Have you ever driven a center speedo Prius? I rented one for a trip once. Took about a day to get used to it, then I never thought about it again the whole trip. It was perfectly fine.
Sometimes I have to duck my head to see the full binnacle screen and I have been known to have my brights on accidentally because that icon is behind the wheel with my driving position. So in some ways having the info on the right may be better.
As far as the minimal buttons design - yah, that ain't great. Tesla did a pretty good job of putting everything you need while driving accessible from the scroll wheels, but there are somethings I do have to dive into the menus for (mostly climate controls). I would like a physical homelink button, but their solution of having it pop to the top when you pull into your driveway works pretty well. I wish voice control could access my USB music - that would reduce a lot of menu dives as well.
But, frankly my Gen 1 Volt had a worse user interface since it was a shotgun blast of touch chiclets that had several never used functions assigned to a button, but common things like "now playing" involved a menu dive.
I knew there was one left side stalk, and am happy to be corrected that it's for wipers. Model S has three (AWD, onward) if you count AP, steering wheel adjust and wiper/turn signal. So, between that and images from the handover event showing something to do with wipers on the touchscreen (they're out there, I think covered by IEV).
Nothing beats the test drive. I made a recent video the other day, of why changing a media selection can be tricky, on MS. It's not up, yet, but shows the jockeying necessary to restore a web page top, nav bottom appearance. 6 strikes of the touch screen. Scroll wheel is problematic when pre-sets include web streamed stations, as they bog. That, and sometimes you want to make a selection that isn't preset. Anyway, the media center isn't vital, just less convenient. The scroll wheels are already way too busy, like setting a watch to hold for a couple seconds, scroll, select, and functionally abandon the immediate access you had to something else, which on another car isn't on the SW. There's a trade-off, at some point, between keeping hands on the wheel, and the net time you've looked away from the road to see what you are menu'ing through.
I always enjoyed the volume dial, on my Volt. Chevy listened w/Volt 2, and separated out the HVAC controls from the center stack touch screen. I'm sure I'd have liked those dials, too. Tesla took media controls away, from the upper touch screen when you're using NAV. It's just an extra tap and second, as they animate down, but it was like something almost nobody asked for (to have ~1.5" more map displayed w/o even the map's "+" "-" controls). Worse, it was by "update". So, my concern somewhat stands, that Tesla is pushing so hard to foster the image these cars are Level 5, that some ergonomic hang-ups may worsen. Putting the speed in the upper left hand corner, of the 15"/ Model 3, was sort of a capitulation in itself. The best they could do, given where the screen was moved.
Maybe not a deal-breaker, but I share others concerns.
