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Comment by mft_ | Hacker News Reader

There's no harm in trying one. Outside of the minority of cars with reliability issues, they're great cars IMO - and that's coming from a life-long 'car person'. Once you learn to use it appropriately (as in, what it's capable and not capable of, and that you do need to stay engaged in the driving process despite it) even Autopilot is pretty useful too.

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>Once you learn to use it appropriately

But we just want a normal car with an electric engine!

Yep, ditch all the shiny bells & whistles, autopilot, massive screen, etc., and in turn drop the price by $3k to $5k.

But I'm not sure that's the market Tesla want to be in that market. Other automakers might get there though.

Having traditional controls would probably increase the price. There's a reason that so many car manufacturers are adding touchscreens; it's _cheap_.

You are not required to use the Autopilot though

When I informed my spouse that there wasn't windshield wiper controls on the steering wheel stalks, she pretty much immediately struck Tesla from her future car purchase plans.

The model 3 does have windshield wiper controls on the steering wheel stalks. I think it's only the few cars (new S, X?) with the new yoke that don't?

> The model 3 does have windshield wiper controls on the steering wheel stalks.

Well, you can push the button on the end of the left stalk to trigger a wipe - and that causes the controls to appear as a "card" on the screen if you want to set the wipers manually.

The button acts as a mist setting/washer fluid while opening a panel in the touchscreen UI to then tweak auto/high/low/off. Tactile controls, that can be operated by feel without taking your eyes off the road, are important to both of us. Voice commands for higher functions/problem spaces makes a ton of sense. It's why I never overrode the safety lock in my care that disabled the touch screen when it's moving more than 10 mph. If the cars voice system or Google's voice system can't get it, it is probably high level enough that it can wait until I stop. If it's low level/time sensitive enough, I want a dedicated input.

I hear you, but many 'added value' features in a car need to be learned to some degree. You can just choose to drive to without these - and it's a good basic car if you do.

I fully expect my first electric car will, when it arrives, be a Hyundai or Renault/Nissan, or somesuch from a company that builds cars which happen to have an electric drivetrain, rather than whatever this shit is.

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