Next release speculation and wishes

[Glan gluaisne]

Actually I do know when they collected their Model 3 - last Friday if you never spotted it in an earlier post of theirs. And yes, I knew this before I posted and hence why I phrased things as I did. Maybe I should have put an emoji on the end to make it clearer.

Not something I had noticed, but it does shed light on a couple of important aspects. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if they have never seen the car in question, let alone owned or driven it. How much weight others place on that opinion should be directly related to their experience, though, both of owning and driving that particular model of car and of owning and driving other types of car in the past.

In this case I was being told that the Model 3 was not the car for me, implying I should buy something else, by someone who had owned a Model 3 for three days, when I've owned a Model 3 for over 14 months and have therefore got around over 100 times more experience of the plus and minus aspects of Tesla ownership. That does carry some weight in any debate, doesn't make my view absolutely right, nor does it make any other view absolutely wrong, but practical experience does count for something.

It's one reason I was interested by the review thread on another forum I recently posted. The author drives around 40,000 miles a year, so his experience counts for more, in my view, than someone that only drives maybe 10,000 miles a year. It also counts for more than many motoring journalists, IMHO, as they rarely get more than a day or so with any new review car, and often it takes weeks, maybe months, to gain a proper understanding of the real character of any car.

 

[Killer_Catz]

I'm surprised to see some of the comments. Everyone drives differently and has different setups. Just because the speedo works better for one, doesn't mean it can't now be in a bad place for someone else... Also different tolerances of frustration of some things... I remember deciding against a Fiat as I couldn't get comfortable, and had to give up on a civic as I couldn't find a single position where I could see the speedo.

I would really like the option to customise the screen. One of the things I think would be good would be to have the nav steps in some of the blank space near the speedo. Do wish the car a HUD...

The psychological comments on digits vs hands on the speedo are interesting. Never really thought about that aspect. Bit like why road signs are not fully capitalised, the brain reads a single capital with lower case after much quicker.

 

[Kenners]

Isn’t the main point about the Speedo that what you bought is no longer what you have. A car is not an iPhone, and even if you think it is, the iPhone has an App Store so you can escape lots of the design issues. Not so with a Tesla. I can still see the speedo fine so this does not impact me directly, but other changes do or might do in the future. When you spend such cash on a product you are well within your rights to want to maintain what you bought without constant fiddling by a bunch of developers.

As the numbers of drivers increases it’s only going to become a greater problem. If you are going to make changes like the UI you need to also give people options to at least keep it the same. And if you can’t you should leave it until you work out how to. Clearly if they have room to dump games onto the system they have space for UI options. It should not result from Elon tweeting they might accommodate this when they get round to it after reading a complaint.

It’s the “this is it, don’t like it tough” approach that is what people are unhappy about I think. You need to look at the issues raised with that in mind, not the exact nitty gritty of one persons problem. Because be assured if they carry on like this it’s just a matter of time before they make a change that irks you (to nobody in particular).

If they showcased major changes (like the UI) before they were sent out would be much better - although not years in advance like they do with the cars! The current policy of letting fanboy beta testers try it out is not going to generate any constructive criticism.

 

[Killer_Catz]

Very much agree, I am surprised it wasn't brought in with an option to keep the old UI. Something as simple as that and the problem/discussions would have ended there and then. I think the issue may be that Tesla think they are playing with an electrical gadget (like a phone) rather than a car. I mean it is a gadget on wheels.

As a company they are hitting the growing pains of when they are no longer the 'new' and 'special' brand on the block as they move to mainstream (think Apple and 'you are holding it wrong saga'). They need to avoid falling into that trap with the car updates!

 

[Glan gluaisne]

The psychological comments on digits vs hands on the speedo are interesting. Never really thought about that aspect. Bit like why road signs are not fully capitalised, the brain reads a single capital with lower case after much quicker.

At the risk of becoming a boring old git, the reasoning behind the design of roads signs is interesting: The Little-Known Story Behind Britain's Road Signs

The designs stem from work started in 1958, and from the start focussed entirely on readability, over style. Every aspect of the new series of road signs was intended to very quickly convey the right message to a driver. It's to the credit of Lock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert that they also managed to make the new signage something of a design icon, and also something that has not needed to be changed - it still works as well today, with cars going past signs a lot faster in some cases, as it did when introduced about 60 years ago.

 

[nxsynjs]

Re: the UI.. perhaps a simple solution would be to revert to the older one (larger more central speedo etc) when driving normally and then to the larger current visualisation when driving under FSD?

 

[AndrewGR]

Re: the UI.. perhaps a simple solution would be to revert to the older one (larger more central speedo etc) when driving normally and then to the larger current visualisation when driving under FSD?

Can someone please explain why a larger visualisation might be needed when driving under FSD? The required ‘alert driver’ still needs to be looking out of the window and surely won’t be taking control based on something they see in a moving image on the screen.

 

[m3gt2]

Can someone please explain why a larger visualisation might be needed when driving under FSD? The required ‘alert driver’ still needs to be looking out of the window and surely won’t be taking control based on something they see in a moving image on the screen.

I believe it was made larger to help with all the information shown on it if you have FSD beta so I would have thought they could have saved it just for the beta testers. Saying that I don't have a major issue with it how it is, though I do admit it suffers from a lot of wasted space.

 

[mpandrew]

One of the things I think would be good would be to have the nav steps in some of the blank space near the speedo.

Did you notice this has been added with the new UI but only if the map is not showing?

 

[Killer_Catz]

Did you notice this has been added with the new UI but only if the map is not showing?

I hadn't, but I always have the map up when driving. I'll have a play when I next get a chance to drive the 2 miles to the supermarket...

 

[Kenners]

I hadn't, but I always have the map up when driving. I'll have a play when I next get a chance to drive the 2 miles to the supermarket...

It’s quite a good function actually, I have resorted to keeping music maximised to see this. Which begs the question, why did they disable it when you can see the map, given with the shrunken map puts directions further from your field of vision? I mean might as well make some use of all that blank space.

 

[LukeT]

Customisable screen would surely be easy enough to implement, although I have a Model S so the recent UI update doesn't create the issue it does in the 3.

I would like them to give us some parameters to play with on wipers until they can sort it out themselves. Mine does basically nothing in drizzle, then in light rain it goes quickly through intermittent, normal speed to full whack. I'd like to widen the range, so intermittent comes on with a lower level of rain but full whack requires a much higher amount. It would be nice too if everything the auto dip/full beam did it did exactly 2 seconds sooner.

If AP is genuinely much better in the USA, then that does add a little confidence that software rather than hardware changes can make a big difference. However I remain skeptical. My issues are largely around performance in all but perfect weather (and daylight) and to a lesser extent phantom breaking, then to a lesser extent still I'm skeptical because of the way it doesn't seem to react to a corner until far too late, running wide. Right now this last point is of little concern because we shouldn't be using AP on those roads, but it feels to me it's giving away a more fundamental limitation because why the hell wouldn't you design it to take a sensible line through a bend if it could map out the bend? But of course American roads don't have bends in so maybe they only designed it for runways.

 

[interbear]

I'm also in the possibly UK small group who don't have any difficulty seeing the speed, and who is quite happy to overridde the auto wipers from time to time by pressing the stick

I’m in that group also. Seeing my speed on the central display quickly became a natural act. Auto Wipers generally work fine for me, I’d say 95% of the time. If they don’t I just press the stick. No hassle at all really.

 

[interbear]

Wish list:

• TACC follow distance feels way too close to me, always on setting 7 and still feels too close esp. at higher speeds. Possibly a limit of the radar?
• Adjust wiper speed with left scroll wheel after pressing wiper button stalk for as long as controls are on screen
• Keep music controls at the bottom of the screen when sliding the media view up to half/full screen
• Scroll music tracks so playing track is always visible plus a couple of tracks beneath it
• Close controls on right side (even as a leftie this makes sense)
• UI settings - more options please - font sizes, speed location, turn off massive visualisation waste of space etc.
• Speed cameras - put them on the map and warn of them - my crappy old Nissan from 2012 does this (cue much talk about the legalities of this but surely if the camera is positioned to help with reducing accidents - the speed awareness claim - then warning me in the car is a good thing? What, you mean this is all bollix and it's actually a cash generating scheme, surely not )
• Unlock the charge cable when car is not charging and unlocked (there are explanations for situations why this doesn't work which I accept but other cars do it)
• Change the TACC/FSD drive D indication so it's not blue and makes me think headlights are on full beam. Maybe the fact the car is driving itself, I turned it on, the steering wheel icon is blue, the set speed is blue is enough of a clue?
• Turn on the ped warning speaker functions even if you don't have one fitted, they are easy to add...
• Voice controls to work without a mobile signal - think they may do stateside
• Voice controls to understand English rather than American. I'm tired of faking a very poor Americaaaan accent to get it to sometimes understand what I'm asking
• Option to disable supercharging pre-heat

I will add that the list has reduced, Tesla are improving and it's easy to forget/not know the changes. In the short time I've had the car one pedal driving, Spotify, Sentry Mode viewer, Power Increase have all happened. For those unaware this is interesting log of changes: Vehicle Software Updates | Teslascope
ps Love the car, best I've owned by a very large margin and I'm past 1/2 century...

Some good suggestions there and I hadn’t seen that software update log before. Useful, thanks for sharing.

PS. I’m in the same age category and agree with you on the car.

 

[interbear]

This, and the ability to turn off the headlight flash

Agree with this. For me the headlight flash attracts unwanted attention more than anything else. It’s unnecessary. Sentry should just record the incident and put the message on the screen, good enough.

 

[Killer_Catz]

Agree with this. For me the headlight flash attracts unwanted attention more than anything else. It’s unnecessary. Sentry should just record the incident and put the message on the screen, good enough.

I turned sentry on a few nights after getting the car not realising it did this. I spent the entire night thinking I was going mad as I could see periodic flashes of light and had no clue where they were coming from..!

My wife was starting to worry I was getting hallucinations...

 

[MrBadger]

Flashing lights also not great when parked up at a hotel or other carpark with adjacent sleeping accommodation - trade off between not using sentry or moving car to more secluded area.

I thought that Tesla were actually making/had made changes but its been a long time since I had seen reference to this.

 

[MrBadger]

If anyone hasn't come across it, MoreTesla.com is a good place to read up and/or suggest changes - tbh, most have already been thought of but every vote adds weight. Whilst not by far an official location for enhancement requests, it does seem to have a good profile out there and rumours are that Tesla have been known to peruse.

 

[exlatccatsa]

Thanks Ian, I hope more TMC members will visit that site and make their voice heard.

 

[peppemon]

I also don't see any need for a speed limiter and have happily used Autopilot in the motorway roadworks I've encountered over the past 14K miles, the M6 in particular.

The fact you do not see the need, it does not means it is not an important missing feature.

Because I suffer motion sickness, I like to accelerate and decelerate at my own pace, the Tesla sometimes it's too harsh. But that's my problem.
On motorways I give it to you, everything is great, cruise control is great.

Have you even driven in a city like London? Full of cameras, continuous stop and go and continuous glancing on the left side to make sure you are not getting a fine?
With my previous car, I used to set the limit at 25/35/45, dynamically as transitioning from one road with one limit to another, never got any fine, never had to CONTINUOUSLY glancing on my left side....