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Features we didn't know we wanted?

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Please don't take offence but I think you need to develop the one pedal driving technique. It is different. You can either "brake" or "coast" or anything in between depending on how gradually you lift off the pedal ... you shouldn't be "braking" any more than you choose so the brake lights won't be coming on any more than they would with any other car. The problem is that we've all just been lifting off the pedal fully for however many years of driving so it takes a bit of practice to make the most of the one pedal technique. At it's most extreme you can inadvertently make your passengers seasick if you just lift off completely all the time!
Or in the case of my wife when she first tried it nearly break my neck lol
 
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The main thing I'd appreciate, apart from a few other things mentioned here already, would be a much more intuitive and easy to use way of doing the things you need to do regularly, like turning the wipers, fog lights etc on and off. The touch screen is great, but you need to look at it to use it, and at times when you need to quickly turn some things on the last thing you really need is to take your eyes off the road. I've had to pull over a few times when driving on my own, just to turn things on. Having the option to map commonly used functions to either the scroll wheel/buttons, or the left hand stalk, would be exceptionally useful. Much as I love the clean look from having no switches, there are times when switches with decent tactile feedback, that can be operated purely by feel, are a real advantage.
Person still in fossle land found.
 
I keep thinking of the massive amount of space the map takes up which most of the time driving I'm not interested in. That space could be better used for some of these functions and make the map a pop up app much like the music player. Next nav instruction could fit inside the right hand 1/3 section where most of the time it's just an overhead view of the car which whilst pretty, doesn't actually add much value. I guess we see what comes with the next big refresh, then we'll have more stuff to moan about!
I'm the opposite I'd rather have sliding veritable windows. I'd like more map than seeing cars or my path. I'd like to make my speed and regen accel bar bigger. I'd like to move the next turn and search to the opposite side or under as it blocks half the view I'd rather change the car surround view to the power graph not have it full size. Just give me personalisation tesla grr
 
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Person still in fossle land found.

Presumably you were referring to fossils?

Seems a bit odd, coming from someone that seemingly cannot adapt to one pedal driving, which is clearly the way all EVs are going, so much so that the lack of it in any new model would be enough to stop me buying it.

I would hazard a guess that you have some connection with aviation, so presumably you're very much aware of the challenges in making an intuitive and foolproof HMI. I was a flight test scientist for a bit over 22 years, and in that job experienced everything from the seriously dire HMIs from aeroplanes designed during the 1950s and 60s, though to attempts to bring ergonomics into cockpit design in the 1970s and 1980s (not always successfully).

Car controls should be intuitive, and not require the driver to take his/her eyes off the road, that much is plain common sense. With no means of locating either the position of a touch screen control, or whether it has functioned as desired, without looking at the screen, a touch screen is clearly very much sub-optimal for any control the driver needs to use quickly and intuitively, without taking their eyes off the road.

There's a very good reason that many aircraft controls are designed so that they can be located and operated by touch alone. It improves the performance of the crew by a significant amount, and has been proven to save lives. The first time I sat in an Apache, with more than a dozen functions controlled by switches and buttons on the cyclic and collective I wasn't impressed with the design, but it turns out that the layout was pretty intuitive to use in practice. Pretty much every control that needs quick and easy access in flight is right there at a fingertip, easily identified by tactile feedback, with no need to look at anything inside the cockpit. Tesla have already provided ten potential control options on the steering wheel, without multiplexing combinations, in a similarly easy to access position, but haven't really made best use of them, IMHO.

My drive last night highlighted some of the flaws in relying solely on the touch screen. The auto wipers played up (again), just as I was trying to drive along a dark, narrow and windy lane. I had to slow almost to a stop to safely use the touch screen to switch them back to manual, as controlling the wipers is impossible without looking at the screen, both to see the buttons and to confirm that my finger had selected the right option. This latter point, the need to continue looking at the screen for some seconds to confirm an operation is the primary safety concern I have. With a tactile control, confirmation of operation is provided immediately by feel alone. There may be a need to briefly locate a control by taking eyes off the road, but there isn't a need to continue to look at the control to confirm that the desired option has been set. It would be easy enough to add manual wiper functionality to the button on the left stalk, for example. I don't think there's any other car on the road that has wiper controls on the dash any more, for good reason, it is demonstrably safer to have them easy to hand near the steering wheel.
 
When the auto wipers went nuts in the winter sun the other day, it took me several minutes of saying 'wipers off' in various accents and pitches before it actually did so. No way it would have been safe to operate the touch screen on that road during that time.

I discovered that if you just repeat the phrase over and over again you don't have to press the button every time...

It's still amazing to me that tesla prioritised opening the glovebox over turning the fog lights on, which still isn't implemented. I don't know what goes through the designers heads sometimes.
 
Just give me personalisation tesla grr
Screen personalisation used to be the case with the S & X when I first drove them but I suspect the launch of the 3 was the reason the facility was removed.

  • Maybe because the Model 3 landscape screen orientation with no heads up & shared software between all models needed a more regimented approach?
  • Maybe because giving users the facility to move, minimise or obscure driving critical information would reduce safety?
It's still amazing to me that tesla prioritised opening the glovebox over turning the fog lights on, which still isn't implemented. I don't know what goes through the designers heads sometimes.
I agree but probably the last thing on a Californian post-millennial's mind, some of the them may not even drive.
 
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Allowing a "return route" and arriving with min x% charge, ideally latter to have location dependent override.

Not quite there, but none the less, potentially useful.

How long has this been here and more importantly, can you get the info to persist ? Its only very briefly shown so probably been around for a while but too quick for me to notice.

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-The app should show the white interior inside the car.
-When the fog lights are on then should be switch them down by touching the fog light icon on screen rather than going into the menu.
-Wipers should have a sliding scale,say,0-50 and you can adjust the speed of the wipers just right don’t need just three or four speeds.
-Should be able to carry the FSD I paid and Premium connectivity to the next upgraded Tesla I buy like a form of membership so I don’t need to pay twice.
 
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Voice control of fog lights - and hazard lights. Essential safety feature.

Voice control of anything you consider a safety feature should have tactile manual backup for poor cell signal areas. Tesla may call it minimalist but really its shaving pennies off cost on the assumption that one-day automation will deal with it. You carry the risk until then.
 
Voice control of anything you consider a safety feature should have tactile manual backup for poor cell signal areas. Tesla may call it minimalist but really its shaving pennies off cost on the assumption that one-day automation will deal with it. You carry the risk until then.

Given that there isn’t a ‘tactile manual backup’ for the rear fog lights, and there isn’t likely to be, making the necessary voice commands available should be an essential step. Incidentally I’m surprised the position of the hazard light switch on the M3 was considered acceptable by whoever approves these things. It is illuminated but barely visible at night and not easy to find by day. Very easy to hit the SOS button by mistake.
 
I wish there was a quicker to adjust the heating or turn on the wipers whilst driving. It's not ideal having to take your eyes off the road and click into sub menu's to do it.

I also wish you could watch Netflix or YouTube and adjust the heating without having to cancel out of the app and load it back up again. The windows invariably steam up if you're sat in a parked car for 10mins
 
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