I think these gimmicks and the new touchscreen UI serve a purpose for Tesla. Their goal is to make the car so divorced from human input that (1) it becomes increasingly reasonable to claim that an unfinished self-driving system is no more dangerous than a human in the loop, and (2) their fan base is conditioned to accept the eventuality of having no meaningful input (or feedback) at all. As for part two, I noticed it a couple years ago with a relative who bought a Tesla and was still just awed by its features. But all the ones he was awed by were the ones that took power away from the driver. I wondered then, why would anyone want to own this car once it really does all the driving for you? No one will actually own a Tesla at that point, they'll just call one on an app. Except for maybe a few silly people who want to feel like they're telling it what to do with a joystick.