Eh... electronic instrument clusters had their kremlins before Tesla and touchscreens came around. The problem is the Software I've seen the source and architecture of the Mercedes cluster and infotainment systems and it's horrible glued together. You just see that QT wasn't made for the usecase.

Sure it does. Gauges are almost all driven electrically these days and not directly connected to a speed readout mechanically. If you have a problem with the gauge cluster, it's very common to have gauges malfunction. Sometimes they read incorrectly. Sometimes they read 0. If it's one of those multifunction displays, you could just have that display "crash" too.

There is still going to be significantly better isolation than if it is all behind one pane of glass. If the radio is on the fritz, the hard-wired speedometer and windshield wipers should still be able to operate and accept commands.

A modern digital cluster is pretty much all operated off one little computer. Nobody's used hard wired speedometers in probably 20 years or more. And I can tell you that even back when we did have such things, it wasn't unheard of for the cluster to freak out. Had a ground wire crack on my '95 car and the gauges all started making very random readings. Some even looked plausible at first glance, which meant it took two trips to the dealer before they realized it was an electrical problem and not an actual malfunctioning cooling system.

In the case of the Tesla, BTW, the infotainment is 100% separate from the computer that controls the car. E.g. you loose the turn signal sounds, but the signals themselves work, etc. AP will continue to function, but you can't turn it on without the infotainment screen running. You can reboot the infotainment as you're driving down the street without it affecting your control of the car.

Reminds me of when my then-new '98 (or was it '99?) Audi A4 cluster partially crapped out on the highway. The needles dropped to zero and several warning lights came on, but the car still drove normally.

I pulled over and called the dealer service department for advice, and we decided it was safe (for the car) to continue my journey. But with the partial instrumentation failure, the air-conditioning also refused to operate, so I had a sweaty summertime trip.

Physical controls are just inputs to some computer in the car. The risk of a reboot is still there and I'm guessing on many newer cars, the computer the physical controls is wired to is actually the same one that controls the touch screen. This would be needed so you can control the same item via voice/remote app, even if you never use this.

> That just does not happen with physical controls.

I was driving a car once where the handle to the stick shift literally popped off in my hand. So... no, that's just silly. Stuff breaks. Important stuff breaks. You deal with that with careful design and redundancy[1], not whining on the internet about touchscreens.

[1] Like how in the Tesla all the driving controls are, in fact, NOT connected to the touchscreen controlled by the MCU but to the AP computer.