> To the point where I now feel a bit attacked by sea of buttons when I get into a modern non-Tesla.

Going to need to read make/model/trim example before I believe that.

E.g., Mazda3 has very elegant non-cluttered knob UX. Also, the knobs available on last few years of Prius Prime LE are super obvious and bog standard for controlling heat/cool/etc. (E.g., red for heat and blue for cool IIRC.)

Even the newest Civics I've seen with the big slow touchscreens have just three obvious knobs that do obvious things, above which there is a solitary button that appears to be the bog standard triangular hazard lights button.

Audi eTron something something SUV. Just so busy and confusing, wall of buttons. But also touchpad or dial or something to use the laggy and entertainment. Entering addresses complete pain.

Similar story with the Lexus NX. Added bonus of things not actually working.

The model Y I got into had essentially no buttons. I appreciate the minimalism, but would prefer some basic button.

The flip side is most functions are on 2 levels deep in the UI. Makes it very easy to navigate.

I don't get it.

There are dedicated tactile buttons for:

- wipers

- turning signals

- high-low beams

- cruise control (with distance modifications and speed change)

- media, volume, play/pause, prev/next

- drive selection

- power window controls for all windows

- hazard lights

- dome/reading lights

On touchscreen:

- cabin temperature is always visible and in the same place on screen

- navigation input is always visible and same place

- you can have shortcuts for functions you would need immediately

Touchscreen is as responsive/fast as current gen iPad and probably more intuitive (tho this is subjective).

I only test drove one, but I felt very overwhelmed in the 30 minutes I had it - and I was coming from a car with strong adaptive cruise/lane centering.

* wipers were not at all obvious to me. I don’t remember speed control and wash being physical.

* many of the actions are on the same physical button and context specific. While it would be fine after I get use to the car, very overwhelming

- wipers - button at the end of left side stalk, half press for single wipe, full press for wash. Some seconds after this the left thumb wheel left/right can be used to adjust wiper speed (this last has come as a sw update within this year).

Wiper automation/rain sensing on Tesla is in general rather poor, I wish they would give up on their camera ideology for reliable sensors or at least made the sw good.

- adaptive cruise control is single down pull on right stalk. With lane keeping activated by a double pull. Speed adjusted with scrolling right thumb wheel and distance right thumb wheel left/right.

Agreed, apart from fiddling with navigation (which is touch in any car unless you’re willing to deal with voice assistants) 99% of my control input is via the steering wheel buttons.