[zrobotics]

I bought a new car last year, and I didn't set out to buy the cheapest car on the lot, but I ended up buying an ecosport partially because I really liked that it has buttons for everything. This is probably because the car came stock with a 4" screen (the minimum required for the backup camera), but it's really nice having physical buttons for climate control, since pretty much everything else I looked at had touchscreen UI for nearly everything.

Plus, thanks to the excellent folks at cyanlabs[0], $150 worth of parts from a junkyard and I was able to get the larger screen so I can use Android Auto with the map at a usable size. I don't mind the touchscreen UI for something like selecting audio or map destination, since I can do that while parked. The only feature/option I actually miss from a higher optioned car is seatwarmers, which I'll probably add before next winter.

So yes, part of the reason I ended up in the cheapest car they sell is the better UI of the controls (that, and I liked the smaller physical size of the vehicle). I ended up spending ~20k less than I was originally budgeting for the edge. Sure, this is anecdotal and I realize I may be an outlier, but the UI was a major part of the purchase decision and I know enough about the industry to confidently state that most of that extra money is pure profit margin for Ford. BOM cost on an optioned up Edge isn't significantly higher than the base ecosport, so that is way worse profit margin for them.

Edit: forgot link [0] https://cyanlabs.net/applications/syn3updater/