This Is How The Refreshed Model S Shifts From Drive To Reverse
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said eventually Tesla's cars will shift themselves. Perhaps this new shifting feature is a step in that direction.
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đź“° Auto News New Tesla Model S & X shift between forward and reverse... on the touchscreen.
- Thread starter Yaj Yak
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Tesla’s Touchscreen Shifter Seems Like a Really Bad Idea
Watch this silly shifting method in action.
Remember the good old days? You know, the time when putting your automatic car into gear meant positioning a lever so that it lined up with the letters D or R?
Oh, the automakers tried to complicate our lives by using D for "drive" instead of F for "forward" (after all, "forward" is the opposite of "reverse", right?), and putting R toward the top of the lever's options and D toward the back. Still, though this seemingly foolproof design has led to the demise of many, many garage doors over the decades, generally even the most dim-witted or mildly inebriated among us could generally figure out how to get their cars going in the desired direction.
Since the arrival of the 2002 BMW 7 Series, it seems automakers are on a mission to overcomplicate what should be a mindless task by equipping various vehicles with a succession of electronic levers that must be tugged, slid, pushed, pulled, rotated, or prayed to in the most inconceivable patterns.
Ah, progress.
According to a tweet by Twitter user Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, Tesla has come up with a new and even more complex shifting mechanism for the 2021.5 Model S and Model X: the touchscreen. The updated Tesla model's center screens seem to feature an icon of the car on the left side of the display, which users then drag up to put the car in drive and drag down to put it in reverse
At first glance, the setup seems elegantly simple. Look closer, though, and you'll likely stumble on a few flaws. For one, the uninitiated, such as a valet, may never think to look to the touchscreen for this function. Curse all you want at the strange shifters other automakers have developed over the years, but at least these setups are generally located in typical spots such as the steering column or center console.
Problem number two—the real problem, the one the government and mainstream media don't want you to know about—is that touch-screens can fail. Let's rephrase this: The touchscreen will fail. In fact, Tesla's most recent recall was due to just such an issue, as Tesla sent about 135,000 cars out of its factory doors with an NVidia Tegra 3 chip with a lifetime of about 3,000 program-erase cycles. Translated to human time, that's about five-to-six years of driving before the screen finally went to the big dashboard in the sky.
Bear in mind this led to a government-mandated recall because, in a Tesla, no screen means no access to functions such as the hazard lights and front and rear defrosters, all of which require easy access by law. And which vehicles were affected by this recall? You guessed it: the Model S and Model X. In other words, the very same models that get this new shifting paradigm.
That said, it seems this is the override function Elon Musk referred to when he tweeted, "No gear shifter, no turn signals, no problem. No more stalks. Car guesses drive direction based on what obstacles it sees, context & nav map. You can override on a touchscreen."
Alright, maybe this is kind of cool. That said, it also seems like something prone to going really, really wrong. For instance, how's a Model S or Model X driver to go from drive to reverse (or vice versa) if the touchscreen calls it quits in the middle of a drive? Will the touchscreen gear selector work if the driver's wearing gloves? These questions and more will hopefully be answered once we get finally get our hands on an updated Model S or Model X.
So when I see a Tesla half ass in a parking spot hanging out in the isle, I’ll know what happened. Got it.
That’s one method of changing gears. It can predict the gear you need, there is a steering wheel button, or you can use the touchscreen.
A lot of cars have “digital” shifters now so it’s really no different than them except instead of having a dial, or a lever, or a push button it has the screen, a button on the wheel or it guesses (you can toggle that on and off in setting of course) so it’s functionality is the same as a lot of the cars on the road now, it’s just the method of input. It’s no more or less reliable than any of those other cars.
A lot of cars have “digital” shifters now so it’s really no different than them except instead of having a dial, or a lever, or a push button it has the screen, a button on the wheel or it guesses (you can toggle that on and off in setting of course) so it’s functionality is the same as a lot of the cars on the road now, it’s just the method of input. It’s no more or less reliable than any of those other cars.
There was a leaked video somewhere when they showed closeups of the steering wheel (not the yoke though) and it had a button that had arrows going forward and backward and the assumption was it was for shifting
i legit can't imagine defending this
I legit can’t imagine complaining about this
Technically this is all pre-production so none of this could end up being final
LAWDDDD TESLA MAYYYY DOOOO NOOOO WRONGGGG NOT NOOOWWWW NOTTT EVVVAAAA ALLLL HAILLLLL LLAWWWDDDDDDDD TESLAAAAAA
yes, that’s it- everybody who would never buy a tesla anyway cries about this and then I say “if this is too complicated to comprehend maybe this car isn’t for you” and that equals “all hail lord musk”
I mean have you driven a new Tahoe/suburban? They have buttons for a shifter where some you need to push, some you need to pull. That’s less confusing than swipe the picture of the car forward to go forward, swipe backwards to go reverse? It’s literally that easy. I don’t understand why everybody is crying about this
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