Elon Musk Responds To MKBHD’s Tesla Model S Plaid Praise & Criticism

"I really like capacitive touch buttons on the steering wheel", said no one, ever. Honestly, those things just suck in cars, everywhere, all of the time.

Astute comment about older drivers and the yoke. A yoke in a plane where you are not turning hand over hand. Same for a drag racer or race car in general. But manoeuvring into a parking space or parking a trailer. Ok. Maybe rely on computer for this but the video showed enough instances of hand over hand steering to give an older driver an uncomfortable feeling "oh when am I going to miss and what will happen to the car". It's a part of driving I personally don't need want an update. Performance and range and safety features are what really get my attention. And tactile buttons. Also agree. With tactile buttons your fingers move to a position in anticipation of initiating a command. All without taking your eyes off the road - then, when touch confirmed, press button. Not comfortable with AI. How does car know I want to turn left or right.

I agree the captive buttons should have been placed farther away from your hand area. What also would be cool is if you could program where the buttons\options go! The placement of the horn is unrealistic and should have been left on the airbag location. The forward & reverse swipbar should be made thicker so accessing it is easier and more visible..

The car is incredible, I sold cars for 20 years, the last 11 I was salesperson of the month until I quit to hang out with my son who is now 18, if I go back to selling cars it'll be Tesla's

Touch controls on a steering not-wheel, that must be the stupidest, most idiotic idea. Would never buy something like that.

I agree with MKBHD's assessments and appreciate Elon's response.
Thanks to both of you!

Still no birds eye view? This is an appalling failure of Musk's ability to understand how other people drive cars. He thinks it's easy to look at a rear camera view AND a graphic showing how many centimetres you are away from something simultaneously instead of a single image of your car moving in real time as you navigate backwards. Every other prestige car has had birdseye for years but not Tesla. I've been a devoted owner of a Model X for four years but I still can't back easily into supermarket carparks. My car has reght cameras. For pitys sake, just link them up. Lack of birdseye is the single worst feature of Teslas.

Your article does not contain core facts it's like you are giving history lectur about MKBHD and elon e ,Your article sucks

There is a small mistake in the article, possibly just unclear, but Pure Vision is already being used under all conditions in production vehicles, because they are currently shipping new cars with no radar.
You may have only been talking about upgrades to older vehicles, but on the new cars with no radar installed it is the full Pure Vision stack.

I've always wanted a Model S, but I'm not sure if that's what I'll get now. I really don't like the yoke. It's for race cars not street cars. It would be nice to have an option for what they had in 2019. 2021 is not a good year to buy a car anyway, so I'll wait.

So, the key is to design bad hardware and then improve the software to recognize when it's badly used. Because at Tesla, all input is error.

I noticed the use of the word also to be intrusive to the reading experience due to it's frequent use, as well as maintains the same introduction to sequential sentences. Good work though. Great read lol

I love Elon Musk and his product
But my pocket is not capable for his product
My prayer is to become rich to drive Tesla cars

I love Elon Musk and his product
But my pocket is not capable for his product
My prayer is to become rich to drive Tesla cars

The yoke is a disaster. Not just the height of inconvenience but also highly dangerous (to an extent that regulators ought to step in and ban this shit). And on top of that, to remove the indicator stalk, gear change and horn, etc for capacitive buttons that fly around with the turn of steeri-- uh, yoke is mind-bogglingly stupid.

"in general with interfaces, all input is an error." The only error is in Elon's head. Regulators need to step in before people on the road get killed by Elon's delusional senility.

I'm absolutely sure that you felt that the same way about the new touchscreen phone that you're using we can't go backwards or do you want a cord or can in the string

I had already watched MKBHD's review of the Tesla Model S Plaid prior to reading this article, I was just curious as to your take on his review.

As you said, it was by far a very positive review by Marques, but when he was speaking about the yoke steering wheel, he made a statement that you failed to mention that I 100% agree with.

He stated that people with 40+ years of driving experience will have a tough time using the yoke steering wheel because of the muscle memory of using a round steering wheel.

I can tell you that I am one of the what I am sure are MANY people who would like to buy a Tesla Model S Plaid but will NOT until/unless they offer the option of a round steering wheel!

This is just a case of Elon Musk getting stuck on the idea of something looking really cool and thus completely erring on the side of form over function! And the argument that you wouldn't be able to see the display panel behind with a round steering wheel is completely silly as I have been able to do this on EVERY SINGLE CAR THAT I HAVE EVER DRIVEN over the last 40 years!

Unbox Therapy is the largest Tech YouTube channel. I can't get past the steering wheel though. That's not for me as I often have one hand on the top of the steering wheel.

"arguably the best tech reviewer on YouTube"

I take it you don't watch a lot of YouTube.

I love Marques but he was far too much of a fanboy on this one. The yoke steering wheel is nothing but bad. That design is for race cars where you never turn more than 30 degrees at a time. Real world driving makes them an awkward joke.

I love that Elon pushes the envelope in general but he is tromping on car-guy basics way too much. Cars need physical buttons, they need dedicated controls, they need some standardization. Tee screen is awesome but it should be an addition not the only way to do anything.

I love nearly everything about Teslas, except that, well, I don't actually want to DRIVE one. I want to drive a car not have it drive me.

My bmw and all the bmws I already had, never had none of those minor complaints, like bmw and other brands already corrected those issues long time ago or never had, you just can't go make cars like that, there's a knowledge past, for the price they ask? It's just ridiculous, I prefer bmw or Porsche or even Mercedes.
Cheers

Elon pushes some new ideas because they are better, even though they go against traditional design. But with that said, Elon also does different designs because they are unique and cool looking, but not necessarily functionally better. There is the saying don't try and reinvent the wheel, but he did, and the result is a mixed bag. He has some new ideas like the Falcon wing doors, bioweapon defense air filters, bullet proof glass, and the yolk steering "wheel" with capacitive buttons, which simply should be offered as options, because they don't provide enough benefit for most drivers, considering their functional drawbacks. One thing that you notice with good computer interface design is that there are many different controls and ways to get to the same result or function. I am fine with the new auto-direction feature, because it also has both a screen swipe and selector buttons as backup controls. I understand that Elon and Tesla are trying to actively lead us to start relying on automated controls. But they key to most new designs is offering backward compatibility, so that those people who don't want to leave the familiar behind, have the option to fall back on time tested designs, like a round wheel, turn signal stalks, and tactile push buttons for critical driving operations.

Another bullshit response from Musk. So this means what.. the car is gonna read my mind and turn in my turn signal a few seconds before I change lanes? Or is he betting all on self driving and that I’ll never touch the wheel. If it’s the ladder then why did I spend all this money on a sports car? Will full self driving race me around town?