Does a dashboard that’s designed to be operated by monsters count as a Cronenberg design?
Mike Wazowski’s car had a beautiful, bewildering array of physical buttons and knobs.
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When you put the switches in the middle you only need four switches. If they were in the doors you would need four for the driver’s door and one for each passenger door. Of course this also means rear passengers can’t control their own window (assuming there aren’t separate window controls in the back)
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On most cars this saves one whole switch.
Old style - 4 on driver’s door, 1 each on other 3 doors = 7 switches
New style - 4 in centre front, 1 each for 2 rear passenger windows = 6
So, let’s piss off all our customers who have been driving our cars for decades and “know” where the switches are, and move them to somewhere far less intuitive and convenient, all for the saving of 1 cheap switch that maybe reduces the retail price of the car by less than maybe $5 - when a CAN bus can use the wiring that’s already going to the doors for the motors, locks, etc.
Yeah, that’s late stage MBA capitalism enshittification in a nutshell.
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In 1978 the window switch on then new porsche 928 was on the center console. This is not a new thing in automotive design.
Not being new does not make it better. (And that was 45 years ago when mass market vehicles’ internal designs were far less standardised.)
I have driven assorted Volvos for some 20 years and many other brands before that. I cannot recall ever having a car with window switches in the centre.
(I guess a YMMV is appropriate here.) 
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The article mentions that the ID4 has the worst touch screen system the author had seen. Well, apparently the author had not seen MyFord Touch, the Microsoft Windows CE+Flash abomination in (among other things) the 3rd generation Ford Focus.
I don’t really mind the idea of having ‘a tablet stuck to the dash’. I kind of just view that as an aesthetic complaint which you’re welcome to make. Doing everything in the car from that tablet stuck to the dash? Nooo are you crazy. It’s like the Crew Dragon capsule, where you just have a few giant screens to interact with because it’s computerized and the people don’t really do anything in it (ground control does). Except there’s no ground control for a car you’re driving around. (Yet?)
My 2019 VW GLI has an infotainment screen that either displays “please connect to apple car play” or my iPhone’s Car Play (if I connected it). I never switch it to the other screens unless I need to change the time. Thankfully, it has the somewhat classic three-knob VW auto climate controls, whose only annoyance is perhaps that if you spin the temperature knob quickly it increments slowly. It just works otherwise, and it’s all digital encoders/intermittent buttons, so if you want to control it from the voice command system, you still can.
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Of course Porshe has a history of unusual control placement. ISTR a car with a parking brake lever on the left. I believe it was supposed to save you a fraction of a second when starting at LeMans because you could release the brake and turn the ignition at the same time.
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Also, Porsche 928 was a three-door coupé, so there were no rear doors/windows to consider. It’s an aerodynamic apple to Volvo’s orange.
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Do you have dry skin? My skin is usually dry enough I can’t separate vegetable bags at the grocery store. I have to press the buttons on our washer / dryer, which seem like some kind of cheap touchscreen design, multiple times to get them to register. My wife, who has amazing skin that is always moisturized, can press it once and it works.
However, from experience things like my stomach, butt, thigh, random article of clothing all have a higher chance of starting the washer than my finger.
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It’s not the switch they’re trying to save, it’s the door molding holding the switch.
My understanding is that most changes where things are moved from the side to the center revolve around sharing parts and assembly between left and right hand drive cars.
Without looking closer, if there’s no difference between the driver and passenger door molding layouts, since they moved the difference to the center. Then they can use the same door layouts for both left and right hand drive and it doesn’t matter which side is driver vs passenger.
It’s still a poor trade off and creates a product optimized for cost not use.
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Exactly!
Though your cited rationale may be more aligned with beancounter thinking - which is, of course, ultimately non-user-friendly, and only shareholder-value-friendly (until it impacts sales).
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I would try that, but I’m short and can barely reach the buttons with my fingers. They’re on a control panel on the top back of the machine. There’s no way for any other body parts to get there, even intentionally.
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i think you spelled “increases profit” wrong… 300,000 cars per year times 5 dollars… 1.5 million bucks isn’t too shabby
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But if it changes the mind of 30 people, that’s pretty much gone.
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And they could simply add that $5 back to the price to recoup that 1.5 mill.
(Your profit maths assumes they save the cost but keep the price. Which they would. But some mfrs are pretty clear this is about keeping EV prices down. Or so they say…)
fortunately, all the other cars sound equally hellish ( i mean, at least it’s not a vw ) - so it’s not like there’s other options
for some types of products, user pain is a benefit for the manufacturer, because it creates lock in. ( people who wouldn’t want an iphone, because they understand android; mac vs windows; etc. ) maybe there’s an element of that in play here too ( although it seems less likely with a car. )
yeah, it’s possible it might be true for ev because it’s all so new. that said, these days the customers they seem to be vying for are investors, and not so much the purchasers ( related for sure, but with different results )
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Most things need dedicated wiring. The power windows, blower, A/C clutch, and most anything that moves needs a dedicated power wire. CAN bus and other communication architectures can simplify the wiring on a vehicle, but typically CAN bus enabled devices are more expensive. Vehicle communications has its place, but it can quickly turn into a whole pile of IoT that is really just not needed.
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In the past couple of years I have had to replace my washer and dryer, and the stupid touch screens make me miss my 2010-era machines so much. The washer, especially, since it’s in the kitchen and I accidentally “push” buttons with my thighs while making dinner, despite the fact that my fingers can’t operate the damn thing.
My fridge has a water dispenser/ice maker, and while it’s not a touch screen, to switch modes of dispensing ice, crushed ice or water requires you to poke at a poorly defined button. It doesn’t look like a button at all because it perfectly blends into the black plastic by the dispenser area, and sometimes when you poke it it won’t switch modes so you suddenly find yourself repeatedly poking at the fridge and feeling like an idiot. Give me damn buttons please.
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I have that same fridge! I’ve tried labeling the push spots with silver sharpie but it rubs off. I wonder if there is a braille overlay available?
