Are Tesla Model S Plaid available for test drive in US?

[2101Guy]

I can honestly say I too was DREADING the yoke, especially since there is no variable ratio steering. Was also dreading no stalks. I too had already investiged that $1800 aftermarket round wheels and was ready to order one as soon as my LR arrived.

Shocked myself to realize that in less than a day, I was fully used to the yoke. And in most instances, prefer it. Why? The actual way the yoke is shaped fits the hand better when you grab it. Meaning, the actual part you hold onto isnt a round tube, but more oval so it really "fits" the hand better when gripping. The fact that the lower portions are fully horizontal really make it comfortable to grab. And actually when doing many turns with one hand? I do exactly like I did with my round wheel: Push the palm of my open hand against the surface of the perimeter for grip, then rotate the yoke with one hand. I didnt have to practice this, its simply the way I already did. Muscle memory of sorts.

No turn stalk? Not an issue. Got used to the turn signal buttons and actually am fully used to them now. (Now admittedly, the 2-3 times that my yoke was turned upside down and I needed to put the signal on, it was annoying as all get out). In the 6 weeks Ive owned the car, Ive used the horn once. (Thats the total number of times I had to actually use it. And that was to greet a passing neighbor). Still, Im sure I'd prefer to have the horn via the airbag.

So there is my honest experience. Is the yoke BETTER when parallell parking or uturns than a round wheel? No, its not better. Do I plan to still replace it?
No, zero plans at all and in fact, as much as I kinda hate to admit it? I like the yoke now

 

[drunkenbuda]

I love my new Model S! I only saw pictures of it, never seen it in person or driven one and now I love it!

 

[whitex]

I see your point. But you tend to use stalks when the wheel is in neutral any way. So it should not be that hard to find them by feel or muscle memory. Yeah there more wrong places your hands can be with a wheel and no stalks. But I don’t think it would that much worse over time.

You could argue Yoke is safer because you can’t wrest your hand at noon But that’s not common on Tesla’s any way because of AP nag.

Yoke does work good for AP nag. It’s so wide it takes less weight to keep AP happy.

Overall it’s pretty darn good. I really thought turning around in my driveway would be awkward but it’s fine. Even on day one it was fine.

Only thing you really don’t get is letting the wheel slide through your hand as it returns to neutral. Your hands just tend to got with the wheel more on strong turns. Which I find ironic, because most of (if not all) the after market full wheels are not round and will still make that smooth action awkward.

When I back into my garage, I park very close to the wall shelves. I back in while steering with the left hand, with the right hand is behind the front passenger seat and my head is turned backwards. I would be cursing the yoke, unless I added one of those suicide knob things, which would make it too annoying. Maybe some day, when Tesla perfects summon and takes on all responsibility for any damage it causes, so I can just let the car pull itself in within few inches of the shelves in the garage. That said, it looks like Mercedes will beat them to it, as far as having enough confidence in their driver's assist features, including highway driving:

Mercedes To Accept Liability When Autonomous Drive Pilot Is Engaged

One major barrier to the adoption of automated driving assistants is where the responsibility will fall if there's a crash; the driver or the technology?

insideevs.com

 

[mswlogo]

When I back into my garage, I park very close to the wall shelves. I back in while steering with the left hand, with the right hand is behind the front passenger seat and my head is turned backwards. I would be cursing the yoke, unless I added one of those suicide knob things, which would make it too annoying. Maybe some day, when Tesla perfects summon and takes on all responsibility for any damage it causes, so I can just let the car pull itself in within few inches of the shelves in the garage. That said, it looks like Mercedes will beat them to it, as far as having enough confidence in their driver's assist features, including highway driving:

Mercedes To Accept Liability When Autonomous Drive Pilot Is Engaged

One major barrier to the adoption of automated driving assistants is where the responsibility will fall if there's a crash; the driver or the technology?

insideevs.com

Why does backing up slowly. With micro adjustments make the Yoke so bad?

You are hounding on a use case that probably makes as little difference as you can get. No need to use of stalks. No sliding the wheel through your hand.

I back into all parking spots and barely notice the difference.

I used to back in the way you do. But the rear windows have got so bad on vehicles in the past decade and the rear cameras and ultra sonics so good on Tesla. I just look at the screen and side view mirrors (auto tilted down). I back up to hitch also and I can pin point it to 1/2 an inch. I have not done the hitch with the Yoke yet, will soon and don’t expect an ounce of trouble.

Now backing the trailer up might get interesting with the Yoke. That, I sometimes do turn around to get my orientation right. But I don’t expect it to be any worse.

Also considered one of those knobs, BEFORE I bought it. Again, totally overblown worryingly about nothing.

 

[Plood]

If you can't buy Elon's product without seeing it live or testing it out first, you're not the primary target customer. It's much easier to learn to live with something after you've shelled out $150K for it and trust Elon unconditionally - "Elon says yoke is better, so I must just be using it wrong".

My rule of thumb is that I trust Elon’s preferences and guesses orders of magnitude more than those of any individuals posting on a discussion site.

 

[DayTrippin]

My rule of thumb is that I trust Elon’s preferences and guesses orders of magnitude more than those of any individuals posting on a discussion site.

I don't think Elon eats his own dog food so to speak. Or maybe not in similar situations to a lot of us.

One big issue I see after having the yoke for is the hand position. I grew up with the 10 & 2 hand position. Really hard to unwind 5 decades of driving experience and millions of miles driving. If the yoke had little horns, it would be much more comfortable. It also seems too wide a lot of the time. I wouldn't mine a narrower wheel.

I am one of the people who use the stalks on our other Tesla without the wheel being at neutral. When making 3 point turns l am taping the stalk to change direction while spinning the wheel. No way you are going to easily change gears quickly on the S/X. Better get your finger just right on the screen or on the console to have any chance of changing direction.

The auto direction when parked seems to be getting better. It is 100% clueless though when you are parked in a garage that use cables to denote end of the front of the parking area. I expected that so not disappointed. But sometimes it can still be hit or miss when it should be pretty obvious.

One thing about the horn button placement was I had it setup to save camera footage on honk. Pretty frustrating trying to get to the horn button in a hurry when I wanted to save the video.

 

[whitex]

My rule of thumb is that I trust Elon’s preferences and guesses orders of magnitude more than those of any individuals posting on a discussion site.

You are definitely Elon's target market - people who prefer the horn to be a tiny touch button (only moving to center airbag due to NHTSA push, so not Elon's preference), people who don't think defrost button is ever needed (helps if you live somewhere warm, like Elon), or people who prefer the stalkless yoke. I get it, there are people who will follow Elon no matter what he says, and believe him every time he make promises, then make excuses for him for not making it happen. I also understand that some people in fact will prefer the stalkless yoke, and no horn in the middle, even if Elon didn't prefer it. I bet there are people who would love to have a two joystick tank-drive type system (think, you could spin a Tesla on a dime!). It's just not for me, especially without the ability to try it out before shelling out $150K.

PS> If Elon truly believed the yoke is the way to go, all Tesla's would be shipping with the stalkless yoke today. It would help on the cost of the car too. The fact that this is not the case tells you Elon is not putting his money where his mouth is on this one, keeping the yoke only on the lowest volume cars they sell. It's an experiment, perhaps in viability of the yoke, or maybe a social experiment in "how many people can I convince this is better even if it isn't".

 

[whitex]

Why does backing up slowly. With micro adjustments make the Yoke so bad?

You are hounding on a use case that probably makes as little difference as you can get. No need to use of stalks. No sliding the wheel through your hand.

I back into all parking spots and barely notice the difference.

I used to back in the way you do. But the rear windows have got so bad on vehicles in the past decade and the rear cameras and ultra sonics so good on Tesla. I just look at the screen and side view mirrors (auto tilted down). I back up to hitch also and I can pin point it to 1/2 an inch. I have not done the hitch with the Yoke yet, will soon and don’t expect an ounce of trouble.

Now backing the trailer up might get interesting with the Yoke. That, I sometimes do turn around to get my orientation right. But I don’t expect it to be any worse.

Also considered one of those knobs, BEFORE I bought it. Again, totally overblown worryingly about nothing.

It is just one usecase. Also, even in just this one usecase I am not not just micro adjustments as you suggested - we have a 2 car garage and a slightly wider driveway, so I pull into the garage with a car in the driveway having to drive around it, which ends up needing almost the full range of the steering to properly fit my Model S (think parallel parking into a garage with a car in the driveway, another Model S already in the garage on the other side, and tha back wall defining the parking target). Once I get the Taycan with surround view, I'm hoping to be able to back in as you describe, just look at mirrors and the screens. Btw, tried this using Tesla side camera views on my wife's Model S which has AP2.5, completely useless. And please, don't even think for a minute that Tesla auto-park would be able to handle this - it cannot even reliably parallel park on the street, with much less restricted environment.

 

[mswlogo]

It is just one usecase. Also, even in just this one usecase I am not not just micro adjustments as you suggested - we have a 2 car garage and a slightly wider driveway, so I pull into the garage with a car in the driveway having to drive around it, which ends up needing almost the full range of the steering to properly fit my Model S (think parallel parking into a garage with a car in the driveway, another Model S already in the garage on the other side, and tha back wall defining the parking target). Once I get the Taycan with surround view, I'm hoping to be able to back in as you describe, just look at mirrors and the screens. Btw, tried this using Tesla side camera views on my wife's Model S which has AP2.5, completely useless. And please, don't even think for a minute that Tesla auto-park would be able to handle this - it cannot even reliably parallel park on the street, with much less restricted environment.

Well now you completely changed the use case from backing up tight to shelves to backing up around a car. I don’t know how when your head/shoulders are turned around and “driving” in reverse is yet. I tend to do that less and less over the years, but occasionally still do (mainly with a trailer).

But so far everything has been a non issue. The only real action you lose is letting the wheel slide through your hand which I never do for any reverse maneuvers. My left hand is usually fixed on the wheel for reverse if my head is turned. What I don’t recall is, where on the wheel it was. It might have been at the top. It might have been left hand on right side of wheel (like at 2 O’Clock or something), I forget. It might not be a big deal to adjust for yoke either. Which is my guess and has been the case for everything Yoke.

Maybe I’ll try it today.

One thing landscape screen is good for is the side cameras when applicable.

As long as things stay good I’ll be happy. I’m not like head over heals about the yoke. But I’m pleased it’s been a non issue.

However, my wife has not driven it yet. Not required but nice to have feature. So that she can drive me to the hospital when summon drives over me or something.

 

[PCMc]

Well now you completely changed the use case

And this thread has been totally changed into yet another one the a multitude of threads debating 'to yoke or not to yoke ...' and nothing anymore to do with the original question of can you can arrange a test drive of a new Model S Plaid!

 

[mswlogo]

And this thread has been totally changed into yet another one the a multitude of threads debating 'to yoke or not to yoke ...' and nothing anymore to do with the original question of can you can arrange a test drive of a new Model S Plaid!

Well, why do you think most people want a test drive?

And his question was answered. Probably In multiple threads too.

OP also never responded to on topic responses. Except he did give a thumbs up on the first response.

 

[chirowolf]

My Local Tesla Center is bone dry. No cars in stock. Not even ones to deliver. They used to always have a couple of MS and MS on the lot, but all were delivered at the end of last month.

 

[bmah]

The original poster has received several answers to their question, and we don’t need Yet Another Yoke Thread.

Bruce.