Hidden door handles, button open doors when inside the car, only touch screen buttons, rear red turn signal lights.
Reverse these trends. They all suck and unsafe.
Ok the rear red turn signal lights were already a trend in the US before Tesla. But please reverse this too. It's very difficult to see blinking red lights on the freeway when it's sunny. For you people out there who buy cars with red blinking signal lights, I hate you.
The whole thing would be a good example of dismantling Chesterton's fence, if the advantages of the traditional design of these things weren't obvious.
Allowing Silicon Valley dorks to redefine the established UIs of cars was one of the biggest mistakes of the last 10 years. Ultimately it's cost shaving, but it spread like a cancer to other manufacturers owing mostly to a TikTok-brained customer base (to their own detriment).
It's one of the reasons I refuse to own a new car. Zero reason to hide critical controls behind a touch screen.
My daily driver has all tactile controls. I can operate wipers, climate, radio, and all critical functions blindfolded.
It's probably because they started mandating reverse cameras. Which is great, but any cars without screens suddenly had them. At that point, it was probably cheaper to put the rest of the functionality on the screen.
In aerodynamic terms, door handles are nbd compared to side mirrors. Mirrors account for 6% of a car's aerodynamic drag. Door handles: roughly 0.2%. Basically they make no difference -- their effect is a rounding error -- and they were implemented for form-over-function style points.
Is it really though? On a Tesla you have both the electronic button and manual door release from every door on the inside. You wouldn't need those manual releases if the doors weren't electronic.
Isn't it only the Model S that has those electric door handles that pop out on their own? And the cheaper Model 3 has hidden ones that you pop out yourself.
That's correct but the interior door handles are electronic buttons. When you pull the exterior handle, during the time when you pull the handle the car also lowers the windows so the door can open.
Which is only important because someone at Tesla decided their cars must have frameless windows, despite it being a luxury feature that adds complication.
Normal framed windows don't need any special handling of the windows when you open the door.
Would it help to add a surface behind the side mirrors so that it's more aerodynamic? I'm thinking something that stretches from the car body to the side mirrors.
Or could the side mirrors could be shaped like an airplane's wing so that the air displaces nicely?
It'd look weird, but I'd rather have the fuel efficiency.
But this is part of the problem. A mirror just works, or is very visibly broken if not. We want to have less electronic stuff in cars, not more. So I hope this isn't legal.
They could've made exterior door handles that look exactly the same as they currently do, but without adding all this additional fragile complexity: put them on a pivot, so you press one end and the other pops up so you can pull on it...
this is a good move by China, hopefully its the end of the line for hidden door handles for EV's everywhere. Some things are cool but impractical; others are cool but dangerous.
Article shows a picture of and then starts talking about exterior door handles, but then:
> door handles that are "difficult to identify and operate because their colour is similar to the interior trim".
The interior controls are hidden?! Is this like an electronic egress with a hidden mechanical backup?
For those external door handles it would be ideal of their failsafe state was popped out. Fire doors in buildings work like this. Would it consume too much energy from the battery to hold the handles in?
I hope there's more "no, your 'luxury' feature is just unsafe."
Being unable to turn on the windshield wipers (not engage for a swipe, turn on) without fully taking eyes off the road to interact with the giant touch screen, that's going to get people killed. The #1 thing that convinced me Teslas are absolutely unfit to operate safely for many common actions was driving one at all.
You can install aftermarket stalks. They're actually quite good now, and are available for 3/Y, S/X. (don't know about truck) Some early models used adhesive (SEXY brand?), skip those.
In the end, I think tesla is just stupid.
- removing dashboard in front of driver (3, y, cybertruck)
- critical controls on the touchscreen, usually behind a swipe or two. for example can't locate defrost on touchscreen without swiping
- can't remove non-critical music player overlay
- hard to find or touch-sensitive buttons for hazard lights
- tiny targets on touchscreen (for a moving car)
- so much overloading on center console (for a moving car)
I could go on and on.
There are plenty of things they get right.
The original model s was ok. Not as "super-clean" looking, but you had stalks with buttons for fingertip access to many things 1) turn signals, headlights, wipers 2) self drive functions 3) gear select with present handles when you pressed park button 4) adjust steering wheel position;
The original model s interior door handles were good - the lever to open the door had two functions. Pull the lever a little bit and it would electronically trigger the door release solenoid. But the same lever, pull it further and it would mechanically open the door. So the same lever would open the door with power or without power, no need to discover something new in an emergency.
the older UIs were easier to use (in a moving car). more old-school looking, but more contrast and bigger targets.
Yeah, everything about it seems trying too hard to be cool. My friend let me drive his new Tesla for a bit and I was like nah. Then a month later he was complaining to me how annoying it is to activate blinkers on it.
it's also annoying to accidentally activate a turn signal (or horn before they moved that). Then it is hard to cancel it, because you have to determine which one is pressed, and unpress it. choose the wrong one and you are back to cancelling the other one.
It is also just as hard to cancel the turn signal/lane change that FSD is attempting that you want to veto.
I have no idea what people behind you are thinking (or acting on while all this struggle is going on)
Yeah I dunno, I own one in the extremely rainy PNW and it’s fine. I was very apprehensive of using the touch screen for basic functions also but it turns out you don’t need to.
Tesla also cheaped out and didn't use a normal rain sensor for the wipers to enable auto mode, instead using "Tesla Vision". I've heard nothing but bad things about it.
Rain sensing was a solved problem and Tesla un-solved it.
> BEIJING, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Tesla and eight other automakers said on Friday they will recall a total of about 4.3 million vehicles in China over concerns that doors may be difficult to open in an emergency, marking the country's largest automotive recall.
> Tesla's remedy includes warning labels and an update delivered remotely that automatically lowers vehicle windows after a collision.
Yes this is a recall and yes Tesla will be changing the design in the future but this is an industry-wide regulatory change and the automakers are being given considerable latitude to patch existing inventory while updating future designs. I am supportive of this change and it is also not a huge problem for Tesla (it's an over-the-air update) or even isolated to them.
Before I bought a car, these articles would come out every now and then "X recalls 500 million cars over blinking light on dash" and I'd think that was crazy. "They just refund the owners of the car? But what if they don't want to give them up". Then I bought one and it turns out everyone gets these recalls all the time. I'm sitting at my desk and there's a Subaru Emissions Recall WRA-26 right now next to me. And the Tesla recalls are just an OTA update?
Recalls are just automotive industry term for 'errata'. It's like if we said "Google issues recall for misaligned CSS on Updates tab in Gmail" or "Slack issues recall for UX changes: all customers encouraged to Cmd-R". I can't believe this is news.
> that automatically lowers vehicle windows after a collision
I wonder how long until people figure out that tapping the bumper of a parked tesla opens all the windows, letting people either steal the infotainment screen, or the whole car...
To detect impacts cars typically use sensors that require the entire car to experience significant acceleration, tapping the car definitely won’t do it.
No, you’d need to have the centre of the car exceed well beyond 9.8ms^2 for a few milliseconds for airbags. I don’t know the exact figures but basically you’d need to smash another car into the car, at which point it would be easier to just break the window.
Of course they could make the window impact detection thing as sensitive as they want, but why?
Also many cars detect occupancy and selectively trigger airbags, so depending on what the regulations are exactly, if none of the seats detect anyone is inside the car, and the car is turned off, and the car is not moving, probably safe to keep the window closed.
Like this is already a potential problem we had, if someone could write your car off by simply kicking it, or body slamming it, causing the airbags to deploy (which is often a write off)… but it’s not a real problem because the threshold for deployment is high enough that it would require a crash that would probably ruin the car anyway.
Western societies are relatively high-crime for their development. My uncle just leaves his motor-scooter's key in his helmet and leaves the helmet on the vehicle. Millions of people live in Taipei. "I wonder how long it will take people to look in helmets and steal what's there". Turns out pretty long. Been decades now.
Continuing?? Most Chinese domestic market cars can't be sold in the west because they're to dangerous or polluting. I'm sure they're getting stricter on both fronts but they're still behind developed countries.
The current top three auto-makers by sales in Australia are Toyota, BYD, then Ford. They might not have quite the same market penetration in Europe but BYD vehicles are sold there, and some have 5 star safety ratings.
IIRC more than half of cars sold in China are EV or PHEV. I am receptive to learn that there are PHEVs that are too polluting to be sold in the west, but I would love to see the data.
Yeah so in like 2014 you would see chinese EV's mostly when they caught fire, exploded, or their batteries died in like 20 minutes.
The thing was, that the chinese government really sort of accepted that outcome as they wanted to brute force EV tech into existence.
Nowadays, Chinese EV's are easily at parity. Better than parity if you consider the price and standard features. They have heaps of export quality cars.
So yeah, continuing feels right. I don't know if the policy worked, or if their car market would have caught up anyway, but they knew what they want, and got it.
Reverse these trends. They all suck and unsafe.
Ok the rear red turn signal lights were already a trend in the US before Tesla. But please reverse this too. It's very difficult to see blinking red lights on the freeway when it's sunny. For you people out there who buy cars with red blinking signal lights, I hate you.
I'm surprised. But it shouldn't be up to Tesla; it's illegal and they never get on the road in countries with proper regulations.
very difficult to see blinking red lights on the freeway when it's sunny.
Perhaps because they're too small and the LEDs are not diffused enough.
Red means Rear, and white means front, which is why reversing lights are white and front turn signals are (should be) yellow.
It's one of the reasons I refuse to own a new car. Zero reason to hide critical controls behind a touch screen.
My daily driver has all tactile controls. I can operate wipers, climate, radio, and all critical functions blindfolded.
> https://medium.com/@arunchidambaram/is-teslas-door-handle-an...
In aerodynamic terms, door handles are nbd compared to side mirrors. Mirrors account for 6% of a car's aerodynamic drag. Door handles: roughly 0.2%. Basically they make no difference -- their effect is a rounding error -- and they were implemented for form-over-function style points.
Normal framed windows don't need any special handling of the windows when you open the door.
Or could the side mirrors could be shaped like an airplane's wing so that the air displaces nicely?
It'd look weird, but I'd rather have the fuel efficiency.
But not sure that would be legal.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/a28120245/car-... (2019)
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61xdWAXl2ML.jpg
...no electricity required to operate those.
door handles that are "difficult to identify and operate because their colour is similar to the interior trim".
Except for those which still have chromed handles, I think this is the case for the majority of cars. It's not the colour that's the problem.
"We'll just open the windows automatically using the same power that was lost"
> door handles that are "difficult to identify and operate because their colour is similar to the interior trim".
The interior controls are hidden?! Is this like an electronic egress with a hidden mechanical backup?
For those external door handles it would be ideal of their failsafe state was popped out. Fire doors in buildings work like this. Would it consume too much energy from the battery to hold the handles in?
Maybe Xi getting rid of generals in the party really helped many other high ranking officials step in line and step up in doing things for the people
Being unable to turn on the windshield wipers (not engage for a swipe, turn on) without fully taking eyes off the road to interact with the giant touch screen, that's going to get people killed. The #1 thing that convinced me Teslas are absolutely unfit to operate safely for many common actions was driving one at all.
In the end, I think tesla is just stupid.
- removing dashboard in front of driver (3, y, cybertruck)
- non-round steering thing (model s/x yoke, cybertruck squircle)
- removing stalks
- touch-sensitive buttons on steering wheel
- critical controls on the touchscreen, usually behind a swipe or two. for example can't locate defrost on touchscreen without swiping
- can't remove non-critical music player overlay
- hard to find or touch-sensitive buttons for hazard lights
- tiny targets on touchscreen (for a moving car)
- so much overloading on center console (for a moving car)
I could go on and on.
There are plenty of things they get right.
The original model s was ok. Not as "super-clean" looking, but you had stalks with buttons for fingertip access to many things 1) turn signals, headlights, wipers 2) self drive functions 3) gear select with present handles when you pressed park button 4) adjust steering wheel position;
The original model s interior door handles were good - the lever to open the door had two functions. Pull the lever a little bit and it would electronically trigger the door release solenoid. But the same lever, pull it further and it would mechanically open the door. So the same lever would open the door with power or without power, no need to discover something new in an emergency.
the older UIs were easier to use (in a moving car). more old-school looking, but more contrast and bigger targets.
It is also just as hard to cancel the turn signal/lane change that FSD is attempting that you want to veto.
I have no idea what people behind you are thinking (or acting on while all this struggle is going on)
Rain sensing was a solved problem and Tesla un-solved it.
Covered in this Technology Connections video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLm7Q92xMjQ
> BEIJING, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Tesla and eight other automakers said on Friday they will recall a total of about 4.3 million vehicles in China over concerns that doors may be difficult to open in an emergency, marking the country's largest automotive recall.
> Tesla's remedy includes warning labels and an update delivered remotely that automatically lowers vehicle windows after a collision.
Yes this is a recall and yes Tesla will be changing the design in the future but this is an industry-wide regulatory change and the automakers are being given considerable latitude to patch existing inventory while updating future designs. I am supportive of this change and it is also not a huge problem for Tesla (it's an over-the-air update) or even isolated to them.
Recalls are just automotive industry term for 'errata'. It's like if we said "Google issues recall for misaligned CSS on Updates tab in Gmail" or "Slack issues recall for UX changes: all customers encouraged to Cmd-R". I can't believe this is news.
I wonder how long until people figure out that tapping the bumper of a parked tesla opens all the windows, letting people either steal the infotainment screen, or the whole car...
Also many cars detect occupancy and selectively trigger airbags, so depending on what the regulations are exactly, if none of the seats detect anyone is inside the car, and the car is turned off, and the car is not moving, probably safe to keep the window closed.
Like this is already a potential problem we had, if someone could write your car off by simply kicking it, or body slamming it, causing the airbags to deploy (which is often a write off)… but it’s not a real problem because the threshold for deployment is high enough that it would require a crash that would probably ruin the car anyway.
I wonder if the USA will double down and make hidden door handles mandatory, or just try and place a tariff on normal doors.
As long as they’re steam-powered.
IIRC more than half of cars sold in China are EV or PHEV. I am receptive to learn that there are PHEVs that are too polluting to be sold in the west, but I would love to see the data.
The thing was, that the chinese government really sort of accepted that outcome as they wanted to brute force EV tech into existence.
Nowadays, Chinese EV's are easily at parity. Better than parity if you consider the price and standard features. They have heaps of export quality cars.
So yeah, continuing feels right. I don't know if the policy worked, or if their car market would have caught up anyway, but they knew what they want, and got it.