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Comment by iplaw | Hacker News Reader

Almost every vehicle, even budget sub-compacts, have driver displays now. The utilization of that display varies from nigh useless (odometer, oil minders, etc.) to very useful (navigational directions, at-a-glance music selection via steering wheel based controls, etc.).

Removing this display from the Model 3 seems like a design choice intended to artificially distinguish and demote the Model 3 from the Model S.

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Not artificially, but to keep the cost of the car at target. Nobody makes a car cheaper by removing the wheels, you have to nickel and dime where you can. A single display saves money.

Lest we not forget, Tesla is likely to lose money on the base Model 3.

At $35K, Tesla is entering the world of the C class, the 3 class, and competing with that by 'nickel and diming' doesn't seem the wisest idea when you look beyond the "electric" aspect.

Hell, even the S has been criticized for it's shoddy interior construction quality that more resembles a Ford Escape than a $100K Audi.

Probably more reasonable to compare it to other electric cars in its price range - the Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf. Neither of these cars have particularly luxurious dashboards, interiors, or other extras.

Both the Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf have two displays, a driver display and a center display. Further, the driver displays are particularly large and robust, even when compared to more expensive vehicles. The Tesla Model 3 completely lacks the driver display.

Bolt: http://article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/c...

Leaf: https://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/nissan/leaf/2017/ot/2017_...

And the Bolt has it's base model listed at $37.5k vs $35k for the Model 3. There's also a pretty clear difference in... style here. The Bolt is Mr. Practical and the Model 3 is Mr. Fun. Pretending that these two cars are the same thing is absurd, they happen to have one thing in common: they are both electrics.

But I'm not going to compare a Volkswagon Bug to a Ford Mustang just because they both have combustion engines.

How many people do you think would rather have a tiny cramped display crammed in the hole of the steering wheel (and often partially occluded depending on user height, seat, and steering wheel position) vs a nice clear 15" display that both people in front and see?

It's a design choice toward a self-driving world, where instantaneous road notifications are less important to a person in a car than they are today.

That's something that I hadn't considered. Have we received confirmation that the Model 3 will be available with the optional full suite of self-driving sensors?

On the Model S, this includes two high-priced options:

1. Enhanced Autopilot ($5000) quadruples the number of cameras from 1 to 4 and adds 12 ultrasonic sonar sensors and additional computing power to crunch the data.

2. Full Self-Driving Capability ($3000) doubles the number of cameras from 4 to 8.

Yeah, Tesla has confirmed that the Model 3 will have the same self-driving hardware suite as S/X. No details yet on the software activation cost.

>It's a design choice toward a self-driving world, where instantaneous road notifications are less important to a person in a car than they are today.

People sure are willing to reach with their rationalizations.

You might be right. But consider that, maybe, Tesla has to remove what they can because they now realize that making a $35k EV without losing piles of money is very, very, difficult.

> Tesla has to remove what they can

I agree with this, but cost savings and forward thinking design aren't mutually exclusive. I think the constraints of the former make the latter even more evident. Most cars with only one screen provide a driver's display. So why did Tesla choose a center display instead? I think it's because in the world they see coming, the center screen will be more useful.

If it is ever going to be used under human control, particularly on public highways, it needs basic information displayed in a proper above-the-wheel driver display, especially speed information.

I feel that's a cop-out. A fully self-driving world is easily 5 years away, and even then why would I not want relevant info in front of me?

You wouldn't want that info in a self-driving car for the same reason you don't want that info when you hop in an Uber or a Lyft. When you aren't driving, it's not useful.

That world may be five years away, but Tesla claims the Model 3 you buy this year will be fully self-driving, so it stands to reason they'd design it with that future in mind.

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