I can only speak for myself, but I think the lack of core vehicle controls on analog / tactile interfaces is a major failure. That’s an opinion I hold for Tesla as well as other car manufacturers who have shifted vehicle controls to touchscreens.
I do love many other things about Tesla cars. I think generally, the sum total of things I love about the Model 3 outweighs the things I hate. For example, the automate wiper sensor is good enough that I generally don’t have to interact with the manual control, which mitigates my day-to-day distaste for it.
Regarding the name for people who hold conflicting views, I think “hypocritical” gets you pretty close.
- Ford's early (and I think current) touchscreen interfaces were pretty unintuitive and they were one of the few manufacturers in the US doing touch interfaces.
- Tesla has probably put a lot more into the UX of touch screen interaction (albeit completely ignoring the fact that touchscreens aren't great while driving).
- Now touchscreens are so normalized in new car sales that they're just accepted as a part of a new mid-top trim car, so the question of "should this really have a touchscreen?" is out of most buyers' minds.
There are exceptions to the "more touchscreen" trends with Mazda[1] recently dropping touchscreens in their new cars and Honda[2] following suit with some models. And in the Hondas that still have touchscreens, I believe most/all 2019+ models had at least knobs to operate radio volume and AC while looking at the road.
Is it the same group of people? Isn't it possible that the set of people complaining about Ford's touchscreens is completely disjoint from the set of people loving Tesla's touchscreens, with no hypocrisy whatsoever? Or are people all just part of the same herd of consumer sheep?
Nope, I've actually had people defend this. Not convincingly, but they try.
I believe the official argument is that the controls on the actual steering wheel are programmable, so you don't usually need the touchscreen. But I mean.. Most people don't bother doing this kind of thing... They're lazy... Hell, I'm an emacs user for 30 years, but I've only ever used the default keybindings...
This touch screen obsession is why I won't buy a Model 3 or Y, despite being a potential customer.
I do love many other things about Tesla cars. I think generally, the sum total of things I love about the Model 3 outweighs the things I hate. For example, the automate wiper sensor is good enough that I generally don’t have to interact with the manual control, which mitigates my day-to-day distaste for it.
Regarding the name for people who hold conflicting views, I think “hypocritical” gets you pretty close.