M3 Refresh - Are Indicator buttons really poor design?

[Belly Buster]

Watched a few reviews now the press cars are out and universally the reviewers seem to think the lack of stalks is a very poor choice. A shame because there seems to be tons of good additions otherwise.

 

[Wol747]

I just saw the M3 refresh video on Fully Charged and I think I saw that the left and right indicator controls have been made buttons on the steering wheel. Am I the only one to think this is really bad design?

Imagine the scenario when you are approaching a roundabout and you want to take the right hand exit (ie normally 3rd or 4th exit in the UK).
As you approach you use your left hand to press the button with the right arrow on it - so far so good.
You turn the steering wheel as you go round the roundabout.
As you approach your exit and want to indicate left, with steering wheel turned, your indicator buttons are now on the other side of the steering wheel - so unusually you need to press the buttons with your right hand. But hold on. Their upside down!! The arrow symbol on the left indicator is pointing right and the arrow on the right indicator is pointing left. Not only that but the bottom button is now on top and the top button is on the bottom.
Now I appreciate many people don’t indicate correctly at roundabouts anyway but I can’t see this ‘development’ helping much.
I guess people will soon get used to it.
Call me old fashioned but I think I prefer the good old indicator stalk that just stays where it’s meant to be.

It's a truly awful design and indicative of the minimalist-regardless-of-ergonomics mindset.
I've been banging on about it on other forums since the refresh before last but it falls on deaf American ears.
As you say, the unfortunate fact that many people don't indicate correctly especially on roundabouts isn't any excuse.
I did a test last year in my S, with a tape at the 12 o'clock and on a local miniroundabout IIRC there was a 350 degrees wheel turn when leaving it - if there were buttons they could have been on the moon as far as I was concerned so far as finding them.
I think the technical term is
"bloody dreadful design".
Another "feature" aka "bug" is having to tap a screen - often several times when there are nested menus - to do things that should be controlled by buttons or knobs. Being *very* right handed I can't tap icons easily even when stationary and when the car's bouncing about it' impossible.

'

 

[Adopado]

So far 6 pages of pretty much the same stuff ... but just to keep it high on the forum list I'll say the same:

I'm sure that 95% of the time having the indicator buttons on the steering wheel would be fine ... and anyway I'm not impressed by the software switching that we usually get with modern stalk indicators that don't physically click/latch. Unfortunately that remaining 5% (roundabouts) is a very important 5% ... so in this instance 95% isn't good enough, because most people in this country encounter multiple roundabouts on every journey. It's like having a lifejacket that reliably inflates 95% of the time ... we wouldn't make them (even if cheap) if we know how to make ones that work 100% of the time.

 

[cwerdna]

I've had two cars in the past that didn't have stalks of any sort... indicator was a toggle switch on the dash. Indeed my motorbike has a thumb left/right, press to cancel, and I still have and ride that... so 3 vehicles.

I got used to it very quickly, and that was without auto cancel of any sort either. While it doesn't seem the best way to me, I've got used to it twice before and will get used to it again I'm sure.

I'm guessing it was a French car. I watched this video at

awhile ago. There are no stalks. He talks about the signals 4:40 into it.

 

[Durzel]

Granted it's not the M3 but it is Top Gears take on the S with the indicator buttons on the wheel...

Tesla Model S Plaid review: the best electric powertrain in the world Reviews 2023 | Top Gear

Wait, haven’t you driven this already? We have, although the Tesla Model S Plaid that Tom Ford drove at Paul Ricard earlier this year was a Track Package version, kitted out with £16k’s worth of carbon-ceramic brakes, lightweight, forged aluminium wheels and Goodyear Supercar 3R tyres. This one...

www.topgear.com

(Spoiler: they think don't think it works well)

Interesting, but they're completely wrong about the Ferrari 458 Italia - which is surprising. That car has always had physical buttons for indicators, placed either side of the wheel, in a natural place for your thumbs.

I never had problems indicating in that car, even going around roundabouts, but it is also worth noting that it had a much tighter steering rack and significantly smaller wheel, so it isn't comparable really. Tesla just slapped a yoke on an otherwise unchanged S/X rack, with 2.5 turns lock to lock.

 

[dakhlkt22]

Have you tried it though?

There do seem to be a lot of Americans who think it's just fine, and I don't really believe that it would be a big issue on roundabouts (they do have plenty of them in the US anyway, see Roundabouts Database Map).

Cool database. To put things in perspective, though, that database shows maybe 16 roundabouts for NYC's 9 million people. Only a handful of the roundabouts are major intersections that people would have driven through. So even if some cities have a handful of them, it's pretty true that Americans generally have very little exposure to roundabouts.

As an American, I will say we have very few roundabouts in the US. I live in the SF Bay Area and have only resided in the West Coast (California and Washington state) but have traveled to numerous US states, driving in/thru some of them.

I think I encountered some in Sacramento, CA and recall some in the Seattle area (I lived in that area for about 9 years).

I'm simply not accustomed to them and find them awkward if I stumble across one (almost never), esp. if I'm in a totally unfamiliar area and trying to follow directions from the nav app I have up (I have no Tesla) which would likely be either Apple Maps or Waze via CarPlay. I've had a driver's license for ~30 years now.

Looks like from that map, my city of almost 1 million people has maybe 7 traffic circles. I see one in an adjacent city that's in a shopping mall. That one I can remember but it's in a parking lot and thus people would be driving slowly.

Roundabouts or not, +1 from me in it feeling like it's a bad idea to get rid of the stalks. I've never driven a car w/o a turn signal stalk. Shifter could be in many different places. Wiper controls on older cars American cars tended to vary (e.g. control on the left side of dash or crammed into turn signal (left) stalk). I'm most used to the Japanese car style in the US which is a wiper stalk on the right side.

There are MANY parts of California I've not been to and it seems CA's land area is about 163K square miles vs. the UK's 94K square miles. I've drive as far south as San Diego and as far north as thru CA's northern border into Oregon.

Fun fact, Fremont CA has a small roundabout right next to a shopping center with a Trader Joes. It's so random to come across this tiny little roundabout in the middle of a residential neighborhood in California.

 

[Wol747]

I'm guessing it was a French car. I watched this video at

awhile ago. There are no stalks. He talks about the signals 4:40 into it.

You probably haven't encountered any Magic Roundabouts in CA but they are breeding in the UK. An example : Magic Roundabout (Colchester) - Wikipedia
Negotiating any of these multiple clockwise/anticlockwise affairs with wheel buttons which can be in half a dozen positions multiple times within five seconds and make legal signals would bring Neil Armstrong to tears - and remember he was negotiating small craters with only 19 seconds of gas remaining.

 

[Jason71]

Interesting, but they're completely wrong about the Ferrari 458 Italia - which is surprising. That car has always had physical buttons for indicators, placed either side of the wheel, in a natural place for your thumbs.

I never had problems indicating in that car, even going around roundabouts, but it is also worth noting that it had a much tighter steering rack and significantly smaller wheel, so it isn't comparable really. Tesla just slapped a yoke on an otherwise unchanged S/X rack, with 2.5 turns lock to lock.

also not many people using one as their daily driver. People will forgive quirks like that on a specialist car. I am guessing the rear visibility, boot space and fuel economy were not great either but those aren't the key features in a Ferrari.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I don't know where I first heard about this video, probably on here somewhere, and its related to the yoke.

The basic premise is you don't need to move your hands from the"quarter to three" position when driving, ever, and so all the buttons stay in place relative to your hands. That requires a variable steering rack that changes the physical turning based on speed, something we Tesla don't appear to be doing.

 

[WllXM]

I don't know where I first heard about this video, probably on here somewhere, and its related to the yoke.

The basic premise is you don't need to move your hands from the"quarter to three" position when driving, ever, and so all the buttons stay in place relative to your hands. That requires a variable steering rack that changes the physical turning based on speed, something we Tesla don't appear to be doing.

I'm lazy to google search it, but I thought, like many features, e.g: cameras replacing side view mirrors..., it was because a steering column was a requirement from the NHTSA?
If I recall correctly they require a 'mechanical' connection between the steering wheel and the axle, hence the reason why drive-by-wire is not possible there.

And as a US-first/centric market, unlike Lexus, Tesla has little interest in developing tech that won't be available in their home country... And I believe the Yoke is not offered on the stateside RZ, it's a RoW feature

Long story short I believe while Europe is behind on self-drivings regs, a lot of things relevant to equipment are just as dated in the US (same for the prohibition of matrix lights & al.), even if it's slowly getting there ..

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I'm lazy to google search it, but I thought, like many features, e.g: cameras replacing side view mirrors..., it was because a steering column was a requirement from the NHTSA?
If I recall correctly they require a 'mechanical' connection between the steering wheel and the axle, hence the reason why drive-by-wire is not possible there.

And as a US-first/centric market, unlike Lexus, Tesla has little interest in developing tech that won't be available in their home country... And I believe the Yoke is not offered on the stateside RZ, it's a RoW feature

Long story short I believe while Europe is behind on self-drivings regs, a lot of things relevant to equipment are just as dated in the US (same for the prohibition of matrix lights & al.), even if it's slowly getting there ..

May well be true. It was as much the analysis that these things work with variable steering ratios that mean your hands can stay in one place. If your hands are fixed, both the yoke and buttons start to make sense, but the prerequisite is your hands can stay fixed

 

[pdk42]

This talk of roundabouts in the US reminds me of when I was living near Boston for a few years in the late 90s. There was one “rotary” in Saugus that I passed wherever I went to/from Logan airport (42.4626760, -70.9654303). I always marvelled at how the Americans handled it. On one occasion, I stopped to let a car on the roundabout go past and had the guy behind yelling and beeping his horn at me. At the next stop light I wound down my window and asked him what the problem was. “You don’t stop at a rotary” he yelled! Interesting concept!

 

[pdk42]

Another example of a manufacturer making big UI decisions that baffle real users is VW. They removed lots of physical buttons and made those that remain those horrid “haptic feedback” touch things. The universal reaction has been negative, esp from motoring journos. But it seems they have seen the light and announced that they’ll be returning to classical buttons. I hope Tesla realise their faux pas and revert to stalks in the future.

Volkswagen Says Its Capacitive Touch Buttons Will Be Replaced Starting Next Year

The company's board is having monthly meetings to overhaul its interiors.

www.roadandtrack.com

 

[Jason71]

This talk of roundabouts in the US reminds me of when I was living near Boston for a few years in the late 90s. There was one “rotary” in Saugus that I passed wherever I went to/from Logan airport (42.4626760, -70.9654303). I always marvelled at how the Americans handled it. On one occasion, I stopped to let a car on the roundabout go past and had the guy behind yelling and beeping his horn at me. At the next stop light I wound down my window and asked him what the problem was. “You don’t stop at a rotary” he yelled! Interesting concept!

This made me laugh as an example of what happens when you randomly stick a roundabout in a one one horse town and leave the locals to get on with it

 

[Jason71]

Another example of a manufacturer making big UI decisions that baffle real users is VW. They removed lots of physical buttons and made those that remain those horrid “haptic feedback” touch things. The universal reaction has been negative, esp from motoring journos. But it seems they have seen the light and announced that they’ll be returning to classical buttons. I hope Tesla realise their faux pas and revert to stalks in the future.

Volkswagen Says Its Capacitive Touch Buttons Will Be Replaced Starting Next Year

The company's board is having monthly meetings to overhaul its interiors.

www.roadandtrack.com

they brought back the steering wheel in the MS and the energy box in the UI and updated the MY LR suspension . So there is some evidence they bow to pressure. I guess we will have to wait and see how bad it really is. I imagine the European reviews will be heavily negative on the concept.

 

[Electroman]

The same things was said about the yoke, no cluster behind the wheel... have to change your mind, if you want, if not don't buy the car. So simple.

That is exactly what happened with a friend of mine who has been patiently waiting to get an M3, and is now completely put off with the indicator buttons. The Drive stalks are used only two times in a drive, and that too when not in motion. Indicators are used all the time and mostly in 'stressed' situations. 9 out of 10 times it is an involuntary action.

So now he is looking for an ICE car and has narrowed down to a Lexus. His wife was not even interested in waiting for a test drive and checking it out before make a decision.

Idiotic decision... by Tesla & Musk.

 

[WllXM]

they brought back the steering wheel in the MS and the energy box in the UI and updated the MY LR suspension . So there is some evidence they bow to pressure. I guess we will have to wait and see how bad it really is. I imagine the European reviews will be heavily negative on the concept.

Brough back the wheel but kept the indicators as haptic buttons on it instead of reinstating the stalks...

 

[Jason71]

Brough back the wheel but kept the indicators as haptic buttons on it instead of reinstating the stalks...

yup, so they just need a bit more pushing back in the right direction.
Most of the MS were sold in the US where the indicator issue is less important since you generally indicate while going in a straight line.
Lets see what happens when the stalkless design hits Europe in volume..

 

[Durzel]

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out over here and in Europe.

Tesla could get away with it with the S/X because it's a niche product, but the 3 & to a greater extent the Y are mass market cars, and more importantly they are - currently at least - cars people are buying sight unseen, on the strength of the brand, etc. The number of people genuinely incredulous at the fact their new car doesn't have parking sensors, posting on the FB groups asking how to turn them on, etc is certainly noticeable.

Now picture your average couple or whatever picking a car up and trying to make sense of indicators that are not only not tactile, but also basically can be anywhere within a 360 degrees radius, etc.

It's certainly going to be brought up on test drives. Unfortunately (?) it's such a driven change that I can't see any world in which Tesla bring back stalks. A redesigned steering wheel with indicators in more logical places I can imagine happening though, particularly if the demand isn't there.

 

[browellm]

you can't teach old dog new tricks.

Fantastic analogy really, as I've never felt less like being Elon Musk's bitch than I do right now.