Hacker News Reader

Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

I'll weigh in on the curmudgeon side. The knobs in my car were perfect from the day I bought it because they were optimized by engineers over decades. If there was ever a UI issue, it was corrected before I was born. Because the controls are physical I can operate them by touch and habit while focusing on the road. Years of driving have resulted in mental circuits that automatically detect stop signs and manage lane-keeping with zero conscious attention, just as easy as walking.

No-haggle direct manufacturer purchases are good, though. I can only agree with that.

View on HN

> Years of driving have resulted in mental circuits that automatically detect stop signs and manage lane-keeping with zero conscious attention, just as easy as walking

I thought the same thing when I had an S a few years back. This was just the adaptive cruise control + lane holding days, and I figured it'd be nice for sure but not game changing.

I was entirely wrong. Sure, driving without AP on wasn't hard, but turning AP on made road trips and commuting 1000x more pleasant for me. Driving without AP may be habitual and ingrained, but it still occupies a certain amount of mental capacity to hold the line.

Being freed from that wasn't just about getting more time to look at scenery, either. With fewer brain cycles spent on mechanically maneuvering the car, I could spend those cycles better monitoring other vehicles for potential hazards (crazy drivers, etc.)

Lots of things have changed in cars since you born and their interfaces have hardly been perfected.

Namely things to do with phones like navigation, music, or phone calls. Not to mention things like improved climate control or safety (like the sentry system.)

The knobs in the car represent a local maxima and your muscle memory is a sunk cost.

Why should I have to do most of the things that those knobs do? I’d prefer to let Tesla write the automotive software instead of trying to embed it in my hands via years of practice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com