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Comment by jubilee33 | Hacker News Reader

I rented a basic Fiat sedan recently in east Europe with a tiny (6-7cms maybe ?) screen for a backup camera that can barely be seen in daylight and a 1990s era type OS that had maybe three functions and never needed to be used. All the lane warning and wheel shaking nonsense (who the hell thought that shaking the steering wheel at speed is a good idea) are controlled by clear buttons on or around the wheel/dash. The car to be honest was not great, because it was very cheaply put together, but the controls were heaven compared to most of the new offerings. İt can be done.

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I'd be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

"Infotainment" functions in that require interacting with a touch screen were bad ideas at the time and seem incomprehensibly bad in retrospect. It's a certainty that people have died in accidents that occurred because of this.

On the other hand, backup cameras are a genuinely helpful tool. And so are electric power windows: it's far easier to roll windows up and down pushing a button than manipulating the roller. It takes less concentration, so you can focus more on driving. In 2026, the cost of adding motors instead of a hand crank to control the windows has got to be negligible.

There are other improvements that were luxuries in traditional ICE vehicles, but become necessities in hybrid or electric vehicles. Hybrids like Priuses have CVE transmissions, so there's no manual transmission or stick shift. Electric vehicles have electric seat warmers and even steering wheel warmers because there's no gas-burning engine to heat the cabin.

The Prius-style Toyota hybrid transmissions are actually much simpler than in an ordinary car. The planetary gear system allows engine RPM to be decoupled from the wheel rotation, with the motor/generator taking up the slack. There is no clutch or changing gear ratio.

Once I fully grokked how the Toyota hybrid transmission worked it kind of blew my mind.

It’s so simple, but so adaptable, and far simpler than any other transmission I’ve seen in a car.

And you can get "All Wheel Drive" for low cost by adding another electric motor to drive the other axle.

> "Infotainment" functions in that require interacting with a touch screen were bad ideas at the time and seem incomprehensibly bad in retrospect. It's a certainty that people have died in accidents that occurred because of this.

My father is 75. I got him Tesla earlier this summer.

2 months later he wouldn't change it for anything.

Just because you can't tell apart good UX from bad UX, doesn't mean the whole concept is bad.

He comes from Hyundai Kona EV, which some even declared a decent car lol.

Why is it illegal to operate a touchscreen mobile phone while driving but legal to operate what is essentially a large ipad stuck on your dash? It just isn't logical at all. The fact that one is fixed and one is not is irrelevant, your still looking at a screen and not at the road. Both are extremely dangerous.

It's legal to operate "touchscreen mobile phone" as long as it is mounted tho

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