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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

This whole thing started with Tesla. Re-inventing the wheel because they think they know better. Musk's MO.

Other car makers only see the initial sales and jump on the wagon to copy and undo what was learned over many years to be safer only to then creep back many years later.

Same thing with Apple and removing the ESC key in favor of the touch bar or only having USB-C ports on a power user laptop with video over USB-C still being uncommon in conference rooms.

So much wasted time and resources.

Soon we will have removable batteries in phones and there will be people that have never seen this before...

At least no one died not being able to plug in their laptop in a conference room but someone probably did die operating the AC and hitting a deer because they had to look down.

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I don't have much experience with non-tactile driving HUDs, but what always gets me is how, with every major version of Android, all the basic, essential functions take increasingly more screen tap counts in different places on the digitizer as they get buried deeper into submenus, calling for ever more amounts of your sensory bandwidth.

These workflows, from quickly adjusting lcd brightness or toggling bluetooth to utilizing functionality in the Maps app, have devolved from almost-total muscle memory with one or two taps to multiple times that and all over the place on the smartphone display.

People are obviously going to use their phones and heavily navigate with Maps while driving, no matter how much PSAs and campaigning happen. It's sort of like the developers are causing car accidents in the name of shipping off their users' engagement metrics back to the mothership.

There is a large burden that smartphones have to carry by having to facilitate, or be in some way involved, in every aspect of our life. And at the same time, industries involved in producing these products, have to stay busy and employed. So we end up in a situation where everything stays in constant flux.

Updates break older apps, change the UI/UX, it's really an interesting situation we're in at the moment.

> I don't have much experience with non-tactile driving HUDs, but what always gets me is how, with every major version of Android, all the basic, essential functions take increasingly more screen tap counts in different places on the digitizer as they get buried deeper into submenus, calling for ever more amounts of your sensory bandwidth.

Very much this. My favorite is so small, but so, so silly. Google Play used to have a search bar at the top of the home screen. If you click it now, a little message pops up saying search has moved to a different tab. So you click that tab and STILL have to click the same area of the screen to perform a search. So many moronic design choices at these companies.

I almost never use the Play Store (I have my apps and haven't installed new ones for some years) so I didn't notice this, but I just tested and confirm this feels freaking dumb.

I followed some introductory course to UX a few years ago, and this seems to go against the very essence of what I remember of it, which is mainly "put things where the user expects them, officialize the desire paths"...

> (...) with every major version of Android, all the basic, essential functions take increasingly more screen tap counts in different places on the digitizer as they get buried deeper into submenus

The one thing that struck me configuring my spare Samsung first time was this approach of hiding setting under sub-screens. For example how you can handle Wifi in One UI: you go to settings, in connections section you have Wifi entry with switcher. An entry that look like static combines 2 options. Tapping on text opens sub-screen with another on/off toggle and advanced setting hidden under three-dotted menu. Then, once you connect to a network editing its settings doesn't open by tapping on network name but by sprocket on right. And if you want to change ip, dns settings that's another tap below under drop-down section. Of course this is all approach for demanding users and regular ones will handle stuff from pulled-down notifications widgets but still - mos of the stuff is indeed deeply hidden.

Working at a large Tier 1 Automotive supplier for most European OEMs but Tesla as well, it was a not-complete-joke to make show prototypes that massively hinted at Tesla or had some misleading branding and leave them accidentally lying around, when you wanted to increase your chances of selling it to any other OEM. Also, when you sold something to Tesla, you could already prepare RFQs for all others basically the day it would be released. Stopped since Musk went Bananas, now noone wants to be associated with them. At all.

Edit: Clarified "them"

Certainly people have died because their electric windows wouldn't work when the car was submerged in water. If I were world dictator, I'd mandate manual override levers for electric windows.

Everyone should own a car window breaking tool, like a resqme. https://resqme.com/

Tesla arrogance was shown with their semi truck design with the drivers seat in the middle of the cab.

I have always assumed that I could just kick the window to break it open in a situation like this.

Car windows are probably harder to break than you think...lol. Also - consider the situation where the car is in, or partially in water, and pressure differentials.

(There was actually another HN thread about this recently - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39691780).

I keep a Resqme in the car glovebox - my other half used to do a lot of interstate driving, and I was always worried she'd be trapped in the car. The Resqme has both a seat-belt cutter, and also a centre-punch for easily breaking the side windows.

Side windows in most new cars are also laminated. The quarter windows are the one you should try break.

This is a genuine question: how useful is the resqme in a glove box? Do you think the driver could reach it in the event of an accident, or do you keep it so the passenger can use it to free the other occupants?

I'd clip it to the seat belt pulley. But round here you'd have difficulty reaching speeds to have a crash, what with all the minis doing 20 under the limit

windows are normaly tempered glass. You can't kick them out.

They're also unbelievably strong when they're completely rolled up and incredibly weak when they're not.

Although a tiny piece of ceramic at just the right speed will shatter any window.

And I recommend a spring-loaded window breaker, as opposed to having to, like, physically hit the thing against the window.

When I was a kid I worked in a double glazing factory. Some of the old timers demonstrated just how hard it is to break a piece of toughened glass to me by whacking one with a bit of wood right in the middle of the pane, really really hard. Nothing happened. Then the dude tapped it really quite gently with a glass breaker in the corner (where it can't flex as much he said) and the whole thing exploded into those little cubes you see on the ground in dodgy car parks.

There is a mythbusters episode about exactly this that is definitely worth the watch.

Those tools often don't work because the glass in many cars consists of layers of glass and a polymer. That gives it some nice properties but it's unbreakable even with a sledgehammer. I don't know about Teslas but I wouldn't be surprised if they again threw safety out of the window here literally.

You want point of pressure tools to break the window, not a sledge hammer. My wife made me buy them for our car.

Those often do not work as expected on laminated glass that is now becoming more common on side windows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peETCNekXSs

People have died because their Tesla had electric doors and they couldn't open them after an accident [1]

[1] https://futurism.com/the-byte/four-die-trapped-burning-tesla

holy crap, their doors won't open without power?!?

How does that ever get past safety standards?

Because the legislation doesn’t require that. And they want even less legislation. I mean, how does one even come up with a car made out of stainless steel with edges sharp like knives.

Legislation couldn't have foreseen a future where such basic features were depending on having power. Yet here we are.

The European legislation works just fine. The problem is not lack of said legislation.

Rules made long before anyone would come up with electric-only doors outside a sci-fi fantasy. (OT how many "try to push open that deactivated door" does Star Trek have power episode, on average?)

because there's a second manual lever that does work without power

This is happening on other cars with electronic door handles too... not just Tesla.

Tip of you find yourself having to break a car window and you don't have this kind of tool: supposedly, you can remove your headrest and hit the window in a corner with the metal rods to break it. I don't have the luxury of being able to try, nor have I ever had the necessity to try, so take this with a grain of salt. But if there's any truth in there, better to know about it than feeling helpless.

Tesla absolutely botched on so many things when ti comes to making cars safe. What is even more mind boggling is how people accepted it and don't see anything wrong with that.

They moved fast and broke things. Incl. but not limited to bumpers, windshields, bones, necks and families.

As much as Tesla hate is now being popular.

It was not Tesla that started it, they just went all in on stuff that was already happening in industry.

Capacitive and touch interfaces were supposed to be much cheaper because you can the same thing and then software define the function.

Every auto maker wanted to have one widget for all functions.

> As much as Tesla hate is now being popular.

I do not like Tesla since they began making cars, and declared that "8 cameras should be enough for everybody". While I like trains a lot, I don't prefer hype trains and popular lines.

> It was not Tesla that started it, they just went all in on stuff that was already happening in industry.

They went all in because they needed velocity, and everybody panicked and copied them without understanding the problems. Even Ford (the company which has a special simulator to measure cognitive loads of the dashboards they design) did the same mistake, without looking for the problems first, like Radon water jugs.

> Capacitive and touch interfaces were supposed to be much cheaper because you can the same thing and then software define the function.

> Every auto maker wanted to have one widget for all functions.

I know. It's always about the monies, not the consumer or technology or whatnot. Enshittification, IOW.

Masses buy crap if it is famous and shiny and have bells and whistles a lot.

If it is expensive too, then they become a fanboy!

How else could the industry pour out bigger and bigger crap with huge earnings otherwise? Poeple love shiny and famous crap!

I doubt they thought it would be better, it just cheaper because you can fix it later in the software.

The rest is just PR to sell inferiority as a feature.

I recently bought an iPad as the previous one was probably 10 years old and the screen died. The button on the front is dearly missed. Having that new damn thing on the dedicated shelf and I casually touch the button one handed to bring it to life is not there anymore. Have to hold it down for that damn side button. Also never be sure anymore what way is up and which volume is up and down. It it worse than a fussy child always want to be picked up, to be used two handed. All, the, time.

They sacrificed usability for stupid and superficial appearances, those idiots!

Interestingly almost everything VW will reintroduce is already physical on Tesla, no? The only thing with no physical buttons on Tesla are the temperature and fans. Or am I missing something?

> Interestingly almost everything VW will reintroduce is already physical on Tesla, no? The only thing with no physical buttons on Tesla are the temperature and fans. Or am I missing something?

The steering wheel on modern Tesla's has those godawful turn buttons instead of a proper indicator stalk.

Fine for (most of) the US market but wildly impractical for anywhere you need to use the turn signals mid turn. Anywhere the road system uses roundabouts for instance.

To some extent this is just US parochialism leaking out into the rest of the world, but it's typical of Musk style design to not really think through the reasons for existing design choices.

Not having tactile feedback on turn indicators by stock is absurd imho

> The steering wheel on modern Tesla's has those godawful turn buttons instead of a proper indicator stalk.

I've driven one with an indicator stalk.

> Fine for (most of) the US market but wildly impractical for anywhere you need to use the turn signals mid turn. Anywhere the road system uses roundabouts for instance.

... but it was "smart" and didn't physically move and it was useless except for 90 degree turns. I call this the "designed in California" disease.

Incidentally, we should be glad Apple abandoned their car plans too.

> I've driven one with an indicator stalk.

Yes. Teslas used to have a proper indicator stick.

Model Y still has an indicator stalk.

The one i tried couldn't be called 'proper' though.

> The steering wheel on modern Tesla's has those godawful turn buttons instead of a proper indicator stalk.

They now reverted that back in the Model Y refresh. Just the indicator stalk (the rest are still gone)

The Model Y never had buttons for turning.

I've never said or implied that. But all the last refreshes prior to the MY one had all the stalks removed.

"Traditional" auto controls have been refined by over a century of trial and error and real world testing.

It takes a special combination of hubris and immaturity to just cast much of that aside without very careful and thorough consideration. The results of doing so speak for themselves.

Loyal at the back door manual operation. So dangerous in emergencies. Need to remove a panel to operate??

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