I hear ya. I can't speak to other cars but in my Tesla I never have to fiddle with any of that stuff. I just press the button on the screen for example to modulate the climate control even when the car is in motion - I don't need to look at all. There's no feedback (haptic feedback would be a nice improvement actually). In the rare instance that I need to do something "complicated" I'd just put the car into the Autosteer mode. But that's only something that would really be done on the highway in a safe manner. In my older cars I found using the buttons to switch between say albums or something that to not really be that much easier. Maybe slightly worse.

On the other hand, boy when I get a rental car there are so many buttons to mess around with it's like going backwards in time (for me) in terms of ease of use. Even something like having to turn on/off the car itself is now a chore. Why do I need to even turn the car on? It should just always work. Obviously part of that is "it's a new car" but a lot of that stuff seems very needlessly complex. I'm not talking about turning the heat on or off even though a lot of those implementations seem way more complicated than they need be (engineers gonna engineer and over-complicate things unless someone stops them) but other random things.

> What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.

Not just that: my hands get dry enough sometimes that my phone's touch interface doesn't work reliably, in which case, I'd expect a touchscreen interface in a newer car would face similar problems. Physical buttons don't have that problem.

> Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor.

Your gas car in 2003 probably directly connects the accelerator pedal to the throttle ... but it also has an entire ecu with a whole bunch of stuff to figure out how much fuel to add given the throttle position / airflow and also almost certainly has the ecu controlling ignition too. Even my 1981 van has an ECU to sets fuel volume, although it doesn't have electronic ignition or water cooling.

You can open the throttle all the way, and if the fuel volume doesn't change, you won't get much in the way of extra vrooming.

That said, as simple as possible, but no simpler is a good goal.

I'm not really concerned with hitting the button blind but I understand the desire to have no "tracking" or anything like that. Volume in the Tesla at least there is a button and you can configure some of those things with software. I know the heated seats and climate control are done via the iPad as you call it but I don't have to look at those. Once you hit it enough you just know where it is, or you can use voice control if you're not that comfortable. I can also text on my iPhone pretty well without looking at the keyboard.

But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with all these gauges and stuff. I have 0 interest in trying to repair my car or understand how any of it works. I just want to get in, have it be super comfortable, everything works and it gets me from A to B pretty fast. The only gauge I care about is the speed at which the car is traveling. Well the battery too I guess but if I'm taking a trip where that's of concern the car handles the stops for me.

I get that people do enjoy that stuff which is super cool - I'm not hating on it, but figured I'd just provide a different perspective maybe. For me the biggest concern is just this dog shit Android software and abandonware that all the manufacturers create (except Tesla funny enough - I'm not a shill or anything, Elon sucks and I'll never buy another one because of him) which I think is probably the biggest negative to the iPad-ification. Thankfully there's Android Auto and Apple Car Play but still the computers in the cars can be underpowered to use those.

> Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit

LOL are you ready to perform a burnout every time you touch the accelerator?