Car Design Trends That Need to Die

• In general, there are no truly bad vehicles on sale today.
• However, we're seeing more and more poor design choices spreading throughout the industry for no good reason.
• These design trends need to stop. Now.

It's rare to come across a new vehicle that is legitimately bad; rather, many cars simply exist in their own respective flavor of mediocrity. There are exceptions, of course — our Dodge Charger Daytona EV that likes to break for no reason comes to mind — but generally, the days of truly poor vehicles are largely behind us. 

But as cars get more and more advanced and many automakers continue to push even their base models upmarket, there are some less-than-ideal trends that have spread across the automotive industry — and continue to do so. Some of them are driving me crazy. Here are the worst offenders.

Overly minimalist, screen-dominated cabins

This is the most egregious of the current automotive trends, and you’re gonna have to bear with me for a second while I rant: If I see one more car slap a screen across the dash and call it "design," I'm going to go insane. (I'm looking at you, Mercedes-Benz.) I get it: We live in an era of technology and smartphones dominate our lives. But our cars do not need to be smartphones on wheels. It’s unnecessary, distracting and cheap; using a screen for everything eliminates most buttons, and thus the cost associated with molding each one. This is a clear cost-cutting measure disguised as high-tech bliss.

In theory, I'm all for a configurable digital gauge cluster and a decent-sized center touchscreen. However, even some automakers that aren't making the entire dash a screen have removed nearly all physical controls from their vehicles. Studies show that drivers prefer physical controls, and they're safer, too. The new BMW iX3, for example, unfortunately takes after Tesla and relegates not only all of its climate controls but also the direction of the air vents to the touchscreen. Adjusting things like that on the move through a touchscreen is cumbersome at best, dangerously distracting at worst. 

This is a great example of fixing things that aren’t broken. One of the worst aspects of this trend, though, is that interior design has fallen by the wayside. Luxury cars, in particular, are guilty of this. When I get into a Mercedes-Benz, I want to be greeted by leather, wood trim and metal — I want to feel the luxury. Instead, in many of the company's new products, there's a fingerprint-covered screen everywhere I look. Audi, too, is guilty of screen overload, though the recently revealed Concept C gives us hope for a brighter, more tactile future. 

Light bars and illuminated grilles

This is, admittedly, a matter of personal taste, but hear me out. Dodge was one of the first brands to incorporate LED light bars into its modern vehicles with the 2012 Charger’s racetrack-inspired taillight design, and at the time, it was super cool and looked like nothing else on the road. It wasn't long, though, before light bars became nearly ubiquitous throughout the automotive space, and nowadays it seems like every other new vehicle has some variation across at least one end, whether it's the front or the back. Light bars in the front are worse — they often look tacked on and disconnected from the main headlights.

This trend has also evolved into further illumination of other exterior elements. It started with badges, and we're now seeing it move into the entire grille. BMW illuminates the outline of its iconic kidney grille on many models, and Mercedes took things a step further just recently with the new GLC with EQ Technology, which features a giant grille glowing with nearly a thousand individual lighting elements. It's … a lot. 

Piano black trim

Piano black trim began as a veneer option on high-end vehicles like Bentleys and Rolls-Royces, where it’s made of lacquered real wood that features a deep, reflective finish reminiscent of — you’ll never guess — a grand piano. However, it's since spread to cars at every price point, though not in its original form; most piano black trim is simply fingerprint-prone shiny black plastic masquerading as a luxurious material. It looks fine when clean, but that’s a rarity, as the second a hand brushes the material, it's covered in grime.

So, what's the alternative? Fair question. Sometimes, when it's used in less touch-prone areas, piano black trim can have the desired dressy effect. Automakers used to incorporate faux-wood trim more frequently, which wasn’t necessarily better, though it was more adept at hiding dirt. As someone who prides himself on a clean cabin, I'd like to see more soft-touch plastics, or even something like faux-aluminum trim, that's still affordable for automakers but less of a fingerprint magnet. 

Massive wheels

We are living in a world where 24-inch wheels are becoming more and more common, particularly on big SUVs like the Cadillac Escalade or GMC Sierra EV. They don’t necessarily look bad, maybe a little ridiculous, but the bigger issue is ride quality. 

Wheels this large necessitate tires with a much thinner sidewall, which means less cushion between the wheel and the road. Huge wheels can significantly impact a vehicle's ride comfort, even if it's equipped with an advanced air suspension, resulting in a much bumpier driving experience. The debatably enhanced visuals aren’t worth the trade-off. 

Glass roofs that don't open and don't have a sunshade

I'm begging for automakers to stop doing this. It's annoying enough to have a glass roof that doesn’t actually open, but to not even provide any sort of sunshade to keep the heat out is absolutely ridiculous. So many vehicles are guilty of this, and it all started with the Tesla Model S. That roof does, at least, actually open, but there was no sunshade to speak of. Ever since then, this has been a thing, and plenty of other EVs, like the Lucid Air, feature fixed glass roofs that aren't tinted enough to keep out the heat.

I took Edmunds' old Lucid Air Grand Touring on a road trip through California's Central Valley in 2023, where temperatures were cresting 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and my friend in the back seat got so hot he had to slouch over in the seat to get his head farther away from the roof. Respectfully, it simply cannot be that expensive to include a basic feature like a sunshade, especially in vehicles that cost nearly $100,000. 

There is hope!

I don't expect most of these trends to vanish anytime soon, but it does seem like automakers are beginning to listen to customers' concerns, especially when it comes to the overreliance on touchscreens. Volkswagen has begun to reincorporate buttons in its cabins, and at least one Hyundai designer is fed up with light bars. Hopefully, as new products are released, at least some of these trendy missteps will become less common.