Chao, the billionaire former CEO of dry bulk shipping giant Foremost Group, tragically died at the age of 50 on Feb. 10 after accidentally backing her car into the pond making a three-point turn.
If anyone’s curious, it looks like you “hold the brake and swipe up” on a touchscreen area to go in drive, and “hold the brake and swipe down” to go into reverse.
So yeah, it’s not a physical shifter, though it seems pretty intuitive and simple. BUT if you’re in reverse and try to swipe up to drive(like you’d do during a 3 point turn) , you have no feedback aside from looking at the screen to let you know it actually registered your shift.
IMO this is another idiotic implementation at going cheap on physical controls or “being high tech fancy” that shouldn’t exist. It’s dumb to not have important functions give physical feedback while driving. I’m not laying most of the blame on tesla for this. It still sounds like she’s the one who really screwed herself, but I’d all but guarantee there’s going to be a lawsuit for this one, and rightly so. Fuck all this touch control crap in cars. It’s lousy enough just on the radios.
Anton Yelchin was also done in by a not too dissimilar feature. The gear shift of his vehicle returned to a “neutral position” after shifting so unless you looked at the letter indicator you may not realize what gear you’re in.
I have the same annoyance with my prius. It’s a physical shifter you move, but it electronically shifts and the shifter always goes back to the same spot. If I try shifting in a hurry it won’t register every so often.
That’s however not a good comparison because you still have a physical “way” of feeling where you are shifting to. I never had an issue with shifters that return to neutral, even in very high stress situations.
Touch controls are however a very different thing, because you have absolutely no indication if you actually shifted or not.
In fact, Ive had various cars now with return to neutral shifters - the new Mazda CX-60/70/80/90 don’t have this and I happend to shift in neutral, simply resting my hand on the shifter…
My prius is like this and every once in a while if I let of the brake a touch to soon while I shift it won’t register going from drive to reverse, or the other way around. It’s annoying, but something I’m aware of. Something that never happens with a physical shifter.
I’m curious. In what situations do shifters need to return to neutral? Like, at a stop? Or when you open the door? Why neutral and not park, for example? Or is park also neutral in EV lingo?
“Return to neutral” does not mean neutral gear in this context. If you shift an old Prius into Drive, the shifter knob snaps back to the center of the jig, which is a neutral position for it to be in. It doesn’t stay in the Drive slot while the car is in Drive. You can probably find photos or videos of this out there somewhere.
Edit: I understand it better. Thanks. Yeah, I think that can be annoying too. You have to pay attention to the knob in order to know which gear you are in, and when it lands where you want it to land. I guess new drivers would be more comfortable with that.
Thanks for the explanation!
Thanks, but that doesn’t sound like the OP is describing, though. You’re saying that in the old Prius, you put the car in Drive and it will stay in Drive. Whereas OP seems to be implying that they put it in Drive, and then the car switched to Neutral (not Drive anymore.) Otherwise, why would anyone be annoyed by that?
That is the worst idea ever. When I drove a snow plow I would shift from forward to reverse and back hundreds of times a storm. Without taking my eyes off my surroundings.
Swiping up to drive is the same direction as tap up to reverse from a previous model Tesla. Kind of like how trackpads and mouse scroll wheels work in opposite directions. I can see how it’s not so intuitive if the direction contradicts 35 years of muscle memory.
Even a button shift. Literally just a row of buttons, select your gear by pressing it. Reverse would be under a safety cover so you don’t hit it at 60mph.
Don’t trust software. Just don’t. Software crashes planes. There’s no way car companies are programming better than plane companies. You can certainly have the feature, but a safety cover should also exist in such a configuration. There’s no reason, except shareholder primacy, to not include it.
My current Tesla has a stalk to click up/down to go into reverse/drive, but I always verify before taking my foot off the brake
my Subaru had a physical shifter on the console to move forward or back to a specific selection , but I always verified by taking my foot off the brake
I used to have a Pontiac with a shifter stalk on the steering wheel that I move to a specific selection, but I always verified before taking my foot off the brake
If anyone’s curious, it looks like you “hold the brake and swipe up” on a touchscreen area to go in drive, and “hold the brake and swipe down” to go into reverse.
So yeah, it’s not a physical shifter, though it seems pretty intuitive and simple. BUT if you’re in reverse and try to swipe up to drive(like you’d do during a 3 point turn) , you have no feedback aside from looking at the screen to let you know it actually registered your shift.
IMO this is another idiotic implementation at going cheap on physical controls or “being high tech fancy” that shouldn’t exist. It’s dumb to not have important functions give physical feedback while driving. I’m not laying most of the blame on tesla for this. It still sounds like she’s the one who really screwed herself, but I’d all but guarantee there’s going to be a lawsuit for this one, and rightly so. Fuck all this touch control crap in cars. It’s lousy enough just on the radios.
Anton Yelchin was also done in by a not too dissimilar feature. The gear shift of his vehicle returned to a “neutral position” after shifting so unless you looked at the letter indicator you may not realize what gear you’re in.
I have the same annoyance with my prius. It’s a physical shifter you move, but it electronically shifts and the shifter always goes back to the same spot. If I try shifting in a hurry it won’t register every so often.
That’s however not a good comparison because you still have a physical “way” of feeling where you are shifting to. I never had an issue with shifters that return to neutral, even in very high stress situations.
Touch controls are however a very different thing, because you have absolutely no indication if you actually shifted or not.
In fact, Ive had various cars now with return to neutral shifters - the new Mazda CX-60/70/80/90 don’t have this and I happend to shift in neutral, simply resting my hand on the shifter…
My prius is like this and every once in a while if I let of the brake a touch to soon while I shift it won’t register going from drive to reverse, or the other way around. It’s annoying, but something I’m aware of. Something that never happens with a physical shifter.
I’m curious. In what situations do shifters need to return to neutral? Like, at a stop? Or when you open the door? Why neutral and not park, for example? Or is park also neutral in EV lingo?
“Return to neutral” does not mean neutral gear in this context. If you shift an old Prius into Drive, the shifter knob snaps back to the center of the jig, which is a neutral position for it to be in. It doesn’t stay in the Drive slot while the car is in Drive. You can probably find photos or videos of this out there somewhere.
Edit: I understand it better. Thanks. Yeah, I think that can be annoying too. You have to pay attention to the knob in order to know which gear you are in, and when it lands where you want it to land. I guess new drivers would be more comfortable with that.
Thanks for the explanation!
Thanks, but that doesn’t sound like the OP is describing, though. You’re saying that in the old Prius, you put the car in Drive and it will stay in Drive. Whereas OP seems to be implying that they put it in Drive, and then the car switched to Neutral (not Drive anymore.) Otherwise, why would anyone be annoyed by that?That is the worst idea ever. When I drove a snow plow I would shift from forward to reverse and back hundreds of times a storm. Without taking my eyes off my surroundings.
But bro, you’ll save like $0.87 per car by not including a physical gearshifter. Won’t anyone think of the poor shareholders footing that bill.
It’s simple but it’s not easy, because it’s complex.
If there’s anything we’ve learned in human history of engineering and design it’s that complexity kills when relying on human nature to control.
Swiping up to drive is the same direction as tap up to reverse from a previous model Tesla. Kind of like how trackpads and mouse scroll wheels work in opposite directions. I can see how it’s not so intuitive if the direction contradicts 35 years of muscle memory.
Even a button shift. Literally just a row of buttons, select your gear by pressing it. Reverse would be under a safety cover so you don’t hit it at 60mph.
Or, you just have logic in the car’s software that stops you from shifting to reverse over 5mph.
Don’t trust software. Just don’t. Software crashes planes. There’s no way car companies are programming better than plane companies. You can certainly have the feature, but a safety cover should also exist in such a configuration. There’s no reason, except shareholder primacy, to not include it.
How’s that any different?
There’s over 300 people here who seem to agree with me. Then there’s you.