I also drive a Hyundai Kona. Here are some things I use the physical buttons for that I wouldn't want to use a screen for:

- turning the air conditioning up or down (or off) while I'm driving and feel too hot/cold

- adjusting the volume of music or the radio while driving

- turning on the radio

- turning seat heaters on or off

I don't want to fiddle with a touchscreen to do any of these things while the car is in motion.

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ericmay 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I hear ya. I can't speak to other cars but in my Tesla I never have to fiddle with any of that stuff. I just press the button on the screen for example to modulate the climate control even when the car is in motion - I don't need to look at all. There's no feedback (haptic feedback would be a nice improvement actually). In the rare instance that I need to do something "complicated" I'd just put the car into the Autosteer mode. But that's only something that would really be done on the highway in a safe manner. In my older cars I found using the buttons to switch between say albums or something that to not really be that much easier. Maybe slightly worse.

On the other hand, boy when I get a rental car there are so many buttons to mess around with it's like going backwards in time (for me) in terms of ease of use. Even something like having to turn on/off the car itself is now a chore. Why do I need to even turn the car on? It should just always work. Obviously part of that is "it's a new car" but a lot of that stuff seems very needlessly complex. I'm not talking about turning the heat on or off even though a lot of those implementations seem way more complicated than they need be (engineers gonna engineer and over-complicate things unless someone stops them) but other random things.

	▲	skydhash an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I have a Suzuki Grand Vitara 2010, and from left to right, the essentials buttons are: - Window controls and lock/unlock - Power mirrors adjustment (after someone else has driven the car) - Light stick/knob (it has auto mode) - Steering wheel control for the head unit (vol +/-,...). It also has cruise but I don't use that - Wiper and washers stick/knob - AC adjustment. It's a knob for temperature with 2 buttons inside (auto mode toggle and off) - Fresh/recycled air switch - AC/ventilation switch - Ventilation speed. It's also a knob with 2 buttons, but I only remember the mode one (to switch between front/front and feet/heater/...) - A defrost button - ESP (ABS) disable button - Window/door lock/ on the passenger door. There's nothing else. For any of those buttons I would hate to use a touch screen. With physical controls, I can rely on location, haptic, and muscle memory without using vision.