Re: Soft controls
> While they're at it, what about redesigning the user interface to avoid soft, screen based controls?
I too hate 'soft' controls - at least for anything that's likely to be used while driving.
However, I do understand why manufacturers like them.
Buttons, dials, knobs, sliders, switches spread around the cockpit (door handle, stalks, steering wheel, left and right sides of the wheel, center console (high, middle, low), etc.), in addition to the switches themselves, requires cutouts (more complex design and/or labour), running wiring to those controls (much labour, look at the frequent troubles both Boeing and Airbus have had with wiring runs on aircraft - a different scale I know, but it shows wiring runs can be difficult), wiring looms (both price of the part and labour to wire up, and common points for QC issues), and so on.
There can literally be a thousand dollar difference in manufacturing using a simple (but terribly bad UI design) setup like a Tesla vs having a lot of hard controls. And that doesn't count maintenance/warranty issues of failed switches and the costs in fixing them - as 20 moving parts will have a higher failure rate than a screen with touch controls. A central control system like a Tesla's is much easier to repair - just pull the entire thing out and put in a new (refurbed) one, and take the faulty one to an electronics repair shop and refurb to use as repair replacements or toss out (well, hopefully recyle).
It is literally a cost vs good human interface design equation.