And I just got email from a PR person about the upcoming Sony/Honda AFEELA, which is in the running for dumbest car name I’ve heard yet. It has some interesting ideas, and it will be interesting to see what actually ships in 2026.
1 Like
Also the dumbest steering wheel - another car using an airplane-like yoke instead of a round wheel. I have been a pilot for most of my life and believe yokes belong in airplanes and round wheels belong in cars.
1 Like
I noticed that the Aptera has a yoke-style steering wheel too. I’ve been at the controls in small planes so little that I have little sense of why it’s not a good approach for cars. Can you explain?
For maneuvering in tight spaces a round wheel makes much more sense. When I learned to drive, I was taught the hand over hand approach of turning the wheel when parking and the yoke has a large air gap which makes that difficult.
Consumer Reports severely downgraded the newer Teslas for the steering yoke. They thought it was awkward and dangerous, if I remember right.
On an airplane, extreme movements of the yoke are never used - they can precipitate a stall. The yoke determines the rate of bank (mathematically, the time derivative), not the actual bank angle. After dialing in the bank angle you neutralize the yoke to prevent the plane from doing a complete 360 degree roll.
1 Like
Here is the Consumer Reports link:
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/cars-driving/tesla-steering-yoke-little-benefit-potential-safety-pitfalls-a1034204120/
1 Like
What’s shown looks interesting, but I also disapprove of the yoke-style controls. It’s going to be really hard to turn a sharp corner or to maneuver into a tight parking spot without a full wheel as the steering controls.
I like the glass cockpit. Hopefully Sony’s UI experts will come up with a good design. I wonder if it will support Apple’s concept CarPlay system.
I do not, however, like the fact that there appear to be no physical controls on the dash. I think certain things, like basic entertainment settings (volume, skip forward/backward) and basic climate settings (fan, temperature, blower positions) should be physical buttons with distinct feels so you can manipulate them while driving without having to look at them.
Unfortunately, the entire industry seems to be embracing this nonsense. Presumably because it costs nothing for software to put another touch-location on a screen, but knobs actually cost money. Why not jeopardize safety in order to save $5 on a $60,000+ vehicle?
1 Like
Tesla eliminated the stalk-controls for wipers and lights? So we’re now expected to unlearn 50 years of muscle memory? For what? So the car looks good in a magazine’s photo shoot?
1 Like
I travel frequently for business, so I rent vehicles often.
On the positive side, I get to see a variety of vehicles and their approaches to “innovation.”
On the negative side, I get to see a variety of vehicles and their approaches to “innovation.”
While I can’t think of specific brands off the top of my head, Tesla is by no means the only manufacturer to experiment with alternative placement or design of basic controls. The problem seems to be getting worse, especially as manufacturers seem to be moving away from physical controls and towards display-based, software-driven control interfaces.
For the last decade or so, I often find that I have to spend a few minutes to orient myself to the basic controls when picking up a rented car, including even the location of ignition buttons. Don’t get me started on seat adjustments! I doubt I had to “orient myself” once in my first 10-15 years of renting vehicles.
PS. Who here remembers floor switches for high-beam headlights?
/Old Man Rant Over
2 Likes
I am afraid that I remember well foot switches for high beams. It was my introduction to the concept of a control which “toggles” - one press for on and a second press of the same button for off. Later on, it helped me understand circuits employing flip-flops.
I haven’t put careful thought into which controls should be physical and which can be glass, but it always seems to me that the people designing glass interfaces haven’t been to a part of the world where it gets cold in the winter and where you drive with gloves on, at least until the car warms up.
I adore the heated steering wheel in our Nissan Leaf, but I still leave my gloves on for at least the first part of every trip in the winter here in upstate New York.
At least the touch-sensitive things on the screens in the Leaf and our Subaru Outback respond to pressure, so they can sort of be operated with gloves on.
We bought a car last year. Our intent was to get a 2023 model but they had already made the switch to 2024 models. I took one look at the dash and realized that all the buttons, dials, etc. had been replaced by a giant screen. We took the vehicle for a test drive. While my wife was driving I was trying to figure out how to adjust things. I don’t understand how they expect a driver to deal with this and still maintain attention to the road.
We walked around the lot and found a lightly-used 2023 model with real buttons and dials. Bought it and could not be happier.
I do like being able to adjust my 2010 VW air/heat settings without looking at them. A few familiar knob twists and I’m done.
1 Like
Heck, I remember floor switches for the starter motor.
1 Like
I don’t remember that, but I remember wondering why major brands had the wiper switches and turn signals on opposite sides of the driver’s wheel. It was things like that that made me drive around the parking lot after I rented a car so I didn’t get in trouble. I am amazed how many stupid things the new car companies are doing.
Our early cars had a choke, a sliding knob that would regulate the flow of petrol into the engine, like you get on a petrol mower or a generator. You would have to get the vehicle up to driving speed.
Wow. Lots of people much older than myself here. 
I don’t recall any vehicles where the stalk-mounted controls were reversed, but I definitely remember cars where there were different functions:
- Left-stalk was always turn signals
- I remember headlights being a knob on the dash (lower-left). Pull out one stop for parking lights. Pull out all the way for headlights. Floor button to toggle high beams. Usually also multiplexed with the interior lights - rotate to dim the dash lights. Rotate one “click” beyond the end to turn on the interior dome light.
- I also remember windshield wipers being on the dash. The vehicles that did that had a horizontal slider for off/low/high (no intermittent or mist settings). Press the slider in to pump washer fluid.
- I also remember (60’s and 70’s Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth) where the parking brake was a handle on the lower-left, just below the dash. Pull out to engage. Rotate 90 degrees and push in to disengage.
- And of course, the stalk-mounted automatic transmission shifter. Which seems to have been mostly universal up until the point where manufacturers eliminated front-row bench seats for bucket seats. That’s when the automatic shifter and parking brake moved to the center.
Before you get too sentimental about old cars see this crash test:
I don’t think anyone believes old cars are safer. But “better” is a subjective term that incorporates a lot of factors beyond safety, and some aspects of modern cars are worse than they were in the past.
Repairability and upgradability both come to mind. It’s pretty much impossible to tune or perform major repairs on a modern engine without a lot of advanced diagnostic equipment. And you can’t generally upgrade the entertainment system at all (and for those where you can, doing so may cripple several unrelated systems because the same UI screen is used for far more than just controlling the radio).
But it’s not like the choice is between 2024 designs and 1959. There are quite a lot of cars from the 80’s and 90’s that have most of today’s safety design features and are much easier (and more fun) to maintain, repair and upgrade.
I’ve occasionally joked about getting a 1991 Chevy Prizm (my first car), restore the interior and exterior and swap out the engine for something with around 200 horsepower (vs the 85 it came with). I would probably really like driving that vehicle today. I’m sure there are garages that can do this, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to pay for it.
2 Likes
It’s an interesting discussion – the crash test stuff implies that car safety is all about surviving the accident. It seems like it’s more than that, as well – not getting into the accident in the first place seems a part of safety as well. In this, newer cars have some features that make them safer than older cars (better tires, brakes, headlights) but some things that may make them worse (more internal distractions, worse control UI, heavier weight, more powerful engines). It’d be interesting to see a comparison.
With you all the way.
I cannot understand why anyone would think a center console is an essential part of an automobile. To me, it’s just wasted space. My '95 Dodge Caravan was a delight to drive on long trips, with a small cooler sitting between the two front seats. If necessary, in a pinch, I could move from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat or the rear seats without opening a car door. While I hardly ever did that, a center console offers nothing that justifies removing that marginal benefit. My opinion, of course.
Done all three (tune, major repair, upgrade), plus replaced a failed speedometer and cruise control, and added a trailer brake controller, and I agree completely. (The engine stuff I can understand is due to pollution control requirements.)