I understand your sentiment but nitpicking on this nonetheless: the passenger can easily open the glovebox from the touchscreen on their own.

True though I would take exception with “Easily” - have you seen how many taps you have to do? Not something you want to attempt while driving and certainly not easier than a hardware button.

It's two on the cybertruck, though you can customize to make it one. I'll admit it's not as easy as my old manual latch glovebox but it is safer for me while driving as I had to lean over to where I couldn't see the road before.

Two. Car icon in the bottom left corner, than the big icon on the right called "open glove box" in the quick access menu that is shown by default.

I really appreciate your condensing of the AI problem. I think the only thing it's missing is that at least 5% of the time, when you tell it to open the glovebox it tells you it's already open and leaves it closed, or turns on your turn signals.

We have built a magic hammer that can make 100 houses in a second, but all the houses are slightly wonky, and 5% of their embedded systems are actively harmful.

and the houses are ant sized

It's like PHP won out after all...

Tesla removed all the buttons because separately designed buttons are expensive. The glovebox button is different from the wiper button. Touchscreens are cheap because you only need one variety.

I know why they did it. I still don’t like it (and our next car won’t be a Tesla) and its an annoying case of “new technology” (to save costs or whatever reason) that is worse than the “old technology” but sold as “better” because AI blah blah

The problem is Tesla is a quasi-premium brand, so killing features for cost which cause annoyance is a terrible look.

But also frankly I somewhat question what this could possibly be saving them: their model range is very limited.

not sure if you're aware of this, but there is a broad, robust, competitive and inexpensive market for buttons of every conceivable type and function, which have the advantage of providing consistent and direct feedback when reached for, touched, and actuated.

I agree with the sentiment about the post. I'm not a person who fills my life with busy though.

I quite like tactile buttons. That said, I've never been annoyed by my model 3s glove box, I use the pin. I have both stalks but the lack of other buttons seems just fine. I thought they did a pretty damn good job with the UX of the car beyond the auto wipers.

How often does one go in the glove box? It's so small and he center console is very spacious and more accessible. It's two quick taps on the screen for a passenger. If you wish to lock your glove box, many do, the solution is much better than a key.

fair points; we rarely use the glovebox because the central console is not only more accessible but also doesn't require fiddling with the touch screen to open ;)

I do agree that the UX is pretty good overall, the glovebox annoyed me (until we just stopped using it) and also the defogger (which we need all the time in the winter her) which took several taps on the screen until I discovered that I could customize the shortcut buttons at the bottom of the screen

Some automated things they definitely got right: auto-engage the emergency break while in park; auto-park when opening the door; auto-lock when leaving the car; auto-start the climate control when entering the car; auto-adjust the seat position based on driver detection.

But some things need work: The algorithm for the windshield wipers definitely needs some calibration -- the wipers come on at random times when there as no rain or water splashes; the lane departure "I'm taking control because you're going to crash" is way too sensitive and beeping at random moments; the collision sensor is also much too sensitive (yes I see the car and I'm already slowing down) (but I have to admit that I'd rather it err on the side of being too sensitive than not enough)