@decryption pauses research so as to afford a Duo to use for a few months 😂

@decryption I absolutely love all the physical buttons and knobs in my Mazda 3 hatchback, I just really wish it was offered at least as a plug-in hybrid. As good as it is on gas, it still bums me out every time I fill it up...

@decryption just want to sell well done on the spreadsheet from a fellow spreadsheet nerd. ❤️

@decryption my now 2 yo MG4 meets most of the criteria (except buttons for AC). It does make it hard when you look at newer cars, knowing that it is possible to have nice things. It came with a mandatory black roof, so the first thing was to wrap it to match the silver body. Dropped the car temperature about 2-3°.

@decryption the Geely I drive obviously doesn't meet your criteria, but reading through this I am happy it doesn't seem to be quote as crappy as some of the cars out there. Some people have to use a phone app to get into their car, what the hell?

@decryption our $14K Octavia is choofing along nicely. See attached for everything it has cost us so far. It's due for it's 120K service which will probably cost about $3000 in the next few weeks. So far we've had it four months and have driven 2348KM, so we aren't doing massive kilometres. Petrol isn't cheap but then again we're not using that much as we generally only use it two or three times a week and mostly for short trips, and it's economical. On freeway driving it's been as low as 4.8l/km, on average we get well under 6 even driving around town. It has all the cool bells and whistles (mostly), and when I put my foot down in sport mode it GOES (even though it's only a 1.4litre engine). We are rapt, it's the perfect car for us. Hopefully it lasts us a good ten year at least. Even if we have major issues (eg it requires a gearbox replacement or something like that) there is no way this car will cost us anywhere near as much as any EV we might have purchased.

@decryption We just sold our ex30 back to the dealer after 15 months. It was beyond frustrating.

No replacement yet. not sure I have a candidate.

Biggest issues:
- brakes seem to require can bus comms & were occasionally unresponsive
- the only unlock location is the driver door. But with the car plugged in, it’s impossible to reach. Unlocking required the phone every day.
- one pedal drive on max regen was weak
- the steering wheel buttons were very bad. They require exact finger placement

@decryption Have we talked about this theory I heard: that in the olden days, say Toyota mid 90s, big OEMs had Ergonomics specialists, that did things like design interfaces, put buttons and levers in the right places.
Now we have combined Entertainment and Control packages, and instead of ergonomics experts we get coders deciding what the inside of a car should be like.

@decryption Great read, my feelings exactly. I was holding onto a Hyundai Elantra for a long time just because it still had keyed ignition. I finally swapped over to an Ioniq 6 which is still annoyingly modern in many ways but at least it has a roof and mostly physical buttons.

I still relish occasionally driving my 2010 Ford Ranger which was the last small pickup truck released in the US before they only started making huge ones. It's got a CD player, a radio, and no other infotainment system.

@decryption I've been a VW-group addict for a while now, but the last few iterations of their EV's have had issues for me:
- Icky capacitive touch "buttons" (which you point out should be gone now)
- Replacing the 4 driver's window controls down to a more complicated UX with 3 buttons.
- Half a glove compartment for right-hand drive cars (due to fixed location of fuse box across all models, I'm told)

Things that seem inescapable:
- The rear seats on their "low" cars (Golf, Octavia are remarkably uncomfortable on long trips) - don't know about the tall/SUV types.
- Spectacularly bland colour choices.

@decryption Great summary. My Nissan X-Trail is boring and petrol powered but at least it has knobs.

@decryption So, physical buttons annoy you? Except it's the screenones that you talk about not liking and then say physical buttons are coming back?

@decryption
> Not only are these unconventional door handles awkward to use (...)

My kid got his fingers pinched by the retracting handle 3 days after getting a byd. That reminds me I should actually get a carrot or something and check how much force they use before stopping...