah over the tacky gigantoscreen in Teslas, but it was really a hack to avoid having to design the usual litany of buttons and knobs that go onto a dash. Thankfully most other manufacturers haven't gone as totally screen-centric as Tesla (yet...)

Yup the "minimalism" in Teslas is just a hack to forego complex interior designs that they are holistically unable to reproduce in their "giga"factories. It helps to reduce complexity and weight if you just slap an iPad next to the steering wheel.

What's REALLY bad though is that other manufacturers rushed after Tesla and turned their brains off. Now we have a bunch of electric cars with crappy plastic interiors (light weight for range) and shitty tablets as user interface. Some are recognizing these horrifying mistakes that will cost lives but it will take years to recover because a lot of projects are too far ahead already to be changed or canceled.

I mainly speak from extensive experience with Volkswagen - the crappy capacitative touch buttons on the steering wheel will finally go. The new CEO Blume is not as blind as Herbert Diess - he doesn't view Tesla as the second coming of the iPhone, especially since Teslas continue to stagnate in quality and other manufacturers are quickly catching up.

Good luck outproducing Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen, BMW, Audi... time was Teslas ally especially because Toyota kept insisting on Hydrogen cars for so long and VW fucked up software development so bad with CARIAD that Konrad Zuse is spinning in his grave ready to produce energy for all EVs sold.

I credit Tesla with 2 things:

- Opening the EV market and pushing other manufacturers to invest

- Great engineering regarding battery and range (in the past)

The list of issues is longer nowadays and I am not willing to forgive quite as much as in 2014 with great alternatives on the market.

Yeah it's ugly as shit. Their build quality didn't help any of that either.

Personally, I kind of like the Tesla exteriors with the exception of the nose of the 3.

The interiors though are pure trash. They look unfinished and designed by Rule of Cool, instead of practicality.

>> Minimalistic interiors

> Is this something you see as a benefit?

Yes. It's a distraction free operating environment. Tesla's aesthetic choices are semi-scandinavian/Ikea. Minimal doesn't have to be that style specifically. The early New Beetle did a passable job. The typical car is like MS Word with every ribbon open at once. A minimalist interior is focus mode.

The lack of tactile buttons increases distraction considerably.

I cannot activate most controls on a Tesla without taking my eyes off the road.

They also seemingly refuse to keep the GUI stable for more than three or four months at a time.

I agree. minimalistic design != "lack of tactile buttons"

Multi-touch capacitance with tuned solid state haptic feedback and fused OLED display technology with very thin tempered glass is a wonderful thing, especially considering how far it has gotten since 2007) but it has remained resounding and disappointingly flat.

While manufacturers are working with different display dimensions and gentle curves or even folds, I agree there is a need for topologically shaped glass to bring the tactile affordances of traditional buttons to software enhanced user interfaces. I'm not a display engineer but I suspect that different glass thicknesses result in poor visuals so we will have to wait for organic magneto-laser displays.