The next thing will be: I can't toggle my AC because AWS is down.

Everything after THIS was a mistake.

1985 Nissan 300ZX

I’d argue split climate for the driver and passenger seat is the only important missing innovation.

Hard disagree with this. Climate control has become a must for me since the early 2000s. Set and forget is always better than fiddling with things. And now my current car has three levels of automatic so it doesn't go full blast at the beginning, it's amazing.

This should be mandatory by law. Touch screens should not exist in cars for drivers.

Por que no los dos?

I almost agree with this, but I prefer just one more advancement over this: the thermostat kind. I like to just set the temperature so I don't have to keep adjusting it.

Nothing fancy, no touchscreen bs, just simple knobs. I was perfectly happy with the thermostat feature in my old 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix GT.

So long as the vents have analog dials that manipulate how much air is coming out. Otherwise I'd have to be pro left/right temperature difference. When it's 100 degrees out side and someone says the AC is to cold it blows my mind

I disagree. I like that I can set my temperature to an exact number and the car will automatically adjust to that temp. We should have stopped there. No need for touch screens. That’s was the holy grail of temperature control.

Wrong. This has no ads. How will I become a tech billionaire if I can't disable your breaks until you watch my ad?

Yours is a decade or two past the true ideal. Not pictured: the 5-inch sliding control that mechanically adjusted between recirculated and exterior air and the drivers and passengers pull-knob by the feet that let exterior air flow in directly. A heavenly touring experience.

Also on the one pictured in your post, I find those lit press to toggle ac and def buttons with indicator lights wore out over time and required a ton of force to switch on the cars I've had with them.

I've got an old car and it's still like this. I don't look forward to the day I have to get a new car.

I want to set my hvac to a temp and let it sort out whether it should heat or cool.

Except backup cameras. Everything else is bad

How fast do you want it, how hot do you want it, where do you want it

Only missing a night picture with the red LED backlight on

Yes the temp sensor is a worthy addition to the formula. Imagine fiddling with your 80s/90s A/C running on ye olde R-12 to get the temperature right lol.

My honda civic has this perfectly balanced (this is a stock photo):

First gen tundra controls really are excellent. They and used mechanical linkages for the diverter and for the hot/cold control. The only problem is the knobs get loose over time and can break or fall off when you accellerate.

Ever notice how social politics got all fucked up when these went away?

However you probably don't miss the manual choke valve, double clutching, hand winded starter crank, or even window cranks.

There was really no golden period of car controls. It went fluidly from one kind of shit to another kind of shit.

I still have this. I can adjust all of it without ever looking at knobs while driving. Good luck doing that with touch bs.

Hard disagree. Physical buttons with a digital temperature and split controls for left and right (and maybe rear as well). Automatic climate control that also does the fans. I had all of this on a car in 2010, and it was perfect - I could just leave the temperature set at what I wanted all the time, and the fans would blow hard if it needed to heat or cool significantly to get there.

Some manufacturer's, eg Volvo, don't automatically adjust the fans, which is wank. But nothing is as wank as touch screen controls - I fucking hate it when you're trying to aim at a button, then as you go in to press the car bumps and you completely miss.

This works well and it's not a hill I'll defend but automatic control of temperature is better when it's done well. In the UK we have a culture of driving cars with manual transmission and I've never understood it when automatic transmissions exist and are pretty good. People wanna feel like they are in control of stuff.