Comment by gutnor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gutnor | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, that dampened my excitement for the model 3 a notch.

In order for that design to make sense in today's model 3, it would mean that very car is just a software update away from autonomy at "we are all watching netflix instead of looking outside" level. And that software update is coming very soon, in a matter of maximum 2-3 years.

I'm skeptical. I can very well see the next Model S, or the refreshed model 3 in 5 years achieve that [1], but really that's sacrificing today Model 3 user for something that's going to never be delivered to them. Not sure I like the approach of "this is a glimpse of the future that is not for you".

I don't think that there is much need for a lot of button, don't get me wrong. To me, just somewhat more feature full lever around the wheel - nothing fancy, just the same you get on most cars and a hud so that the rest of the family can indeed watch Netflix while the driver does not lose completely every driving information. Job done, a taste of the future, but not completely compromised experience for the poor sod that has to drive in the present.

[1] A lot of people that know more than me are skeptical this is even possible short term, but with no money at stake I'm happy to dream.

Watching this video: https://www.teslarati.com/doug-demuro-tesla-model-3-review-c...

It seems like there are a lot of questionable UI decisions that would make me hate driving it after a week.

I think this article overstates things a bit. I have a Model S which has a bit more in the way of levers and buttons, but is still really minimal compared to most cars, and it's fine.

The Model 3 is lacking two main physical controls compared to the Model S.

One is the windshield wiper speed control. Both cars have a button to trigger the wipers manually. The S also has five speed settings physically accessible: off, auto-low, auto-high, continuous-low, and continuous-high. The auto wipers are pretty good (this is the old Autopilot hardware, the new Autopilot hardware still doesn't have the software for it) and so I hardly ever have to fiddle with it. I bet a bit of software and hardware improvement can take that "hardly ever" to "not ever" so I don't think the Model 3 will suffer here... once the auto-wipers are actually enabled!

The other is cruise control. The Model S has a separate stalk for that, which you can use to engage, disengage, adjust following distance, and adjust speed. The Model 3 has it on the PRND stalk and it's just on/off. I don't think following distance is a big deal. It's pretty much set it and forget it on my Model S. Speed adjustments are often handy, but a lot of that is because the car isn't totally reliable at figuring out the current speed limit. When it does, manual speed adjustments will be needed rarely.

The Model 3 controls are designed around intelligent driver assist features, but I don't think they're designed around anything close to full autonomy. They're really just designed around good automatic wipers and intelligent cruise control, both of which will probably be ready before most of us mere mortals can obtain one of these cars.

I have a Model S too, and my one irritation with it is that I don't have a physical button or dial to turn off the headlights. Whenever I drive onto a Washington State Ferry at night, it gets me into a bit of trouble.

If you haven't done it; you're required to turn off your headlights the second you board the ferry, there are signs posted, and the ferry operators will often check as you board. One reason is that sometimes car owners leave their lights on, drain their battery, and delay the ferry unloading at the other end. But even as you debark the ferry, you're required to keep your lights off until just off the boat. I think glare and operator safety might be factors too.

But in either direction, if it's night then you need your lights on just before, or just after the boat, and you'll be driving across a narrow little articulated loading dock at the time. Trying to drive in those conditions, and get through 3 taps or however many it is on the console, just isn't going to happen. So twice now, I've had a boat worker stop my car, yell at me, and have everyone wait while I go through the LCD to do it.

That's an interesting problem. I've only had to manually fiddle with my lights once or twice so I hadn't really thought about it.

One thing I think they could really improve would be to enable voice commands for these things. It's still no substitute for a physical control when you really need it, but it would help, and it ought to be something they could add in an update without much trouble.

I have a Model S too. And agree with your first point about the wipers. Not so sure about the second one. Where AP2 is at the moment, I have to constantly adjust speed and distance, especially during heavy traffic. Because I want to reduce the car length during very heavy stop and go and increase it when traffic is flowing. Also, when the speed limit changes, Tesla doesn't bump up the set speed, so I have to manually change it. I love how I can achieve all of these using the dedicated stalk

Following distance adjustment could be made unnecessary with a relatively minor software improvement, where the distance is made more dynamic than it is currently. I'm pretty sure the main reason it doesn't automatically adjust the set speed when the speed limit changes is because it's not sufficiently confident in its knowledge of the change, so it could go away once the system gets better.

With the current state of AP2, the Model 3's controls seem to be a bit lacking, but they should be sufficient once relatively minor improvements come along, no need for anything like full autonomy.

There could also be a desire to push partial-autonomy features in the short term, when Model 3 owners are making the decision day-by-day whether to drive the car completely manually or whether to rely on whatever level of Autopilot is available now or in 2 years. If driving the car without Autopilot is deliberately made to feel weird and akward, more people will turn on Autopilot in more situations.

Partial autonomy really sucks in less than ideal conditions. Like it's raining like mad in poor visibility, the road is atrocious, the marking is weird, ...

Those are the times you don't have the choice but drive yourself and that's also the time you have to fiddle with a lot of option like finding the right speed for the wipers. Nobody like driving in those conditions, and if Tesla makes the experience even worse that will indeed make people regret Autopilot but maybe not in a good way.

Driving manual in a sunny day in country side twisty roads ? You really don't need anything else than the brake, the wheel and accelerator, no matter the car.

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