The newer controls are more affordable. In the case of the non-button "buttons" a chip and some megaohm resistors and a piece of plastic with some labels screen printed on it replace a whole bunch of custom-designed injection-molded buttons with special labels which have to be applied with sub-millimeter accuracy, and switches for them which have to be able to survive hundreds of thousands of cycles in an extreme temperature environment. Only in the most basic vehicles which still have manual climate controls, if such a thing even exists any more, are the buttons potentially cheaper because they are attached directly to functions.

I had an A8 Quattro. It was a fairly marvelous driving machine when it was working well enough for that, but it was a horribly overcomplicated rolling nightmare when it comes to system design. It had a vacuum system about as stupid as the one on the infamous 300ZX TT and the electrical system had a truly peerless level of unneeded complexity designed apparently only to make the vehicle easier to assemble. There was a sealed-ish plastic "e-box" containing the principal control units and a bunch of junction plugs which then connected through to a related box inside in the center console, into which interior harness components would plug. This is unnecessary and only adds a lot of cost and points of failure. Put the fucking computers inside the cabin where they belong (because as hostile as environment as it can be, it's still less so than the engine bay) and you don't need any of this bullshit. Even Nissan got (and gets) that one right.

The Germans know how to make an amazing vehicle, but they are today apparently uninterested in making it reliable. Maybe Porsche is better, I can't speak to that brand.

Yes, you need the windows to do that to get a good seal when the doors are frameless. It is not strictly necessary, but it reduces wind noise.

People only think there's something special about BMW or Mercedes because they have not worked on cars. Once you have worked on a couple dozen different vehicles and gotten to know how they are put together you realize there is nothing at all special about modern BMWs or Mercedes compared to other modern cars. After the Lexus LS ate their luxury car lunch they all have been relentless cost cutters, but even before that they were starting to worsen the value proposition and depend on their logos and interiors to sell cars. The interiors matter, but if the underpinnings aren't as special as they are, they also aren't sufficient.

The Japanese figured out much better ways to design and build cars than the Germans, and it has showed since the nineties, and it still shows today. German cars are overwrought, with unnecessary complexities in basic components like electrical harnesses which cause more problems than they're worth, instead of overbuilt like they were in the 80s. This isn't even so much about mass because the W126 wasn't very heavy at all, it's about design iteration and spending money perfecting parts and systems. They don't even care about mass any more except for the most special or most budget cars, everything else is now heavy AF.

German cars aren't special since the nineties. The last time they overbuilt them was in the eighties. The W126 Mercedes was the last great S class. The W140 was a rolling electrical failure. Well, sometimes it rolled anyway. BMW followed exactly the same trajectory. They had to learn to complete with the Japanese after the LS.

Apparently not. Otherwise, consumers would not buy all those additional features. Some people calling themselves car guys have claimed for a long time that too much technology in a car is a bad thing. But that's not what consumer demand tells the car companies. And if you look at statistics, car break downs per mile driven are in a constant decline. A 1970ies car at 100,000 miles was ridden down. A 2020ies car at 100,000 miles is just well driven in. Yes, people could fix the 1970ies car themselves. Just buy the manual and the spare part, and off you go. But that was a necessity, not a feature. Today, people want their Apple Carplay and their Android Auto. And that means you need a computer as your head unit. People want cruise control and good mileage, and that means electronic injection. Lambda catalysts have reduced car emissions, and unleaded fuel has severally brought down violent crime numbers 20 years later. This also required electronic injection. People don't want to crank down their windows, and that means electric window controls. People like their stability control, so the car does not go off the road uncontrolled if you make a steering mistake. People like anti lock brakes. Airbags and pretensioners have brought down road fatalities from their heights in the 1970ies.

Yes, you now need to be a learned car specialist to service a car. But you need service far less often, and your car is a better car in all other aspects.

I got in a car with a friend 2 days ago. It was his wife's car and the 2 of us couldn't even figure out how to turn the radio off with the idiotic screen. And the funny part is that a few weeks previous he hosted a few students from Munich (home of BMW) in his own car and they were so surprised to see a car with buttons that they took selfies in front of them !!!

Shut up and take my money!!

That's "wow" as in - "Wow, they've spent all those billions and this dreck is the best they can come up as a sales pitch for their AI product?"

The Musical!

Having a regulation on the books and zero enforcement is still a regulatory problem.

Yes but you have to average over the population. There are plenty of people who have recurring issues. My nextdoor neighbour has an autistic kid who creates ... difficulties (the kind that saw a computer yeeted through a closed bedroom window and down to the street below kind of difficulties), and the other kid has medical problems that often lead to seizure. I would say she averages a 911 call a month alternating between police and ambulance.

I've called 911 multiples times, never for me, never at home. Mostly in response to witnessing an accident or medical emergency. Interestingly any kind of public emergency may actually net multiple 911 calls for the same thing. I saw an old guy collapse on a street corner once, pulled out my phone and was calling 911 (okay 112 I don't live in crazyland) while running towards him, I got there the same time as someone else who also had their phone in their hand who came from around the corner.

They are held to the same standard. Where software has the capability to burn down your house or kill you it's usually subject to some kind of vendor provided redress - usually recall. There have been plenty of software related recalls over the years, but no one gives a shit if your laptop bluescreens while you're posting on slashdot.

Yes ... 12V batteries. What's the "news" part here? Some car companies use lithium, some use lead acid. They are all smaller than standard car batteries, and all EVs are dependent on them.

There's a few misunderstandings in your post.

Firstly there's not a few 10s of amps from the 12V battery. They are capable of 100s to 1000s depending on engine size. The energy density also isn't trash at all, the battery is quite massive. For a fun experiment you can build a welder out of an old car battery.

I'm not sure what you are talking about with your foundational assumption. There's nothing different there between 12V and EVs traction batteries.

There's no difference between engineering culture between 12V and EVs. In fact it's often the same engineers given most EV makers also make ICE cars.

There's nothing "antique" about the 12V battery. In fact they are present in EVs as well, and they are still lead acid batteries. Most EV systems including the DC-DC converter rely heavily on the 12V battery, just ask Hyundai what happens when that battery stops charging.

Except that's exactly what you do. The difference is there's only one thing the 600v battery supplies. You can slap as many things as you want on your 12V circuit without a care in the world and without creating a fire hazard because one of the foundational principles of design of any electrical system is that each system is designed in such a way to protect itself. There's a reason why your car has 20-40 fuses in it, why literally every component has its own fuse, why there are master fuses, why the alternator has a fuse, etc. At any point in circuit design you should be able to slap anything in parallel anywhere without ever causing a fire. A first year uni student can meet that design requirement.

Nearly all vehicle fires are individual component fires not related to the batteries.

It could certainly just be a numbers game; tons of ICE vehicles out there; or whether there's an issue with accumulated cultural assumptions and engineering priorities.

I can at least imagine that there's a difference in mindset between "this is a 12v lead acid starter battery; it'll put out a solid few tens of amps for the starter motor assuming it is working correctly; but its energy density is kind of trash and we mostly prefer not to dump additional systems onto it, especially when that exposes them to the slightly gross output of the alternator" and "This battery has been designed to fully provide for all energy requirements of a vehicle; if you displease it it will probably kill you and then burn vigorously for a day or two. A foundational assumption of all systems that need energy is that they'll be connected back to it in one way or another because there aren't other energy sources here."

Not like electric vehicle designers couldn't/don't make mistakes, and certainly some of their mistakes burn with the really exciting commitment of a large light metal fire; but the engineering culture around an ICE vehicle seems much more likely to produce a string of individually reasonable, collectively dangerous, "c'mon, it's just one little 12v system" requests that get bolted onto a fairly antique battery without too much broader thought; while analogous feature demands in a fully electric vehicle will either be judged high energy enough to potentially get brought into the high voltage wiring(which, barring gross negligence across the design is treated like it can and will kill you) or totaled in to some low voltage system budget that will be handled by a DC-DC converter designed with actual care because going from 600v to 12v isn't something you do as casually as just slapping another 12v requirement in parallel with the other stuff on the 12v battery and calling it good.

...and name it Starfleet Academy?