It is hard to express how much I disagree with you, but I'll take a stab:

> What is safer: one hand on the wheel or two?

Unless you are riding in a derby, in high wind conditions, or on ice, this is a bad argument. In those conditions, incidentally you want as little distraction as possible, the fact I can't turn what tiny center console I have off is a source of endless frustration...

One hand is fine in most situations, and you need to be able to operate the car, not have your hands glued to the steering wheel.

> They really don't though, not while you're driving.

They really do, though. THERE ARE MORE USES FOR HEATING AND COOLING THAN JUST CLIMATE CONTROL, DEAR BRAINDEAF ELON MUSK.

And I don't mean just fogging windows, although like you admit at least that's almost impossible to automate well in all conditions.

> That draws me to something that is still almost always manual when it really should never be. Headlights!

Completely disagree - most sane implementations are keep them on automatically, with the option to force them on. I'll keep mine on a slightly overcast day just because its more safe, while the automatic setting completely fails to turn them on.

And, flip side, there are numerous situations where you want to keep your lights off not on - I can agree there should be maybe be some alert to the driver if the system detects, say, driving over 5 mph and no lights on, but that's about all the automation I want.

> We've identified what, maybe a handful of them? Wipers, defogger, hazard lights, parking brake, door locks, door levers/handles, window controls, gear selector, maybe mirror adjustment, maybe fog lights if equipped on your car?

Lol that's more than a handful. I'll add some - seat control (for crashes, sun in the eyes), heat/cooling override controls, brakes, pedal, disabling/enabling cruise and lane keep (it breaks, gets obstructed, driver gets tired or bored, or just wants to change their driving style to be safer, or more aggressive as traffic may require), audio/call controls on the steering wheel (or dash, whichever you prefer), so you can take or make emergency calls, or turn off the loud music you were using to stay awake to focus on traffic. Throw one in I haven't seen - a bluetooth pair button would be nice.

> Meanwhile the thing I actually do use on the center console, navigation, suffers from having all these physical buttons that never get pressed.

I can agree center consoles are poorly designed, the ones that have just enough for operation and nothing else (analog radio control or scroll equiv) are better than the touchscreens which always are awkward to operate, smudge, break, and/or eventually just die.

> That "TUNE" knob though? Its probably only been turned a few times the entire time I've owned the car. I set the presets for the radio stations I listen to and can change those with the steering controls.

I guess you have never crossed a state boundary and gone channel hunting. Seek is useful, but you can't configure the amplitude filtering - I can contiue to listen to a station half coming in or I can lose that completely with seek, get whatever nonsense local popular music channel.

Then there's your whole attitude that only a machine can make you more safe. Humans have lapses in judgement, sure, but when machines do, nobody can tell it to "snap out of it". Automatic things are nice, but I should always be able to EASILY override them, otherwise its like I stuck my hand in a blender with no way to stop the proverbial blade, except managing to smash through the glass and rip out the plug with my now mangled hand.

Either you just don't have much realworld experience, or you spent too much money on e.g. a Tesla and can't admit that despite the conveniences, they are horrible designs.