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> 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 touchscr

> 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.

dwighttk 6y ago
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.
- andreilys 6y ago
  When I rented a Tesla I recall being able to set all these controls with my voice.
  - themaninthedark 6y ago
    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....
    - light_hue_1 6y ago
      > 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.
      - kingnothing 6y ago
        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.
    - marvin 6y ago
      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.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    Probably not the best place to ask this, but how well does it understand languages different from English?
    - sam_bristow 6y ago
      Or even English with something other than a North American accent?
- adrr 6y ago
  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.
haberman 6y ago
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.
- modeless 6y ago
  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?
  - haberman 6y ago
    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.
    - eightails 6y ago
      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.
    - ridged 6y ago
      I had this issue with mine ( 2018 M3 ). It is a known issue and the service center fixed it.
  - argonaut 6y ago
    BMW switched back to normal turn stalks in more recent cars.
- killion 6y ago
colordrops 6y ago
You can activate the wipers with one of the control sticks, at least on the model 3.
- modeless 6y ago
  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.
prepend 6y ago
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.

dwighttk 6y ago

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.

andreilys 6y ago
When I rented a Tesla I recall being able to set all these controls with my voice.
- themaninthedark 6y ago
  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....
  - light_hue_1 6y ago
    > 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.
    - kingnothing 6y ago
      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.
  - marvin 6y ago
    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.
- pmontra 6y ago
  Probably not the best place to ask this, but how well does it understand languages different from English?
  - sam_bristow 6y ago
    Or even English with something other than a North American accent?
adrr 6y ago
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.

haberman 6y ago

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.

modeless 6y ago
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?
- haberman 6y ago
  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.
  - eightails 6y ago
    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.
  - ridged 6y ago
    I had this issue with mine ( 2018 M3 ). It is a known issue and the service center fixed it.
- argonaut 6y ago
  BMW switched back to normal turn stalks in more recent cars.
killion 6y ago

colordrops 6y ago

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

modeless 6y ago
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.

prepend 6y ago

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.