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Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

electrek.co

61–70 of 135 posts

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Model S Plaid and they do have haptic feedback when you press them, but the problem is they require muscle memory to know the exact place to press to get left/right turn signal or horn. I'm 6'1" and the horn is particularly problematic because it requires stretching your right thumb an uncomfortable amount to hit it. It reminds me of using a very large smartphone and trying to use your thumb to reach a tap p…

You just explained it doesn't make great cars, and you wish the government could make them make great cars.

They make cars with some great features and a lot of bad ones. I thought we could get over Model 3 Performance issues because the drivetrain and range were great, but all the other stuff was just way too much. 3 years. It was an overall, if barely, positive experience. What is amusing is most of it is unforced problems. Purposeful bad design decisions that put critical car features in difficult to use places with bad feedback mechanisms for no apparent reason. It is honestly perplexing. Eventually we gave up, it was just not good having critical features of driving a car change year to year. We have an Audi e-tron now. Wish the range was better, but it is better in almost every other way.

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#62

Thank God! Maybe this means they'll offer a round wheel (as an option or whatever) on the CyberTruck!!!!!!!! I despise the yolk with a fiery passion, but have zero problems with other people having one. Just give us the option! I won't even consider a car with a yolk (maybe if there is an easy modification). Blocking the dash screen is a non-argument. Never had a problem in many cars with seeing the display through t…

What did eggs ever do to you? I will see myself out :)

I drove a friends plaid. I would buy one on the spot if it had more physical controls and a round steering wheel. The performance of them is just so fun for daily driving and the range is amazing too. Ahh well, Elon gonna Elon.

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#63

I have 20k miles driving a Model S with a Yoke. While I'm not a huge fan, the yoke itself is only part of the problem. The bigger problems are: 1. The capacitive buttons for turn signals. They are dangerous. They require taking eyes from the road, offer no feedback, and are honestly dangerous. 2. The horn. It's not in the middle. It's off to the side as a no-feedback capacitive button. Every time I've needed to use t…

Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) mentioned that his right capacitive turn signal button is occasionally unresponsive with his Model S Plaid and he's had to resort to lane changes without a turn signal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34VZzBWBDN0&t=648s

Granted, this is one anecdotal case. But when spending over 100K on a car, features like this should be bullet-proof.

Actually ... scratch that. Features like this should be bullet-proof because they have been a solved problem for ~50+ years. Tesla is sacrificing safety for minimal cost savings and/or style points.

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#64

I have 20k miles driving a Model S with a Yoke. While I'm not a huge fan, the yoke itself is only part of the problem. The bigger problems are: 1. The capacitive buttons for turn signals. They are dangerous. They require taking eyes from the road, offer no feedback, and are honestly dangerous. 2. The horn. It's not in the middle. It's off to the side as a no-feedback capacitive button. Every time I've needed to use t…

Do you feel like you’re happy with your model s given the issues/compromises of the yoke you mentioned above?

The industry wide reduction of real buttons/switches and gauges is something that gives me pause on my next car purchase. I was initially thinking of getting a golf r but the infotainment and steering wheel capacitive buttons are almost universally criticized as really bad and there not being any real way to fix it.

When I saw the yoke I thought it was a concept car and they would come to their senses and use a wheel for production.

My wish list for an electric car: 1) be a dumb car. Minimal screens/animations/annoyances 2) if you do OTA updates I want to be able to reject a version and or revert to any version from any other version of the system software 3) don’t track me or show me ads 4) no feature on the car should require additional or recurring payments to use with very limited exceptions (thinking navigation updates etc) specifically don’t disable something on my car because I don’t pay future moneys for its use. 5) I’m fine with fast but I would rather have a reasonably quick car that pushes 400miles of range without needing a 200kwh battery. I get that big motors also help make big regenerative power but I would like a car that has similar performance to say an Audi s4 or bmw 340m but electric. 6) simple is fine but the model 3 is oversimplified. they really can’t put simple gauges in front of the driver? I feel like every feature of most teslas is built for this looming full self driving where some of these features make more sense. I think the odds today are pretty good that someone who takes delivery today of a new Tesla will send it to the junkyard before fsd really fully self drives. 7) don’t try to drive for me and allow tweaking of things like brake /steering feel, suspension settings.

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#65

I have 20k miles driving a Model S with a Yoke. While I'm not a huge fan, the yoke itself is only part of the problem. The bigger problems are: 1. The capacitive buttons for turn signals. They are dangerous. They require taking eyes from the road, offer no feedback, and are honestly dangerous. 2. The horn. It's not in the middle. It's off to the side as a no-feedback capacitive button. Every time I've needed to use t…

Yikes, buttons for turn signals? I can barely get a "legacy" horn to honk sometimes even

[deleted]

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you like the Y coming from the S? We had a 3 and added a Y and now we barely drive the 3. Strictly a commuter.

Not OP but I own an S and a Y. The S has a generous air suspension while the Y feels like driving a deuce and a half; very rough suspension (although I’ve heard new Ys since a few months ago are getting something more fancy now). Higher ride height is also nice. Pros and cons. Still love the S even though she’s a chonk and rides low. Interior in both is spartan. Towing with the Y is a treat for trailers within its ra…

I debated really hard between trading in my Y for an X so I could have a bigger car for my growing family. Decided to keep the Y because the X just didn't add enough space to make it worthwhile. Not to mention the unnecessary doors (roof storage is now impossible!), the yoke, and the twice as big price tag. Y is perfect for me other than I wish it was bigger.

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#68
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you set out to reinvent many of aspects that are conventional of a complex machine like a car, I’ll forgive you for not getting 100% of them right.

A single u-turn should have been all Tesla needed to understand how terrible an idea yoke is. You try arm over arm, then crash the car.

never driven a tesla, but also steer by palming rather than hand over hand so can't people just do that?

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#69
post #57

Article is a bit of a joke. Honestly we should be able to control a car with that degree of freedom. I'm a big for of smaller steering wheels that are out of the way. They use to make sense when you needed to apply lots of torque manually (aka no power steering) but gone are those days. > For example, if you lose control on an icy road, it could be harder to do some quick maneuvers to regain control. No F1 driver is…

    > No F1 driver is winning a world championship with a 
    wheel and not a yoke. The statement in the article is 
    incorrect. The yoke actually makes it easier to do 
    quick moves but in icy conditions that's not what you 
    want. 
This is a misunderstanding. The steering ratios on F1 cars are way, way tighter. They never have to turn the wheel more than a few degrees during a race and aren't turning the yoke more than a few degrees during a race. F1 drivers are also high-performance athletes and aren't tasked with driving their cars in the snow, maneuvering into tight parking spaces, etc.

Lots of design decisions on F1 cars don't make sense for road cars, and vice-versa.

Re: Tesla finally breaks and offers round steering wheel on Model S/X

#70
I literally cancelled my Plaid S order and switched to a Model Y over the stupidity of the yoke. I simply could not square that circle, so to speak. They emailed me telling me it was going to be ready for delivery and I said, "you know what, I can tell I'm going to hate it."

I'm really glad I did that. I simply cannot understand how the yoke ever made sense, aside from being a 13-year-old's idea of what a cool car would look like. I'm not changing 25 years of functional muscle memory for... literally no practical improvements at all. And the removal of the stalks is goddamn criminal. To save, what, a couple hundred dollars on a $150k car?

That coupled with the rumored removal of ultrasonic sensors is some very stupid forest-for-trees regressions in "if it ain't broke, don't break it" world.

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