I want the two sliders for the AC/heat back. Like wtf do I need a phd in auto consoles to cool off while driving?
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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My 2019 Tesla has all of those except the power off button, and windshield defroster. It doesnt have a emergency system anywhere so not relevant.
Do any EVs have a power off button that actually powers it down? There is an option in the menus on the Tesla but thats still not a full true power off.
My BYD Atto 2 only has a physical power button, no touchscreen power off. (and an app, but that's another matter)
What happens if you power it down, do you need to press the button to get the car to activate beyond opening doors / 12v stuff?
Yes. A few automatic things like lights staying on until you've locked the car, windows auto closing, but otherwise pretty much what you'd expect from turning a key. Doors are manual, so that's not affected.
DUDE!!!! WHY WAS THE GEAR SHIFT AND THE ABILITY TO TURN IT OFF ON A TOUCH SCREEN AND NOT MECHANICAL?
Why isn't door handles on the list?
electronic door handles were banned in 2025.
Especially the gears, did we not learn anything from Anton Yelchin's death?
We learned shitty Jeep transmissions should not be used to park a vehicle. People who refuse to use parking brakes deserve what they get.
So 99% of people who drive automatics?
Pretty much nobody knows why they should even use it.
Seems a bit harsh... Especially as if I put my car into park then the electronic handbrake turns on anyway. I never have to pull it manually
My 2024 Citroen EV has all those as physical controls and more.
Thing vs Thing(China)
I went into this thinking it was a little bit silly since nobody would design a car without most of those but:
If you have a Model Y from 2025 or later, press the brake pedal to pull up the drive mode strip on the touchscreen. Tap the drive mode strip to shift into Park. You can also press Park on the overhead console.
You have to shift gears with a touchscreen?? WHAT??!? I knew they were shit cars but what the actual fuck are they thinking?
When mobile dev tech bros develop a car.
I never drove a car that shifted gears on a fucking touchscreen. I am not going to do that.
You have to shift gears with a touchscreen?? WHAT??!?
Oh, it gets worse.
In theory, you weren't even supposed to have to do that, because the car would decide for you which direction you should go. (Probably based on simple object detection -- if an obstacle is directed forward, you must want to go backward, right? And if no object is detected forward, default to forward.) And the touchscreen controls were only there for the 'rare' occasion when you'd need to override the car's automatic decision.
I had a friend with a tesler try to justify that to me like "yeah it usually works". It's just... They invented a problem that didn't exist.
So did the 50 ways new cars decided to make stupid levers and knobs and buttons to bop it twist it pull it to shift and mess with a known interface for no reason. The automated one is another level of stupid beyond that, though.
So did the 50 ways new cars decided to make stupid levers and knobs and buttons to bop it twist it pull it to shift and mess with a known interface for no reason.
Well... I can see getting rid of the traditional big lever in favor of something else -- that big lever takes up a lot of space in the dashboard or center console that could be used for other things, and a lot of the replacements are much more compact, saving space. But manufacturers haven't yet come to a consensus about what exactly that replacement should be, which is why you're seeing such (potentially confusing) variety these days.
(But I'm sure that if a vehicle is your daily driver, you'd quickly get used to whatever interface it used and it would begin to feel fairly natural. The problem would come in for people who often need to change cars, like people who often find themselves driving short-term rentals. Then it would be very annoying to keep changing the interface for shifting the transmission.)
And that's all ignoring that we've already had a solution for a long time that frees up dash/console space:
it's all computer...
WTAF?!
Let's be honest, these cars were made for rich children who can't read or count.
It’s really not that big of a deal. They also have no ignition/start button, which is the only sane way of have it in a EV. You just get in and drive.
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Shame that A/C isn't on the list, I find it so annoying trying to hit a small spot on the screen while moving.
I'm pretty stoked that the AC on the slate is manual. I just hope it's not a POS :)
name a US-designed and built vehicle not a POS.
The Model T was pretty groundbreaking.
It's been a long incestuous line of automotive crap. This is something new that has chance (albeit small) to be simple and durable.
Does your car not automatically turn the a/c on and off based on temperature?
Not a single car I've had has gotten the auto temperature control exactly right. It's quite normal for me to set it to 16 or lower in the summer and 24 or so in the winter, but in addition to that, I'd usually have to adjust after like half an hour of driving because now suddenly the 24 is way too hot.
Climate control (not the AC button, but the system in general) is probably the one non-essential feature I touch the most in a car, with infotainment being second as I tend to just set it and forget it (radio generally).
how am I supposed to adjust the set temperature if it's in a sub menu on a touchscreen that's in the glare of the sun and keeps timing out before I can adjust it because I have to keep taking my eyes off the road?
inspired by true events. drove 20 minutes in a friend's car in the heat without being able to adjust the climate controls
Oh that's one of the biggest low severity annoyances: timeouts set to stupid short times. When I push buttons navigating to a certain area, the device can fucking wait for me to be done in that area and tell it to go elsewhere, not assume that 10 seconds of inactivity means I've wandered off and forgotten about it or something.
I have a toaster oven like that, though that's not even the worst part of the UI design. It's a great oven but clearly the interface was designed by someone who lacked either care or competence because you have to scroll through a bunch of useless presets for if you have some specific portion of chicken or want to burn a slice of pizza, and of course it has no memory, even if you stopped it while trying to pause it to check your food. It would have been better with an analog timer and a mode knob ffs. And if you hesitate too long while setting the mode, time, and temperature, like if you need to grab the box and then do the math to convert to convection toaster oven time and take more than 12 seconds, it's off by the time you go to enter it.
Oh and I can only guess at what some of the modes are because the icons they use aren't very descriptive. Is that the warm setting or broil?
It's a stupid design for a toaster oven but extra fucking dumb for a car.
Assuming the car is toasty hot when I get in, I probably want to set the AC to a lower target temp than normal to get it cooling faster. This would necessitate changes later once the cabin has reached a more comfy level.
Is there a distraction running on the side?
Watch this unskippable ad then blink 3 times to shift to park
Emergency call system
So this is mandating SIMs and tracking in cars? Don't love that. I'm sure the manufacturers will ensure that the infotainment system will be mostly useless if you go in and disable the tracker
I'd be fine with that tbh. as long as it doesn't fuck with actual operability.
I don't want manufacturer infotainment anyways. I want climate controls, audio controls, a good spot to mount my phone with known good software, and a 3.5mm jack for audio input.
I think car manufacturers don't care about the 0.000001% of people praying out SIM modules out of their cars that much.
Teslas hang a significant amount of their MCU functionality on the built-in SIM. Assuming the system doesn't glitch out completely, you're going to be staring at an arrow on a big gray box in the middle of a big tablet screen while it fails to load map data. They explicitly did not build Android Auto or Apple CarPlay into their vehicles because they wanted you to drive everything from the MCU itself. It would occasionally pop up reminders at me when I switched to Bluetooth Audio because I was using it to stream an app that was already native to the car (Audible kept glitching out and losing my place when I resumed on different devices).
I'm sure there are other auto makers that are happy to follow suit. I just switched from a Model 3 to a Hyundai Ioniq5 and it feels like much of the user interface was locked down until I subscribed to BlueLink.
I'm starting to get way more interested in the concept of a super basic, modular vehicle with only doodads you build onto it attached. I hope the Slate truck can make good on what it's promised so far.
It isn't clear from the article that they're mandating the presence of an emergency call system. The "if present" note on the driver assistance function appears to have been added in this article and is not noted in the list from the linked article about the draft regulations:
A draft for public comment has been completed and will be released soon, which specifically includes the following functions:
- Lighting: Turn signals, hazard warning lights (double flashers), horn
- Gear shifting: P/R/N/D (screen-only shifting is prohibited)
- Driver assistance: Activation switch for the advanced driver assistance system
- Safety/emergency: Windshield wipers, defroster/defogger, power windows, Child/Accident Emergency Call System (AECS), and electric vehicle power off switch
My impression was more that if it has that call system, it has to have a physical button for it. That said, I haven't read the regulations myself, so it's entirely possible I'm talking out of my ass.
My work van has an emergency call system and it malfunctioned and dials it all the time, especially in low service areas. This causes it to constantly dial the SOS number and the only way to stop it is push a tiny hang up button on the infotainment system. The hands free controls for calls don't work with the SOS system. It is incredibly annoying, distracting, and dangerous. It has been back to the dealer 3 times to fix it and has yet to be fixed for good.
So a physical button for this system is very important.
I think this is a good thing. But I hope that they can do so intutitively. During the telescope guy recent review, he made a good point that many manufacturers seem to bring back buttons for compliance reasons or just to say they have buttons (he was trying to praise the car he was reviewing for going beyond that). I thought he had a good point.
Most manufacturers have been doing that on their own, for a least a couple years now.