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Comment by tsujp | Hacker News Reader

One thing I was flabbergasted at recently was Tesla offering, and the government allowing, regular drivers to use a yoke steering wheel like F1 drivers. Not only is it harder for the average person to handle but their firmware hadn't accounted for the fact that if you steer fully left or right the yoke is upside down and if you try and indicate it ends up indicating on the wrong side.

What is wrong with a wheel and function stalks?

Gimmicks like this, and they are gimmicks, are dangerous and it's concerning no regulator seems to care enough to stop it.

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The steering wheel in an F1 car only goes about 220 degrees in either direction (drivers have to keep their hands on the wheel and their arms aren't made of rubber). The steering in a regular car goes about 540 degrees in either direction (one and a half times around). When parallel parking you often have to turn the wheel three whole revolutions.

F1 steering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVz6IW_wegs&t=45s

Tesla steering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWtJu0q3sBQ&t=44s

Your second video horrified me. What the hell are they thinking with the touch-sensitive inputs on the steering wheel? Nevermind the weird shape and the issues with orientation when signaling during a steering maneuver. Those aren't actual buttons, they're no better than a touch screen.

When I drive, my hands aren't always in the exact same position on the wheel. Muscle-memory won't reliably have my thumb landing on the correct signal direction. If I have to honk the horn, I need to be able to do that instantly, without thinking. Some cutesy icon located away from the edge of the steering wheel will guarantee that the horn sounds simultaneously with the "crunch" of another car backing into me.

My proposed rule-of-thumb: If a video game company wouldn't design their controllers this way, you shouldn't do it either for the most common—or most urgent—functions. Turn signals, wipers, horn, and hazard lights should all be real buttons that are in a consistent location. Horn should be in the hub of the steering wheel.

Glad i'm not the only one who thinks this is insane. I could maybe see a yolk, but dear god get me AWAY from touch screen style buttons in any serious process, let alone ones that can wind up in different orientations.

And why in the hell does a yolk need to have the horn on a button rather than the center of the yolk as anyone would expect? Maybe there's some technical reason i'm unaware of, but this seems actively dangerous for no gain. I can think of several better ways to do this that aren't actively confusing and hostile to the driver.

> And why in the hell does a yolk need to have the horn on a button rather than the center of the yolk as anyone would expect? Maybe there's some technical reason i'm unaware of

No you're right, it's change for the sake of change. It is now a status symbol to show off how well you drive a vehicle whose management is more challenging than other cars.

I feel like that is a cost decision. Instead of making the whole centre of the wheel a button you assign it to some capacitive button on the side.

But I agree, that second video is insane.

They added cost by reinventing the wheel. It's a status symbol for bad drivers to pay more for something different.

> yoke

Used to turn the plane.

Also put on oxen to pull a plow.

> yolk

Yellow part of an egg.

Yeah I was thinking, "a yolk steering wheel does sound pretty dangerous."

The horn thing doesn't seem like that big a deal actually. I've never used the horn in a potential accident situation because there's always something better I could be focusing on to avoid the accident. As pilot say: aviate, navigate, then communicate. [0] Some studies seems to support that [1].

The only accidents I can imagine the horn preventing are ones where you are stationary, which almost always means the other car is moving slowly - like somebody backing into you in a parking lot. Overall pretty low consequence incidents.

So to the extent that horn use is nearly all elective rather than emergency, is antisocial and has few benefits: make it a small, hard-to-reach button.

(With important exceptions like heavy vehicles that can't maneuver well and non-Western driving cultures that rely on routine horn use to communicate intentions.)

[0] Granted aircraft have an extra dimension to play in for collision-avoidance. [1] https://slate.com/technology/2008/11/honk-if-you-know-why-yo...

They don't give you a massive "hey WTF, stop doing that!" button for you to not use it in blind religious adherence to a shallow rule of thumb or misguided attempt at politeness.

People with your attitude toward horn use likely cause substantial harm to society through fender benders, delays, frustration, etc, etc.

I think I can maybe count on one hand the number of times I've had to move out of a lane lest someone merge into me. The times that situation has been prevented through horn use are innumerable. And that's just one example.

> Those aren't actual buttons, they're no better than a touch screen.

Your comment fondly reminded me of my very first computer, which was a Sinclair ZX81.

Let's just say that it wasn't ideal for text processing.

About the same as this "steering console" doesn't look quite ideal for driving a fucking car.

I concur with your horrification.

And you just reminded me of my first computer. An Atari 400.

The 800 had real keys, but the 400 was just a membrane keyboard. Didn’t matter; we only used it to play video games anyway.

I can’t imagine having to type on that thing.

Touch-based buttons feels like a huge step backwards. Have we learned nothing from having to use touch phones for the last 12 years, either that or everyone is much better than me at not missing touch inputs

And everyone wants to be part of that cool touch movement too, by using capacitive touch buttons. So modern! And cheaper too, but that doesn't stop you from marketing it as premium. Try buying a stove with induction and normal knobs. Nope, it's touch. Cheap touch buttons, that don't work if your hands are wet, or greasy. Which totally never happens when you're cooking. So you're handling three pots, one starts boiling over. With knobs it would take me half a second to turn it off. With my awesome induction stove I'm stuck on mashing the button to select the proper field with my greasy hand which doesn't work, but at least when finally half the pot's content flows onto the touch controls the stove turns off entirely and starts beeping like crazy. But at least it's easier to clean than haptic controls.

Touch controls on stoves are mostly about making cleaning easier. You just wipe a flat surface.

I'd like to introduce you to my grandmother's flat surface stove from the 70s with 0 touch controls. It's easy, just decouple the controls from the heating element.

3/4 of the reason they're touch is being 'cool' and none of the designers ever cooking a meal in their life.

Messes go further than just the heating element. Things splatter, run over. Even with controls on the face of the range (not always practical) you may need to clean them from messes.

Its definitely easy to clean my entire range being a flat piece of glass, and personally I've never had any problems with sensitivity on the buttons. Plus, that whole cook top is then still useful as a counter top as even the glass is only slightly raised over the rest of the counter surface. In my experience the glass top range I have has been wonderful, and I was originally planning on tearing it out and putting in a gas unit. I've since second guessed those plans and will probably keep the range for a while longer, no knobs has actually been pretty nice.

Not to mention that if you're wearing gloves you're screwed.

They can be done well, think about the Haptic Touch home button in the iPhone 7/8. I'd be happy with something like that on the steering wheel.

I'd rather have an actual button. The haptic touch doesn't always trigger e.g. if your finger is sweaty or wet. The button on the other hand always works. I've broken just about everything on old iphones but never that home button. When it comes to driving a car the buttons should always work, not just under ideal situations.

I literally grew up along side ios and I still struggle to select text, copy, and paste. It's just a fundamentally crappy interface.

Really seems Tesla is regressing a lot of _important_ controls :(

Holy shit, everything about that Tesla experience is a nightmare.

I am stunned. I am never buying a car that decides for me if I should be going forwards or in reverse. How did this anti-feature go through so many supposedly smart people? Does PHB work there also?

That second video is horrifying. Horn and signal inputs as touch buttons on a steering wheel and no clear gear selection? What absolute madness by Tesla.

how is that Tesla even legal?

it makes a mockery of so many absurd rules other manufacturers in the US have to follow. Really raises question how Tesla get away with these.

I think these gimmicks and the new touchscreen UI serve a purpose for Tesla. Their goal is to make the car so divorced from human input that (1) it becomes increasingly reasonable to claim that an unfinished self-driving system is no more dangerous than a human in the loop, and (2) their fan base is conditioned to accept the eventuality of having no meaningful input (or feedback) at all. As for part two, I noticed it a couple years ago with a relative who bought a Tesla and was still just awed by its features. But all the ones he was awed by were the ones that took power away from the driver. I wondered then, why would anyone want to own this car once it really does all the driving for you? No one will actually own a Tesla at that point, they'll just call one on an app. Except for maybe a few silly people who want to feel like they're telling it what to do with a joystick.

And all the buttons on the yoke are touch sensitive. That makes absolutely no sense for a control device.

Just like everything done by Tesla: they have absolutely no experience in making cars, and it shows really badly. Terrible construction quality that I don't even experience on a 10k € Dacia, touch screens everywhere (it's already bad enough when it's just the radio or Android Auto, but a bunch of critical features are on the touch screen), the yoke having no physical feedback and clearly no thought other than "wow futuristic" behind it.

Smoke and mirrors is Tesla's way of operating. Look at the coverage they got out of the yoke. Out of FSD. It doesn't matter that they are terrible: there'll be 100 articles about it releasing and 2 about it being a bad idea.

Tesla should really stick to making electric drivetrains and branding and let someone else design and build the rest if the car.

Honestly a lot of cars are ugly. Look at what they've been doing to BMWs lately. Safety features combined with an unwillingness to look very different from the rest of the pack anymore have created these designs by committee that are not truly terrible where they won't sell but also not very good where people will look to them as a piece of art like an old aircooled porsche.

Totally agree. I have a decent German-made car and it BLOWS Tesla out of the water in build quality. I remember getting into the model S in a showroom and just feeling like I was in a budget auto. For 100k it doesn't compare at all to a 50k Audi, it's just plasticy and flimsy. It felt like the McMansion of cars, all show.

Elon is weirdly good at getting regulators to just let him do things.

FSD beta. The yoke steering wheel. Like a quarter of everything SpaceX does.

Does he just have really good lobbyists? Is his force of personality just that good? It’s kind of fascinating.

He does not have good lobbyists.

Have you seen Tesla being the only company not invited on electric car day in white house?

https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a37244461/elon-musk...

Do you know that Tesla will be excluded from tax credits for EVs?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/energy-secretary-defends-tes...

Do you know that Texas where Tesla is building its next factory does not allow to sell Teslas?

https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-law-keeps-teslas-made...

Eh, he just needs to touch up his PR when it comes to labor relations.

> Do you know that Texas where Tesla is building its next factory does not allow to sell Teslas?

You think you can't buy a Tesla in Texas? What planet are you on?

Yes, Texas does not allow direct sale of cars.

You have to buy your Tesla out of the state and Tesla will deliver the car to Texas.

https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-law-keeps-teslas-made...

https://insideevs.com/news/510302/tesla-no-sales-allowed-tex...

Biden administration is explicitly designing laws to prop up other car companies and exclude Tesla.

It's not just about labor PR, they want to force Tesla to unionize.

But Tesla will not unionize and they will be the only ones without subsidies. Extremely shitty lobbing.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/energy-secretary-defends-tes...

> What planet are you on?

Uhh, Texas?

You cannot buy a Tesla in Texas. Technically speaking, the transaction happens out of state and the car is shipped to you in Texas. Legally speaking Tesla has never sold a car in Texas. They have Tesla "galleries" where you can look at cars, take test drives, customize your order, and they'll help with the paperwork for you to buy it out of state.

I don't think Texas is alone in their dealer franchise laws.

> it's kind of fascinating.

For me I'd replace that with: scary. Full size A4 paper and bigger screens in cars you can stream movies on while driving (distraction leading to accidents); the Las Vegas Loop which is just a tunnel for only one type of car (waste of infrastructure space); pushing untested AI (crashing and killing people). These aren't fascinating things.

I don't like the pedestrian killing murder-machine aspect of their vast In Vehicle Entertainment systems at all. The Vegas Loop tells such a strong tale though, to me, of control over infrastructure itself, in a vulgar & horrific way.

Just like Tesla's charging infrastructure! Can you imagine if you had to find a Ford or a Toyota gas station to fill up at? This world used to be able to get along, to find general welfare. Cooperation used to exist. Tesla keeps being more and more an example of anti-cooperative anti-civil market-capture horseshit. A car no one else can repair, with it's own charging infrastructure, it's own roads: this screams "THE ENEMY" to me. It's the most capitalist-lowlife Lawful Evil behaviors writ large here, on display: vulgar & primitive exercises in dominance, with no pretense that there's space for anyone else in the world, no sense in leaving any room for any one else on the planet.

Tesla's charging is different because they created their charging infrastructure before anyone else. The first supercharger was built in 2012. Despite Tesla open sourcing their patents[1], other EV manufacturers used different standards. Also Tesla is starting to let non-Teslas use their superchargers.[2] All Teslas can use other charging stations, though they'll charge slowly. Newer Teslas (since late 2019) have support for the high speed Combined Charging System standard and Tesla is rolling out CCS adapters.[3] Lastly, most EV charging happens at home using level 1 or level 2 systems, which are standard NEMA plugs that Tesla sells adapters for.

If Tesla's goal was to lock-in their customers and exclude other vehicles, they seem to be doing all the wrong things.

1. https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#patent-pled...

2. https://www.tesla.com/support/non-tesla-supercharging

3. https://driveteslacanada.ca/model-y/tesla-ccs-adapter-activa...

tesla was not even a notion when electric car charging was created. tesla did not create somethint feom nothing, other systems existed.

tesla making a patent pledgeh not early, in 2014- doesnt incentivize anyone to pick tesla's bespoke new charging technologies, if your cars wont reap the benefits of interoperability with their system. tesla didnt say their charging infrastructure would work with your cars, only that you could go make your own copies of either car or charger network.

your messaging is extremely strong & you raise some very good points. from my perspective though you are still concealing, hiding, denying more than hapf the facts. random irrelevant facts like teslas being able to consumer actual standards get thrown in, but of course tesla wants to be a parasite on othercs network externalities while providing no net benefit themselves, yet you describe this lopsided controlling behavior as if it's in their favor. you throw in non-network-effect charging as though it should have an impact on society growing positive network effects for itself: this also feels ultra-contrary to the point. even if true, it means i cant go to a friends and expect my non-tesla to get a charge.

everything here is shit. your "rebuttals" are examples of tesla insisting on their own game. you ignored the points about LV & the impossible-to-repair-out-of-network problems with tesla. i am not mived by your arguments, they feel distracting & misdirecting.

> Full size A4 paper and bigger screens in cars you can stream movies on while driving (distraction leading to accidents);

Teslas will only let you watch videos if you're in park. This has always been the case.

> the Las Vegas Loop which is just a tunnel for only one type of car (waste of infrastructure space)

It cost $50m to construct, which is 1/5th the cost of similarly-specced people movers or trains. The second-cheapest bid was by Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group and would have cost $215m. The loop has met or exceeded all of the benchmarks set by the Las Vega Convention & Visitors Authority.[1] The program has been so successful that LVCVA purchased the Las Vegas Monorail system just so they could get rid of the monorail's noncompete clause and allow a larger Vegas Loop to be constructed.[2] Later, Clark county unanimously approved construction of the Vegas Loop, which is planned to have 51 stations and 29 miles of tunnel.[3]

> pushing untested AI (crashing and killing people)

No vehicle running the FSD beta has been involved in a death. You're talking about the autopilot features, which are a form of traffic aware cruise control. Many of the claimed fatalities turned out to be reckless drivers. For example: a fatal crash in Texas last April originally blamed autopilot and claimed that it was "100 percent certain" that no one was in the driver seat at the time of the crash.[4] The preliminary NHTSA investigation found that the driver was in the driver's seat, had not buckled his seat belt, and had pressed the accelerator to as high as 98.8%. (This was in a 778 horsepower Model S that could go from 0-60mph in 2.4 seconds.) NHTSA investigators could not engage autopilot on the road where the crash happened, since that road had no lane markings.[4] Also the owner of the vehicle had not purchased the the option to allow autopilot on surface streets.

There are many legitimate criticisms that one can level at Musk & his companies, but you haven't made them.

1. https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tourism/boring-co-s-t...

2. https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tourism/lvcva-expecte...

3. https://twitter.com/ClarkCountyNV/status/1450877187779796992

4. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/19/22391890/tesla-driverless...

5. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/driver-was-behind-wheel...

I'm interested to know how he's going to get away with that truck that looks like its designed to cut pedestrians in half.

I don't understand why this is an argument against Tesla - how is it different than any other large truck?

Front bumpers of most cars/truck are generally plastic and can at least absorb energy of an impact with a pedestrian (albeit the hood is often near neck high and can snap their neck)

Tesla paraded their new truck with 'stainless steel body panels all around'. I don't know about you, but I've banged my shin into a steel tow hitch. I don't want anything remotely close to that on the road.

That doesn't make sense to me. I watched some pedestrian crash test videos, there is no energy absorption by the bumper. It's bad news to be hit by any car. (I'm no Tesla fanboy)

Most pedestrian crash tests are at low enough speed that there isn't visible energy absorption, plus most dummies aren't equivalent to most human scales. They tend to be modeled after a 6' adult male at around 200lbs.

The bigger issue with larger vehicles is their height around people current full size or even mid-size SUVs and trucks have gotten larger than their former variants. You're much more likely as a pedestrian to get run over than to be hit by a car and land on the hood or the windshield (which is by far the better position to be in during an accident). The crash bar behind the bumper on all cars have a thick layer of foam that contributes to the 'softness' of a bumper.

You rarely need to reverse F1 cars and if you do you probably have bigger problems. A round wheel does make so much more sense and is far more comfortable to handle.

Tesla is basically the 2000s prius. It is cool now, but in near future won't be anymore.

I have an early 200s Prius. Its seen better days but the battery works and I can't argue with the fuel savings. it costs me about $30 to fill up and that lasts me for about a month.

I own two Toyotas myself ;) An 8 year old Corolla that I only occasionally drive, but it never fails to take me from point A to B; another is a new and exciting Highlander hybrid which I only need to fill once every 500 miles.

Pretty much everyone who clogged up the left lane in the '00s in their Prius is still doing the same thing today but in a Tacoma or 4Runner. The specific model of blind adoration may have changed but the fanboys still line the same pockets. If that is any indication Tesla will do just fine.

Toyota are doing fine because of their reliability. Can the same be said about Tesla?

Toyota has a brand image and they design, market and sell to that image.

Tesla has established a brand image based around a different set of attributes and they design, market and sell to it.

I like that. It will be interesting to see how sustainable their brand image is in future given those attributes.

You've got that backwards. Prius weren't cool all the way until 2014, around the time environmental status symbol transferred to EV's and the used Prius started becoming very economical. Certain half of the political spectrum wouldn't be caught dead in them before hand and every other Hollywood movie had a cringy joke lambasting or praising them. Now they're just seen as a reliable financially savvy vehicles, not very "cool", but more popular now that regular people would have no problem driving them.

I am referring to the early 2000s when half the Hollywood celebs were driving Prius [1]. Prius carried the hype about hybrid cars back then the same way Tesla is doing now for EVs.

[1] https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2082556/starring-role-hollywo...

They were also pretty lambasted in popular culture around that time. The Other Guys (2010) is a good example of how the car was treated in the cultural zeitgeist at the time (though part of the joke that the movie makes is demonstrating how economical and great the car is despite its ‘uncool’ vibes).

2000s priuses were very cool amongst the aging boomer-hippy population. When they first came out it was a big deal to be in the school pickup line with your prius. You probably also shopped at organic grocery stores like whole foods (before the AMZN purchase), and just transitioned from pilates to yoga. Southpark even made an episode about the phenomenon.

When something is in the entire public sphere, it feels off to call it "cool" when it only appeals to a certain small subgroup. At that time, the much larger general population had the opposite take on them. It's like calling Dungeons N' Dragons "cool" because nerds and geeks liked it a lot.

It is the nerds and geeks who like Tesla the most.

I've not seen any evidence that the yoke steering wheel is dangerous. The downside that you're describing can only happen at zero or near to zero speed. BMW doesn't even install turn signals at all so I think the occasional errant turn signal is fine. The reason the NHTSA hasn't "forbid" the yoke is because... it isn't unsafe, it's just stupid.

It would be significantly less stupid if it had physical buttons on the steering wheel.

> BMW doesn't even install turn signals at all

I realize there's a joke in Germany about this, but to be clear, all passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. must have working turn signals. See https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2004-title49-vol5/xm...

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