I don't like thermal shocks when getting in/out of the car so I stick it to a low-ish temperature in winter and something high-ish but still bearable in summer.

I really don't like getting out of a car cooled to 18 C when outside it's 30+.

However this just proves "smart" automatic a/c is useless because, newsflash, different people have different habits.

> I mostly observe people use the climate control knob like a heater knob.

That's because their car has badly designed and implemented climate control.

I do that in my current car because it has crap climate control, Tesla S 70D. In my previous car I set it when I bought the car and adjusted it perhaps once a year, Rover 75 Connoisseur.

Yeah, that's because climate control is crap. When I get into the car and it's 45° I want to a) get some hot air on my feet and hands, and b) warm the cabin up to a comfortable temperature ASAP. The standard climate control system doesn't do that, it sets the air temperature to roughly the target temperature and takes twenty minutes to get to something comfortable. I can "trick" it by setting the target temp to 95°, and then I'll actually get warm air.

I get that approach for AC, because cooling air takes energy, but there's no excuse for that behavior when (in an ICE car) you're warming the cabin with waste heat from the engine. Just give me some damn heat!

Fortunately, I have an old enough car that I can take manual control of the heater and blast it for a few minutes until I'm warm, and then switch over to climate control to maintain temp. Cars which don't have manual override have to be tricked by using the climate control like a heater knob. It's dumb, all around.