Who the hell designs VW cars?

Despite its association with Nazis my family ended up with a Volkswagen. The brand has a good engineering reputation which is why I am so downright baffled at how awful the user experience is for me, and the main problem is turning the car on and off.

I grew up in old days when you knew a car was running because the engine was revolving, you could feel the vibration and hear the noise. Furthermore, to make that happen you had to put a key into the dash. Also you knew it was off, when that wasn't happening. This was 100% reliable, there was never any question about the state of the car.

I totally understand why cars would automatically turn off the engine when coming to a stop. That's a cool feature, no complaints. But doing that introduces a problem which is huge and simultaneously easy to fix and yet inexplicably the engineers did not even attempt to solve:

How the hell do I know when the car is on?

• "You know it's on because it's in drive". Nope. You can turn off the engine while it is in drive.
• "You know it's on because of the dashboard indicator." LOL no that would be great, there is no such thing.
• "You know it's on because the radio still plays." Nope. The radio plays when it is off.

Here's the one that should be the answer:

• "You know it's on because you haven't turned it off!" This. This right here. I want THIS, this is the correct solution, and I am totally boggled that this wasn't the solution engineers went with. The car absolutely does not stay on until I turn it off, that would be great, that would allow me to operate the vehicle with confidence.
  
  But no, I can't operate the car with confidence because it inexplicably turns itself off when things happen that have nothing to do with the engine running -- notably, specifically, opening the door.

Let me talk straight to VW engineers here. Listen. Look me in the eye. Opening the door has nothing to do with the engine. Period, full stop, categorically there should be no linkage between the door and the engine. None. Semantically connecting the door to the engine is a boneheaded error, one that you made.

Moreover, keep listening here: if opening the door turns off the car, then it should always turn off the car. If there is anything worse than the door turning the car off it's the fact that opening the door only sometimes turns the car off. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Is there a way to know? Yes, if you pay attention to whether the engine is revolving then you will discover that VW only turns off the car when you open the door after the VW also idled the revolutions on its own.

Here is what I do 90% of the time I park the car.

• Hum dee dum, driving along happy me.
• Pull into a parking spot.
• The car decides all on its own to stop revolving the engine.
• At the moment I become bewildered, the car is behaving on its own, I have lost locus of control. I wonder, is the engine off or not?
• I start looking for my key, wherever it is, a different spot every time because there is no key hole to put it into.
• Not sure what to do I reach over and pull the door handle.
• Then I wonder, hold on, did I turn the car off? I'm pretty sure I didn't turn the car off. In fact I'm 100% positive I didn't turn the car off -> therefore it must still be on I think to myself because I am reasonable and can't learn unreasonable things.
• Since I'm certain the car is still on, I push the on/off button to turn it off.
• The car turns on, exactly the opposite of my expectations.

Here is what I do the other 10% of the time I park the car.

• Hum dee dum, driving along so good
• Pull into a parking spot
• The car maybe for its own reasons does or doesn't decide to stop revolving the engine
• I sit there wondering, hold on, why is this time different than the other times.
• I'm not sure what to do. Should I press the button or is the car already off?
• I press the button, the car which previously appeared to be off continues to appear to be off, so the button push was non-operational.

It was better when keys went into slots and got turned. That motion was never a problem that needed to be solved, but changing it has created a whole category of unnecessary problems which, while easily fixable, are left by designers unfixed.

I *hate* my VW because of this. In most ways it is a fine unremarkable car, but all cars are fine and unremarkable, the VW should also be predictable and understandable.

1. Give me a place to put the key in the dash.
2. Car stays on until turned off.
3. Some kind of indicator somewhere that the car is on or off. DUH!
4. Door connected to nothing more than dome lights, maybe not even that.
5. I control the car. The car does what I say.

On a ten scale where 0 is the worse ignition interaction I can imagine making it to market, and a 10 is how all cars worked until the turn of the century, the VW is a negative seven. It must be true that paid employees of VW sat down together and decided that opening the door would sometimes turn the car off and other times not, and that totally blows my mind. It must be true that they all sat there and positively decided that the car should have no indication whatsoever of whether it is on or off.

"Hey Hans, should it be possible to know if the car is on or off?"

"Why would you ever want that?"

German engineering.