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92 points

The fact that they needed to receive a lot of complaints to reconsider makes me wonder - do they even do any kind of usability testing for their products? Anyone who even sat in a car with only touchscreen can tell you the experience is not comfortable.

And I don’t think it’s just about the price of physical buttons. Buttons are a selling point right now, they could charge a small premium (not in the thousands but ~$200 certainly.

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43 points

Or follow the BMW plan and put buttons in the cars but make them subscription only.

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42 points

Never read from a book that summons demons, even as a joke.

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5 points

Never read from a book that summons demons

I know they said “What you do in High School will affect your entire life” but I didn’t think it would be this bad! It was only once! I swear!

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29 points

It’s probably a cost issue. Running one wire harness to a touch screen is a lot cheaper than running a wire to every button in a car.

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30 points

It’s also a “We can charge $900 for this $80 touchscreen when it fails in 5 years because your car is a brick without it” issue.

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7 points

I hate the fact that you’re probably right about that reason.

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2 points

Is the button panel not a separate unit? I’d imagine it would have a connector to plug into the cable that runs back to whatever control system, instead of it being a bundle of individuals.

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2 points

It is.

I’ve replaced a few controls like this over the years. When they started switching from cable controls to electronic, it really simplified the install. One multi-wire connector, half dozen screws.

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1 point

Even if it’s a subassembly there’s gonna be more connectors in it, and probably more wire since it will need to run to the various buttons.

When you’re making tens of thousands of vehicles every penny counts.

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9 points

I wonder if it’s a planning issue. Buttons you have to actually plan out. Touchscreen? Plop it in.

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1 point

You have the software design costs, which are high but one-off, so they’re amortised over the entire production - and it’s either the same or nearly the same across each brand’s entire range

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4 points

Oh they KNEW what they were doing and just didn’t give a fuck.

We need a People of Walmart equivalent for this bullshit. Start finding the designer/engineer/manager responsible for this garbage and shame them publicly.

How does this stuff pass any kind of Accessibility regs?

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3 points

Besides cost, we should probably at least entertain the idea that we are a vocal minority. I’d be completely unsurprised to find out that the majority of people hardly ever touch the controls that got moved to touchscreens and, if they do, they don’t really care - they can set them before they set off, or do it while driving and wobble all over the road, but hey everyone does it so what does it matter?

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