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Comment by modeless | Hacker News Reader

> Having one display off to the side, without buttons, that does everything is an awful experience in a car

I have to strongly disagree with this. The touchscreen is great for the vast majority of things it replaces. The only physical controls I ever miss are for temperature (which is a very minor complaint) and windshield wipers (though I would also accept auto wipers that actually work). I do think the UI smoothness and touch latency could be slightly improved, and Apple would do better, but Tesla is already so far ahead of every other car manufacturer there that it's not even funny.

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Somewhat ironically, the physical controls for the turns signals are by far the worst part of the whole Tesla UI. I've had my Model 3 for over two years now, and I still cannot reliably cancel a turn signal, or "soft push" the signal so it only blinks 3 times. It's infuriating to inadvertently signal left, then right, then left again, as you frantically try to just cancel the turn signal. I'm broadcasting confusion and incompetence to the outside world, when inside the car I know exactly what I'm trying to do.

I give the "worst" award to the wiper controls, but I do dislike the mushy feel of the control stalks and the way turn signal cancellation works. Last time I drove a BMW I recall it working similarly though, so maybe it's just the style now?

Perhaps it is just a defect in my hardware, but on mine it is nearly impossible to reliably "soft" press in either direction. Every motion either registers as nothing or hard press.

Yeah could be worth bringing that up during next service. I haven't really had an issue with the two-stage indicators, once I got used to the concept.

I had this issue with mine ( 2018 M3 ). It is a known issue and the service center fixed it.

BMW switched back to normal turn stalks in more recent cars.

We went from a Model S to a Model 3 and this is my only complaint. The steering wheel stalks are terrible on the 3. But are perfectly normal on the S.

I prefer everything else about the 3.

What kills me are the wipers. During the dry season I forget about them, and then winter hits and I dread driving my car. Why oh why could Tesla not just use an off-the-shelf IR sensor like every other premium car? FFS, trying to use cameras to detect rain is a disaster.

BMW did this, too, starting with the E90 3 series, if I remember correctly. It's awful, because in almost every car I drive, and especially in BMWs (E92 and the E70 X5 I own now), the steering wheel blocks the top of the speedometer and the turn signals entirely. The "modern" turn signal sounds are too soft to be heard over music, and the switch itself is stateless. I think BMW finally gave up on it for their newer models, but I'm not positive on this.

Both the Tesla and the X5 annoy me when I can't tell the state of the switch by feel. Which is funny, because, IMO, BMW has some of the best-feeling and best-weighted stalks in the business. It sounds silly, but I positively LOVE the way engagement on the steering wheels stalks feel on my X5, and every other BMW I've owned or driven.

You can try adjusting the height of the steering wheel? I run into the same issue in my E90 335d, but it's by choice as it's where I like the steering wheel to sit in relation to my seat position.

Very much agreed on the feeling and weight of the stalks. By far the best in the business. Especially for knowing the difference between a lane change vs. turn signal

Yeah that's exactly it. I run the wheel as low as it goes, it would have to be really high for the whole cluster to be visible. Thankfully I have the HUD which I use for speed, but it does not show turn signal indicators.

I have a Z3M where I can see all the instruments perfectly, but that's just because the steering wheel is fixed and much higher than I'd like.

I agree, the turn signals suck. Though interestingly I don't have the same problem you have. What gets me is that the detent between the momentary switch and the full signal is stiff enough that I somewhat regularly inadvertently flash oncoming traffic when activating the turn signal. Because the pull resistance on that stalk is much lower than the pressure required to overcome the signal detent.

As a counterpoint, I absolutely love the turn signals in my Model 3. I always thought BMW had the best turn signals (which are functionally identical to Tesla's), and was thrilled to see that Tesla took the same approach.

Man I don’t drive with a passenger enough to care about ui animations on my car. I just want to set the fan speed and move on... preferably without looking.

When I rented a Tesla I recall being able to set all these controls with my voice.

How well does voice control handle outside noise? Torrential downpours, sleet/hail?

If the windows start to fog during one of those situations, taking your attention off the road to look and swipe is very dangerous.

Edit to add: Is the voice processing being handled on board? If not, then if your signal fails....

> How well does voice control handle outside noise? Torrential downpours, sleet/hail?

The Model 3 at least is remarkably quiet; hard rain and street noise and dampened a lot. To the point where we felt it was almost eerie the first time we took it home. Voice recognition has been perfect in all conditions.

Do you have a 2021 model with dual pane windows? The Model 3 objectively has a noisier cabin at highway speed than anything else in its class.

I turned the wipers on with my first try, wearing a face mask, without knowing what the voice command was, and English isn't my native language.

You do need to speak loudly, and there's an unfamiliar concentration aspect to using a voice command rather than a switch.

Probably not the best place to ask this, but how well does it understand languages different from English?

Or even English with something other than a North American accent?

Fan isn’t that bad because you can change it when it’s safe to do so. Changing the windshield wiper speed because you can barely see is my biggest issue. I always forget which way to swipe while trying focus on seeing out the window. It was worse when auto wipers feature just didn’t work and now it kinda works.

I suppose it’s personal preference but the touchscreen is probably the single biggest factor why I didn’t buy a Tesla recently. I think it will be great when self driving works, but for driving it’s hard to try to touch parts of a flat screen.

Here’s an example of various controls I fiddle with while driving: temperature control through a little knob that sticks out; Heated seats through a button with sight curve around borders; Apple CarPlay through a knob.

There’s also no heads up display to present speed and nav onto the windshield.

All these things are good for me to look at the road and not have to precisely touch something with at least a few seconds of focus.

I have friends who love their Tesla and love the touch screen so it may just be my control style that doesn’t work.

I suspect Apple would get this stuff better.

You can activate the wipers with one of the control sticks, at least on the model 3.

You can only "activate" them to wipe a single time with the button on the stalk. Not useful in rain unless you like pressing a button every three seconds for the entire time you're driving.

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