There's a physical button to turn on the wiper. It just doesn't have the full range of controls for speeds and on/off as physical controls as the automatic wipers are supposed to be used instead. The automatic wipers aren't particularly good though which is why people end up fiddling with the controls. The touchscreen interface isn't too bad, it only takes a single touch, but it's not like the tactile experience of a physical stalk with all the wiper options.

The article claims "In this case, the driver had to navigate software menus and then choose from one of five settings, after touching an icon."

He didn't have to do that, that's another way to reach the same place. If you press the physical button that turns on the wipers the software menu is displayed as well and it only takes one touch to do anything else.

This sounds like a bad UI. They should really follow the Zen of Python principle "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it."

I wouldn't say that problem exists, there's a single UI that gets brought up from either the physical button that also runs the wipers once or the on screen button. The UI is very obvious it just forces you to look at it. Having the UI in the top of the screen would probably be a good idea so that more of the road stays in your field of vision.

I think a lot of these systems should definitely have buttons besides the touch screens so you can physically feel them out and touch them after you glance quickly, cause touching a touch screen involves looking at the screen, unlike pressing a button.

But he didn't have to press the physical button. The wipers start automatically, right?

The automatic wipers are famously bad because Tesla decided to save money on the sensor and try and detect rain with image processing instead. Even after many updates they're still not great. So it's perfectly possible to need to turn on the wipers manually in some situations but the physical button is by far the most convenient way to do that.

What happens if the wipers start automatically, but you need to adjust the speed?

The wipers have 5 modes: Off, 1, 2, 3, Auto. Auto will keep wiping as long as it figures there's water on the windshield. If you want a different speed, you need to go into the touchscreen.

If you want a single wipe, you can press the button on the steering wheel controls. This would also bring up the touchscreen menu for wiper speed directly, for a 1-touch change. Or 2-touch, if you count the steering wheel stalk button press.

It sounds like it was the setting for frequency of intermittent wiping?

It's your responsibility to buy a car you can operate without causing an accident. If you can't use its wiper interface without losing control, don't buy it.

The same as when people buy power cars which are difficult to drive without training and then oversteer and crash.

I agree with your two sentences, but would add that a driver has a more fundamental must which is to correctly prioritize their attention so as to avoid causing a single-vehicle crash via distraction. Whether it's a two-knob radio, a touchscreen wiper control, swatting at a bee, or handling a sneeze is largely irrelevant as to where the most immediate responsibility for the crash lies, IMO.

What if it’s impossible to see due to the rain?

There is a huge difference between a radio and a wiper control. Wipers are not some optional thing you can ignore for a while, they’re essential for safe driving and should be accessible to the driver without distraction.

> What if it’s impossible to see due to the rain?

Then you turn on the wipers with the button on the stalk, like most cars.

> What if it’s impossible to see due to the rain?

If you can no longer see due to rain, stop the car.

There's a physical button to wipe once. It's definitely possible to operate this car safely with nothing but mechanical controls. The only thing I'd like to be able to assign to the wheel controls are fog lights. It's only when you start trying to use more complex features while driving that some other cars with mechanical controls might work better.

The driver has the option to slow down or fully stop if they cannot safely operate the car.

Maybe you've never driven in flash floods, with hectic traffic and rain volumes that can shift between moderate and severe almost instantly. If you suddenly lose visibility, I think it's much safer to be able to flip your wiper dongle up to max than to slow down or try to pull off the road in an already chaotic traffic situation.

I have. Yes, it would be safer if Tesla provided suitable switches, but absent that - your primary responsibility as driver is to safely control your car and that includes only driving as fast as visibility and road conditions allow. That means stop immediately if your visibility drops to zero, be it that your wipers can’t keep up or that you’re driving an unfamiliar car and you cannot find the wiper control. What would you do if you ran out of wiper fluid and mud or salt obscured your windshield? Blow through it? Turn on the hazard flashers if you need to.

Your first priority is to keep the car safely on the road and not run into any obstacle. Everything else takes second priority. If you fail to do that, you’ve failed your task as driver, you most likely were too fast.

Stopping in the roadway is itself an unsafe condition and you are certainly going to get rear ended, if not cause a massive pile up, particularly when visibility is poor.

Rear ending another car or running into an obstacle because you’re flying blind is not exactly a better option.