I know people who test drove the Model 3 and said "no thanks", sadly some just an ICE car instead (one got a Mercedes and another picked up a Subaru - the latter liked the Model S but didn't want to spend that much money and Model 3 controls was what killed the deal). What sells Model 3 is the price for EV. People are willing to put-up with it. If you made it a choice at order time, I bet most would pick an instrument cluster in front of them. If Audi had an EV with similar specs and price as Model 3, something tells me they would sell more of them. Time will tell.
When motorized automobiles first came out, they looked a lot like horse drawn carriages. As designers came to understand the differences, the designs changed, improvements were made to suit the purpose of motorized vehicles over the horse drawn carriage. Lots of left over things from carriages were on automobiles, for years, just because people are resistant to change, and designers and engineers hadn’t quite figured everything yet about these new contraptions.
It’s the same thing with EV’s, for example, they don’t need radiator grills, and yet everyone but Tesla feels like they still need something up front to suggest a radiator, the iPace, the Etron, even the new Mach E couldn’t get completely away from it. And even Tesla on the early Model S.
But aerodynamic drag is a more important consideration for EV’s than for ICE cars, so let’s get rid of something we don’t need (radiator grill), and go for improved aerodynamics.
In the time I have been a pilot, 40 years, aircraft cockpits and instrumentation have changed drastically with the advent of better computers and electronic displays. Some pilots at first complained at the change, it’s unsafe, harder to understand, etc, etc, until they get used to it, then they love it, and wonder how they got by without them.
With the advent of touch screens in cars, and no need for much of the instrumentation, ICE parameters and such, car dashboards can be much simpler, less cluttered. But it’s change, some people are resistant, that’s normal.
I drove an iPace before I drove the Tesla, it was quite conventional in exterior looks and the dashboard. I liked it quite a bit, and was ready to order, but wanted to do my due diligence and try the Tesla and Audi as well. There wasn’t an Etron available in my area at the time, so I drove the Tesla.
When I test drove the X, I was sold. Among many things I liked better about the Tesla, I much preferred that Tesla embraced the differences in an EV over an ICE. For example, because there was no fake grill and air scoop, the frunk was actually usable in the Tesla, as opposed to the glove box version in the iPace.
The interior of the X was much plainer than the iPace, but I quickly realized it was easier for me to see all I needed, I could customize what i wanted, the map was huge, in short, in my opinion it was a far superior design for an electric vehicle, embracing the fact that it was a high tech modern machine, not another 20th century holdover, that this was something very new and very different.
I also drove the 3, and loved the simple interior, the lack of instrumentation was not an issue. I felt like I was in a truly modern vehicle, light years ahead in design than my old Lexus even. But that’s just me, I get it.
Some people don’t want that, they want something more familiar. No problem, that’s human nature. The younger generations will be more likely to adopt the new looks, but right now my guess is the majority of EV buyers are older simply because the cars are still relatively expensive, even the Model 3 is for most young people is expensive. So the holdover designs persist, for a while.
In another 20 years, my guess is car Interiors will all be much simpler, more like current Tesla’s, than luxury ICE cars now, as designers and engineers embrace the differences and the tech changes. The old instrument cluster is not needed, and will be a thing of the past. I can’t begin to predict what they will look like, but it won’t be anything like what we see today in luxury ICE cars, I do believe. It just takes time.
