Takeaways

[Dasher]

I reserved my Model 3 in March 2017 and got it in August 2019. I still love it, and enjoy the concept of a car which continues to improve.

I am disappointed that 'improvement' includes taking away features that many drivers find useful. My car is on 2022.4.5 at the moment, and the recently removed Sentry icon is back, but with a very dull and unintuitive picture. The dashcam function is back, but takes up one of the limited spaces at the bottom of the screen. Why not put it back where it was?

Other features which have been removed include:-

• Easy access to the odometer. Every other car I have had has a permanently visible odometer, useful for many things such as “Parking in 1 mile”. The Model 3 never had that, but at least you could swipe or ask for it, and still see the map.
• Software update notifications to your phone. You could initiate these while the car was sitting unused, rather than finding out that exciting new software was available just as you were setting off to see the mother-in-law.
• Regen status. Some time ago the thin but visible regen line was pruned to about half a pixel width. Why?
• Music track progress. Ditto.

Of course, there are features which I would like, such as a coloured map, or at least one that made main roads look more important than minor roads. But we have never had these.

Google is well known for removing products which people use and love, but do it for presumably commercial reasons. I struggle to see what benefit there is to Tesla to remove features such as those listed above - certainly I can see no commercial benefit. The Model 3 does not seem to be short of screen space, either.

I know the arguments that Tesla sees manual driving as a declining need compared to the car self driving, but I am certain that we have many years more in the UK before that is widely usable.

I have come to the conclusion that Tesla needs a user interface specialist; just one, but one who drives, in a variety of situations. With tens of thousands of bright employees, you would think that that would be possible.

 

[Wol747]

To be honest, the Tesla UIs are rubbish for all sorts of reasons.
So many of the apps and displays are inconsistent in their presentation, the slowness makes some unusable, icons are inconsistent and so small in many cases they are impossible to hit when moving etc etc.
It seems a combination of the job descriptions being written without much thought for how the screens are used in real life, real time, and a mishmash of coding protocols with different teams working on various bits of the program.

 

[GRiLLA]

Are you using the light or dark mode? I've certainly found that dark mode makes many things easier to see including the speed, regen bars, music track progress etc.

I'm not sure I understand what "Parking in 1 mile' means in relation to odometer?

 

[Dasher]

Are you using the light or dark mode? I've certainly found that dark mode makes many things easier to see including the speed, regen bars, music track progress etc.

I'm not sure I understand what "Parking in 1 mile' means in relation to odometer?

I mean passing such a sign and watching the odometer to see when I have done a mile. There are often repeat signs, but knowing where to slow down is useful.

 

[Dasher]

Are you using the light or dark mode? I've certainly found that dark mode makes many things easier to see including the speed, regen bars, music track progress etc.

I'm not sure I understand what "Parking in 1 mile' means in relation to odometer?

Actually I haven't tried dark mode yet. I find light mode visually pleasant, and night mode awful unless you are following a navigation blue line. Some roads in are really difficult to spot, even with the help of a passenget, at night.

 

[rotor2k]

I've been really happy with permanent dark mode.

 

[Dasher]

Other features which have been removed include:-

• Easy access to the odometer. Every other car I have had has a permanently visible odometer, useful for many things such as “Parking in 1 mile”. The Model 3 never had that, but at least you could swipe or ask for it, and still see the map.
• Software update notifications to your phone. You could initiate these while the car was sitting unused, rather than finding out that exciting new software was available just as you were setting off to see the mother-in-law.
• Regen status. Some time ago the thin but visible regen line was pruned to about half a pixel width. Why?
• Music track progress. Ditto.

PS. I forgot the LTE symbol showing the strength of the mobile signal. Much missed on screen while driving in the country, since I seem to need at least two bars to have much chance of succeeding with a voice command. It may show when there is no signal, but doesn't continuously show the strength. I can live without the WiFi strength signal, since I only need that at home when not driving.

 

[Rooster6655]

Back in 2019 I was able to use the voice control to phone anyone from my contacts by the end of the year they updated it and it hasn't worked since, update in Dec caused my reversing camera to lag and its not worked even after 4 further updates

 

[Alan J]

The UI is far too prescriptive Users should be able to exercise much more choice over what is where and what size things are. Whatever became of the User Defined UI for sizing the Car side of the screen rumoured a number of months ago ?

 

[Gatsojon]

The UI is far too prescriptive Users should be able to exercise much more choice over what is where and what size things are. Whatever became of the User Defined UI for sizing the Car side of the screen rumoured a number of months ago ?

One step further would be to allow third party developers to provide alternative skins and layouts. I guess there would be some non negotiable aspects re safety but otherwise let the market provide!

 

[Jason71]

For me its as much about the size reductions as the takeaways. I am getting older and the last thing I need is all the text to get smaller.
I can barely read the warnings or proof read outgoing text messages any more. My only hope at this point is that Elon is the same age as me so hopefully soon it will all start getting bigger again when he can't read it either.