Tesla - please design out the Cruise control stalk

[thegruf]

With AP/TACC I find myself messing with control more than using the steering wheel!

It's a horrible HID. Push / Pull / Up / Down / what's the stupid button on the end do ... yada yada

Great opportunity for Tesla to reimagine a new control for this.... before Apple do!

Maybe use the physical control to switch it on/off and then have the 17 inch display force a setting display in the lower half (quarter?) of the screen for options.
I could also envisage a nice touch display on the centre of the steering wheel

 

[grichard]

Devil's advocate point: the more time you spend messing with cruise control while driving, the MORE useful it is to have a physical control to mess with, rather than something touchscreen-based. Don't have to take your eyes off the road.

 

[CharlesMW]

Control at my finger tips are 1000% better than having to mess around with another touch screen selection process. No need to fix what is not broken.

 

[SeminoleFSU]

With AP/TACC I find myself messing with control more than using the steering wheel!

It's a horrible HID. Push / Pull / Up / Down / what's the stupid button on the end do ... yada yada

Great opportunity for Tesla to reimagine a new control for this.... before Apple do!

Maybe use the physical control to switch it on/off and then have the 17 inch display force a setting display in the lower half (quarter?) of the screen for options.
I could also envisage a nice touch display on the centre of the steering wheel

I have the old "classic" stalk and I'd just be happy if the reversed the action when pushing foward or pulling back... to me it seems reversed.

 

[CHG-ON]

I actually don't mind it at all. Pull to turn on (once or twice). Push hard up or down to change speed by 5mph. Push to disengage. It's become completely automatic for me and did within a couple of days. I'm not sure I understand the issue. Can you elaborate?

I also am not for putting the controls on the 17". Too distracting for me, as I have to take my eyes off the road. I wear bifocals, which means I must turn my head. That's a safety issue.

 

[BertL]

I am very much OK with the current implementation. I want a separate stalk or physical control over major items like TACC, that I can learn to operate by feel without looking, and won't change dramatically as it will with UI changes on a touch screen.

 

[mikeash]

I agree that the current stalk isn't an issue. It's really not very complicated. If AP is off, pull to engage at the existing set point (or, with 7.1, the current speed limit plus fudge factor), push down to engage at the current speed. Pull twice to engage autosteer. When AP is on, push up to increase speed, down to increase speed. Pull and hold to set speed to current speed limit plus fudge factor. Push to disengage. Ignore button. Not so hard!

 

[CHG-ON]

I just updated to 7.1 this evening and I see that the functionality for the stalk has changed. So I withdraw my last comment (which I think has been on too long to edit) and now need to see how it works. From what I read in the download notes, I am not sure that I like it. Judgement withheld until I have some good time behind the wheel (and the stalk).

 

[2krazykats]

Control at my finger tips are 1000% better than having to mess around with another touch screen selection process. No need to fix what is not broken.

+1 totally agree... But with everything else in the car, you have people who hate something or other. There's no use pleasing everyone!

 

[AWDtsla]

With AP/TACC I find myself messing with control more than using the steering wheel!

It's a horrible HID. Push / Pull / Up / Down / what's the stupid button on the end do ... yada yada

+1 It is unnecessarily complicated and totally inelegant design. Two ways to cancel? Why? Previously 3 now 4 ways to resume? Really? One button should toggle cancel and resume.

Others have detailed the failings of design better than I.

edit - if the design was proper you wouldn't want a touchscreen replacement. That's a throw the baby out with the bathwater solution to this mess.

 

[N4HHE]

I like it just the way it is.

But I would complain that +- trim adjustments are not as smooth as they should be. Whoever wrote that section of software doesn't know control theory, they seem to dump a +-1 or +-5 MPH error on the cruise control and let it make the corrections. Acceleration/deceleration should not be as abrupt. The energy gauge should not show an overshoot bounce. Even my Subaru gets this detail right.

 

[thegruf]

The cruise stalk is the Microsoft Windows Mobile of controls.
It works, some ppl like it, but is is archaic.

Apple (I'm not an Apple user) will obliterate it with a dramatically better UI that will have everyone else scrambling to keep up.

Tesla need to get there first on the Model 3.