Exactly. You can rest your finger on the physical button while waiting for the right time to press it like you do with a stalk. Not only you can’t do it with capacitive touch button, you have to consciously avoid it, which can be a continuous distraction for the driver.

I’d even go so far as to say if the button on the Tesla were on opposite sides of the steering wheel and appropriately sized, it would be acceptable. You just put your thumb in the area the turn signal should be, it activates, and you don’t have to worry about the placement.

Of course the typical Ferrari only gets taken out to drive a few thousand miles during its lifetime. Not too many are using them as dailies.

I think Tesla’s end goal is to make a car that’s basically an iPhone with wheels and seats and (usually) a roof. Every step towards the featureless-monolith esthetic is a step in the wrong direction in terms of function, for both cars and communication devices, but as long as they (and their customers) think it looks…

Ferrari is also using a physical button that you can feel without looking at it. Tesla is using capacitive buttons that feel no different from the rest of the wheel, which is way worse. 

Hey, are you a tech bro? Do you know what you are talking about? Apparently not, so shut the fuck up! /s

Designers and engineers usually coordinate and collaborate.

Musk could release a car with a triangle steering wheel and it would sell like hotcakes to Tesla stans. 

This is the answer. Tesla is on a mission to build a car with as few parts as possible.

Most Tesla drivers don’t hold on to the steering wheel anyways.

Great job Jason, now you’ve done stirred up the foaming-at-the-mouth Tesla stans and now we have to listen to how “anti-tesla” jalopnik is for another couple weeks.

That’s because Tesla fans are insane.

And just like that iPhone, the cultists that love these things will go to the ends of the earth to explain why you’re a moron for not liking what is obviously poor design.

I do not understand why they didn’t just go full SAAB,

This reminds me of when Apple releases a new iPhone to have everybody complain about it dropping calls. Apple’s response was that people weren’t holding their phones right and screwing with the antennae which was pretty much the body of the phone. This is the same problem. Someone thought up a design that may work…

Yeah, this is terrible.  They at least need bulges or something.

Turn signals are an activate on auto turn off anyways.

Change for the sake of change instead of accomplishing something with the switch...”genius”.

Yeah, I read this as an attempt to make driving so unpleasant that you WANT to use their level-2 system.

You’re missing the point - this is brilliant. The harder it is to steer and change lanes, the more you’ll want to use ‘auto-pilot’ instead.