I haven’t seriously considered the Volvo (just not a brand I’m familiar with). What was it the reviewers particularly disliked about it, and what changed your mind after you tried it?
Yuck 
Was there actually some segment of drivers who liked a touchscreen-focused driving experience…?
Every person I’ve spoken to about them disliked them, but maybe that’s just my social circles. Even the Tesla owner was like “it’s not that bad”, but that’s not the same thing as actually praising it.
My wife has a friend with an R1T, and they seem to really like it. The extent of my experience is loading/unloading things out of the bed. So my review is that it’s exactly the same as all of the other small-bed pickups on the market today.
My main reason to want an R2 is because the only other way to go down in reliability from a Tesla would be maybe Vinfast, and I don’t think they’re widely available in the US.
The point of my long essay below is to encourage people to not dismiss a car just because it lacks some physical controls. Managing the on screen controls is difficult for two reasons: poor design of the UI, and that you as a driver will need to change your habits. One of those you have no control over, and the other can be extremely difficult for most people. If the UI is good enough, and you can adapt, then screen controls can become a non-issue.
We’ve all heard the many reasons people prefer tactile controls over screens; no need to repeat those at me, because I mostly agree. Let me offer a few tips on living with screen based car controls.
First is rely on the automated features as much as possible. Automatic lights, automatic wipers, automatic climate control, automatic seat heaters, and anything else it will do. 95% of the time lights and wipers are not something I worry about, the car just takes care of it.
Climate control is a bit of an odd one, because using it effectively violates everything you’ve learned about how to manage a thermostat. We find the best temperature is 68, even though that is not the actual Fahrenheit we’d be comfortable at in the house. For most drives I never have to touch it, so the lack of buttons makes no difference.
When, for instance the hot sun is on me, and I do need to adjust it, there is just a quick tap to lower or raise the temperature. Lowering it will make it blow more, which will cool me from the sun. If I’m cold because it’s blowing on me too much, I just raise the set point.
I almost never have to go several layers deep into the screen to manually adjust climate stuff. Other than turning on the rear seat heaters, which are not automatic for some reason.
The next tip is to do as much as necessary before starting to drive. Seems like an obvious one, but sometimes I wonder… I’ll set the destination if I’m using navigation. I’ll start my podcast playing, or music streaming, and then I don’t need to mess with the radio anymore.
So when I’m driving I’m using the pedals and steering wheel (obviously), the turn signal stalk, the dial on the steering wheel to control volume and next track, and maybe tapping the screen once or twice to adjust the climate. The presence or lack of additional buttons makes no difference.
Fwiw, that’s how i felt about the mini, but i chickened out and didn’t buy it because of the weird interface.
Car manufacturers like it because it’s cheaper. People expect a screen anyway, and those buttons are expensive.
See my long post above for my Stockholm syndrome explanation of it not being that bad.
Yes, screens and touch buttons have replaced physical buttons on washing machines and other household appliances because they are cheaper.
That being said, my friend, the Tesla fan boy, likes the on-screen buttons, and that the interface improves over time. I don’t like to learn to use a new car, and the idea of having the car’s interface change after I buy it is a huge negative to me, but i understand why he likes it.
(I’ve been writing a lot about my friends the Tesla fan boy and the EV early adopter/enthusiast. Just to be clear, they are different people. The EV enthusiast bought an early Tesla, an upgrade from her aftermarket-modified non-commercial EV, because it was the first regular production car with real EV range. But she never loved it.)
Lol, you simul-posted that exact thing not a minute after my comment. “echo-reply” indeed 
As far as touchscreens go, I think the Teslas might be in a “best of the worst” kind of situation. I think culturally we (as Americans or Westerners) have a different view of UIs than the Asian manufacturers typically do (in terms of information density, for example). So maybe Tesla can afford to actually spend labor and money on UI design. It seems like an afterthought for many other brands — I think many of them don’t even in-house their UIs, instead outsourcing or getting an OEM stack that they barely customize.
On my Subie, example, the automatic wipers don’t work all that well (they technically exist, but were not helpful in real-world rainy driving). The automatic seat heaters are not customizable enough; they’re too warm for me and never warm enough for my partner. The automatic climate control is frequently uncomfortable because it’ll start blowing in my face when I don’t want it to, or turn off the foot heater, or suddenly turn off recirculation and let in all the disgusting gas/diesel fumes (rural Oregon doesn’t smog and has a lot of trucks). It’s the combination of “automatic” + “non-customizable” + “unclear algorithmic behavior” that together take away not just control but predictability from the driver. Surprise is not something I want to feel while driving, and it’s what frequently happens when we rely on the auto functions.
That’s not inherent to the design of these things (like the auto lights & brights actually do work well enough, as does the cruise control). And maybe Tesla does it better for the creature comforts, but Subaru does not. Feels like “me-too” box-ticking rather than actually thoughtful design.
I’m hoping the Rivian will be better on that front.
Thanks for that. I hadn’t realized the pre-26 models’ interiors were that different. I am looking forward to a bunch of the things that cars can do now that my old one can’t like adaptive cruise, and not looking forward to some of the other things like scolding me for looking at the fields instead of the road when I drive out to the farm.
The squarish wheel on the Subie is actually one of the points making me lean that way over the Toyota. When I sat in the BZ it wasn’t difficult to find a position where I could see the cluster over the wheel, but the flat top wheel would increase the freedom there.
But actually I’ve just recently learned that there’s a more substantive difference between the Uncharted and C-HR than there is between the BZ/Solterra. Toyota just had a press event which lead to a bunch of driving reviews of the C-HR (and BZ Woodland, if anyone’s interested in that), and while I didn’t see any reviewer comment on it the C-HR does not get X-Mode, just the same Eco/Normal/Snow modes that the FWD variants of all the other cars in this family get. The Uncharted does get X-Mode. This isn’t all that big a deal as I’m not intending to go offroading, but a typical winter here features a storm or two that leads to deep snow that doesn’t get removed from side streets and alleys for a couple days, and it seems silly to pass up the option of gaining a step up in being able to deal with that. I mean, sure, my Fit with Hakkepelitas has only been defeated by snowfall 2-3 times over the years, and the odds of me absolutely having to be somewhere during a storm are pretty low, and I’m sure the C-HR AWD in snow mode with snow tires will be a big step up already, but it still seems silly to leave extra capability on the table by not going with the Subie. (That is, assuming I choose one of them over various non-Toyobaru options)
To be clear, I’m not sure if the width of the center console has actually changed at all between the years. The dual wireless chargers are a much better design than the stupid “single giant charger under a cover” of the 25, at least. And it looks like they did keep the open space under the chargers, so that might help with the leg situation. Anyhow, I’ll test drive an Uncharted as soon as it’s available and report back here then.
That’s optional, thankfully. We turned it off after our second trip. It’s a useless gimmick that doesn’t understand “sunglasses” and frequently has false alarms.
Unfortunately, the Subaru has a LOT of annoying false alarms. We’ve never once been able to park in a regular parking space without triggering the proximity warnings, even though the sensitivity is set to lowest already.
The in-cabin reverse warning chime can’t be turned off normally, but it sounds exactly like the seatbelt warning chime.
Grocery bags on the back seats will trigger rear passenger seat belt warnings.
Some of these things are programmable with a special cable (connecting a laptop to the OBDII port) and pirated Toyota programming software. Or some dealers may be willing to do that for you, but not all.
In general, the in-cabin automatic software is very dumb, and it’s clear Subaru is quite inexperienced with properly tuning such things.
On that point, yes, the instrument cluster is relatively visible. However, one of the things I dislike about the Subaru in particular is that you cannot keep the external cameras & 360 cam always on (you can in some other brands). This makes things like gauging a tight turn more difficult, or trying to see exactly how far you away from that rock/pothole/ice patch. The hardware is there but the software won’t let you take advantage of it. There is an automatic mode that will show it sometimes (based on deceleration), but it isn’t customizable and isn’t smart enough. Again, one of those things where the automaker thought “oh, we’ll just make it automatic and simple”, but in reality it’s too dumb and can’t be manually controlled, making it more often useless than not.
For what it’s worth, X-Mode seems pretty gimmicky to me. Our older cars never had it or needed it. We did try it for an hour or so in the Solterra, but it only worked at very low speeds (< 20ish MPH?) anyway, and didn’t really seem to make a very noticeable difference either way. We’ve never re-enabled it again since then, in snow/ice/mud or otherwise.
Isn’t X-Mode just Subaru’s marketing term for their AWD & braking profiles? Can’t you accomplish similar setups just by individually turning on/off traction control, ABS, etc.?
I think AWD by itself already gives you a huge advantage over FWD in terms of not getting stuck. Good tires give you even more. Beyond that, momentum plays a huge role anyway — just BEV-lurch yourself out of predicaments We always carry a snow shovel and traction pads anyway.
I don’t think there’s anything X-Mode can do that the other things in combination can’t. It’s certainly not a feature I’d pay extra money for were it not included. Looking at the X-Mode features, it seems like most of those would be useless anyway in a BEV where dual motors and immediate engine torque and adjustable regen braking can all override the standard ICE X-Mode usefulness. Adjusting the limited-slip differential might still be useful, but if you’re stuck, waiting a second or two extra isn’t going to make a difference. I dunno.
But on the other hand, there are a few AWD YouTube channels that show convoluted hilly setups where X-Mode can make a difference… it just never has in our limited experience.
And also… does the Toyota have any ADVANTAGES? As far as I can tell, they’re just strictly inferior versions of the Subaru, and priced higher. Brand loyalty aside, why would someone choose the Toyota variants?
The “minimalist” UI. They also ding it on aspects that don’t matter as much to me: others in class have longer range (more like 300) and faster fast charge. I’m not road tripping with this car. Not great storage. As long as it can carry groceries we cool. They also placed it as expensive to its competitors.
And while I would prefer more physical buttons and haptic feedback, and basic information like speed right in front of me, the UI is actually an easier experience than in the others I’ve used. With enough on steering wheel.
Not thrilled that the built in maps and all of the native google is free for now only. After four years it’s $200 a year. Of course Apple CarPlay will work after.
Price after incentives is in the same ballpark but feels much more premium for the money.
Thanks! I’ll have to try that too.
Very low speeds are exactly the scenario. Post- or mid-blizzard deep drifts, you should have just stayed at home but you’re an idiot and thought it didn’t look that bad. Now you just want to get to the end of the block to turn around and head back, but that’s easier said than done. There’s frozen icy ruts underneath the foot of fresh snow, a big drift piled up ahead of you, and the only vehicle that’s been down the street before you were dumb enough to turn onto it was a lifted F150 that obviously didn’t push enough snow out of the way to keep your car from dragging the entire undercarriage on the snow.
Regular winter driving where the most you need is the ability to pull away at that slightly uphill icy intersection before the sanding truck has been by, sure, all you need are decent snow tires. And for the bad weather, of course, discretion is the better part of valour. But when you find yourself in that situation, having the ability to send the power to the one wheel in 4 that actually has a smidgen of traction isn’t something to sneeze at.
Sadly, no. Exterior - interior - features were all class leaders in shopping but at the time (September of 2024) none were available to drive within 50 miles and my wife fell in love with a top end Rav4 prime that was in stock. And since we were still waiting on our new panel and other level two charging work…
It’s all in my AWD EV thread.
My C-max had a proximity warning that went off every time i parked in my garage. At first, it annoyed me. Then i realized that the frequency changed depending on how close i got to the wall, and i could use it like sonar to park very precisely. I’ve never been bothered by the proximity sensor, since. (Although the one on this car isn’t as useful.)
Fyi, the Niro doesn’t have 360, but it has decent back up cameras, and a physical button to turn it on when you aren’t backing up. I think it may only work at low speeds, but that’s when you want it.
Yeah, my Kia wants me to use KIA connect, but it’s a paid subscription after a year. I’m really annoyed that they are locking basic features behind a paid subscription.
Long day of test drives with my wife!
Started out with the Toyota BZ. Just felt huge. Neither of us impressed.
Ioniq 5. By far the best UI experience. Happily no native google crap. Didn’t feel as huge but more space than we’d ever need. Would need to order in the limited model to get heated seats and moon roof.
Back to the Volvo place and the salesman I dealt with was busy so the manager took us out. He really didn’t know the car and explained the UI horribly. What was simple with the salesman yesterday was a confused mess. She was not as impressed as I was.
Seems like the Ioniq5 wins! 
Yeah, i might have liked the Leaf more if the salesman had known the UI. He literally didn’t know how to clear an error message that covered the dash.
Sorry, which car are you referring to here?
This one? Future EV/Hybrid Plans, AWD edition!
I totally missed that somehow. I didn’t know we had so many concurrent EV threads. Cool!
That might be a good way to think about it. I’ll try to reprogram my brain since I can’t reprogram the car 
Hyundai really came out of nowhere with their EVs, huh? I just wish the AWD trims were a little more available and affordable.
And the KIA’s are almost the same. The differences between the Kia Niro and the Hyundai Kona are mostly cosmetic. They had the same annoying control screen, for instance. The one big difference to me between the Kona and the Niro is that the Kona has more range and the Kia has more power. I assume that was a marketing decision. I cared a lot more about merging into traffic than about how far i can go.
The 2026 Kona was going to have 360 cameras, but i didn’t want to wait for that.
I feel like you must have been driving a lemon Kona or something, because I drive mine in eco mode and it has more than enough power. I never have any trouble merging onto the highway and I’m always first off the line after a red light. Mine has plenty of zip.