Even though I’ve long thought the sudden shift to electrification was probably foolhardy, the gradual rollout of mea culpas from automakers has hardly been satisfying. Not only has the ‘EV headfake’ cost billions of dollars, but the positive environmental benefits of turning a lot of commuter cars into EVs are real. Overoptimistic as they might have been, a large part of me wishes they’d been right.
At the same time, automakers admitting that swapping screens for buttons was a mistake feels pretty good. Everyone with sense knew this was a bad idea, and now the head of Mercedes is meekly admitting that some buttons are necessary. Of course, he’s doing so without also seemingly admitting to one of the big reasons why they’re doing this.
While EV sales have been disrupted, hybrids continue to sell extremely well, catapulting Hyundai and Kia into another record month. Nissan has seen its market share erode in the United States and is ready to launch a hybrid to meet that demand. BYD makes hybrids and EVs, but it’s not selling enough of them to meet its big annual sales target.
‘I Don’t Know If We’re At Peak Screen, But We’re At Low Button’
Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen/Audi spent a generation competing over who could build the most annoying, least tactile interfaces in their cars. Who won? On volume, it might be Volkswagen who build the largest number of confounding cars. On volume controls, I think Mercedes handily wins. The last Mercedes product I reviewed was a real screenfest and, other than some fun knobs, irked me to no end.
Automakers have spent the last year or so walking back these decisions, and Mercedes has begun to make steps in the right direction, with at least some buttons on the steering wheel. That’s not nothing.
CEO Ola Källenius talked to Autocar and said a bunch of fun things, including:
“We spend countless hours on UI [user interface]. I spend hours every year discussing this with our engineers and we joke it needs to be so easy that either a five-year-old kid or a Mercedes board member can use it. That is the hurdle, and once you familiarise yourself with it, it becomes second nature.”
Credit to Ola, that’s a good joke.
He also said that the industry “might have gone a little bit too far” in its quest for purely digital controls. While this is an industry-wide thing–initially led by Tesla and then taken to the extreme by Chinese automakers–Mercedes is one of the worst offenders for a Western automaker. He did acknowledge that Mercedes might have done some tech just for the sake of doing tech and that the company “will reintroduce the most sensible buttons.”
At the end of the article, he said something interesting in response to a good question from Autocar:
Asked if that meant the car industry had reached ‘peak screen’, Källenius said: “I don’t know if we’re at peak screen, but we’re at low button.”
I didn’t see this interview and wasn’t party to it, so it’s possible this was mentioned, but there is something that seems to be missing, as Andrew Clewes pointed out on BlueSky, which is that regulators are increasingly requiring certain physical controls in order to get those important five-star ratings. As the European Transport Safety Council announced in 2024:
“New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving.”
Under the new rating scheme, which is due to come into force from January 2026, manufacturers won’t be able to achieve the highest safety ratings if they don’t provide proper, physical switches for certain functions including indicators, hazard lights, sounding the horn, operating windscreen wipers and activating the eCall SOS function.
Chinese authorities are also making similar changes to regulations.
I do think that, even in a regulatory vacuum, consumers are just overall cranky about the lack of buttons and that most automakers would probably end up at the same place eventually.
Hyundai And Kia Hit New Records On The Backs Of Hybrids
Another month, another monthly sales record for both Kia and Hyundai. The reason? In addition to making stylish, reasonably affordable cars, the brands also offer a wide range of ICE, hybrid, and even EV-powered vehicles.
Kia sold 75,857 units in July, which is the best July ever and up 7% year-over-year. Hyundai did a little better this month, only up 4%, but for a total of 82,480 units. Underpinning all of this is hybrids, with Hyundai hybrid sales up 35% and Kia sales up 108%.
“Kia’s momentum continues to increase as we see widespread interest in a variety of models across our entire lineup, from sedans to SUVs, to hybrids and all-electric powertrains,” said Eric Watson, vice president, sales operations, Kia America. “Our ability to continue setting records despite a tepid industry reflects the strength of our product lineup and sustained consumer demand. With the all-new Seltos now in showrooms, continued high consumer interest in the redesigned Telluride, and the launch of the all-new, all-electric and affordable EV3 later this year, Kia is poised to continue setting records throughout the second half.”
Decade of the hybrid, et cetera.
Nissan’s New Hybrid Is Its Biggest Launch Of The Year
Most Japanese automakers are on a non-calendar fiscal year, which means Nissan just filed its Q1 report (For April to June), and the company posted a $480 million profit, which is a big improvement over the nearly half-a-billion-dollar loss in Q1 of FY2025.
Still, things aren’t all peachy pao over there as the company has had to walk back its sales forecast a bit due to the same factors causing almost everyone else to walk back their own sales goals (China, war, earthquakes, the cancellation of Stumble by NBC).
The key will be North America and, according to CEO Ivan Espinosa, the most important debut will be the new Rogue hybrid:
“It’s the most important launch of this year for a few reasons,” Espinosa said Aug. 3. “It will give us access to a market that we didn’t have access to before.”
Nissan is banking on the e-Power variant of the Rogue to tap surging U.S. demand for gasoline-electric hybrids at a time when high pump prices are driving interest in fuel-efficient vehicles. Nissan has suffered from a lack of hybrids, while Japanese rivals including Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. rack up big sales gains on lineups rich in hybrid offerings.
Having the e-Power will also help Nissan temper incentives, Espinosa said.
“We have many customers coming back from a lease, and they want a hybrid. We don’t have a hybrid, and in order for us to keep them with us, we need to sweeten the deal a little bit,” Espinosa said. “So, we expect this to change once we have the Rogue e-Power in the market.”
I am very excited about the Rogue. Presumably, we’ll get invited to the launch and can bring you more info. If we’re not invited, I’ll just assume it’s because it’s not there yet and they were too afraid to invite us.
BYD’s Global Expansion Might Hit A Snag In Hungary
The saga of Chinese automaker BYD in Europe is an interesting one. The company has invested heavily in Hungarian production, which gave it access to the European car market via an EU country that was, under PM Viktor Orbán, quite friendly with Russia and China. The EU has been increasingly concerned about Chinese automakers and downright hostile to Russia given its invasion of Ukraine.
There’s a new government in Hungary, and it’s already started to find problems with the way BYD has expanded in the country. This oversight is now starting to put a dent in BYD’s ambitions, per Bloomberg:
BYD’s global expansion is facing risks in Hungary, which serves as the anchor for its European manufacturing strategy. The company’s flagship factory site under construction in Szeged has come under scrutiny over alleged labor abuses by subcontractors, while a change of government in Budapest has triggered a probe into the massive state subsidies, tax breaks and environmental exemptions previously granted to BYD.
These escalating disputes have directly impacted BYD’s rollout schedule. The automaker recently confirmed that vehicle assembly at the Szeged plant has been delayed to the fourth quarter of 2026, roughly a year behind its original target.
Politics impacting cars is a global phenomenon.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Tony Bennett lived to be 96, which is pretty good, but today marks what would have been his 100th birthday. There are so many possible great Tony Bennett songs to choose from, from his iconic early stuff to his later charming duets. I’m going to go with “Anything Goes” from the album he did with Count Basie and his orchestra as something you maybe haven’t heard.
The Big Question
Which controls absolutely have to be buttons? What’s ok to be on a screen?
Top Photo: Mercedes-Benz
TBQ: all of them. Screen controls are way too distracting, especially at highway speeds. It should be for showing the GPS, displaying whatever you use for music and that’s it.
I think that Mercedes should do away with buttons altogether.
But NOT with touch screen controls.
I for one welcome the comeback of large freaking levers in our vehicles again. Like maybe a squeeze handle for the wipers. further you squeeze – the faster the wipers go. Volume control for the radio? I need a damn Captain’s wheel from a giant riverboat.
Std Japanese Car ™ is the ideal. Lights and signal on the left stalk, wiper controls on the right. Ingrained once you learn it.
Muscle memory for sure. A plumber installed a new faucet that was suppose to be more intuitive/efficient, but it required unlearning the direction to turn lever of the old faucet . . . and it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
Here’s my chance to be That Guy™, I think you’ll find that in Std Japanese Car™ the indicator and lights are on the right stalk and the wipers are on the left as is convention for RHD vehicles.
True, talking US market. I can get in a Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Suzuki, Mazda etc…and know all major controls by touch and without thought. In college, 30+ years ago I was asked to drive a friends Toyota at night as DD. I had absolutely ZERO idea how to turn on the headlights coming from ’70s -’80s Ford product. Headlamps were always a pull knob on the lower driver-side dash.
Ford, GM, Mercedes and Chrysler all moved the wipers to the turn stalk, kept a knob or rotary switch for lamps which I can deal with. I loath the old dash knob actuated wipers and the floor dimmer. The old GM stalk mount cruise control was a travesty. And F’ Ford for the turn stalk horn.
Everyone with sense knew this was a bad idea, and now the head of Mercedes (her real name) is meekly admitting that some buttons are necessary.
I bet our Mercedes would be a better CEO of Mercedes.
The “we went too far in deleting buttons” is lip service. You all do countless studies for these UI deployments (or should!). You knew you went too far when you conceived them, and certainly sometime through development. It’s just that we’ve gotten to the point where having one or two touchscreen configurations that support endless configurations is cheaper than several permutations of button packs. So that’s what you did.
And it’s not just that. It’s also “Whoops. We’re relying too much on expensive subassemblies like headlights that can’t be repaired and that drive up insurance costs. Oops. We’re so sorry.” And “Were we selling your data to furnishers behind your back? Did we do that? Damn, that’s craaaazy. Won’t happen again; we swear!”
It all just seems very mealy-mouthed and insincere, to me. These large companies–which include but are not limited to most major automakers–make decisions that are flagrantly, obviously detrimental to customer welfare, get away with it for as long as they think they can…and then collect kudos for backpedaling and doing what they should have done in the first place. And we’re just supposed to sit there and nod our heads. It’s outrageous.
As for Mercedes-Benz, they still make a nice car, but they have long lost whatever engineering excellence they once had, and the Vegas nightclub aesthetic is questionable too.
It does seem to be a characteristic of the modern, capitalist mindset that serving the customer/consumer is not part of the success equation.
I have no doubt that the hindsight is colored in nostalgia more so than truthfulness but I do think the attitude used to be that the way to success was to provide genuine quality service or product for your customer and the revenue and profit will take care of themselves. Now it seems that monetizing every micro-transaction with everyone to the maximum possible and deal with the consequences later seems more prevalent than I would like.
I also wonder how much this is affected by general attitudes of companies, products and services. I don’t know that the modern consumer really pays it enough attention to complain enough to have an affect. Perhaps in this one area (buttons to screens) there has been enough backlash but why did it take this long? Or is MB just at a good point in the design-cycle that they can reasonably make the necessary changes that they are talking about it now and this has caused more sales drops than we know?
We really don’t give a flying F about customers, except stock price line go UP.
Another thing they never mention is that buttons are expensive and touchscreens are cheap. One touchscreen can replace nearly infinite button/knob functions, all in a worse way. They’re nickel and diming everyone while claiming it’s tech innovation.
TBQ:
Buttons, dials, and levers with weighty solid haptic feedback are luxury. Luxury brands going to screens is laughable. Technology isn’t luxury and never will be. Some of the best vehicles I’ve driven were halfway ruined with the amount of tech distracting from the drove. BMW M2.40 was absolutely incredible but my easily distracted mind spent more time focusing on all the features than enjoying the beautiful driving dynamics.
On the flip side old Dodge Rams with manual transmissions (because why would anyone trust an old Ram with an auto?) force you into focusing on the drive because there is no technology to distract. I wish I had more experience in older manual cars like a 2nd gen Viper, AC Cobra, or Mclaren F1, that must be the most connected driving feeling in history.
What’s funny is that some of the mainstream cars do it better than the premium ones. Honda’s current lineup? A masterclass in how to design reasonably affordable cars with excellent UI, and the controls feel like quality items, too. Toyota? Mostly the same.
This used to apply to Volkswagen, but they gave that up some time ago…probably to eke back some profit. On the luxury end, also sad to see Lexus veering toward making cars that are more flashy and trendy than quality and enduring.
There’s going to be a huge correction, and I bet a lot of the legacy luxury brands are going to be caught unawares.
It’s going to just take one automaker to come out with an interior with all of the modern amenities but make it with pleasing buttons and knobs for the customer to use. The supercar makes are already heading down that path, the new Hennessey is going to have a manual!
That’s a whole other thing. What we’re seeing is that all the often-intrusive, cheap-looking tech that’s been foisted upon us plebeians is getting eschewed at the upper end. The Mercedes-Benz S-Class’ mono-binnacle instrument cluster/infotainment display was groundbreaking when it debuted in CY2013 on the W222. In 2026, it can be found on a base-model Kia K4 and garners a pretty blasé reaction.
Higher-end vehicles (think Bentley, Rolls-Royce, and truly esoteric stuff like Morgans) have physical controls and gauges…only they’re exquisitely crafted and beautiful to interact with. Where they do rely on touchscreens and LCDs, they’ be integrated in a cohesive, un-disruptive way.
And it’s not just cars, either. Look up the Meadow phone, which purports to have the essentials for a phone (a private number reachable only by saved contacts, maps, and Spotify), but no email, browsing or social media. After a couple of decades of tech-bros turning iPhones and Androids from luxury items to essential life devices…this is what they’ve come up with. And it’s not that the Meadow expensive in and of itself, but who has the privilege of taking their Meadow and disconnecting for the weekend? Someone with an au pair or an assistant to handle things back home. Someone who is independently wealthy. Not people in the lower and middle classes, who generally need to be reachable or plugged in most of the time.
The rich, the folks in charge, profit off of propagating often unhealthy things to the masses and then sharply pivot away from those things for themselves.
See also: expensive and obscure fashion with inconspicuous branding now that everyone can afford a Gucci or a Louis Vuitton logo. And “natural foods” in place of high-fructose corn syrup. And expensive Montessori schools where kids play with wooden toys all day while public Title 1 schools send kids home with Chromebooks.
That Meadow phone looks awesome. If it lives up to its expectations, I might consider one for myself
I recently went back to back rentals from a current gen X5 to a base Civic.
The X5 is a truly impressive car and I can see why it’s the default choice in the segment for so many people. From powertrain to tech to materials to comfort, it felt like an incredibly well thought out product.
But getting into the Civic, I felt instantly comfortable and could hit the ground running. The BMW required 10-15 minutes sitting at the rental lot setting everything up.
Obviously, the comparison isn’t fair. There are so many features in the bimmer, it would be impossible to create as simple of a layout as the Civic.
But overall, I couldn’t fault the Honda – except for the powertrain. Boy is that thing slow.
TBQ, the button test for an OEM should be to take an equivalent vehicle they made from 20 years ago, and any function that had a button on that vehicle has a button now. Anything new that has been added since then (such as all the extra software functions) can be on the screen.
I suppose this would justify the Teslas and Rivians and such to put everything on the screen, since they do not have the 20 year old vehicle to compare to though, so everything is new for them…
The Pontiac 6000 STE would like a word.
I travel a lot for work and end up driving a decent cross section of newer cars as rentals. Out of all of the manufacturers I think the way Hyundai/Kia does buttons is the WORST. Swapping between HVAC and Radio controls with that little arrow button? Who’s idea was that!?!?!?
Someone who was tasked with cutting $12.57 out of the production-cost-per-unit for those models (which is a lot for a volume car!).
Still, it’s annoying to see product planners continuously make obtrusive and customer-antagonistic decisions in the name of cost cutting, while they raise the price of the item. And, especially at the lower end, they’re not driving the cars on a day-to-day basis themselves, so they don’t experience how infuriating those decisions are for customers. In a just world, they’d be forced to drive whatever they create for two to three years. Perhaps then they’d be more sympathetic to the plight of the end user.
Buttons for everything. Want to steer? Button. Want to drain the oil? Button. Want the car to self destruct? Button. Eject the rear passengers (most likely little demon children) button.
Buttons for maintenance sounds amazing actually. Eject drain plug? Button. Eject oil filter? Button. Transmission flush? Button! We’ve been chasing the wrong things with our so called progress!
And no safe guards in place. Going 80mph on the free way? Your buddy is joking around and presses the oil filter eject button. Well good luck you the driver and every one else on the road.
Oh yeah, and some of the service buttons are underneath the car. Hopefully a rock doesn’t fly up from the road and hit the button to empty your transmission fluid or coolant!
While I broadly agree with you, there’s a good argument to be made for making critical maintenance functions difficult to access, because of course the minute you engineer a function into your car that automatically dumps the transmission fluid and ejects the pan and filter (even if you make them press it ten times to confirm)…some idiot will do so inappropriately and wreck the transmission, probably under warranty.
Not to mention that an eject-o-fluid function is one more thing to fail.
I do think that manufacturers could stop making things so difficult for competent people who know how to work on their vehicles. Most of us here would know how to get the car to the correct operating temperature and measure fluids. Find the budget and space to put the damn dipstick back on the engine and–if possible–the transmission. Don’t make us refer to some idiot-gram in the built-in infotainment or hook up a diagnostic tool just to see what the oil level is.
Sorry, I was being completely sarcastic. Switching from threaded screws to quick release buttons for maintenance and wear items is just asking for accidents lol
I think some of these functions might be better off with switches, or even levers. The ejection function especially would be quite satisfying with a large, full hand lever coming out of the dash.
Like the Honda element shifter but instead of shifter it is the eject annoying asshole lever (EAAL for short) haha.
Saw the pic of the dash in the top shot and figured one of the headlines would be a partnership between Mercedes and Warner Bros. to “gift” M/B owners a trailer for the new Batman movie.
I’m not sure anything needs to be on the screen other than maps and backup camera. Music I guess, but you need to also be able to skip tracks and channels and adjust volume with knobs and buttons.
Axl Rose: Maybe we went ‘Too Far’ with drugs.
An AMG E 53 wagon may have some ‘fun knobs’, but the previous boardmembers of Mercedes-Benz were old-fashioned regular knobs.
If something controls a piece of hardware on the vehicle, it should have a button. Climate control, seat controls, wipers, turn signals, doors, hood, glove box, vents etc. should all be buttons/physical controls. I’m fine with software stuff relegated to the screen because it’s not critical to the functionality or operation of physical components in the car.
And steering wheel buttons should be actual buttons, not haptic. Haptic means you accidentally skip six songs or reconfigure your screen when making a turn.
…The industry “might have gone a little bit too far” in its quest for digital controls. Oh really, did it? Just a little bit? Just a teensy weensy itsy bitsy bit? What a humble admission, the kind of admission only a business leader under great financial pressure would utter. And now you’re going to “reintroduce the most sensible buttons?” That’s so generous of you. Thank you for thinking of customers in a sensible way. We’re sure we can trust you to know what’s best. By the way, what is a sensible item in the world of today’s Mercedes? Would it be a puddle lamp that projects a three pointed star on the ground? That kind of sensible? Or a headliner that has tiny blinky lights in it? I know, I bet sensible means a perfumed ionizer that periodically sprays cologne into the HVAC so it always smells like you’re in an uber. That’s what says Mercedes today. That smell.
Bahahaha. I had a 2015 S 550 Coupe, and you absolutely could unscrew the lid on the perfume jar and just put your own scent in. I never did, because I’m not a 20-year-old boy, but…you could.
All of this is my sentiment exactly.
I wish Ram would have used one of the unused buttons or put a redundancy button like the climate controls for the front camera to make it quick and fast to get to that view as needed. Genesis and it seems like others with front cameras already understand this need.
The Weeks: Buttons
There are two things that should live on a digital interface:
preference settings for otherwise automated systems, such as the color of ambient lighting, how much the radio turns itself up to match vehicle speed/road noise, screen brightness, and configuring the “individual” drive mode (drive mode selection, however, should be on a knob/button cluster).Things that are inherently reliant on browsing menus or typing, such as navigation, wireless phone controls and album/playlist selection.
Everything else should be on a dedicated button or knob.
For me, I’ll stick with cars whose entertainment system is divorced from the CANBUS and sits in a DIN slot, and maybe I’ll grab a CP-71WAK for nav when it’s convenient.
Instead of conventionally shaped buttons, can they be RGB backlit three-pointed stars?
My God, it’s full of stars.
Please refrain from touching the monolith.
Now that you said not to, it kind of makes me want to touch it more
I’m not giving you a bone to play with afterwards if you do.
Your bone, I can refrain from touching
There’s going to be a subscription plan for that.
Honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t yet moved to a 3-spoke steering wheel.
Why a wheel? Just make it a steering star.
GaMercedes
TBQ: HVAC including seat and wheel heating, windows and doors, lighting (including emergency) and anything that controls the motion of the vehicle, or impacts safety, that’s all offscreen. Audio can be on a screen, with a volume knob. Navigation can be all screen.
Basically, if you adjust it all the time, buttons and knobs. If you set and forget, screen.
I’m more screen-friendly than most here, simply because I enjoy the wealth of information and customization that would not be practical or possible with analog controls. But I still do have a list of must haves for physical controls:
-Transmission (ideally with physical movement and no buttons)
-Turn signals
-Wipers
-Temp and fan speed dials
-Audio volume and next track (on wheel)
-Glove compartment, hood, and trunk releases (these must be accessible without the car on)
Everything else, put on a screen for all I care.
vent directional controls
I’m a big fan of automatic climate control, so while I prefer having knobs and buttons for climate, the impact would be very small if it was on the screen. Same with headlights. They’re always on auto. I don’t need a knob to control them. I turn the ventilated seats off once or twice around Jan/Feb, aside from that they’re on and they have memory so they’re on next time I start the car. It wouldn’t kill me if those controls were on a screen. Especially one of the better ones that have a “dock” for quick access stuff.
What irks me is they take these physical controls away and we get nothing in return. If you’re gonna remove the headlight controls off the dash, give me a little pop out cubby or something to store change in. Make it useful or functional somehow. Not just more blank plastic.
Shifters used to be these giant tactile levers with gates, and we moved over to what is pretty much just a power window switch with a park button, yet they take up the same amount of space in the console. Why? We didn’t get any more cupholders or storage cubbies out of the deal. Maybe some cars found room for a wireless phone
heatercharger, but that’s about it.When Audi moved away from the rotary MMI controls to straight touchscreens in the B9.5, they put a big, beefy cubby there. It may seem like a cheap way out, but at least it’s useful instead of just a flat piece of plastic.
Yeah, great point. Take the chance to rethink some stale interior design ideas.
Swipe-to-steer, and accelerator and braking slider controls, here we come!
I could see this being kind of fun to drive, for a short time on a closed track, lol.
A Rivian executive is reading this comment right now and yelling at his minions to quickly put the window switches, door locks, brake pedal and high beams on the touch screen before you notice.
The Rivian software guy is so far down the tech-dystopia rabbit hole that he is probably wondering why they need a screen at all when you can just talk to your AI assistant for everything.
Drive-by-voice sounds especially enticing, I hope it has a McRae setting where it only understands rally pace notes in a Welsh accent so I can pretend I’m Nicky Grist.
That’s how I want my nav software to talk to me
Then your voice AI driving assistant gets confused while your using talk to text on your smartphone and crashes into a lake; so essentially no difference from all the other grey amorphous blobs pinballing along the interstate today.
That sounds like an even more immersive Nicky Grist experience.
That pretty much covers my list.
Transmission: The best interface is a rotary knob with PRNDL
HVAC: Best interface is still 3 rotary knobs + 2 buttons to turn on A/C and recirculate. These buttons can go on the knobs.
Turn signals: On the left side stalk
Wipers: On the right side stalk.
I love how in the 2000’s there was a huge push to get people to stop looking at their cell phones and focus on the road.
Then tablets became integrated into the vehicles with seemingly no regulation and the buttons quickly disappeared.
Now the pushback is happening, for both safety and accessibility reasons that were predicted a long time ago.
Snake eating tail stuff here.
The answer to all things EV and button delete.
Beat me with that earnings stick,
Show me where the numbers click,
Chasing dreams and making plans,
Counting cash with steady hands.
Raise it high, let it swing,
In this game, I’m the king,
Hustle hard, I won’t quit,
Beat me with that earnings stick.
Every penny, every dime,
Building up, I’m on my climb,
Rolling waves of fortune’s tide,
In this ride, I take in stride.
Raise it high, let it swing,
In this game, I’m the king,
Hustle hard, I won’t quit,
Beat me with that earnings stick.
So let’s dance in this delight,
Counting blessings, futures bright,
With a smile, I’ll take my pick,
Beat me with that earnings stick.
At this point I’d kill for a big fat red Reset Button like the TRS-80s used to have to reboot the infotainment screen for every damn time it has an aneurysm.
Fixed it for you.
What lead to this? Did he accidentally set foot in a GLA?
TBQ: anything that isn’t set-and-forget should just be a damn button. Climate controls, media playback, drive modes – you know, the things you tweak while on the road. I should be able to manipulate these controls without looking at them, period.