Oh, keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel. That’s what I remember.

The Tesla Model 3 (also Model Y and Cybertruck) give us a horrifying glimpse into a future of vehicle interfaces that ruthlessly abandon physical controls and integrate (almost) every vehicle function into a centrally-located touchscreen display.

Where are the steering wheel stalks?

Is it too much to ask for a traditional instrument cluster located directly in front of the wheel?

I’ll ask, in all sincerity, what is this new devilry?

Call me an outlier with unreasonable expectations, or simply old-school, but I would actually prefer a set of gauges displaying vital information (e.g. speed, range, engine maintenance notifications) in the forward view directly in-line with my view of the road ahead. Curiously, Tesla’s Model S and X do offer a separate instrument cluster, so why is it missing from the Model 3 and Y? It’s rather essential to maintain focus on the road and avoid glancing down, back-and-forth to the center of the dashboard.

Apparently I am not alone in this thinking, as is evident by the growing number of aftermarket instrument clusters for the Model 3 and Y that have been available for several years now. Some of these kits are a bit crude in the way they attach to the dashboard. Others, notably the T-Sportline MSX-Pro Driver View Dash and LCD Display, are more OEM-looking, granted you’re comfortable taking apart dashboard trim panels to mount the display and route cables from the device to the vehicle ECU located in the kick panel of the passenger footwell. The instructions appear clear enough and there are countless YouTube videos walking you through the installation process step-by-step.

Still, many of these add-on display kits commit the same mistakes made by OEMs, essentially treating vehicle UIs like a mobile phone or tablet app. We can no doubt trace this inspiration to Steve jobs’ painfully enduring legacy of iPhone design: skeuomorphism that gives drivers visually-gratuitous iconography and iOS-app-like motion-graphic transitions and interactivity. But in an automobile these things become superfluous gimmicks, like Tesla’s drive mode strip that require a driver swipe an icon up or down to shift from Park to Drive or Reverse. Alternatively, a seemingly quicker method of shifting can be invoked by simply pressing buttons (P, R, N or D) on an overhead console, however only if first activated by an equally-convoluted (and tedious) process that require the driver simultaneously press and briefly hold (2) scroll buttons located on the steering wheel. All this silly nonsense just to put the vehicle into Drive.

While these types of questionable design choices continue to infiltrate new vehicles, the touchscreen itself now exists as a permanent, if not unavoidable, fixture in automotive design as traditional and costlier-to-manufacture mechanical switches, buttons and potentiometers vanish, much like the the manual gearbox and the cathode-ray tube screen. The old Industrial Design ethos I remember: form follows function apparently no longer applies in a world dematerializing behind rectangular slabs of glass.

Concerning use of the touchscreen, the Model 3 owner’s manual reads like a legal disclaimer: “…avoid using the touchscreen to adjust settings while the vehicle is in motion.” but goes on to say: “Use the touchscreen to control many features that, in traditional cars, are controlled using physical buttons (for example, adjusting the cabin heating and air conditioning, headlights, etc.).” Alright then.

If touchscreen vehicle displays are in fact here to stay, their implementation should be more considered and utilitarian by design, in my opinion. That is, prioritizing function and purpose over aesthetics; high contrast and clear yet unobtrusive, allowing the driver to focus on, what else? Driving and the changing road conditions.

Experts increasingly bemoan the inherent lack of haptic feedback using touchscreens as a contributing factor to the multitude of distractions now plaguing the driving experience. This has led some automobile manufacturers, notably Porsche, to rethink the efficacy of touchscreens and return to physical controls. While this is a step in the right direction the stark reality is that our roads are saturated with distracted drivers who may be texting, making calls or fiddling around with poorly-designed infotainment systems, all of which take a driver’s eye’s (and attention) off the road. Driver assistance technologies too, are further eroding the attentiveness and skill of drivers. Cameras and blind spot monitors replacing shoulder-check (head turn) lane changes and collision avoidance systems intervening in place of emergency braking techniques are but a few examples of technologies actively degrading driver competence while promoting a state of continuous partial attention on our roadways.

The latest statistics concerning distracted driving are the inconvenient proof modern vehicles are a mess of snowballing software complexity and misapplied technological innovations. Any perceived progress is in the eye of the beholder.

Nowhere is this more apparent than with the previously simple and discreet incandescent headlight bulb, now virtually eradicated by cheaper, higher-intensity blue-emitting LEDs that have turned driving at night, or any time of the day for that matter, into a blinding clusterfuck of an experience.

Happy motoring.