Finally took delivery of my MS this weekend. Have been putting 100 miles a day on it, finding excuses to take it out for a drive to run an errand or even just for a leisure drive. I really do know what the Tesla Grin is now!
The biggest change for me (aside from the instant acceleration) is using the touchscreen for everything, and adjusting to the dashboard screen. Some of my thoughts/questions below:
1) The speedometer/energy usage meter in the center of the dash.
- What is the point of the energy usage meter on the right? I get that it goes orange when I stomp on the accelerator, and green when I'm coasting. But this permanent placement in the center of the dash seems to overstate its importance. I don't argue that it displays somewhat interesting information, but I don't need to refer to it constantly. Any way to get rid of this?
- I'm finding it hard to adjust to the speedometer. On my previous car with an analog speedometer, I'm used to glancing down, seeing where the needle is, and instantly knowing how fast I'm going. But the MS 'needle' is harder to see, and the numbers on the gauge aren't quite so prominent. I end up looking at the numerical readout, but this feels (very) slightly slower and incurs a small bit of 'mental energy' to understand that number and determine if I need to adjust my speed. Any way to 'amp up' the intensity of the speedometer needle and dial numbers?
2) The information panels to the left and right of the center gage on the dash.
- Can I prevent changes in volume from obscuring the left panel? Because there's no dynamic volume adjustment to compensate for louder conditions at higher speeds, I find myself modulating the volume almost constantly. This overlays the left panel with a sloped volume indicator and number for a few seconds. I want to glance down and see the navigation instructions and am surprised how often the volume display happens to be obscuring the content because I was adjusting the volume. Can I change/remove this volume display? Or alternately, display the nav instructions on the right hand panel?
3) Accessing common controls requires navigating the touchscreen. There's a few things I want to do regularly and I'm a bit frustrated that they're not 'one-touch' away. Because I don't know the menus/screens very well, doing these things requires more looking down from the road than I would like:
- turning headlights on. I prefer to have my headlights on a bit sooner than the "Auto" setting likes, so I end up manually turning on my headlights. This requires navigating through "Controls" every time.
- adjusting fan speed and A/C function. The climate controls seem geared towards controlling a particular temperature, not fan speed. I usually just want the air on and in my face, or not. This requires navigating the climate sub-menu every time, plus closing it to get back to the main screen.
- locking the doors. I can't seem to get auto-lock on drive working (or maybe it is working and I don't know?) What used to be a comfortable switch on the dash now requires navigating a menu, and I still don't know how to tell whether the car is locked or not easily.
4) Media Playback. I have my iPhone paired with the car over Bluetooth. This seems to work well, and I REALLY like that the steering wheel buttons for track skip are integrated. But I'm a bit confused about how things are supposed to work when I get back in the car.
- Should I just press the left steering wheel scroll button to "play" my media again? This doesn't seem to work. Or do I have to press play on the phone? Sometimes when I get back in the car, it seems like I have to use the Media app on the main screen and re-select my iPhone as the media source, even though I never listen to anything else. Am I missing something? Or what's the right way to start playback again when entering the car?
Most of these are just me learning to adjust to a new car and its interface, so I'm hoping some here have some ideas for me.
The biggest change for me (aside from the instant acceleration) is using the touchscreen for everything, and adjusting to the dashboard screen. Some of my thoughts/questions below:
1) The speedometer/energy usage meter in the center of the dash.
- What is the point of the energy usage meter on the right? I get that it goes orange when I stomp on the accelerator, and green when I'm coasting. But this permanent placement in the center of the dash seems to overstate its importance. I don't argue that it displays somewhat interesting information, but I don't need to refer to it constantly. Any way to get rid of this?
- I'm finding it hard to adjust to the speedometer. On my previous car with an analog speedometer, I'm used to glancing down, seeing where the needle is, and instantly knowing how fast I'm going. But the MS 'needle' is harder to see, and the numbers on the gauge aren't quite so prominent. I end up looking at the numerical readout, but this feels (very) slightly slower and incurs a small bit of 'mental energy' to understand that number and determine if I need to adjust my speed. Any way to 'amp up' the intensity of the speedometer needle and dial numbers?
2) The information panels to the left and right of the center gage on the dash.
- Can I prevent changes in volume from obscuring the left panel? Because there's no dynamic volume adjustment to compensate for louder conditions at higher speeds, I find myself modulating the volume almost constantly. This overlays the left panel with a sloped volume indicator and number for a few seconds. I want to glance down and see the navigation instructions and am surprised how often the volume display happens to be obscuring the content because I was adjusting the volume. Can I change/remove this volume display? Or alternately, display the nav instructions on the right hand panel?
3) Accessing common controls requires navigating the touchscreen. There's a few things I want to do regularly and I'm a bit frustrated that they're not 'one-touch' away. Because I don't know the menus/screens very well, doing these things requires more looking down from the road than I would like:
- turning headlights on. I prefer to have my headlights on a bit sooner than the "Auto" setting likes, so I end up manually turning on my headlights. This requires navigating through "Controls" every time.
- adjusting fan speed and A/C function. The climate controls seem geared towards controlling a particular temperature, not fan speed. I usually just want the air on and in my face, or not. This requires navigating the climate sub-menu every time, plus closing it to get back to the main screen.
- locking the doors. I can't seem to get auto-lock on drive working (or maybe it is working and I don't know?) What used to be a comfortable switch on the dash now requires navigating a menu, and I still don't know how to tell whether the car is locked or not easily.
4) Media Playback. I have my iPhone paired with the car over Bluetooth. This seems to work well, and I REALLY like that the steering wheel buttons for track skip are integrated. But I'm a bit confused about how things are supposed to work when I get back in the car.
- Should I just press the left steering wheel scroll button to "play" my media again? This doesn't seem to work. Or do I have to press play on the phone? Sometimes when I get back in the car, it seems like I have to use the Media app on the main screen and re-select my iPhone as the media source, even though I never listen to anything else. Am I missing something? Or what's the right way to start playback again when entering the car?
Most of these are just me learning to adjust to a new car and its interface, so I'm hoping some here have some ideas for me.