What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.

But I'm talking beyond just the buttons. Pure analog. No telemetry. No cellular connection. Real rack and pinion again. Real gauges. No drive by wire wherever possible. Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor. Pure car. Dead simple systems. Easy access engine bays.

It isn't happening again. These things are ipads on wheels that try and surveil you and come up with datapoints they can somehow make some money off of.

I agree. How do you feel about the Slate truck?

Nit: electric power steering is still rack and pinion. The old system is hydraulic vs electric.

> What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.

Not just that: my hands get dry enough sometimes that my phone's touch interface doesn't work reliably, in which case, I'd expect a touchscreen interface in a newer car would face similar problems. Physical buttons don't have that problem.

> Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor.

Your gas car in 2003 probably directly connects the accelerator pedal to the throttle ... but it also has an entire ecu with a whole bunch of stuff to figure out how much fuel to add given the throttle position / airflow and also almost certainly has the ecu controlling ignition too. Even my 1981 van has an ECU to sets fuel volume, although it doesn't have electronic ignition or water cooling.

You can open the throttle all the way, and if the fuel volume doesn't change, you won't get much in the way of extra vrooming.

That said, as simple as possible, but no simpler is a good goal.

I'm not really concerned with hitting the button blind but I understand the desire to have no "tracking" or anything like that. Volume in the Tesla at least there is a button and you can configure some of those things with software. I know the heated seats and climate control are done via the iPad as you call it but I don't have to look at those. Once you hit it enough you just know where it is, or you can use voice control if you're not that comfortable. I can also text on my iPhone pretty well without looking at the keyboard.

But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with all these gauges and stuff. I have 0 interest in trying to repair my car or understand how any of it works. I just want to get in, have it be super comfortable, everything works and it gets me from A to B pretty fast. The only gauge I care about is the speed at which the car is traveling. Well the battery too I guess but if I'm taking a trip where that's of concern the car handles the stops for me.

I get that people do enjoy that stuff which is super cool - I'm not hating on it, but figured I'd just provide a different perspective maybe. For me the biggest concern is just this dog shit Android software and abandonware that all the manufacturers create (except Tesla funny enough - I'm not a shill or anything, Elon sucks and I'll never buy another one because of him) which I think is probably the biggest negative to the iPad-ification. Thankfully there's Android Auto and Apple Car Play but still the computers in the cars can be underpowered to use those.

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