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Yep. As a new Model 3 owner, this is definitely an issue and a huge drawback of them not having a smaller dashboard screen for critical functionality like the

by davedx 6y ago

Yep. As a new Model 3 owner, this is definitely an issue and a huge drawback of them not having a smaller dashboard screen for critical functionality like the speedo. The "black screen" issue is very real and affects lots of people. I've already experienced it twice within the first month of driving, if it happens a few more times it's off to the service centre with it. All in all I'm extremely happy with the car, it's an amazing drive, but the centre screen is definitely an issue.

bbarnett 6y ago
I still don't get night driving + rural. In the city, there is a lot of light. It's not really ever truly dark. In rural areas, on a dark night, especially with no moon, your eyes can adjust to the darkness... I tend to turn all light off inside my car when driving rural at night. That won't work though, if you have a massive, huge LCD with backlight constantly throwing white light at your eyes. Worse is if it 'shuts off', then you do something (change radio channel/interact) and blinding light smashes into your eyes. An OLED would help. A 'red only' theme would be even better. Smaller displays better beyond that. I get that Tesla rethought auto design. That's cool. But it seems like it only rethought from a very urban, perfect-eyesight, 20 something perspective.
- bdamm 6y ago
  I've done rural night driving in my Tesla Model 3. Yes, the display can be dimmed down well below the headlight reflection luminosity. The display also switches into night-mode automatically at sunset, where the colors become grey-on-black instead of black-on-white. You're right about the red theme, it would be welcome.
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    I still don't like any internal light, and a white blacklight seems... silly. Even if dimmed down, it's still there. (I have owned cars with LCDs before, and it's annoying if I can't completely shut them off). OLED would at least have no backlight.
    - bdamm 6y ago
      Well if you like driving with NO internal light, you CAN turn off the screen. I also enjoy occasionally driving with no instruments.
      - bbarnett 6y ago
        But then I "do something", and the screen comes blasting to life, blinding me, destroying my night vision. And what about my dometers? Speed, o? In a traditional car, my eyes adjust, and I can read them without additional light. At least an oled could maybe be themed to have tiny, red dometers... and being oled, no backlight... It still leaves the issue that one has to turn their head to see it... but, better than nothing....
        bdamm 6y ago
        If you really must have an OLED then you might have to wait until Tesla or someone releases a car with an OLED. But this issue of being blinded by the screen has not at all been a problem for my use of my Model 3. Also I am quite sensitive to darkness, so I ought to know... I am a pilot, and I am very aware of the need to keep your night vision sharp. The Tesla Model 3 controls have worked for me. They're not perfect, but I've rarely had the screen blast to life and shred my night vision. Maybe one time, but that was only when getting in the car while it sat unused through sunset, and it fixed itself in under a half second. The cabin controls allow me to totally black out the interior of I want, and the minimum brightness adjustments are well tuned so that at night the very bottom end of the adjustment range is actually effective. So this might really not be as much of an issue as you suspect. But there's only really one way to find out, and that's go try one out.
        bbarnett 6y ago
        A couple of things... We all have different sensitivities here. All our eyes are different. Mayhap, I'm more sensitive to dim light, more distracted, etc. Whatever the case... I've modified many cars I've bought, to allow me to completely turn off all internal back-lighting on all controls. I don't want a light glow on my traditional speedometer. My radio analog controls, door lock button, and other controls to have ANY lighting. It's annoying, distracting, and I don't want it. So considering this, imagine how annoying I find a massive LCD with any backlight. Even the dimmest backlight is many times brighter than a turned down analog backlight on classic style car displays, buttons, knobs, etc. My beef here is threefold. 1) Why on Earth is my speedometer to the right, so I have to turn my head to see it. Why is the speedometer not always there? 2) Why is it on a display that always has glowing light, or I can't see it. NOTE: yes, I can see a traditional car speedometer with only starlight/moonlight. No, I'm not mistaken, yes I can.. so says 32 years of driving. 3) Oh, I wanted to try a Tesla. But where? Where would I do that? Even when they had dealerships, which they've closed most of, there aren't many in my region. There's a whole ball of 'Tesla is still in its silly stage', such as not having anyone within 500km who can fix my car, not being able to buy parts, local dealers not being able to fix them, and the absurdity of thinking roving repair shops can fix a car at -40C, in the middle of an ice-bound street, during snow storms... But beyond that, I actually was in California and thought "Why not make their job easy, I'll test drive one here!" Nope. Sorry. Was flatly told no, as I didn't have California drivers license. I explained several times that I was on vacation, but the mantra was that "I can't buy local, so I can't test drive local." Of course, this isn't germane, but you did poke the whole "just try it" into my face.. so I had to respond. ;P
- Domenic_S 6y ago
  The screen uses dark mode at night, and the backlight can get pretty dark beyond that.
- Tagbert 6y ago
  On my Volt, the dash lights and screen automatically dim when ambient lighting is dim (aka dusk, night, tunnel). You can further dim them by twisting a small knob on the side of the dash. This should be stander operation.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
> if it happens a few more times it's off to the service centre with it. You still have time to turn it in as a lemon and get a refund.
wlesieutre 6y ago
Some cars are doing a HUD option with driver info in you field of view at the bottom of the windshield, I think that would be a great way for Tesla to maintain the “cool screen” factor while keeping important information available when infotainment breaks. But then you need the HUD hardware and another little computer to manage it, and since the Model 3’s “everything goes in the infotainment system” is fundamentally a cost-cutting measure, I doubt it will happen. Or if it does, it’ll be a premium trim item. And since vehicle speed is arguably pretty important for driver safety (if not when flowing with traffic, then when taking a sharply curved exit ramp off the highway) it’s not a good look to put it as a paid upgrade. Tesla wouldn’t want to admit that a second screen is helpful. Best case would be to make the main screen stop crashing, but if that were easy they’d have done it already.

by davedx 6y ago

bbarnett 6y ago

I still don't get night driving + rural. In the city, there is a lot of light. It's not really ever truly dark. In rural areas, on a dark night, especially with no moon, your eyes can adjust to the darkness... I tend to turn all light off inside my car when driving rural at night. That won't work though, if you have a massive, huge LCD with backlight constantly throwing white light at your eyes. Worse is if it 'shuts off', then you do something (change radio channel/interact) and blinding light smashes into your eyes. An OLED would help. A 'red only' theme would be even better. Smaller displays better beyond that. I get that Tesla rethought auto design. That's cool. But it seems like it only rethought from a very urban, perfect-eyesight, 20 something perspective.

bdamm 6y ago
I've done rural night driving in my Tesla Model 3. Yes, the display can be dimmed down well below the headlight reflection luminosity. The display also switches into night-mode automatically at sunset, where the colors become grey-on-black instead of black-on-white. You're right about the red theme, it would be welcome.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  I still don't like any internal light, and a white blacklight seems... silly. Even if dimmed down, it's still there. (I have owned cars with LCDs before, and it's annoying if I can't completely shut them off). OLED would at least have no backlight.
  - bdamm 6y ago
    Well if you like driving with NO internal light, you CAN turn off the screen. I also enjoy occasionally driving with no instruments.
    - bbarnett 6y ago
      But then I "do something", and the screen comes blasting to life, blinding me, destroying my night vision. And what about my dometers? Speed, o? In a traditional car, my eyes adjust, and I can read them without additional light. At least an oled could maybe be themed to have tiny, red dometers... and being oled, no backlight... It still leaves the issue that one has to turn their head to see it... but, better than nothing....
      - bdamm 6y ago
        If you really must have an OLED then you might have to wait until Tesla or someone releases a car with an OLED. But this issue of being blinded by the screen has not at all been a problem for my use of my Model 3. Also I am quite sensitive to darkness, so I ought to know... I am a pilot, and I am very aware of the need to keep your night vision sharp. The Tesla Model 3 controls have worked for me. They're not perfect, but I've rarely had the screen blast to life and shred my night vision. Maybe one time, but that was only when getting in the car while it sat unused through sunset, and it fixed itself in under a half second. The cabin controls allow me to totally black out the interior of I want, and the minimum brightness adjustments are well tuned so that at night the very bottom end of the adjustment range is actually effective. So this might really not be as much of an issue as you suspect. But there's only really one way to find out, and that's go try one out.
        bbarnett 6y ago
        A couple of things... We all have different sensitivities here. All our eyes are different. Mayhap, I'm more sensitive to dim light, more distracted, etc. Whatever the case... I've modified many cars I've bought, to allow me to completely turn off all internal back-lighting on all controls. I don't want a light glow on my traditional speedometer. My radio analog controls, door lock button, and other controls to have ANY lighting. It's annoying, distracting, and I don't want it. So considering this, imagine how annoying I find a massive LCD with any backlight. Even the dimmest backlight is many times brighter than a turned down analog backlight on classic style car displays, buttons, knobs, etc. My beef here is threefold. 1) Why on Earth is my speedometer to the right, so I have to turn my head to see it. Why is the speedometer not always there? 2) Why is it on a display that always has glowing light, or I can't see it. NOTE: yes, I can see a traditional car speedometer with only starlight/moonlight. No, I'm not mistaken, yes I can.. so says 32 years of driving. 3) Oh, I wanted to try a Tesla. But where? Where would I do that? Even when they had dealerships, which they've closed most of, there aren't many in my region. There's a whole ball of 'Tesla is still in its silly stage', such as not having anyone within 500km who can fix my car, not being able to buy parts, local dealers not being able to fix them, and the absurdity of thinking roving repair shops can fix a car at -40C, in the middle of an ice-bound street, during snow storms... But beyond that, I actually was in California and thought "Why not make their job easy, I'll test drive one here!" Nope. Sorry. Was flatly told no, as I didn't have California drivers license. I explained several times that I was on vacation, but the mantra was that "I can't buy local, so I can't test drive local." Of course, this isn't germane, but you did poke the whole "just try it" into my face.. so I had to respond. ;P
Domenic_S 6y ago
The screen uses dark mode at night, and the backlight can get pretty dark beyond that.
Tagbert 6y ago
On my Volt, the dash lights and screen automatically dim when ambient lighting is dim (aka dusk, night, tunnel). You can further dim them by twisting a small knob on the side of the dash. This should be stander operation.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

> if it happens a few more times it's off to the service centre with it. You still have time to turn it in as a lemon and get a refund.

wlesieutre 6y ago

Some cars are doing a HUD option with driver info in you field of view at the bottom of the windshield, I think that would be a great way for Tesla to maintain the “cool screen” factor while keeping important information available when infotainment breaks. But then you need the HUD hardware and another little computer to manage it, and since the Model 3’s “everything goes in the infotainment system” is fundamentally a cost-cutting measure, I doubt it will happen. Or if it does, it’ll be a premium trim item. And since vehicle speed is arguably pretty important for driver safety (if not when flowing with traffic, then when taking a sharply curved exit ramp off the highway) it’s not a good look to put it as a paid upgrade. Tesla wouldn’t want to admit that a second screen is helpful. Best case would be to make the main screen stop crashing, but if that were easy they’d have done it already.