I’m airlifted there isn’t more push back against all-touch interfaces in cars.
Honda put a volume knob back on its 2021+ Ridgeline. Might not have been consumer feedback, but people hated the touch volume control in pre-21 models.
I loathe having to navigate menus and screen to find basic functions. My Honda had touch radio, with access to some set-up options, but daily functions are physical buttons. I like it this way. I’ll likely never buy a Tesla.
Hell, Honda put ALL the knobs, buttons and switches back into the new Civic. They've done a 180 on car controls because they realized everything being touch was bad.
Good move on them. They probably realized they were destroying their own market and that they don’t need to move fast and break things, other brands do that and if something comes out of it they can carefully copy it. The only reason I respect Tesla is for pushing hard on electric. Other than that their offer is not for everyone.
UI is like fashion. Practical matters seem to be ignored, but it's desirable on novelty alone. I fully expect the trend to reverse once it becomes "old and boring".
And, "airlifted"? I've not heard that expression before.
Touch isn’t about design or fashion so much as it’s a cheap way of not having to design or assemble any physical interface at all. A full set of physical switches is a huge amount of cabling, switches that can break, a lot of assembly time.
Want to add a button only available on the 4WD model? Then you have to have a blank dummy button on all other models, or two designs. Want to add/remove buttons on the next model year? Adds a grand to the cost of the car and the physical layout must be done 6 months before production starts.
Touch solves all of these problems. It’s super quick to install. Easy to adapt to different models and between years. Few things that can break.
The downside? Useless when driving. Tesla easily accepts this tradeoff, and will likely continue to do so.
The thing with fashion is you can go normcore if you want, the trends are limited to the extreme fringes of the market. Carhartt jackets, Timberland boots, and Levi's will always be available. Is the same true of UX? No, because a few players dominate the market and have the authority to bend all other players to their whim, even when it's not necessarily going to impact them if they retain a functional, usable, but "antique" looking UI/UX.
I have a feeling that part of the appeal of the touchscreen for Tesla was early on, they were desperate to ship things that had problems which hadn't quite been resolved yet. The automatic downloads enabled them to sell the car with "don't worry, that will be fixed soon and will download automatically".
I guess it is clever in some regards but like others, the touchscreen on my Skoda (thankfully mainly for media) is impossible to use without taking your eyes off the road, which is truly dangerous if you need it for basics.
For the record, the Model 3 does have physical volume/playback controls on the steering wheel, but I do agree with the OP's greater point about not hiding important functionality behind context menus.
Honda put a volume knob back on its 2021+ Ridgeline. Might not have been consumer feedback, but people hated the touch volume control in pre-21 models.
I loathe having to navigate menus and screen to find basic functions. My Honda had touch radio, with access to some set-up options, but daily functions are physical buttons. I like it this way. I’ll likely never buy a Tesla.