The Tesla Model S, launched in 2008 with the Roadster, introduced a new benchmark for interior technology with its large central touchscreen that controls almost all vehicle functions. The updated model, the Roadster, has a refreshed exterior, simplified interior, and the option for a more powerful powertrain. The Model 3 cabin takes minimalism to a new level, with everything centered around a giant center touchscreen.
The Tesla Model Y features a 15-inch floating screen, an expansive and clean dash, and a massive glass roof. Tesla’s interior design philosophy centers around simplicity and futurism, with the most striking feature being the plastic seats. The front seats are heated, while the rear seats are a single piece bench. The 2024 Tesla Model 3 Highland is getting a nice upgrade inside, from more supportive seats to a better experience for rear passengers.
Founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors, Tesla’s name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. Peter Blades, lead interior designer for both generations of the Model 3, Model Y, Semi concept, and Roadster, has joined Skyryse as the lead interior designer for both generations of the Model 3, Model Y, Semi concept, and Roadster.
The styling of the Model S has slowly evolved over the past decade-and-a-bit, but its low-slung and svelte shape hasn’t changed.
📹 Why Old Car Interiors Reign Supreme Over Elon Musk’s Soulless Designs
Today I wanted to talk about why the Old car interiors are a lot more nostalgic and soulful than the modern day designs after the …
📹 Evolution of Tesla (2008-2023)
00:00 Intro 00:22 Tesla Roadster 01:20 Tesla Model S 05:36 Tesla Model X 07:33 Tesla Model 3 10:35 Tesla Model Y 12:18 …
The worst part is that Tesla engineers are somehow making the interiors even more minimalistic by literally removing the signal stalk. The SIGNAL STALK. They replaced it with touch sensors on the left side of the wheel, which get reversed when you’re in a roundabout. Not only that, but they also removed the wiper stalk and the gear lever, adding everything into the screen to cut costs. For a “technologically advanced” car, Teslas sure do lack a whole bunch of standard features and hard surface controls.
Recently, i got into a discussion with a friend of mine about the tesla interiors. he never owned a car and was more of the city type, so i was curious about his opinions on car interiors and he always went with the tesla interiors even when i obscured the steering wheel, he claimed it was “sleek” and “clean” no noise and such, and it baffled me so much at the time and still does, i feel like we are being the loud minority when market trends seem to really insist on making things empty for the sake of being empty.
I am happy my 2023 VW Taigo still has dials and buttons on the dashboard and wheel. I only ever need to use the touchscreen to make calls or check the navigation. It is a nice blend of new and old. Has all the new tech found in modern cars but still has buttons where needed and don’t need to take my eyes off the road.
I drive a 2014 Honda Civic. The car feels absolutely amazing. The interior feels like a space ship with its gorgeous two-part gauge cluster, and all the main functions aren’t controlled by the infotainment. Its gear selector is also a center console mounted stick lever, instead of a knob or buttons on a screen.
My ’14 F250 platinum is my ideal interior. It has a touchscreen and hands-free voice control, but it still has all the buttons and knobs plus a faux-wood trim. Looks classic with enough tech to still be relevant. I tried a Tesla once, but couldn’t wrap my head around having just a single screen in the middle.
I honestly dont care about nostalgia, i just miss practical interiors, with easy accessible buttons and knobs, so i can fast and easly operate my car, without looking away from the road. Teoreticly now we have voice assistants, but they are annoying more often than working. I dont want to have to search through settings on touchscreen just to change radio station. I dont want to have to update my car, just to get somewhere. Old cars gave us freedom, new are taking it away.
Physical button are a good thing. Sure, a touchscreen is nice to use for GPS, but that literally the last placement I want for the controls for my heated seats. And don’t even get my started on the nonsense that is placing the speedometer in the top corner of a tablet instead of the middle of the steering wheel. Speed is the parameter that drivers check the most often so the last thing you want is looking to your right constantly instead of looking at the road.
The Subaru SVX has an interior that both gives me nostalgia and the feeling that I’m back in one of the old libraries with that colored carpet, or those old buses with the jazz wave seats. We need design like that back in all vehicles, unique designs that give you that feeling. The vaporwavey stuff especially is beautiful.
I completely agree but I think it all comes down to the cost. It’s probably cheaper to go with minimalism and put a touch screen in the middle of the car instead of designing and manufacturing 50 different buttons. I can’t even imagine myself ever buying a brand new car because even with all this plastic, minimalism and other crap, cars are still crazy expensive.
I agree that 90s interior where superior, but in modern Premium class cars like the 2017 7 series there where just so many buttons everywhere and so low down that it could be hard to differentiate while driving. My dad dirves one and even after 5 years of ownership he still doesnt have the muscle memory down. I think that is the appeal of a touch screen. Maybe its because i grew up after 2000.
Well, some working class mercedes have (or had until 2015) wood looking accents in the car. It probely is only plastic, but it still has the same surface feeling and is a nice contrast to the rest of the car wich is pretty modern. (I was talking specificly about the family car version of the E class, the version with a screen.)
Mate im 100% with u. My stepdad had a Mercedes S Class W140 (S500) which had the best interior ever. It looked so good with all that wood. My favorite interiors nowadays are defenitely the sporty ones, that look like a fighter cockpit and fit like a glove. A really special pick is also the Nissan 300zx interior, which looks at night like directly coming from a 80s science fiction movie! And Teslas + all minimalistic cars are pain to my eyes
modern day car designs will be nostalgic to some people eventually, calling something nostalgic isnt a good characteristic, its a vague feeling that could be applied to anything depending on the person. and that first image, that car is clearly from the 70s if not earlier, like how old were your parents if that was the type of car they were driving in the 2000s when you were growing up? and why the fuck youtubers always give specific scenarios that only apply to them and act as if everybody was the same? i had a gameboy color.
I’ll bet that a 1960 Plymouth Fury has less plastic than a 2024 Mercedes S class. Everything these days is relentlessly cheap, cheap, cheap. The passenger door handle (which I hardly ever use) fell off my Mercedes E class. Chromed plastic. Door handles used to be chromed steel. I tried to put a magnetic Hide-A-Key in my Mercedes and it was hard to find anything metal to stick it to. In the old days it was fabric and leather interiors. Now it synthetic material. Even leather interiors cheat by using fake leather along with real leather. I’ll buy a cheaply made Toyota for cheap money. I won’t buy a cheaply made Mercedes for big money. Not enough difference.
it’s not even just “soulless” it’s also too many things pushing for wack “modernism” aka minimalism or professional look too many cars are Black, Grey, White if any car stands out, it’s usually red rarely yellow, ever so often a blue & green, it’s made the car industry BORING AS ** especially with how they supposedly mark up cars based on color + your insurance too and the interior is bland af if it’s a sport car, they got the WORST variation of bucket seats that are uncomfortable af but if not a sports car.. then it’s a shitty plastic over priced minimalistic garbage heap
Every single second was a fact in this article, i hate all the ultra minimized black interiors we have today- i actually get amazed looking at 60s/70s/etc interiors being literally entirely bright blue, do people just not enjoy things any more? theres plenty of cool futuristic designs and gorgeous modern interiors but when bandwagoners go “teslas are gay” its hard to disagree when the cars are genuinely soulless. i feel like every decade of cars had a certain theme going for so long, with 2000s being the last with the beginnings of shifting away in the 2010s
my 2015 mitsubishi outlander is still more oldschool than new. dreading the day i have to part with it. i specifically wanted a car that i could feel the road through the steering wheel (this one, compared to the completely dead steering of a hyundai santafe, felt like a go kart), a leaver hand brake, a v6 and awd, but wasn’t expensive. it was the perfect car to me.
When I was a kid my auntie had a 1987 Honda SC9 Ballade (basically an upmarket civic for South African market) it was so comfy & cozy and the leather smelled really nice and all the windows were really big which made it feel way more spacious that it probably was. It also had little mechanical eyelids over the headlights that would raise up when you turned them on. Still sad it got stolen and destroyed.
I used to feel a similar way, but that changed once I actually tried a Tesla. The more cars I have had the opportunity to drive, the clearer it became to me that there is no such thing as a soulless car, let alone a soulless interior. All manufacturers have different approaches to the identity of their vehicles and the experience they wish to create for their users. And somehow, at that moment, that Tesla interior felt just right. In keeping with the rest of the car, for better or for worse. Sure, you can complain about how complicated it all seems, but it felt no harder to me than learning the the button placements for all the functions on my Audi. Hell, even the whole on screen shifting thing feels more natural to me than a lot of the other stuff I’ve encountered. (Specifically mercedes’ column shifters which Tesla incidentally used before. I hop between cars a lot and these always confuse me for a few seconds.) Is the whole minimalistic trend overhyped. Yes. But I also think we enthusiast tend to judge anything new unfairly. And nothing illustrates this point more than the very start of the article. Yes, old interiors make us feel a certain way because that is what we grew up with, but it will be the same for Tesla kids eventually. All these same memories we’ve had are being made today for the new generation in these interiors, which will have the same meaning to them as 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s interiors have for us. This comment is way too long so I’ll stop here.
imagine being a lead designer in tesla just for everyone to call your design “elon musk’s stupid design”. I really don’t get the hate behind tesla as it is solely aimed towards elon musk, you dislike the design, alright then, hate the designer. i don’t get why people act as if musk is not just a soulless ceo.
oh, i born in 1995, i saw this good beauty cars from 80-90-2000, and i dream to drive one of them. I got my license 5 years ago maybe, and still didnt get my car, and its really sad to see how old cars from my childhood became to rusty dust, and what cars are producing today. They are soulless, ugly, and pretty unreliable. i dont want drive or even touch them. yes, you can call me old-fashioned or grumpy, and yeah i agree with you
I personally do not mind most modern interiors, I am glad we moved away from 90s-00s grey plastic blobs even if there is a charm to them too. (I personally think modern interiors look alot less cheap for what they are compared to then) However with tesla, and brands that copy them, the minimalism definitively goes over to just being ugly and the center ipad is just atrocious.
They literally just do it so it can be cheap for them to make, and then they can price it up anyway and market it with adjectives such as “modern, minimalistic”. Cheap on design costs. Cheap on manufacturing the minimal amount of simple shaped panels for the interior out of the cheapest plastic. Cheaper to slap a big touchscreen with premade software in there and call it good rather than have actual controls.
We also had dark and hopeless looking black plastic interiors in the 80s and 90s, although I agree that Tesla is just so cold and impersonal. In my opinion the most beautiful interior you can buy on a modern car is the one of the current Bentley Continental GT, which takes a lot of inspiration from those older cars you mentioned without making it look dated.
Newer cars were made for a generation that just didn’t like the car that much. Gen X just wanted to haul their kids form parking lot to parking lot knowing they’d survive an accident, and millennials don’t even want to THINK about driving: the more a computer does for them, the better. None of this matters for Gen Z, most of whom are too broke for new cars and either insist on ride shares and public transit, or their first car is often as old as they are. Special mention goes to a coworker who I wanna say is 19 or 20 and owns two stickshift WRXs. Owning a car HAS to offer us something Uber can’t, or it’s just not cost effective anymore.
It just feels so dead and lifeless. It should feel like those sci-fi cars we all used to imagine when we were kids, but those futures still felt like there was some colour and life. This is just, so boring. I’d love nothing more than to have one of those classic cars, or for a car company to bring back the style and flare of the past.
And sadly this trend is now going to cars that used to know how to design interiors well! With a flow to it, like for instance Volvo and their new EX series, the interior is terrible! the big display looks lazy and DIY! And then with the EX90 you have a tiny ass display behind the wheel as your speedometer! it doesn’t have a home it just is a tablet cut in half! It looks ugly and there like you said, soulless! for instance the Volvo V40 2014 I have, everything feels connected from the speedometer to the center console torwards the back. It isn’t flashy, it isn’t too minimal, and it is inviting. Same goes for other volvo’s around that time. Now BMW and Mercedes has never been my thing, I always felt like it was too much, and too much “look at me being cool” interior, but I’d take that over ANY tesla or whatever resemables that disgusting DIY look.
X-type mentioned. Still miss mine. It was a 2006 and had a touchscreen, which is almost delightfully retro in its crappiness and was basically useless, every control on the screen had a corresponding button, but I absolutely loved the brown and beige leather interior. I now have a 2011 E-class which has somewhat boring fake black leather with silver accents, but thank god for no touchscreen.
This is one of the major reasons why I’m currently retro modding my 56 bel air I hate modern car design for being about as colorful as 50s tv and I’m not much of a fast driver and as I get older I just want to give my children the sense of pure joy and elegance that older cars have where the interior reflected the beauty of the exterior I feel that 50s cars do that best they may not be very fast and you probably don’t want to go fast on a nice 50s car but they are at least fun to look at at and sit in even if you’re not interested in cars and that’s what I want in my future family car I want a car that will leave a impression on my children and introduce a little bit of color and fun into their lives that at this point it’s looking pretty colorless the only thing I want to change about my bel air is putting a modern engine and transmission and maybe modern climate controls tbh in my experience this car has kept me comfortable in cold summer days and cracking a vent open has always been enough to keep me comfortable in even the hottest of days I’ve driven it in
Nah man. The supra interior gives me a seizure lol. When driving I don’t want to be distracted by all these controls. With a Tesla you have everything pre set up so it is just about driving. You have basic controls on the steering e.g window wipers, cruise control etc. I think Tesla has it perfected. The new model 3 removes the gear shifts and… based on article games and their controls and getting used to them… I see zero issue with it lol. It is easier then going for a controller to keyboard/Mouse that’s for sure lol and eventually it will be better because you don’t have to hold your finger behind the steering wheel to prepare to indicate. Old cars give me anxiety, maybe it is because to much s**t stuffed in my face is overstimulation and it is an autism thing idk. It is like wearing a hoodie, it barely blocks your vision but WOW do you think about it 24/7 lol.
5:10 – Who’s mugshot is that? Looks like a really interesting and intelligent person? And also saying it in the context of pre-2010s and the Apple Iphone reveal it seems as if you are trying to connect the two, as if opposing them? Maybe he was the kind of guy that would not have appreciated the Apple Iphone reveal?
The key point about modern cars is that they’re all a minimalist excuse to use a singular hard plastic around the entire car to save money instead having a distinct interior with multiple layers (leather with some polished wood you get it) and then in another cost saving measure they shove more features on a screen because that’s much cheaper than physical buttons. In the end the consumer thinks that minimalist hard plastic interiors are luxurious alongside this iPad on the dash but in reality they’re being played by the big guys running automakers. We pay MORE for a CHEAPER product and people are ok with this?
The real reason Teslas have an interior like that is because they are designed in the US. Their safety standards are sub par. How is it, anywhere else in the world, we are told not to text or even use a phone while driving, but a driver in a Tesla is fine to take their eyes off the road to use a stupid screen? But an even better question is, how is a Cybertruck allowed on the road with sharp edges across the front, virtually no crumple zone, and door and cargo bay edges, with pinch points that could take your fingers off. You could even ask, why is a driver on a standard driver’s license able to drive a 6000 lb vehicle, capable of carrying a load of, probably an additional 1000 plus pounds? America’s safety standards are pathetic.
I feel like my 2024 SEAT Ibiza is barely clinging onto the days of old car design. Sure, the dashboard is digital and has a touchscreen info screen, but the dials on the dashboard screen are analogue styled and look really cool, and everything else buttons and levers. It’s actually quite nice, just annoying when I do want to change radio station, but at least everything else is tactile and has a button / dial / lever.
Why old cars interior looks better? Because it was made for human comfort. Modern cars think we are some kind of machine with no emotions, no attachment and no concern for our mental stability. I think that tesla cars as pretty dangerous for its drive, since you don’t have an instrument cluster in front of you, so you are constantly looking away from transit to check on your speed, you need to enter thousands of menus just to switch songs or control your air conditioner. It’s souless and depressing.
Anybody remember playing battlefield 3 or 4 for the first time and being overwhelmed by all the little indicators in helicopter jets and tanks only to realise every little number actually mattered and gave you usefull information thats jow i feel about old car interiors everything has a purpose and can tell you what you need to know by just a glance instesd of swiping at an ipad
I’ve got a 2014 Mustang and I feel like the interior, while not as nice as the ones from the late 60s, is leaps and bounds ahead of whatever is going on now. I’ve still got cds and such stored in the cupholders, as I’ve never bothered to figure out how to connect my phone. It’s comfortable, has real buttons, and is very pleasant to drive.
Im 17 years old, and my daily driver is a 1998 jeep cherokee. It has no air, no carpet, and burns oil on cold starts. I love it though, ill never get rid of it. I plan to keep it alive for as long as possible. Compared to that, sitting in a modern car just feels so overwhelming. All the screens everywhere. I hate it
Honestly, I want a car that’s from the 80’s but runs perfectly and everything. Every car my partner and I had were hand-me-down’d by family members were kinda.. run-down junk cars on their last legs so.. I hope we can buy a good one, one day, so we don’t have to worry about it breaking down or something. lol
personally, i’m a huge tesla fan, but not gonna lie, its okay if you want something a bit different (such as these) but honestly, all the comments are like “YOU GOTTA TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE ROAD TO DO EVERYTHING” it takes a week to memorize lol these tesla haters are something else nowadays, ALSO, if yall are really gonna love the “spaceship interior” of a car from the 1980’s for being so complicated and having all those switches and stuff, why in the SAME COMMENT SECTION AND SAME article are you gonna hate on tesla for having a complicated screen? also you can get a beige interior on the model x, do your research, black is just an option. also you can use your voice for things, you dont have to be “glued” to the “iPad”
Bro that nostalgia. I remember sitting in my dad’s 89 Cadillac, he got for 1k in the early 2000s. We loved that car. I’m almost 30, and I refuse to get a car that doesn’t have buttons for climate control or anything else. My 2021s still has a shifter, and the touchscreen it has is only for the camera and radio/bluetooth.
For the past 2 years i have owned a 1995 Volvo 850 and last week i bought a 2011 Saab 9-3. The first thing I noticed was how much of a downgrade the interior of the Saab was compared to the Volvo. At the time Saab was owned by General Motors so my 9-3 shares many components with Opel/Vauxhall (many of the buttons are exactly the same ones from my old 2009 Astra). My Saab is 13 years old and the plastic in particular has not held up yet the interior of the Volvo looks pretty much brand new despite being 16 years older and having done more miles. My brother has a 2001 BMW 5 series and whenever I sit in that or the Volvo it feels like the car was made especially for you and that someone put time, effort and care into building that car. I hate to sound like a boomer but for me modern cars just look and feel soulless. Some of them are cool in their own way and I don’t and won’t judge anyone for liking them but they just can’t replicate that feeling you get when you sit down behind the wheel of an old car.
I have very mixed thoughts with 80s interiors. It looks good but the materials are trash. Plastic is so cheap, the leather color fades, build quality is garbage, and the steering wheel feels like you’re holding a metal rod. Soon as you take one of an 80s GM or Ford car in the hot southern sun, they’ll start to rattle up like they want to explode. As for Tesla, their interiors are so basic and uncomfortable. The seats feel like you’re sitting on rocks. Build quality sucks as well. TFL had so many problems opening the door with the Model Y.
The Cybertruck as a whole, is just an utterly lazy, bland, boring design. And you can compare it to a car that hasn’t fully rendered, it looks like a LOD model. Just an utterly dullard design. And it goes for many nowadays, just designs of nothingness. Something a 3 year old would do. The interiors, just utterly rubbish & lazy. Just bloody screens, plonked onto a bench & that’s it. Like the new Dodge Charger for example, it’s interior is guilty of this too. One of many cars, copying tesla. Have to follow the leader, do what the popular one does after all, which is just shite. So yes, soulless sums it up well, like this yet-to-fully-render Cybertruck which is the epitome of soulless car deigns right now. Just lines, and tablets glued to a shelf & wall, that’s it.
Interestingly some 80s cars already had “digital” dashboards with LCD or VFD screens like the Opel Senator (also known as Vauxhall Royale later Senator), the A2 (facelift of the first generation) got that in 1984 and also the Corvette C4, but unlike some others the tachometer wasn’t simply circular like a traditional mechanical one but it was a bar/curve modeled after the torque graph of the engine.
I honestly think about the topic every single time I see a modern car interior (window, windshield, internet – wherever). I absolutely DESPISE the “replace dashboard with an ipad/screen” thing. First off, for aesthetic purposes, it looks absolutely inferior to real dashboard, no matter what picture you stock behind those soulless indicators. My dad drives a 2014 MB E class and its dashboard is just gorgeous. It has small displays, but they’re used in conjunction with a really quirky and interesting looking set of mechanical indication. And the interior overall is a bomb. My bottom line and, frankly, obe of most beloved interior aesthetics are early 00′ Nissan interiors. I grew up having family rides in a 2002 Maxima and drive a 2004 Patrol, and I feel really comfortable and nostalgic in that kind of interior. It’s not as gorgeous as Mercedes, had fewer belts and whistles, but it’s really well composed and stands up to this day as really solid. Another point: aren’t these huge ahh displays distracting? Traditional minimal light dashboard is dull for a reason – you only look at it too get the most essential information about your speed, engine, parking break, etc. It’s not flashy, it knows its place. And then the whatever modern car. Big flashy display and obnoxious controls on a side ipad. How the F are you supposed to control it? In a traditional interior you can physically memorize buttons and switches and operate blind if you so desire, distraction is there, but it’s minimal.
Most cars in the historic cars have been boring. Why? Cause exciting can’t be made affordable or even cheap. So, it’s plain wrong to use examples of great ICVs to sh*t on electric cars or TESLA, when you’ve got cars from 1900 and 2000s that nobody wants, hence they are being sold for dirt cheap or rusting away. You guys love cars? Go buy some of those.
Ngl, I think the 70’s and 80’s interiors look atrocious, and I always felt like wood interiors looked way too “boomer” and are like the popcorn ceilings of cars. I also feel like brown and beige color schemes are even more boring than black and grey. That being said, I think my least favorite designs for interiors were the late 90’s to the early 10’s. They were completely devoid of design and very few cars had genuinely interesting or unique interiors. Those were typically reserved for supercars that exceptionally few people could afford. I feel like since the mid 10’s we’ve seen a dramatic improvement in the individuality of the “minimalist” designs, to the point where they’re not quite as minimalist anymore. If you looked at the interior of a Mercedes and a BMW from the 2000’s, they’d look almost identical, but nowadays you can easily tell the difference between the two. The 2000’s had the peak soulless interiors, with Tesla being the obvious exception. Not only is it oppressively bland in those cars, but not having ANY physical buttons or dials and having to navigate on a screen for literally anything other than steering, braking, accelerating and blinkers is absurd.
There’s an easier answer to all this. Cost. Cars are no longer seen as symbols of prosperity, nor cutting edge technology (for the most part), and we’re not living in the crazy, unsustainable boom period of the 80s-90s anymore. Cars are now a necessity and, coming from a person who loves cars, an annoyance to an extent. You can’t live without one in most of the world, usually for worse than better, more people need it, people don’t have much money and time anymore to spend purely on a car and companies want more profits. The end result of that: Cheapification. Everybody needs a car, making a car of high quality in the 2010s-20s that are equivalent to the 80s, in huge numbers, plus obeying safety and environmental requirements, to supply every continent on Earth, is unsustainable at worst, not too profitable for companies at best. Oh yeah and the fact people treat cars more like assets, rather than individual, emotional property, which the companies responded by building new cars as cheaply as possible. (Driving 4 Answers did a great article on Planned Obsolescence explaining just that) Then you have Elon Musk, his Tech bro attitude and what not. Now it’s microchips, computers and AI that are the vanguard of Tech, so companies like Tesla want to reflect that futuristic aesthetic dominated by Tech by slamming corporate looks and screens all over your face, to further add value to their portfolios as investors and creators of Technology, much how those crazy digital displays of the 80s used to show, as a quick example.
The trend of no physical tactile buttons is so bad that the IIHS and NTHSA are both forcing car companies to abandon the practice altogether. Mainly due to how the iPads lead to distracted driving and a LARGE spike in distraction-related accidents. It’s a legitimate safety hazard. On top of being a nightmare to replace. The C8 strikes this balance perfectly imo, but the Teslas are just evil
Well i have a Chevrolet Corsa B 1998 and in my work i drive various diferent new Chevrolet cars, and i think the interior of my corsa have more life than these newer cars, a new Chevrolet S10 has more plastic in the doors than a cheap Chevrolet Onix, ok the S10 have the Diesel and all the “luxury” of equipaments, but the confortable stuff not?? Ofcorse there are good new chevrolet cars like the Equinox with the color scheme and leather, but the 80s and 90s Chevrolet interior design is long gone, the Opel desing is gone, well, its only my opinion (greetings from Brazil)
I should preface this by saying that I agree that full minimalism without even a dashboard isn’t that great, to put it lightly. But if you want my opinion, which I fully know you don’t, here you go: I feel “Why are there so many gauges? I don’t need to know the tyre pressure of my rear left wheel. That wood isn’t the nicest to put it that way, why is the radio sideways, and is there even an airbag in it?” That second one makes me feel “No distractions, two colours, movie on the screen” I know what you mean, but there’s obviously a difference between modern interiors and Tesla interiors. Tesla is made to be a family car, not a car enthusiast one (the hate it gets is evident of that), so innovations, reworks, and practicality over “soul” is important. I don’t like car guys saying “Soul” is everything. Kia already tried that, and people don’t trust those who drive Souls. Car enthusiast cars and practical cars aren’t mutually exclusive, either, Hyundai tried that with the Ioniq 5 N. Although, I do agree with more physical buttons are better. I understand where you’re coming from, and I agree to a certain point, but is it really “supreme” if it’s not being made anymore? Thank you for reading my ted-talk about my opinion nobody cares about
I do enjoy some of the minimalism associated with modern cars – but most do take it too far. Having sat in mid 2010’s F-type the interior works to be honest. Skoda are doing it mostly right – new Superb is quite a good balance. Audi does solid as far integrating screen goes, and Toyota/Honda remain solid as well. Tesla is horrible as much as it’s senseless and blank, Mercedes/BMW went off the rails too it’s just gaudy and you need to carry a microfiber and cleaning agent around to prevent it going full fingerprint/biohazard on all the screens and piano black.
I love my steering wheel buttons controlling important things If a company was like: “this is our best and latest model” I’ll still be like “ok, nice, cool, it looks… uninspired and empty” “Now find me the old one with buttons, gadgets and levers. Thanks…” Them: “the old ones costs more because we don’t make it anymore, and they’re in high demand” Gee I wonder why the old is in high demand and not your new shiny plastic junk.
As much as I hate Elon and think that Tesla makes crappy cars, let’s be honest: Basically all modern cars have totally soulless desgins. It’s not just Tesla. And the problem started long before there were any Teslas on the roads. Also, let’s be real: Desginwise, cars from the 90s also were a step back compare to those from the 80s. And the ones from the 80s were a step back compared to those from the 70s (especially with lots of metal/chrome parts replaced by plastic ones). Car design really kinda peaked in the 60s. This is simply capitalism. there are two ways to increase profits: Raise prices or cut costs. Most companies do a lot of both nowadays.
The biggest thing not mentioned in the article is just User Interface as a function. Through the 90’s and early 2000’s car companies had mastered designing controls in an intuitive way. Every action was just one button press away and through well thought-out design elements (my favorite is, I had a design book display how Mercedes had 3 buttons resemble a seat where each button toggled the seat heating for that seat element). We could focus on driving and the dashboards helped us in that. The modern touchscreen based cars are quite frankly terrible. The touchscreen can by it’s nature occupy less space than all of these buttons could. And the worst is having to navigate menus and sub-menus for basic tasks. Which differ between car companies.
I don’t mind smaller (10 inch ish) touchscreens to control settings that you set and forget before you go out for a drive (things like steering weight, adjustable dampers etc), but digital gauge clusters, touchscreen everything etc is just bad and cheap design. The only reason manufacturers cling to them is because they’re far cheaper than designing an actual gauge cluster. No third dimension to worry about, just a flat 2D off the shelf screen or something with custom measurements made in ginormous quantities for cheap. They just don’t look good and when you clearly put 0 effort into integrating it into the dash design to begin with (Tesla, Merc, BMW, literally everyone is guilty of this) and just glue the thing onto the dash like an afterthought is it really any wonder people still say the E39 was the best looking saloon ever made inside and out (and still looks modern all things considered)?
I wouldn’t agree with his opinion that cozy interior design language is gone. Lots of manufacturers have been able to implement a big touch screen without getting rid of the nice flowing curves, the soft touch materials, or the warm color palettes of the past. Take a look at Ford, Lincoln, Acura, Jeep, Ram, Chevrolet, Toyota, or Lexus as an example. I think a lot of their car interiors still feel very cozy, even with 1 or 2 big touchscreens. I think the problem of cold minimalistic interiors is more of a problem in new all electric cars rather than just all new cars in general.
Tesla’s interior is not “minimalism”, it’s called “laziness”. A laziness to manufacture buttons, dials, controls and other essentials on car’s operating procedure just to save cost. The decision to remove everything on the controls and put it on touchscreen is basically asking for trouble, because: – It’s s not angled towards the driver so what’s displayed on the screen might be hard to see, depending on the lighting, which means more distractions for the driver by not paying attention on the road (whereas in classic car interior, you can just feel around the dashboard with your hand and operate what you need, especially if it’s already a muscle memory) -In classic car’s interior if someone accidentally spilled their drink or something hit the dashboard, worst case scenario, you had to replace the radio (while still retaining all other functions), or else, you can just wipe it with tissue paper. On Tesla, if anything happened on the touchscreen, you’re basically losing the majority of car’s function (in fact, centralising all systems on a single touchscreen without hard backup is incredibly stupid move, it’s basically designing an unreliable car by making the touchscreen a critical point of failure) -A physical, hard control like buttons, stalks and dials is much more reliable than a touchscreen, that’s on top of redundancy by making everything decentralised (if your radio broke, it’s doesn’t incapacitate other functions). In addition, they’re also cheaper to repair compared to touchscreen When it comes to driving, critical information about the car is crucial, and the “minimalism” should not be applied here.
i’m really fucking happy with how my 09 mazda 3 looks inside. It has 2 phone sized screens in my dashboard, one’s a navi/info i can control with steering wheel buttons and the other’s the radio/ac (simple red LCD) and that uses physical buttons too. I can’t stand those flat blocks with some wood slapped on there and the same boring beige over and over again. Pls don’t act like everybody was using leather (or other fancy materials) all the time for their seats and you also can still get them, they are however not real leather anymore because these days using real leather is evil i guess? Build quality was better (on average) back then and the reliance on electronics in newer cars is annoying.
God the nostalgia and memories of my Famlies Seat Alhambra and later a Seat Altea Freetrack the kinda sh*tty low quality interior was kinda cosy as a kid because it had tables very comfy seats and the Altea even had a small tv and the clatter of the 1.9TDI and 2.0 TDI when where stuck in traffic on the Austria Highway surrounded by Mountains and poured rain on our way to italy was kinda special i dont no why
Whilst I do want a nicer modern car, there is something to be said about old pre 2010 cars that look nicer interior wise. I have a 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee and while externally It isn’t riveting, the interior is nice. It’s not too flashy or screams cheap plastic even if that’s what It mostly consists of. There are nicer models of the GC that have wood grain panels but personally I hate the look of that fake wood grain stuff.
My 2012 Passat is very brown. Like seriously, the paint job is called dark oak metallic, almost everything below the windows is dark brown and everything above that is beige. Everyone asks me, why I chose this over an identical black Passat with black and gray interior, but I just thinks it looks better like this. This entire car looks like the brown answer to black editions and I love it. Makes this extremely bland car a bit more interesting.
I really dislike that old glossy wood look in older cars. And even on premium cars in the 90s they used ugly black plastic for buttons. But I also dislike screen only designs. I think if it was only Tesla it would have been fine. The tech itself is fairly impressive. But everyone even brands like BMW are so desperate to copy cat the startup Tesla. It’s just embarrassing. It screams cost cutting. And everyone want to do the same thing. Big screen little else.
I laugh when people think minimalistic and aesthetic pleasing is good….its fake self of ego.. showing like you are better then others…its the worst place..empty as shell..if nature was like that.. people would hate to see it every day..what makes nature beautiful if u remove mountains,clouds,trees,colors..having a good design and bad should be question but saying have all the important functional buttons on screen..in the name minimalist ic 😂 companies know how too sell this BS..there was time people use to hold companies accountable know people are just weak and afraid..i live in falls sense of world..
A friend at work took me on a quick joyride in a rented Tesla few months ago. It was stupid fast, but the car itself reminded me of a doctor’s office or maybe a mildly trendy airport lounge. It was stark and alien and not comfortable at all. I genuinely preferred the smoky plastic interior of a worn out Civic, complete with swisher wrappers on the floor, cup holders filled with ash, and black ice air freshener dangling from the mirror.
I prefer a car that’s a balance of both. For example, the new 2024 e-class looks like a space shuttle which isn’t a bad thing but I’m not a fan of it. However the 2023 e-class and older models have the smaller but wide screen that spans across half the dash. There’s several buttons to use and you can choose between using the touch screen or touch pad to navigate through the screen. That was peak interior right there for me.
I want ban on touchscreens in cars unless its only use is extra information and everything else has physical buttons. When I got my driver’s license many years ago I almost hit a lady on a cross walk while switching a song on radio while driving. I still remember that lady’s angry face and how scared I was that I almost caused someone physical harm. It was a radio with buttons a and it had this dimple on play/pause button like you have on f and j keys on keyboards, so you can feel it without witching. For upcoming days I wouldn’t touch radio or climate controls while driving, only when parked out of fear. But I also just sat in car every day and learn to do those things without looking at radio and climate controls, then I went to country roads a d practice there while driving within a week or so I had it, I’ve never had to look at radio or A/C controls ever again. You can save radio station without perusal, usually it’s just pressing and holding number button for 10sec. Like what else do you need ? I don’t have a car now so i have no idea what’s it like in the new once but it looks damn annoying. I hated and still do those no click turn signals and that was considered innovation somehow…
Personally, i love the latest Honda Civic hybrid’s interior the most and only old saabs with the night panels can come close to beating it. Yeah it’s minimalistic by 90s and 00s standards, but 2 things worth noting is that it’s 2024, minimalistic design is not that bad anymore as they are carefully thought for lines as opposed to just lines, and Honda managed to use those lines correctly to make a sleek design that despite little premium materials are used, feels premium.
As a tesla driver I heavily didagree. I had an old nissan and I get liking a speedo, dials and knobs. However ask yourself do I really need an individual button for it that sucks to use while driving? So many people complain that using a screen is so tidius well guess what, that’s what voice commands are for. Also tesla allows you to programm the button on the steering wheel to do whatever you like so if you really need something you can have it. In terms of the dash tesla allows you to customize the interior any way you like there are dozens of aftermarket parts you can add. Most people look at it through a ice lense but forget to realize the customization aspect. Same with the cybertruck sure from the factory it may look bland but once people get in their hands and add some mods it becomes something unique. Judging by the comments nobody here has even tried them so I just wanted to share my thoughts if you wish to engage in civil argument be my guest. If not leave your petty insults somewhere else.
I dont want to be a tesla stan, but i feel there are many points i wanna “erm actually🤓) So there are many reasons you feel as if older cars are cozier such as, yaknow, nostalgia. I also understand why you believe tesla is boring. thats the point. its the trend to be simplistic. i personally like the minimalist interior. this is simply how the designers believed fit. minimalist exterior, minimalist interior. plain as that
I feel like in general we live in a somewhat “soulless” period. Design are als black, grey and if you’re lucky white. In times where indivualism is at its biggest potential everything is so stream line. I really miss colours and warmth. I also feel like all the gianormous companies try to force on us what we should like and not listening what the customer actually wants. And so many people are already brainwashed by this that they just take it and shove more money into their greedy mouths. I’m always the outsider with not going with the mainstream (only if I like something personally).
not to mention having zero physical buttons doesn’t allow for good muscle memory and in some vehicles you have to go through different sections of the screen to do simple stuff like open the glove box. personally I don’t really care for “safer” vehicles. I think we should make our towns and cities more walkable and invest in public transport. Less cars are safer for the roads and the general environment.
Doesn’t the intro basically admit that you’re going into this from a nostalgic perspective, refusing to be non-biased about this analysis? Especially seeing that you have something positive to say about every old interior featured in this article when, let’s be honest, if tesla released something like the subaru xt interior they’d get laughed at into oblivion. A lot of these aren’t cool or classy, they’re just old.
It’s all about money and safety. Hard to implement modern safety features with a car full of interior embellishments. Costs extra too. The corpos figured no one would stop buying cars over it, as no one really values aesthetics anymore as much as safety and fuel efficiency, so in comes the cold, hard plastic.
It seems to me that they went the minimalistic route not because of aesthetic. It’s a lot cheaper to put one big screen on the dash board instead of dials and knobs. No need to worry about designing a functioning and good looking dash board. Just make one software that take care of everything. The worst part about this is that cars are not getting any more affordable, while the end product makes you feel like driving a toy car.
I feel like im in a fuckin saloon when driving my stupid ass Jeep designed by italian pasta makers and it still feels more alive than anything tesla ever did. If i would ever won a car like that in a lottery i couldnt be more happier and i would just sell it imediately to buy something that roars and stinks like a real car lmao
I drive a 1988 Lincoln town car and a 1998 vw jetta radio controls and climate controls should be mandatory physical dials or slides or whatever just as long as they are reliable built to last and be rebuilt and keep youre eyes on the road I find modern screens very distracting especially at night even a small one
A car, around a driver, is not really the place for minimalism. Its a control station and it needs to have practicality as it primary design feature. The way its going id not be surprised the put the steering wheel and pedals in the touch screen. And yeah Tesla looks souless inside and it horrible to drive. I hate taking my eyes off road to concentrate on touching a part of a screen. Give me a switch, knob or button where i can reach out and operate it by feel
minimalism has been a plague on humanity for far too long, give me colour, show me what is happening behind that plastic panel, give it a unique shape, based off of it’s use, i cannot develop any more hatred for the designers and consumers who genuinly think that it is a good idea, I want to live in an intricate world, not a white hospital with beige accents
I love that Tesla’s exist and are trying to be futuristic and modern. Even if you never plan on buying one, pushing innovation and technology to the limit is the American way. If so many people truly don’t like them or see value in them, voting with your wallet is the best thing you can do. And for cars you don’t like, it’s free! At the end of the day, consumers control the market, so if enough people spoke up, I’m sure companies would be on board since they’re all profit driven.
I think it was a massive mistake letting electronics essentially take control of cars as a whole. On top of the points made on this excellent article, I don’t think we’re far off from monthly subscriptions for different driving modes (Eco, Normal, Sport). Kinda like how HP printers now charge you monthly to use what you already paid for.
Born in 03′ but I’m poor so my family has always had older cars. I remember growing up people would always dog on the 80’s – 90’s cars for being ugly and boxy but I love them now lol. First car I ever bought was a 98′ Sebring convertable and you can start to see the minimalist influences with the grey and plastic-y interior, but it still had some personality to it. Especially with that purple/maroon finish on the outside 👌 But it still had leather seats and a nice practical dash with no weird screens or hyper-minimalism. After I sold that, I bought an 06′ Jeep Liberty and it surprisingly has a less futuristic look than the Sebring. A shiny cobalt blue finish with an interior of tan leather seats and matching vinyl console just looks really nice together. And the dash is a little minimalist but still practical and less digital than the Sebring (probably because an SUV is supposed to be more practical than a convertible). But even those two cars are amazing compared to the current ones. These new ones look so depressing, have no character, and makes the car more difficult and less safe to use. I am not looking forward to the day when 2000’s and previous cars become scarce and all the modern monstrosities take their places
I own a 1989 500SE Mecedes Benz with premerger AMG parts on it. The interior is absolutely incredible. Everytime I drive it I feel like a baller, and the seats are so comfortable I could drive it all day. Every convience item I need is within close reach and logically placed. Its just an incredibly beauitful and thoughtful interior. I own two other modern performance luxury cars and they dont even compare
i remember playing that exact route in pokemon sapphire on my way home from a summer vacation. My friend and I where young, and had never completed a pokemon game. We wanted to see if we could do it together. My game cartridge had a flat battery, so my friend and i kept the game powered on for days, making sure the console charged throughout the nights. When we had to head home, we used a charger plugged into the cigarette lighter in my family’s crystler minivan to keep the game alive. Nearing the end of our 2 hour car journey, grinding the levels of our pokemon, my family made a stop to say hi to my grandparents. I don’t remember if we ever won that rival battle or if the DS died unplugged in the heating car. That route made an impression, and i loved that minivan’s interior. Nice article!
While Tesla is absolutely pushing EV technology, they continue to cheap out on the interior. It has nothing to do with minimalism anymore but rather just cheaping out. No on the column, not buttons or knobs, no dashboard, everything has to be done through a giant tablet. Why? Because developing a function on the tablet is cheaper than developing it on its own. I accepted that infotainment will be touchscreen with my one hope for a volume knob, but to have to change the gears on the car using a touchscreen is just insane. Everything is locked behind menus making the driver take their eyes off the road for simple things like climate control. All this because they’re too cheap to make a button or knob. I can’t believe this level of minimalism and cheapness is street legal. It’s not about minimalism or design, it’s solely about cutting cost.
Breaking the will of the consumers is a long road that might take more than one generation. First, quality drops. Then comes performance, and finally aesthetics become nonexistent. Before you know it, your company is selling hundred-thousand dollar bland plastic husks to thousands of consumers who don’t know any better. Bump in the road comes when nobody can afford your cheap crap either way so you have to close factories to stay afloat.
So true. Look at 1970s and 1980s American luxobarges – absolute beauty. Everything designed for comfort and ease of use. Everything within arm’s reach, plush seats, colorful wood paneling and tons of color options inside. Every single one was different! I have a 1989 Ford F250 and the entire interior is completely blue with one wood trim ring around the gauge cluster. It’s so fun to look at, and everyone that sees it thinks it’s cool.