The regulation calls out 19 vehicle functions which must have physical controls inside the vehicle, with additional requirements about size and usability of the buttons.
Those functions include:
Turn signals
Hazard lights
Horn
PRND gear shifter
Driver assist function, if present
Windshield wipers
Windshield defroster
Power windows
Emergency call system
Power off switch for EVs
Removing buttons is an idea. An idiot idea, but certainly an idea.
I don’t love the idea of having to regulate for fuckin buttons, and think it should be avoided if possible, but I guess here we are in hell, anyway.
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?
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
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?
yes and no ;) i mean you can just get in and assuming you are not reversing, press the “accelerator” and go, get out at the other and walk away. No need to lock, engage park brake, change “gears” etc
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.
theyre automatic cars, so the only time youd shift gears is to park, or switch from go to reverse or vice versa, both usually done while breaking, so its understandable to some extent. it also prevents someone from shifting gears while in motion.
had evs be “manual” then that would be dangerous
an example of bad physical design would be cars with gear shift knobs near a volume knob, which would be infinitely more dangerous
It really wouldn’t be crazy. The polestar 2 has a physical shifter and acts exactly like you’d expect from a shifter. You bump it forward to put it in reverse, and pull back on it to put it in drive. You can shift both directions while rolling slightly, which is actually really nice and useful. I think I tried shifting while it was driving and it likely has a software limit to the speed at which it let’s you shift while rolling (above 5 mph for example). I think only going from drive to reverse requires touching the brake, similar to a standard automatic.
I don’t get what was wrong with a PRNDL with big physical detents and feedback. I don’t understand what these goofy little knobs and blobs improve about the user experience.
I agree, though low in the context of an EV would be pointless until you just want the acceleration curve to be different for some reason
It’s not dangerous. They are all electronic. If it’s unsafe, it just won’t do it.
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.
My 2024 Citroen EV has all those as physical controls and more.
Thing vs Thing(China)
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.
The Chrysler Turbine.
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
in my BYD, three fingers up the touch screen, temp goes up (or down if you drag down) You can adjust the fan speed if you’re want with swipe three fingers right/left on the touch screen.
That said I’ve adjusted it maybe 3 times in my 14 month ownerships, that’s the entirely point of climatecontrol and the buttons right there on the touch screen as well and without connected series I can prewarm or preheat the car fron the phone , i cant be assed but my HF does on a cold morning as well as turn the heated seats on
I can also say "Hey BYD my balls are cold"and it turns the seat heater on
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.
Notice how everything in the list (except for power off) is something that is/could be essential while driving?
Typically you shouldn’t adjust AC/radio while driving, do it while stopped or ask the passenger to do it for you.
So what just sweat or stop driving entirely and adjust the temp because it gets a tad warm? That’s silly
My 2007 has absolutely no touchscreen and I can adjust my AC/Heat easily. Takes only a second. Believe it or not people are actually more focused when they are at a comfortable temperature and I promise you 99.9% of people will dig through the touchscreen menu while driving to adjust these things
Traffic lights? Literally any rest stops if you are on highways?
Drivers are just so entitled they just can’t wait a short period of time to adjust your other controls a little bit later.
Or you just have a normal car with physical buttons and knobs so you don’t need to stop when you want to adjust things?? Like why are you solving a problem that touchscreens invented?
Naming things that a driver may not see for 1 hour depending on where they are
If I park outside on a hot or cold day or get back to my car after exercising, I want a very different AC setup compared to pulling out of the garage to go to work. I’m changing temps and vent directions constantly.
I have a automatic temp control and haven’t needed to touch it in 7 years.
So far car brands I’ve owned where the temperature control hasn’t been set it and forget it: Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Subaru. Oh and I had a Chrysler too at one point. And a VW Passat, but I don’t want to talk about that.
Car brands I’ve owned where the automatic temperature control actually kept me comfortable all year round or even all day round at the exact same set temperature: Quite literally none.
In the winter in particular, I’ll usually set it to at least 24C to get started and when it’s actually warm I’ll set it to 20C, because my own frozen ass needs to be thawed. In the summer I want it around 16C usually.
So I’m wondering what car do you drive that has climate control so perfect you don’t have to touch it in 7 years? Bentley? Rolls-Royce? Because not a single normal person car seems to get it right.
Tip: Set FAN to auto, but temperature to the TARGET temperature you are comfortable in.
The way AC work is it just goes in either “go hotter” or “go colder”, then stops when the target temperature is reached. Setting your temperature to 18C don’t actually make it colder faster, it’s the fan speed that adjusts the intensity of how hard the AC works.
You can just set it to 20C right at the start and it will heat it up at more or less the same speed as if you set it to 24C
Obviously that’s what I do. It doesn’t actually work for me.
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Even when the interior of the car is hot as hell from sitting in the sun, dropping the target temp a few degrees makes the fan blow harder. It doesn’t usually max out unless you set it to LO. Yes, automatic control works, but it doesn’t blow freezing air at you at full intensity unless you set it as low as possible, even if it’s super hot in the car.
it’s the fan speed that adjusts the intensity of how hard the AC works.
I wouldn’t be sure that’s the only factor, since in a lot of cars made this century there’s a refrigerant pressure valve to replace the magnetic clutch. The auto HVAC system tells the compressor how hard to pump the refrigerant depending on how cold it wants evaporator side to get.
- My own desire for cold is bigger when it’s hot as hell. I’d actually prefer the temperature to temporarily go negative when I’m hot and get in the car. Similarly in the winter, when it’s cold af and I’ve been outside for a long time, I want a sauna until I warm up, but said sauna gets uncomfortable after a while. It’s not just about cooling or heating the interior space quicker, I want it to heat or cool my body quicker, which requires a different temperature depending on what needs to be done.
So I’ve yet to see a car that can intuit what I want the temperature curve over time to be as I get into the car vs when I’ve been driving for a while. There would likely need to be a thermal camera or something to figure that out, in addition to a machine learning algorithm of some sort.
Fun fact: When it was hot as fuck around summer solstice a few years ago (it’s a big celebration here in Estonia) and I drove to Latvia with a mate to get cheap booze, I set the AC to 12C (actually LO, but 12C was the smallest number shown before LO) for the entire trip and that was what I considered comfy that day, because I’d been out working all day and felt completely melted. If you’re a Fahrenheit user, that’s around 53F. I’ve told a couple of people that in relation to how cold I like my car in the summer and I’ve been asked “wtf kinda car lets you put the AC on 12 degrees”. The answer is W211 MB with Thermotronic 4 zone climate control - I was lucky to own that, the base 2 zone climate control in 90% of those cars only goes down to 16C. Felt like space technology for a 2003 car lol
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You’re just trolling, nobody could be this ignorant
Notice how everything in the list (except for power off) is something that is/could be essential while driving?
I didn’t imply otherwise, I just called it a shame.
Typically you shouldn’t adjust AC while driving
Yeah, if only we had physical controls that we could use without taking our eyes off the road or even thinking about it.
And I am providing a reasoning why they choose those but not AC.
Because it is not essential to driving, it could be seen as an overregulation to require that
I think being able to see out of my windshield instead of having it fog up is pretty essential to driving
Defogger is physical
This person doesn’t know about driving, because they’re clearly 12.
And if you don’t have a passenger, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to drive
People hated it when you pointed out driving cars alone is a huge waste of resources.
Very surprising reaction considering this is in a solar punk instance which should be more against inefficient transportation
Yeah wtf lol
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 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’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 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.
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