Not trolling at all, it’s the same thing it’s just something that troubles you vs something that troubles others. IMO the gear selector is a critical safety mechanism, as are turn signals controlled by a stalk and other often used physical controls that I want to be able to operate by feel vs looking on a screen vs looking at the road.

It doesn’t have to be a big control, I just want a physical control that I can use to select forward and reverse, that’s all. The little stalk on my Mercedes works great. Push up for reverse, down for forward. Press in to park, simple.

 

Now you're claiming certain styles of HIDs are safer than others.

 

Huh?!

 

Think about what you're saying. Shifters, turn signals and the like are safety critical (your words) that means some input types (looking at screen versus some other methods) are safer than others according to you. I can guess what I think is the safest method but I don't know what is. Do you?

There are some stupidly confusing shifters out there.

 

I agree, I think they should all work in a very simple way that is similar across all manufacturers. With a physical control though when you get used to it there is muscle memory and you can actuate it without looking. I am unable to do anything with buttons on a screen without looking and focusing like I can with a physical control.

 

Shifting into forward and reverse does not need to be "eyes on road". I think what matters is consistency, that's why I am dead set against complicated mechanisms (cost and material waste aside) that work differently depending on the car in question. What Tesla did is backwards in a sense, a traditional shifter is "down" to go forward, back "up" for reverse. In a Tesla up means forward. I get why they did this, but it's not ideal or worse. Moving a lever forward, then right, or some other stupid combo just to change gears is a division of the car company justifying their existence. I think all EVs should have on-screen shift function.

You have a very different take, you want an EV to feel just like a gas car, shifter mechanism included. Same deal for regen you don't want 1-pedal driving.

 

I totally disagree. I have a friend with a Model S who actually crashed it because she thought she had slid it up into drive and it didn't and stayed in reverse and she backed into the flagpole on her property. Its not a complicated mechanism, its a simple controller.

And you're right, I want an EV to feel like what I am used to...as do many many mainstream car buyers. You're looking for something different and high tech and cutting edge, people like me aren't. If you want people like me to make the shift to EVs then carmakers need to provide products that feel very familiar to us. Luckily, they are doing exactly that.

 

EV adoption is going to happen in the years to come, no stopping it. And the physical "training wheels" will all go away. iPhone killed not only traditional cell phones, but that physical keyboard everyone swore they wouldn't give up, including me. That's why I don't care about selling EV's, it's just going to happen. I'm just here to report my experiences owning, leasing and driving several of them, which has been mostly good. Actually, excellent 👍

 

iPhone has some physical controls too...and like we have discussed before a car is not a piece of technology to many people.

I will say though, even though the lack of a keyboard won out...the physical keyboard is still better.

 

You mean the one button just to turn it on? For better or worse, doesn't matter if you think a physical keyboard is better, it's basically gone with the wind. What I'm saying is, it's not in yours, or my control. It's going to happen

 

My iPhone has an action button, volume up and down buttons, and a hot button that can be set to do anything I want. So...4 buttons. Point is, SOME buttons still exist. Thats all we're saying with cars, not every physical control is better put into a screen.

 

Those have to be on a phone, the phone screen is too small for those controls, otherwise they would absolutely be in the screen. Car screens like the ones in Tesla, Rivian and others are big enough to put controls in them. It's about cost savings, efficiency, not about if you or I like buttons. I work in Silicon valley which is pushing this move, the same way it pushes AI, moving data centers in the cloud, and automation, and self driving. It's not about what you like or what you think is better. Again, people screamed bloody hell when smart phones came out, and those same people now have one. I admit, I was one of them

 

Why do they have to be? You could put all of those buttons on the screen if you wanted to, and engineer some way to turn the phone on by picking it up etc. Reality is they are better as physical controls and that’s why they are still physical controls.

The only company who has gear selectors in the screen is Tesla. You mention Rivian, they have the same gear selector my Mercedes has. Many carmakers have also said they are bringing some physical controls back.

 

Thats all going to change. We can go back to this conversation in about 5 years

Why do they have to? Why did Apple get rid of the physical keyboard? Because they could

 

I'll take that bet. There will be PLENTY of physical controls and gear selectors in 5 years. Apple can also do away with the other buttons on the phone but they don't.