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

[Zythryn]

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.

I have to disagree. I LOVE voice commands for most things.
Our Y’s voice command are very reliable.

As for the original question…
I don’t miss the buttons all.
For a limited number of high use commands, you have buttons (steering wheel, doors, etc).
For us, the voice commands allow easy use of other command (HVAC, seat heaters, etc).

I do agree, UI (screen or buttons) is very important. I had a car with a panel full of identical buttons, evenly spaced. It was the worst UI I have ever experienced.

 

[cbdream99]

I tried VC "turn on windshield wiper", "turn off windshield wiper" every couple of minutes when the intermittent wiper is not working as many others cited, it works well, though feeling stupid though.

 

[smogne41]

I bought a Tesla for the lack of buttons; why pay to add aftermarket junk back on?

I bought it for the battery, motor, and aero, and in spite of the lack of sensible controls.

 

[804son]

I bought a Tesla for the lack of buttons; why pay to add aftermarket junk back on?

For quick access to features that I use often, or even better to features that the current UI does not contain (Off road mode for the Model 3), which I use in the snow and Low regen, also use in the snow.

 

[Mateo83]

I bought it for the battery, motor, and aero, and in spite of the lack of sensible controls.

COOL? This post about touchscreens and buttons.

 

[smogne41]

COOL? This post about touchscreens and buttons.

Exactly, the lack of tactile controls and reliance on the touch screen was a major turn-off to me at purchase time (and still is). When I got the car the rest outweighed dislike though (and still do). However, the further changes with Highland, etc push all new Tesla's into the 'never' column for me for now (unless they change course at some point).

 

[Midpack]

Every list is simply a compilation of commands that someone has put together. There's no official list from Tesla and thus no guarantee of completeness or accuracy.

It's fine that voice commands work for you (what do you mean by 'where AUTO' doesn't?) but that's not the point. The fact that they don't work in so many other situations means they can only supplement and are not a substitute for a good UI. not sure why that's so difficult to understand or why people feel so compelled to make excuses for Tesla here.

Just because you and some like minded people don’t like the UI, doesn’t mean others don’t understand or that Tesla needs to explain to your cohort. The fact you don’t know what AUTO means tells me there’s a lot you don‘t understand ***. Voice commands have worked for me in all situations where they’re really needed for me, and many others - amazing huh?

*** I’ll explain one example. It‘s been at least 15 years since I’ve owned any car where leaving the lights on AUTO isn’t perfectly satisfactory 98% of the time, daytime/night/brights. So I would never use a voice command to “turn on headlights” - one on your list. Most of your list is trivial for many owners, though I’m sure that‘s unbelievable in your world.

My last post, knock yourself out…

 

[Calliope]

they can only supplement and are not a substitute for a good UI.

Exactly - nice if you want to use them but there will be a lot of times/situations/people where they won't work.

 

[sleepydoc]

Just because you and some like minded people don’t like the UI, doesn’t mean others don’t understand or that Tesla needs to explain to your cohort. The fact you don’t know what AUTO means tells me there’s a lot you don‘t understand ***. Voice commands have worked for me in all situations where they’re really needed for me, and many others - amazing huh?

*** I’ll explain one example. It‘s been at least 15 years since I’ve owned any car where leaving the lights on AUTO isn’t perfectly satisfactory 98% of the time, daytime/night/brights. So I would never use a voice command to “turn on headlights” - one on your list. Most of your list is trivial for many owners, though I’m sure that‘s unbelievable in your world.

My last post, knock yourself out…

I understand perfectly well what the ‘auto‘ setting is for headlights, etc., just not your grammar. Apparently difficulty understanding poor grammar makes me a luddite.

You keep talking about ‘my world.’ yet turn around and say how it works perfectly for you. Isn’t that just ‘your world?’ You still fail (and are apparently unwilling) to understand that it’s not about me or you, it’s about everyone. You even unwittingly gave an example - the auto headlights setting works well 98% of the time. What about the other 2%? 1 in 50 times the auto setting fails. 98% seems good but in practice for many things it’s not. The last 3 days we’ve had many grey, slightly snowy days where the auto headlights did not work and numerous times I had to turn them on manually, fumbling around with the $#% touchscreen and taking my eyes off the road (which was icy and had other cars on it.)

Again, this isn’t about an example that doesn’t work for me or does work for you; The interface needs to work all of the time for everyone.

 

[Georgeinrhu]

Try driving a Mercedes EQ, 27 [twenty seven] physical buttons!
I'm slightly confused as to why you should be pressing any buttons screen or otherwise whilst driving?

 

[father_of_6]

For those that still think the "screen vs buttons" debate hasn't been won:

 

[zoomer0056]

For those that still think the "screen vs buttons" debate hasn't been won:

View attachment 1000864

Good one. Hey .... where's the OP? Or is she just lurking. Nope, I just checked, she hasn't even been back to TMC since the original post. Maybe she's lurking vicariously.

 

[father_of_6]

Good one. Hey .... where's the OP? Or is she just lurking. Nope, I just checked, she hasn't even been back to TMC since the original post. Maybe she's lurking vicariously.

LOL... there we go again - 6 pages of posts sparked by a bot (or a TSLA shorter).

 

[robjg63]

Indicator buttons fixed to a steering wheel that can be upside down when you need to use the indicators is insanely stupid - or even dangerous.
They would have been better on the new Model 3 to have left the stalk alone or use an area on the touchscreen in my humble opinion.

The only other controls I would like to see with their own physical controls would be demister fan.
Auto wipers is fine. Auto headlights is fine (or having a control on the steering wheel).
But when you suddenly get a windscreen rapidly fogging up on you, its not a good time to have to search for how to clear the inside of the windscreen.

 

[father_of_6]

The only other controls I would like to see with their own physical controls would be demister fan.

They could overload the scroll wheels for that. For instance, the right scroll wheel is for voice commands, but double pressing it could enable the defogger (or a function of the driver's choice). I wouldn't vote for any additional buttons / knobs.

 

[smogne41]

I love how whenever somebody brings up wanting more physical controls in their car the Tesla stans immediately claim that the only two choices are absolute Tesla minimalism, or a sea of hundreds of buttons throughout the cabin. Please. Good tactile but minimal automotive controls/interiors have been done throughout automotive history and at multiple price points. 'Good' meaning both nice to use and nice to look at. Look at the dash of a Porsche 356, classic VW Beetle (I know, almost the same thing), a freekin' 1997 Honda Accord. We can have both minimalism and tactile controls, and (with a touch screen) access to hundreds of settings we don't need while driving.. What we get now is just lazy bad design across the industry for the most part. A human factors disaster either way.

 

[jboy210]

Indicator buttons fixed to a steering wheel that can be upside down when you need to use the indicators is insanely stupid - or even dangerous.
They would have been better on the new Model 3 to have left the stalk alone or use an area on the touchscreen in my humble opinion.

The only other controls I would like to see with their own physical controls would be demister fan.
Auto wipers is fine. Auto headlights is fine (or having a control on the steering wheel).
But when you suddenly get a windscreen rapidly fogging up on you, its not a good time to have to search for how to clear the inside of the windscreen.

After a week or so, the indicator position was not an issue for me on my 2022 yoke equipped X. I might be even better when they add electronic dynamic-ratio steering, ala Cybertruck, so there is no need to turn the steering wheel/yoke too far.

 

[laservet]

I don't miss the buttons at all. Anything I need to do on the touchscreen while driving is easy with voice commands.

 

[cbdream99]

For those that still think the "screen vs buttons" debate hasn't been won:

View attachment 1000864

Where are the left turn and right turn buttons ?

 

[Midpack]

I don't miss the buttons at all. Anything I need to do on the touchscreen while driving is easy with voice commands.

I would agree with the only exception, turn signals, and even that is only when signaling with the wheel turned - how often that is varies by driver. And moving the horn back to the center pad is a good choice. Everything else they moved seems fine to me - AUTO wipers & lights are fine by me and I use voice commands over buttons as much as possible or touchscreen already and I have stalks. I gradually transitioned to voice commands on our Honda, Subaru and Hyundai starting 5 years ago, before I bought a Tesla.

I know a couple users who have stalkless MS's, and they seem fine with letting the car determine D vs R, they don't have to override often.

Obviously some people think otherwise and go ballistic over many changes without ever trying them...like all tech/progress.