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Comment by jimmcslim | Hacker News Reader

Is there a HUD or do I have to move my eyes to the centre console to check my speed? Seems like bad ergonomics to me... and whereas the road ahead is perhaps still in my peripheral vision when I check my speedo, its less so if I am glancing at the centre console (which maybe has a bunch of other distracting things on it as well?)

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Center console indicators are quite common. One advantage is that, the indicators are never blocked when you are in a turn. With your traditional instrument cluster placement, the steering wheel blocks the indicators.

Cars with instruments in the center dashboard:

Mini Cooper: http://images.hgmsites.net/lrg/2010-mini-cooper-hardtop-2-do...

Toyota Yaris: https://cars.usnews.com/static/images/Auto/izmo/306771/2009_...

Saturn ION: http://consumerguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/05130061...

Citroen C4 Picasso: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/fe/d6/5a/fed65a4f2...

etc...

The Yaris in particular must be easy to build as either a left hand drive or right hand drive vehicle. I'd hazard a guess that was a significant motivating factor for Toyota.

Or the Renault Twingo for an even more minimalistic approach:

http://i.auto-bild.de/ir_img/1/1/3/2/4/4/5/Renault-Twingo-72...

That's a Twingo from 10 years ago, right? Today it looks more like: http://indianautosblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/New-Re...

I drive a Mini Cooper from time to time and it's not great. They have a small screen behind the wheel which also displays the speed, but with a low refresh rate so you can go over the limit easily if you don't pay attention.

I have the Toyota Prius C which is based on the yaris. I absolutely love the center console indicator and hate driving cars with it behind the wheel now. I'm really glad to see more manufacturers switching to the center console displays.

Doesn't the Prius have a HUD like the Yaris, positioned directly in front of the driver and above the steering wheel?

http://www.toyota.com.au/prius/features/cutting-edge-technol...

>With your traditional instrument cluster placement, the steering wheel blocks the indicators.

who cares? I'm not looking at my speedo or tack in a turn, I'm watching the road. This feels like justifying poor design with an edge case.

Mini Cooper: There is a speedometer directly behind steering wheel, in a smaller secondary instrument panel, as shown in the picture.

Toyota Yaris: Not shown in that picture is the Head Up Display projected onto the windscreen, even closer to the driver's line of sight. I drove a Yaris for a few days a while back, and the HUD is good - not distracting there's and no need to turn your head, which would be dangerous.

Citroen C4: Another HUD http://www.citroen.co.uk/about-citroen/technology/head-up-di...

Saturn ION: Seems to be the only valid example. I don't know myself, can't remember ever being in a Saturn ION. Wikipedia tells me that GM does not make them anymore.

it still seems to me that for reasons of safety , you want some instrumentation to be very close to the driver's default line of sight. Not necessarily all of it, but a few key indicators such as speed.

The Scion xA and xB both had center console instrument clusters, and AFAIK neither had HUDs.

I know for a fact that the one in Yaris and C4 is an option... And for a while, it wasn't available in many countries. For a C4 Picasso, this is still the case.

I drive a Yaris myself (the center display looks different than the one pictured, but the concept is the same). It doesn't have a HUD and I actually love the center display. As stated before, it is never blocked. In a turn, when a normal instrument panel is behind the steering wheel, I can still monitor the speedometer and shift gears according to the speed. Also, I totally have the road in vision when looking at the speedometer.

Not sure why you think C4 comes with the HUD, but rest assured the 1999 Xsara Picasso didn't. I drove it for many years and it was fine. Glancing down at the behind-wheel display is equidistant to glancing right to Model 3's (which has the important bits in the same position, perhaps even closer to the driver, then Picasso did).

It'll be fine. Don't judge it before actually trying it for yourself.

please do not compare properly designed center consoles, that are very close to the windshield base, to that corner-cutting excuse of a design for the model 3.

the main design flaw here is that the proximity makes it a completely different visual field than the road. while all your examples (I guess, havent clicked all, and only drove extensivly a twingo 1st gen, designed by stark studios) the distance makes your eye see the panel info while looking at the road. even more so than the behind the steering wheel models.

> One advantage is that, the indicators are never blocked when you are in a turn

This screams made up problem to excuse a potential design flaw.

They're common in base model economy cars.

Not a good sign if the 3 is competing against the 3-series.

Yea that interior is kind of weird looking

http://st.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/5/2017/07/Tesla-Model...

I don't follow how that interior design, with important information for the driver off to the right, can pass safety regulations.

Presumably an exception is made because the car (mostly?) knows the speed limit and alerts if you exceed? I'm making s wild guess here.

Maybe it's actually less distracting than having instrumentation in front of you? I'd like to hire on for a few days when the opportunity arises.

My wife's has driven a Yaris for 10+ years which has everything on center console. You get used to it within minutes of driving it. Obviously it is perfectly legal

> Yaris which has everything on center console

Last time that I drove a Yaris, and that was a few years back, there was a Head Up Display which put a few things against the windscreen, directly in front of the driver.

Here's the law for Germany:

StVZO: ( https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stvzo_2012/__57.html )

    B. Fahrzeuge

    III. Bau- und Betriebsvorschriften

    §57 Geschwindigkeitsmeßgerät und Wegstreckenzähler

    (1) Kraftfahrzeuge müssen mit einem im unmittelbaren Sichtfeld des 
    Fahrzeugführers liegenden Geschwindigkeitsmeßgerät ausgerüstet sein.

Translated: "the speedometer has to be in the immediate field of vision of the driver". It's somewhat murky.

I see it as 'Don't make me think!' (Steve Krug) applied to a fresh redesign of what is really needed and where.

This is the Google home page compared to Alta Vista. The absence of dials, switches, knobs, hidden buttons, things you have to twist in their own special way, it is all good.

Clearly there are some situations where the buttons have to exist, e.g. for seat adjustment, as you wouldn't want to be doing that whilst leaning for the screen. However, the minimal approach and a clear, easy to use console is way ahead of what other cars are doing for their interiors.

Without the clutter of an existing car interior I am sure that big flashing lights on the centre console about exceeding the speed limit will be perfectly visible to all occupants of the car.

This latter point is important, routinely my brother in law drives at speeds that are faster than what he tells my sister. She is sat next to him but can't see the speedometer, so if he says one speed then she has to believe him, even if it is just slightly fast rather than the true excessively fast figure. Having a centre console is a bit more fair to passengers wanting to know that information too. If it is the car rather than the driver that is driving I guess this is no different - everyone including the driver is a passenger.

> The absence of dials, switches, knobs, hidden buttons, things you have to twist in their own special way, it is all good.

In it's place are things you have to touch and slide without the tacticle feedback and consistency of controls.

> This latter point is important, routinely my brother in law drives at speeds that are faster than what he tells my sister. She is sat next to him but can't see the speedometer, so if he says one speed then she has to believe him, even if it is just slightly fast rather than the true excessively fast figure. Having a centre console is a bit more fair to passengers wanting to know that information too

SO this car is gonna be mentioned in divorce proceedings /s

The screen is not in the center console it sticks above the dash. Seems like the speed is probably just as close to the road as any other vehicle if not closer.

Do you think a diagonal saccade is worse than a vertical one for some reason?

Thanks for teaching me a new word! Saccade!

Yes, I do think it is worse, but that's just my gut feel, presumably Telsa designer's think otherwise. Not many other cars with the speed in the center console (older new-generation Minis come to mind though).

You might be in over your head with a guy who knows a word like saccade.

> Do you think a diagonal saccade is worse than a vertical one for some reason?

Yes, definitely. You don't?

Vertical movement is much easier, just try it. It's also easier to focus since one eye isn't farther away or blocked by your nose.

From experience: when tired, glancing down while driving is hard, while glancing sideways (at nav) is fine.

Nitpick: Moving your eyes to look at a speedometer is a conscious muscle movement, not a saccade. Saccades are involuntary, automatic and not consciously felt; they're the sensory system's way of automatically building up the visual "scene" in your brain from multiple images even though you feel like your gaze is fixed on a single point. You can't focus on the road and read the speedometer from your peripheral vision.

In the back of my mind, I knew there was was a "this is not technically a saccade" situation but couldn't remember why. Thanks for the clarification.

Renault Espace (among others) has had this for quite a while and it works fairly well. I'd even say it keeps your peripheral vision on the road more than the traditional clocks (if done right).

I'd love to test that. my tiny experience is that anything in the center will divert my view too much.

I agree that it works well in the Espace, however my impression is that while in the Model 3 the display is in the center like in the Espace it's also closer to the driver, making the viewing angle larger...

HUD on ebay is like $20, works off OBDII port.

Elon mentioned the interior was redesigned with full autonomy in mind. I guess the use case "driver maintaining the vehicle speed via non-autonomous pedal pressure while wanting to check the vehicle speed because he did not enable cruise mode" is a weird edge case for them.

On autopilot the car will stick to the assigned speed (with adaptive cruise control slowing down or speeding up depending on the traffic in front of you). In fully autonomous driving mode the car will read the speed limit signs and adjust.

It's pretty bizarre to treat driving without an $8000 options package as a weird edge case. If autonomous driving is that central, it seems like it should be a basic feature, not an upgrade.

The company likely has the data on the percentage of customers opting in for autonomous features and likely optimized for that.

Considering the hardware in every vehicle supports autonomy, it's a feature that could be sold to the customer later on or as an on-demand subscription.

If autonomous driving is out of the question, what makes Model 3 appealing compared to a Chevy Bolt, Chevy Volt or a plug-in Prius?

edit: I believe that adaptive cruise control (automatic speed adjustment based on the obstacles in front) is included in basic config, autopilot would include that + lane steering + lane change assistance with blind spot monitoring.

> what makes Model 3 appealing compared to ...

Everything that the reviewer wrote.

The reviewer went out of his way to emphasize the test drive is for a fully-loaded version.

> Franz’ car is a loaded version—a Premium (add $5,000), meaning better-grade materials, wood-veneered dash, 12-way front seats, 12-speaker sound, heated rear seats, side-by-side inductive phone chargers, and that panoramic glass ceiling

> paired with this car’s $9,000 long-range battery

> Tesla Model 3 is available with Enhanced Autopilot ($5,000) and for another $3,000 what’s called “Full Self-Driving Capability”

> $59,500 before incentives—including $1,500 for the larger 19-inch wheels (18 inches are standard), and a grand for the red multicoat paint

> And it’ll be a while before $35,000 versions are built

Their review of the $35,000 vehicle might be very different.

The review of the basic model might be very different ... or might be similar, I don't know. I was just trying to answer your (perhaps rhetorical) question:

> If autonomous driving is out of the question, what makes Model 3 appealing compared to a Chevy Bolt, Chevy Volt or a plug-in Prius?

The reviewer didn't mention anything about testing autonomous driving features. He raved about the car performance, from a driver perspective. Responsiveness, vibration on the steering wheel, how stable it is, etc. That is, he was looking for a features of a car that needs a driver, not what an autonomous car would provide. Therefore an answer to your question: "If autonomous driving is out of the question, what ..."

Perhaps I misunderstood your question?!?

Without an 8000$ options package that won't be available in most places for several years.

Adaptive cruise control is part of the base config.

I thought that required the $5k autopilot.

Looks like you are right, I was wrong - the non-autopilot versions of S come with plain old cruise control, not the "adaptive" one.

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