The new Tesla Model 3 should be banned from the whole of Europe until they put the indicator stalk back. It is virtually impossible to safely and legally traverse a roundabout without it.
How do people indicate without it? Is the car supposed to automatically turn it on once it senses you leaving the lane?
What the fuck is the point of an indicator after you’d already started the action. That light ain’t indicating any more about the driver than the fact that they bought a Tesla after 2022, and that tells you everything you need to know about them.
It has little buttons on the wheel for left or right instead of a stalk. Problem is when you’re going through a roundabout you’re twirling the wheel around so it is almost impossible to to know where the buttons are at any given point in time. A stalk stays put, the buttons are anywhere depending on where the wheel is at. I think this video demonstrates it most clearly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBFxbKTEWu8
That’s just too late to signal…
When I drive roundabouts I keep my hands on the wheel in the same spots so in relation to my thumb, the turn signals are in the same spot?
I think if the wheel wasn’t a yoke shape, it’d be different because I might just put one hand on top, but in this case it works OK.
For those that don’t want to read the article:
Tesla is going with buttons on the steering wheel instead of a stick to the left of the wheel
In Norway, you have to indicate your exit in a roundabout by activating your turn signal, and he found it difficult while turning the steering wheel, which you have to do in a roundabout. A driving student would fail their test if they don’t activate their turn signal in a roundabout in Norway.
He said:
I tested the Model 3, and noticed that I lost both focus and direction in roundabouts. It’s not directly life-threatening, but you run the risk of both driving on curbs and other cars if there are two lanes.
After posting his findings in a group for driving schools, he was met with agreement by many other instructors who said that they experienced the same issue and the risk is much higher with students.
It’s like car features that have been around for 70+ years are the way they are for a reason.
Reminds me of the guy that built that sub that got crushed. There are standards in place for good reasons and ignoring them is a bad idea.
Yeah, it’s not designed with roundabouts, (i.e. road infrastructure designed with logic and common sense) in mind.
It’s not designed with any common sense in mind. They just figured they could a) cut costs and b) make the vehicle look “cleaner”, because Musk and the people who work for him are intellectually incurious morons who refuse to learn why things are designed the way they are before trying to reinvent them.
The thing about breaking the rules is that if you want to really do it well, you have to understand why those rules exist in the first place. That’s hard to do when you start from the position of just assuming that you’re smarter than everyone else.
It was designed to cut costs and hope fanbois would think it was innovation. It’s so dangerous a change it should be banned in countries where drivers are expected to properly indicate while traversing roundabouts.
Can we just ban them entirely? Horrible cars.
While in the EU Teslas were already “banned”, if you want a proper cat B license, and not just a cat B(78). If you take the test in a car with automatic transmission you get a code 78 license, with which you can legally only drive automatic transmission vehicles.
Is the EU mostly manual transmissions?
In the US, seeing a manual transmission these days is somewhat rare. I used to work at a car dealership’s service department as a valet, and most of us younger guys who’d never driven a manual before had to get someone else to drive it whenever one showed up. (That happened maybe once a month or less.)
Manuel transmission used to be the norm. The last couple of times I rented a car/got a loaner at the mechanic, I was asked if an automatic would be OK. I have met people who avoid automatics altogether. Probably because they’re unsure of how to drive them. TBF the first time I test drove an automatic, the first stop I made, I was glad to be wearing my seat belt, as I was used to use left foot, push that pedal hard and then brake… My wife and I were almost climbing down from the dashboard after that.
When I said earlier that manuels used to be the norm, that’s because of the emergence of EVs and PHEVs. Our EV was our first car with no clutch.
Sooo after writing that boring drivel above, I decided to look it up on the most used second hand car platform. Turns out the about half the cars registered as pure ICEs are automatics. But then sampling the search results it’s evident that a lot of the cars on the first page, have been registered wrong, and are in fact hybrids. So I don’t have a solid figure. I’ve loitered the sales floor of my mechanic for 30mins, while my car is in for diagnosics. Looks like about 3 out of last 20 or so ICEs I’ve looked at are automatics.
Had a quick look at used cars here.
https://www.ooyyo.com/france/used-cars-for-sale/c=CDA31D7114D3854F111BFB6FAA651453/
Seems very much dependent on which country you’re in. France seems 50/50, Germany a lot more Automatic, Belgium prefers manual. Been to Iceland a few times and that is mostly automatic. The UK is mostly manual.
Nah, automatic are common.
The reasoning is, if you know how to drive manual you also know how to drive automatic, but not vice versa.
Used to be, but the transition to mostly automatic is happening as we speak
Yikes, that is incredibly dangerous. Hopefully, they get recalled to fix that issue. No turn signal stick is going to cause a lot of accidents if people are unfamiliar with the car or are spinning the steering wheel and pressing the wrong button (or no buttons, because it’s too difficult).
Does anyone remember K.I.T.T from Knight Rider in the 80’s?
Same steering wheel! Haha
But K.I.T.T actually delivered on the full self driving part.
Style over substance, and a ugly style at that. Of course lots of people are gonna love it and say it is the best thing ever.
Tesla fucking up traditional driving controls only make sense if their self-driving system is working so the driver has no need to touch the steering wheel except in rare case. How good is Tesla’s full self driving these days?
It regularly kills people. It can’t be used on a lot of road types (but people still do because Tesla makes no effort to prevent it). It’s still marketed as Full Self Driving despite the fact that Tesla has stated on the record that it is, and I quote, “Not capable of driving itself.”
They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. Any time it benefits them, they claim that their cars are completely autonomous vehicles powered by the most advanced AI. Any time they get their wrists slapped, they claim that it’s an assistive feature like cruise control that cannot and will not ever replace the human behind the wheel.
Full Self Driving is still in beta stage.
AI DRIVR has good content on Tesla FSD if you’re actually interested in knowing how good it is.
No, I’m actually interested to know. Are most Tesla owners activate self driving during their daily commute? Tesla doesn’t sell their vehicle here so the only times I actually see a Tesla are in car shows.
We’ve had news stories - and a friend’s coworker too - of people sleeping on the highway portion of their commute. The friend’s coworker did it daily for months, setting an alarm when it was probably going to be ‘street’ driving time so he’d wake up and be ready.
The friend’s coworker did it daily for months
That’s both extremely stupid and irresponsible but also quite impressive on Tesla’s part.
Norway, where Tesla is becoming the most popular car brand
How the fuck are Norwegians affording that
