By skyforbes 
The air vents are seamlessly integrated into the dashboard, almost invisibly, because Elon Musk didn’t want holes in said dashboard. One of the big draws for Tesla is that it’s a company that thinks differently from the competition, and nowhere else is this more readily apparent than inside the Model 3 itself.
And in lieu of traditional controls, the car has a giant touchscreen mounted smack in the middle of the dashboard, which is where you control most of its functions.
Even the glovebox doesn’t have a physical latch. You have to use the screen to open it up, an annoying and unnecessary extra step. I didn’t know how much I would miss a glovebox latch until it was taken away from me.
The two little scroller buttons on the wheel itself help you navigate certain menu items in on the screen. These scrollers are unmarked, as their functions can vary. It’s almost like a video game controller. The button layout never changes, but depending on which game you’re playing, the buttons and joysticks do different things. If the company decides to send any over-the-air updates, it can just assign new tasks for those buttons. Those buttons were easy enough to figure out because I could use them without looking at them.
But I’m still not sold on the screen. I’m not used to glancing down and to the right to see my speed. I still needed to take my eyes off the road to adjust the climate control instead of just hitting a button or turning a dial. And it was slightly frustrating that while using the car’s navigation system, the pop-up window of instructions on the rightmost side of the screen couldn’t be moved closer so I could read it better. I asked Tesla if it was possible to move that window and the spokesperson said that it wasn’t. However, it was a piece of feedback that they’ve been getting from other owners.
My other main gripe with the car was its lack of a key or key fob. I downloaded the Tesla app, connected my phone to the car via Bluextooth and could access information like where the car was parked and unlock it remotely. That was neat, but I still just wanted a damn key, or a fob like pretty much all other new cars have these days.
I’m already uncomfortable with our over-reliance upon smartphones and now having it be responsible for my car as well was just pushing it too far. Phones can be compromised, lost or stolen. And not everyone has a smartphone. What then?
Well, Tesla will also give you two key cards that you can use to lock and unlock the car. You just tap them on the car’s B-pillar to do so. Explaining how all of that worked to a valet attendant was not always easy. I’d leave the car overnight for charging, and them come back the next morning to a different person working the morning shift and they wouldn’t know to look for a little black card instead of a car key. And then I’d have to explain the whole thing over again. It’s needlessly complicated.
I also noticed a concerning detail about the car’s door release mechanisms. To open any of the Model 3’s four doors, you hit a button and the door mechanism releases electronically. On the two front doors, there is also an alternative latch beneath the armrest that acts as a manual release. There is no such option for the two back doors.
I asked Tesla why it chose to omit the latches there. A spokesperson explained that in the case of a crash, the 12-volt battery that powers the doors will stay active and occupants can still use the electric door switches to open their doors. They also linked to this Reddit post about a crash where the Model 3 rolled but the woman was luckily still able to operate the doors without the manual release to escape.
It’s hard to account for every single scenario when designing any car’s safety features. I’d think the logic would be to try and plan for any and all imaginable situations in order to maximize passenger protection. Tesla says that the Model 3’s glass roof is extremely safe; I have little doubt it went to some lengths to make it so. Yet, if it took the extra effort to make the roof safe, why not also just put in the manual latches in the back doors for emergency situations? I don’t see a downside to doing this.
Small details like these make me think the Model 3 is just being deliberately contrarian, to a fault. There’s some stuff that makes a ton of sense, and other stuff that leaves you scratching your head. There are endless conversations to be had about form over function and the Model 3 definitely has form locked down because the interior is extremely pretty. But in doing so, it’s sacrificed some of the functionality.