These are the 10 most useless features in cars

Paddle shifters are great on a performance machine. They allow the driver to make quick gear shifts without taking their hands off the steering. It's incredibly useful if you're carving up a racetrack in your McLaren 720S or Ferrari 488. They are decidedly less useful in your Toyota Camry family sedan or crossover SUV.

The market for compact crossover SUVs is booming. The segment now accounts for roughly one out of every five vehicles sold in the US. As a result, a few brands have added a third row to differentiate themselves from the competition. However, these third-row seats, like the ones found on the second generation Volkswagen Tiguan, are pretty much useless. They tend to be so cramped that only small children can fit. Even then, it may require you to shift the second row forward, thereby compromising the comfort of those passengers as well.

Our society has grown to be social media-centric in recent years. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become central to how we communicate. Naturally, car companies wanted to use social media integration as a selling point for its infotainment system. But to be honest, do we really need to tweet while driving down the highway? No.

Voice recognition has been available on mainstream automobiles for the better part of two decades. For the most part, voice recognition systems have been useless. They are bulky to use and aren't good at understanding what you are saying. To be fair, they've gotten substantially better in recent years, but are still not all that great.

Head-up displays (HUD) are growing in popularity. We've seen them on everything from luxury cars from Audi to entry-level subcompact crossover from Hyundai. HUD systems look cool, but I have rarely found them to be all that useful, especially considering how clear modern digital gauge clusters have become.

Automakers across the board have begun to adopt new electronic gearshifts instead of the traditional PRND tree design. Unfortunately, many of these shifters are finicky and imprecise to use.

Car makers have resorted to a number of different ways to control their infotainment systems ranging from touchscreens to rotary dials. However, the touchpad controller is by far the one I despise the most. Even with capacitive feedback, the touchpads I've used are still too imprecise to use safely and effectively while driving.

The Porsche Panamera is one of our favorite sports/luxury sedans on the market. So much so that we made it our 2017 Car of the Year. However, the Panamera's electronic air vent control while interesting as a concept is an annoyance in day-to-day operation. Having to into a submenu in the infotainment system to adjust the air vent adds an unnecessary step in what is traditionally a very simple task.

The idea of gesture control is really cool — swipe your arm to answer a call or twirl your finger to adjust the volume. In practice, it's not particularly useful. All of the functions controlled by gesture control are available at the press of a button on the steering wheel or the dash. Both options are demonstrably easier to use and won't have you gesticulating wildly in your car as you drive along.