Tesla Owners, Let's Talk: Touchscreen vs. Physical Buttons - What's Your Take?

[Anita B Bailey]

Hey Tesla enthusiasts! We all love the sleek touchscreen of our Teslas, but do you ever miss the good old physical buttons? You know, the kind that gives you that satisfying click feedback. Sometimes, while I'm driving, I find myself longing for the simplicity of a button I can press without taking my eyes off the road.

What about you guys? When you're cruising in your Tesla, do you prefer the high-tech vibe of the touchscreen, or do you sometimes wish for the tactile feel of physical buttons? And what if there was something that could strike the perfect balance between the two?

I'm excited to hear your thoughts and experiences on this! Maybe together we can figure out what makes the ultimate driving experience.

 

[zoomer0056]

What buttons are you missing? No problems for me.

 

[Tronguy]

Back when the Very First Touchscreens were appearing, mainly on German-made cars, there were all these selectors and semi-mouse kinds of things on the cars that used them. And, on these cars, the manufacturers ditched as many of the physical buttons as they could.

Tuning the radio was a ten-click/rotate/what-have you nightmare, with the air conditioning likewise. The screens.. were lucky if they were six inches wide. The whole business was a blinking disaster.

The difference between those cars and the Teslas has mainly to do with real estate: There's a lot of it. Let me go check my M3's diagonal - 15.5".

With that much area, Tesla can permanently designate software-defined buttons for climate, radio volume, and a plethora of buttons that bring up further screens; and those screens and the buttons in them are big enough that one doesn't have to hunt around. As much as people like to complain around here, it's a decent user-interface design. And It's Intuitive to anybody who's ever worked with a smart phone or tablet.

Honestly, I don't miss the plethora of buttons and controls.

 

[Tam]

Hey Tesla enthusiasts! We all love the sleek touchscreen of our Teslas, but do you ever miss the good old physical buttons? You know, the kind that gives you that satisfying click feedback. Sometimes, while I'm driving, I find myself longing for the simplicity of a button I can press without taking my eyes off the road.

What about you guys? When you're cruising in your Tesla, do you prefer the high-tech vibe of the touchscreen, or do you sometimes wish for the tactile feel of physical buttons? And what if there was something that could strike the perfect balance between the two?

I'm excited to hear your thoughts and experiences on this! Maybe together we can figure out what makes the ultimate driving experience.

Yes. Physical controls are best for driving. For example, the signal stalk is much easier to operate than taking the eyes off the road in order to hunt and peck for a turn signal icon.

 

[smogne41]

Hey Tesla enthusiasts! We all love the sleek touchscreen of our Teslas, but do you ever miss the good old physical buttons? You know, the kind that gives you that satisfying click feedback. Sometimes, while I'm driving, I find myself longing for the simplicity of a button I can press without taking my eyes off the road.

What about you guys? When you're cruising in your Tesla, do you prefer the high-tech vibe of the touchscreen, or do you sometimes wish for the tactile feel of physical buttons? And what if there was something that could strike the perfect balance between the two?

I'm excited to hear your thoughts and experiences on this! Maybe together we can figure out what makes the ultimate driving experience.

I have lived with the touch screen for 5 years. It was the thing I liked the least about the car when I got it, but I like the rest of the car so much it compensates. I hate the screen even more now. Yes, tactile controls are far better than touch controls (screen or capacitive 'buttons'). I would fully endorse regulations that mandate in-car screen touch functionality lockout when a car is in gear actually. I fundamentally believe they are unsafe, just like texting while driving. I know the fanbois will down-vote me, but I suspect most of them are also the kind of people who think that they personally can text and drive safely. This does not mean giving up the minimalism of a Tesla at all, it just means better driver controls design (and about 10% more physical controls). I really hope the paradigm in 10 years will be: things you need while driving on physical controls (by law), settings on the screen.

 

[tangible1]

you left out VOICE COMMANDS

can make touchscreen and physical buttons redundant

 

[tangible1]

you left out VOICE COMMANDS

can make touchscreen and physical buttons redundant

 

[smogne41]

you left out VOICE COMMANDS

can make touchscreen and physical buttons redundant

Voice commands SUCK. Slow, inefficient, frustrating, often totally wrong or fail, and (currently) require a network connection to work at all. Wholly unsuited to anything critical. Also completely fail accessibility considerations. Great for talking to your nav while driving, horrible for anything else.

Even if they worked perfectly, they would still suck.

 

[Tam]

you left out VOICE COMMANDS

Voice commands are just like FSD v1 and are now coming soon on v12. It is great when it works but very frustrating because it does not work reliably.

 

[jjrandorin]

Hey Tesla enthusiasts! We all love the sleek touchscreen of our Teslas, but do you ever miss the good old physical buttons? You know, the kind that gives you that satisfying click feedback. Sometimes, while I'm driving, I find myself longing for the simplicity of a button I can press without taking my eyes off the road.

What about you guys? When you're cruising in your Tesla, do you prefer the high-tech vibe of the touchscreen, or do you sometimes wish for the tactile feel of physical buttons? And what if there was something that could strike the perfect balance between the two?

I'm excited to hear your thoughts and experiences on this! Maybe together we can figure out what makes the ultimate driving experience.

This totally comes across as a "hey lets get conversation going!" attempt at a thread topic.

 

[Waltjo]

I like the touchscreen control. it is as easy to use as the controls on my Toyota Highlander. The controls on the highlander are not intuitive at all. After you learn the screen controls they are easy enough to use, and many times I use voice instead. I vote for the touch screen over dash switches.

 

[audiohs]

For me, I would prefer to have HVAC controls with a dial and buttons instead of hunting for it on the screen. For radio, at least have a dial for volume and on/off. Yes, you can do that with the left steering wheel but still would be convenient. Turn signals and gear shift should remain on the stalks. Same with wipers. I've pre-ordered the S3XY Knob and buttons which should help with some of these things.

 

[tangible1]

you left out VOICE COMMANDS

can make touchscreen and physical buttons redundant

Voice commands are just like FSD v1 and are now coming soon on v12. It is great when it works but very frustrating because it does not work reliably.

they are limited in scope and sometimes change, but once you learn them, alleviate all the button searches on screen

 

[tangible1]

Voice commands SUCK. Slow, inefficient, frustrating, often totally wrong or fail, and (currently) require a network connection to work at all. Wholly unsuited to anything critical. Also completely fail accessibility considerations. Great for talking to your nav while driving, horrible for anything else.

Even if they worked perfectly, they would still suck.

network connection? no
eliminate the multi-layer touchscreen selection search

however, they do change on occasion and don't cover all functions

 

[gtae07]

you left out VOICE COMMANDS

can make touchscreen and physical buttons redundant

They also wake up sleeping passengers, get misinterpreted, and are vulnerable to kids trying to override them with nonsense.

 

[tangible1]

They also wake up sleeping passengers, get misinterpreted, and are vulnerable to kids trying to override them with nonsense.

so touchscreen controls and buttons are perfect

I'm just saying there are enhancements to the OP's question

open minds....

 

[Iron]

The difference between those cars and the Teslas has mainly to do with real estate: There's a lot of it. Let me go check my M3's diagonal - 15.5".

With that much area, Tesla can permanently designate software-defined buttons for climate, radio volume, and a plethora of buttons that bring up further screens

BMWs especially, have a rubber coating on their buttons that eventually wear off. A button such as "Start" or many of the HVAC buttons strip off and become blank. Really ages the car and looks a mess.

Your statement that Tesla can "permanently designate software-defined buttons" misses a key point . It's physical buttons that are permanent. The biggest advantage of Tesla's touch interface is that it's changeable and can be reconfigured, so it is always available to improvements and additions via the software updates that we so love to anticipate. The ability to change and improve everything, is one of the unique advantages that Tesla holds. Also consider the sheer depth and number of available controls. It's simply not a system that physical buttons can support. Anyone remembers phones before touchscreens? How limited was that?

 

[cbdream99]

Hey Tesla enthusiasts! We all love the sleek touchscreen of our Teslas, but do you ever miss the good old physical buttons? You know, the kind that gives you that satisfying click feedback. Sometimes, while I'm driving, I find myself longing for the simplicity of a button I can press without taking my eyes off the road.

What about you guys? When you're cruising in your Tesla, do you prefer the high-tech vibe of the touchscreen, or do you sometimes wish for the tactile feel of physical buttons? And what if there was something that could strike the perfect balance between the two?

I'm excited to hear your thoughts and experiences on this! Maybe together we can figure out what makes the ultimate driving experience.

I preferred buttons and stalks than UI when driving, while voice command is useful but not reliable, trivial unless you have learned the lesson of how to make it to work. For example,

1. After they change the UI and one day my windshield is almost completely fogged, a not common situation but I am driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood and have to slow down since I can't see, there are truck behind me breathing on my neck, at that moment is just dangerous.
2. Rented a 3, want to turn on the hazard light in the back alley briefly for moving different vehicle, no button easily find in the line of sight (my S is), have to google it, it is a button on the top liner, imagine if I am in an accident, overwhelmed and disoriented...
3. Rented a 3/Y, someone turned on the steering wheel heater and another one turned on speed limit chime, and pretty much chime on anything. How to turn them off while driving, plus a not so familiar vehicle! There are the things may not be annoying initially, but once left the airport and on the road, it gets old very quick.

Although touch screen UI provides flexible configuration, but is not the most intuitive choice while driving, buttons can be remembered with muscle memory, and not hard to find, e.g. a knob for AC and don't need to hunt for the icon and take eyes off the road, not saying everything has to be a button like certain version of Acura but everything in UI with multiple menu, poorly designed UI, small icon is not safe to use while driving, certainly not RFKM while driving.

 

[tashtibet]

the world is stuck & crazy with touch screen-are you willing to go back to flip phones with buttons? Tesla is slowly dragging the auto industry into touch screen-watch & see!

 

[zoomer0056]

Wholly unsuited to anything critical.

Which voice command is associated to a critical function?