I just picked up my 85D (VIN 83XXX) yesterday afternoon, and noticed something odd on the way home. The TACC stalk does not have a button on the end to turn the TACC on/off as indicated in the manual (see pictures). I emailed my delivery specialist and he thought it was odd, and I called Tesla (California) and they looked at cars w/ similar VINs and had never seen this before. They are looking into it. Does anyone else have a cruise stalk w/ out the on/off button at the end? Any idea why?
Does TACC work if you try to engage it? I wonder if they just decided to make it always be on and eliminated the button.
Yes, it does work if I engage it. However, I can only cancel it.. not turn it off. By that, I mean that I cannot get the icon off of the display - it always has the grey arrow. Interesting that the Tesla guys have never seen it - one guy even walked onto the production floor with me on the phone and said that they all have the button on the side.
this doesn't seem to me to be a problem, the on/off control on cruise control on any car I've ever been in seems like a ridiculous waste of a switch. I still have to press something to activate it, and it will still stop being active with either the cancel or the brake pedal, why would I ever want an extra switch to have to use before/after using the feature? I don't have a power windows on/off switch before raising or lowering those, nor do I have a door locks on/off switch to push before I lock/unlock so why one on cruise control? For a company that realized you shouldn't have to turn the car on with a switch before you drive, I'm surprised any of them require a switch to turn the cruise on
The off button is useful because on some cars when you brake to disengage but then go above the cruise limit, it will re-engage. Turning it off would prevent that.
Just push the thing forward, and it will not re-engage. I have pressed the "missing" button exactly once in the life of my car: minutes after I drove off the lot, I switched it on. It was SO MUCH worse on my Lexus: I had to switch it on every time when I started the car. Hugely annoying.
But the Model S doesn't work that way, does it? Mine doesn't. While the OP's car does seem to be missing a button, I think the button is useless in an S. I leave my CC on all the time, and engage and disengage it as needed. I see no point in turning it off.
I have seen many cruise implementations, and never that one. That would be an extreme safety hazard that would be unlikely to pass regulatory approval. Once you disable your cruise control, either by braking, or hitting cancel, it should never re-engage without some action on your part.
This can't be an accident imho. Without the button you can't turn cruise on, but yet on the OPs car cruise is on. The software must be aware that's the button is missing and has cruise on by default.
I suspect this is a deliberate change. Given that they've disabled the light on our cars for when cruise is on. I'm guessing they don't really intend to have cruise being turned off anymore. This stalk also no longer has the light.
Naturally. A mark of good software design is that if various physical components are missing due to assembly errors, mechanical failures, user misbehavior, etc. the software will compensate. Really standard software industry practice. :wink:
That would be my guess also. The only reason I thought for the button to be there on my P85D built in March, was perhaps it would be used for some future autopilot function implementation. I guess Tesla figured it wasn't needed for something like that either and went for a simpler, more cost-effective design implementation. - - - Updated - - - ...or could it be only autopilot hardware equipped cars would still get the button on the stalk?
I understand that some see the button as not needed - and I agree that it's probably not. It would be nice, however, to have the cleaner dash without the cruise icons on it if not needed. When I start, it shows the cruise set at zero... then it keeps the indicator on whatever speed it was last set until the car is turned off. I also agree that it would make sense that it is a hardware change... however, the service center has not seen it before and the Tesla factory (the person I spoke with) has not seen it before. They checked VINs around mine (83XXX) and some up to (86XXX) on the line and all had the button. If it was a hardware change, I hope it'd be for more than one car. I'm thinking that it may have been intended for some other vehicle and somehow ended up on mine. I'll speak w/ the service center again on Tuesday and see what they have to say. I just found it to be rather odd... BTW.. my car was ordered with Autopilot enabled.
Maybe you ended up with a steering column intended for some foreign market by mistake. It is odd that the factory person does not know about it.
I'm also not surprised at all that nobody knows anything. Tesla turned off the lighting on the gear stalk along with the cruise enabled light on the cruise stalk. Service center knew nothing about this. They looked at other vehicles and then concluded there never had been a light. Tesla has rolled out new parts on a small number of vehicles before. The B battery situation comes to mind.
Something else odd is the lack of the cruise light. I know it was disabled in a SW Update, but the lack of such seems to point to some type of new design.
My button and light haven't worked in the last two or three upgrades. I wish they would do away with that dam stalk and put the controls back on the steering wheel buttons where they belong. That stalk is the only feature of the S I hate and can't seem to get use to.