Love/Hate the Plaid

[Boza]

The yoke is not superior. It’s not inferior either; it’s just different. Early on, I would have preferred progressive steering but now that I’ve adapted I truly don’t care. Turning the yoke over for full steering lock is an easy and fluid motion for me now. I get why Elon is reluctant to offer a conventional wheel because the yoke is not nearly the big deal so many are making it out to be. Going from one vehicle to another usually requires a certain amount of adjustment. This is just one more thing.

If it is not superior then why change? In addition to drivers needed to adjust, they probably spent a good amount of $$$ for that in development/retooling cost. $$$ that could have been deployed to develop features that would have been truly advantageous.
However, if one considers the move to FSD then a lot of those “driver crippling” features start to make sense.

 

[Wolfsbane]

If it is not superior then why change? In addition to drivers needed to adjust, they probably spent a good amount of $$$ for that in development/retooling cost. $$$ that could have been deployed to develop features that would have been truly advantageous.
However, if one considers the move to FSD then a lot of those “driver crippling” features start to make sense.

Elon already addressed this pretty well. The yoke is different and fun for those who appreciate it. You have to recognize the Model S offers little more than sentimental value for Elon Co. now. He keeps it around for fun. The success or failure of the new S is inconsequential to the survival of Tesla. As such, he does what he wants with it and doesn’t much care whether it has mass market appeal.

 

[Boza]

Elon already addressed this pretty well. The yoke is different and fun for those who appreciate it. You have to recognize the Model S offers little more than sentimental value for Elon Co. now. He keeps it around for fun. The success or failure of the new S is inconsequential to the survival of Tesla. As such, he does what he wants with it and doesn’t much care whether it has mass market appeal.

You may be correct. That would explain a lot and probably open an opportunity for other EV brands.

 

[Bull]

Re: performance. Have they fixed the CV wearing out issue?

What "CV wearing out issue"?

 

[Dysan911]

If anyone is old enough to remember back when Ford tried putting the horn button on the end of the blinker stalk.. It failed miserably and people wanted it back in the center of the steering wheel where it's considered by most as the only place it should be. Ford complied. I have a feeling the Plaid will have an aftermarket steering wheel solution soon.

 

[Boza]

What "CV wearing out issue"?

S was designed as RWD; the front motor was added later. To minimize the changes, it was put over the existing systems, which created a steeper angle for the half axes (much more pronounced in the X, which used the same platform but it sits higher). That puts stress on the CV joints, especially under heavy acceleration during cornering and at higher suspension setting. After a while the CV joints start to fail (the balls create indentation in the groove they travel). The symptom is clicking noise and vibration during acceleration. The harder/more often one accelerate, the sooner the issue will manifest.
It is a difficult design problem to solve without redesigning the front. Wondering if they did that with the Plaid.

 

[Bull]

S was designed as RWD; the front motor was added later. To minimize the changes, it was put over the existing systems, which created a steeper angle for the half axes (much more pronounced in the X, which used the same platform but it sits higher). That puts stress on the CV joints, especially under heavy acceleration during cornering and at higher suspension setting. After a while the CV joints start to fail (the balls create indentation in the groove they travel). The symptom is clicking noise and vibration during acceleration. The harder/more often one accelerate, the sooner the issue will manifest.
It is a difficult design problem to solve without redesigning the front. Wondering if they did that with the Plaid.

I had a bit of the shudder on acceleration in my 2021 pre-refresh S. The refresh models are completely different cars inside the body panels though. I have not hear any comments about that. I suspect it has been resolved in the new models.

 

[aerodyne]

For all you anti yokers on this thread...(I'm not taking sides)

Did you know there is a stalk alternative?

YT vid is private, but if you love the rest of the car, search around on TMC...

 

[aerodyne]

If anyone is old enough to remember back when Ford tried putting the horn button on the end of the blinker stalk.. It failed miserably and people wanted it back in the center of the steering wheel where it's considered by most as the only place it should be. Ford complied. I have a feeling the Plaid will have an aftermarket steering wheel solution soon.

Already exists for stalks...

 

[Boza]

Ok, this will be very subjective post.

I have ‘21 Raven LR and after the Plaid came out I put an order for it. After the infamous yoke I started debating if that was right and finally this week I got my hands on a Plaid. A friend of mine was nice enough to give me his Plaid for the weekend. I had a chance to put >200mi on it - city and highway driving. Here are my impressions (again, coming from ‘21 Raven LR):
Love the body redesign, especially the front bumper. The car seems wider, lower, more aggressive.
The trunk has the same appliqué - potential water intrusion.
Trunk is the same Spartan place - no 12v, no net hooks, no storage.
Acceleration is… OMG! I can tell that 1.5s difference
Overall, there is less road noise. Somehow, the car seems more composed on the road. Not much, but noticeable.
The central console redesign is awesome! Same for the rear seat central console. The storage space is not much but it is nicely arranged. Like the lighted storage!
Seats are nice - not that the Raven seats are not excellent; Plaid have even more bucket feeling to them.
Same as the Raven, no up/down seatbelts adjustments in the B pillar.
The air vent controls are … interesting. They get the general, very general direction of where you want the air to go. Also, I could not completely shut down one zone - there was still some residual flow coming out. It is workable, though.
Rear screen is a vomit inducer, especially if you have kids. It is small and positioned too low. If you drive on a twisty roads you will have some cleaning to do. I would not use it for anything else but AC controls.
Considering that I do not like tablet-like center screens, IMO the Plaid screen is a reversal from the Raven integrated screen, especially the landscape mode which gives you wider view. It is great for watching movies and not so great for navigation (where you want as much forward information as possible). The screen does not rotate. Overall, I prefer the Raven central screen.
The yoke. I can definitely get (somewhat) used to it but I fail to see the benefit over the traditional wheel. It is really convenient on the highway (comparable to the wheel) and (somewhat) weird in the city. Three-way turn requires crossing hands. Also, following the yoke come back after turn is strange - there are moments that I do not feel I am in full control the way I let the wheel slide in my hands.
Something else that I did not see mentioned is that the yoke center is somewhat offset. It adds to the weird feeling.
I never had an issue with driver console visibility before but the yoke definitely gives you a wider, cleaner look. However, it covers the lower right angle of the center screen. You have to move in order to see it.
Buttons are bad - really. They feel very cheap and I always had to think where they were (except on the highway). My friend did not have the latest firmware that was supposed to fix light/heavy touch and that was definitely a problem.
Forward/reverse predictability works very well in well defined cases - when there is a car behind you, parked against a wall/car, etc. Even slightest complication (parked against a lamp post) will throw it off. I would not rely on it at the moment. The manual override is OK but it is in a weird spot - somewhat obstructed by the yoke and I had to lean forward to reach it.
Overall, I think they fixed some of the Raven shortcomings (mainly storage), did a very, very nice external redesign, but failed on the ergonomics. Some of the new things seem rushed without much usability testing. Some of them could be fixed with future firmware upgrades; some cannot be. I was left with the feeling that Plaid is a transitional model between a driver-centric, with assistance car and FSD, with driver assistance car. Therefore, at least for me, it is worse (from driving perspective) than Raven, better acceleration and storage notwithstanding. I cancelled my reservation and will wait for the next incarnation.
All of the above is a biased opinion. I realize that many people may not agree with it. I hope it was useful for other people who were on the fence.

 

[SilentFlight]

The plaid is awesome, it's also terrible. The acceleration is stupifying, and that's coming from a P100D. The car also handles better, it feels lighter and more nimble than my P100D. The suspension tweaks have helped, the tires are also slightly bigger.

You don't feel the acceleration difference much below about 60, the tires just can't grip in most circumstances. From 60 to 100, it's unbelievable, crazy, cartoon physics. OMFG.

The interior is lovely, elegant, clean, and crisp. I have a '21 GLS 63 that's got more bells, whistles, and lights than a 1970's pinball machine, the tesla UI is vastly superior.

The center console is the best of any car I've ever seen. Ingenious storage compartments that are LIT so you can see them, clean and attractive when closed. This is a huge step up from my P85D that had no center console and no door pockets.

Now for the not-so-great part: I can get used to the yoke, I will never love it, but it's workable.

The turn signals, brights, and most importantly the HORN are unforgivable. You can argue that the turn signals are a design aesthetic decision, but there is no excuse for not making the center of the yoke work as the horn. Tesla has tried to make "cheap" look cool for a long time. I get it, buttons are expensive and often overused (see my Mercedes), but there is no excuse for the horn. I've almost gotten creamed twice now as people back into me as I'm frantically trying to find the stupid touch-sensitive location for the horn. It's impossible to hit in an emergency. Elon had to save $0.30 on a $145,000.00 car by making the horn a tiny touch-sensitive area on the steering wheel. It's unforgivable. It's just cheap. And, no I didn't know the car didn't have a usable horn when I bought it.

As far as the turn signals, shifter, brights, wipers, and autopilot buttons go they all suck. I figured I'd give it some time to see if I adapted to it, if they weren't so bad, give Tesla the benefit of the doubt that they didn't totally cheap out on a $145,000.00 car. They SUCK. It's awful.

The turn signals are always doing the wrong thing, I get one blink when I want it to stay on. You have to totally mash it to guarantee it'll stay on, and when you try for one blink it stays on half the time. They suck. Whoever heard of one blink? it should be three blinks for a tap.

The shifter is backward from the old tesla. Move the car up the screen for drive and down for reverse. Makes sense, right? Except the problem is that my old car needed an upward motion of the shifter stalk for REVERSE and a downward motion for DRIVE.

The yoke is the least of my complaints, I at least like the look and might put up with the stupid thing except that it's covered in touch sensitive crap that you are always hitting as you wrestle with the thing in a parking lot. I've hit turn signals, horn, brights, windshield wipers, voice control, f-ing everything as I wrestle with the thing.

What irritates me most is that Tesla saved themselves a few dollars in switchgear and f-ing ruined an otherwise amazing car.

Ouch.

I have a MY so I don't have the problem but when I watched a video about a Plaid and saw the touch buttons for the horn and turn signals it made me cringe. I thought it was SO bad that if I would have the choice to get the MY or the MX for the same price, I would still go with the Y unless I could get the X with a standard (e.g. aftermarket) turn signal and horn.

I doubt the decision was made due to economy (capacitive touch buttons and the required electronics to control them are not cheaper than physical buttons), but consistency. Making everything a "soft" control surface (i.e. assignable/programmable buttons vs traditional hardware buttons) is Tesla's design philosophy, but in this case, they applied it in places where it does more harm than good. They clearly see that some controls still need hard buttons (e.g. they left alone the window and hatch controls) but they really messed up with the steering wheel buttons.

If they are so intent on making everything a soft control they could have come up with more intuitive ones, e.g. a hard squeeze on the wheel/yoke could activate the horn, which could actually be better and safer in an emergency than the traditional punching of the middle of the wheel. And the turn signals, regardless of how they implement them, need to stay in place, having them on a turning wheel as impossible to interpret moving targets is just dumb as hell.

 

[Drew-MS]

Ok, this will be very subjective post.

I have ‘21 Raven LR and after the Plaid came out I put an order for it. After the infamous yoke I started debating if that was right and finally this week I got my hands on a Plaid. A friend of mine was nice enough to give me his Plaid for the weekend. I had a chance to put >200mi on it - city and highway driving. Here are my impressions (again, coming from ‘21 Raven LR):
Love the body redesign, especially the front bumper. The car seems wider, lower, more aggressive.
The trunk has the same appliqué - potential water intrusion.
Trunk is the same Spartan place - no 12v, no net hooks, no storage.
Acceleration is… OMG! I can tell that 1.5s difference
Overall, there is less road noise. Somehow, the car seems more composed on the road. Not much, but noticeable.
The central console redesign is awesome! Same for the rear seat central console. The storage space is not much but it is nicely arranged. Like the lighted storage!
Seats are nice - not that the Raven seats are not excellent; Plaid have even more bucket feeling to them.
Same as the Raven, no up/down seatbelts adjustments in the B pillar.
The air vent controls are … interesting. They get the general, very general direction of where you want the air to go. Also, I could not completely shut down one zone - there was still some residual flow coming out. It is workable, though.
Rear screen is a vomit inducer, especially if you have kids. It is small and positioned too low. If you drive on a twisty roads you will have some cleaning to do. I would not use it for anything else but AC controls.
Considering that I do not like tablet-like center screens, IMO the Plaid screen is a reversal from the Raven integrated screen, especially the landscape mode which gives you wider view. It is great for watching movies and not so great for navigation (where you want as much forward information as possible). The screen does not rotate. Overall, I prefer the Raven central screen.
The yoke. I can definitely get (somewhat) used to it but I fail to see the benefit over the traditional wheel. It is really convenient on the highway (comparable to the wheel) and (somewhat) weird in the city. Three-way turn requires crossing hands. Also, following the yoke come back after turn is strange - there are moments that I do not feel I am in full control the way I let the wheel slide in my hands.
Something else that I did not see mentioned is that the yoke center is somewhat offset. It adds to the weird feeling.
I never had an issue with driver console visibility before but the yoke definitely gives you a wider, cleaner look. However, it covers the lower right angle of the center screen. You have to move in order to see it.
Buttons are bad - really. They feel very cheap and I always had to think where they were (except on the highway). My friend did not have the latest firmware that was supposed to fix light/heavy touch and that was definitely a problem.
Forward/reverse predictability works very well in well defined cases - when there is a car behind you, parked against a wall/car, etc. Even slightest complication (parked against a lamp post) will throw it off. I would not rely on it at the moment. The manual override is OK but it is in a weird spot - somewhat obstructed by the yoke and I had to lean forward to reach it.
Overall, I think they fixed some of the Raven shortcomings (mainly storage), did a very, very nice external redesign, but failed on the ergonomics. Some of the new things seem rushed without much usability testing. Some of them could be fixed with future firmware upgrades; some cannot be. I was left with the feeling that Plaid is a transitional model between a driver-centric, with assistance car and FSD, with driver assistance car. Therefore, at least for me, it is worse (from driving perspective) than Raven, better acceleration and storage notwithstanding. I cancelled my reservation and will wait for the next incarnation.
All of the above is a biased opinion. I realize that many people may not agree with it. I hope it was useful for other people who were on the fence.

Even though I disagree with some of your impressions, I do appreciate an honest review from a current Tesla owner. IMO compared to my P100D, there really is no comparison. The plaid is much nicer, faster, and better in every way.
In my case, I loved the car more after a couple of weeks than I did on day 1. Maybe you need to spend more time it.

 

[Boza]

Even though I disagree with some of your impressions, I do appreciate an honest review from a current Tesla owner. IMO compared to my P100D, there really is no comparison. The plaid is much nicer, faster, and better in every way.
In my case, I loved the car more after a couple of weeks than I did on day 1. Maybe you need to spend more time it.

May be. One thing I could not evaluate was what was “under the hood”: did they fix the CV joints issue, the lack of rear wheel camber adjustment, etc. I have not seen reviews that go so deep. Usually, they are centered around the yoke and acceleration. A car is much more than that…

 

[Drew-MS]

May be. One thing I could not evaluate was what was “under the hood”: did they fix the CV joints issue, the lack of rear wheel camber adjustment, etc. I have not seen reviews that go so deep. Usually, they are centered around the yoke and acceleration. A car is much more than that…

I'm not sure but I'll look into it. I haven't heard of CV joints issues with the refresh..

 

[Boza]

I'm not sure but I'll look into it. I haven't heard of CV joints issues with the refresh..

Apparently, it was not fixed. There is already a tread about that - very disappointing

 

[Rupe]

I think Charles Dickinson said it best in the opening of the Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity..." So we now record our Tale of Two Views.

 

[Sporty]

The plaid is awesome, it's also terrible. The acceleration is stupifying, and that's coming from a P100D. The car also handles better, it feels lighter and more nimble than my P100D. The suspension tweaks have helped, the tires are also slightly bigger.

You don't feel the acceleration difference much below about 60, the tires just can't grip in most circumstances. From 60 to 100, it's unbelievable, crazy, cartoon physics. OMFG.

The interior is lovely, elegant, clean, and crisp. I have a '21 GLS 63 that's got more bells, whistles, and lights than a 1970's pinball machine, the tesla UI is vastly superior.

The center console is the best of any car I've ever seen. Ingenious storage compartments that are LIT so you can see them, clean and attractive when closed. This is a huge step up from my P85D that had no center console and no door pockets.

Now for the not-so-great part: I can get used to the yoke, I will never love it, but it's workable.

The turn signals, brights, and most importantly the HORN are unforgivable. You can argue that the turn signals are a design aesthetic decision, but there is no excuse for not making the center of the yoke work as the horn. Tesla has tried to make "cheap" look cool for a long time. I get it, buttons are expensive and often overused (see my Mercedes), but there is no excuse for the horn. I've almost gotten creamed twice now as people back into me as I'm frantically trying to find the stupid touch-sensitive location for the horn. It's impossible to hit in an emergency. Elon had to save $0.30 on a $145,000.00 car by making the horn a tiny touch-sensitive area on the steering wheel. It's unforgivable. It's just cheap. And, no I didn't know the car didn't have a usable horn when I bought it.

As far as the turn signals, shifter, brights, wipers, and autopilot buttons go they all suck. I figured I'd give it some time to see if I adapted to it, if they weren't so bad, give Tesla the benefit of the doubt that they didn't totally cheap out on a $145,000.00 car. They SUCK. It's awful.

The turn signals are always doing the wrong thing, I get one blink when I want it to stay on. You have to totally mash it to guarantee it'll stay on, and when you try for one blink it stays on half the time. They suck. Whoever heard of one blink? it should be three blinks for a tap.

The shifter is backward from the old tesla. Move the car up the screen for drive and down for reverse. Makes sense, right? Except the problem is that my old car needed an upward motion of the shifter stalk for REVERSE and a downward motion for DRIVE.

The yoke is the least of my complaints, I at least like the look and might put up with the stupid thing except that it's covered in touch sensitive crap that you are always hitting as you wrestle with the thing in a parking lot. I've hit turn signals, horn, brights, windshield wipers, voice control, f-ing everything as I wrestle with the thing.

What irritates me most is that Tesla saved themselves a few dollars in switchgear and f-ing ruined an otherwise amazing car.

I’m sorry to hear about the wipers. I have a 3P and the wipers are embarrassing. But doing it again the same way on another car is a problem in leadership.

As for the yoke I don’t think it takes a visionary to say ‘hey wait using a bunch of touch controls for this might be a bad idea’. Even after that, where’s the usability feedback before going into production? It’s hard to imagine the same leader is doing this and successfully launching rockets.

In any case, maybe it will be possible for someone to sell conversions to a better setup.

I’m considering a roadster to replace my 3P but the steering wheel might be a deal breaker for me. I find the 3 to be is pretty nice and I could stick with it.

 

[Bcs1]

I love this car. First ev and certainly not the last. I’m used to the blinkers now and have no issues engaging them…actually prefer the design as it’s very easy to differentiate between left and right just by feeling the raised divider/hash mark with the left thumb.

The tech in this car is simply awesome. I’m always looking forward to the new updates and new features. The blind spot camera addition was great. Track mode completely transforms the car’s handling and steering.

The app on the iPhone to precondition the car so that I never have to to get into a freezing cold car again is priceless. It can literally heat up the cabin to temp within minutes. That’s amazing. With gps location it automatically raises the car when approaching my drive way, opens the garage door and folds in the mirrors….awesome.

Very comfortable seats and No issues with brakes for me. Love the regen braking bc No brake dust!!!! Lol!

What I absolutely hate are the headlights! Why?!? Lol!! They are garbage and shouldn’t be on any car. I know they are finally getting changed but wow…. they suck. They are literally the worst headlights of the entire Tesla line up. Honestly a disgrace for this car! Let’s hope when the new matrix headlights are out, they offer a swap for a reasonable price….or raise the plaid price for all the new bells and whistles to make us feel better!

 

[Drew-MS]

I love this car. First ev and certainly not the last. I’m used to the blinkers now and have no issues engaging them…actually prefer the design as it’s very easy to differentiate between left and right just by feeling the raised divider/hash mark with the left thumb.

The tech in this car is simply awesome. I’m always looking forward to the new updates and new features. The blind spot camera addition was great. Track mode completely transforms the car’s handling and steering.

The app on the iPhone to precondition the car so that I never have to to get into a freezing cold car again is priceless. It can literally heat up the cabin to temp within minutes. That’s amazing. With gps location it automatically raises the car when approaching my drive way, opens the garage door and folds in the mirrors….awesome.

Very comfortable seats and No issues with brakes for me. Love the regen braking bc No brake dust!!!! Lol!

What I absolutely hate are the headlights! Why?!? Lol!! They are garbage and shouldn’t be on any car. I know they are finally getting changed but wow…. they suck. They are literally the worst headlights of the entire Tesla line up. Honestly a disgrace for this car! Let’s hope when the new matrix headlights are out, they offer a swap for a reasonable price….or raise the plaid price for all the new bells and whistles to make us feel better!

I agree, and I'll be doing the same. Cheers