Mazda Dropped the Ball on the New CX-5
I'm a big fan of Mazda and I agree with most of what Kirk says in the video. Mazda dropped the ball on this one. I don't know which customers they surveyed for this redesign, but apparently they didn't survey the ones who drive their cars. Because if they did, then they would know, that it would be stupid to remove the physical climate controls, the volume knob and the commander knob. Those are some of the features that I actually really love on their cars. And I loved how they were fighting against making everything touch screen in their cars. Well they caved in it seems. And I'm highly disappointed.
I understand that a good number of people didn't like being forced to use the commander knob all the time. In my opinion, there was an easy solution to that issue; simply enable touch screen on their infotainment screen. Let the people who don't want to use the commander knob, touch the screen to do what they want. Instead, they took the route of removing all these useful physical buttons and moved them into this huge laptop sized screen. Well guess what, without the commander knob, it is so much harder to use the infotainment screen without taking your eyes off the road. For a brand that prioritizes the driving experience, this is an idiotic decision.