I have a Model 3. I hate the all-touch screen controls. I found the voice control utterly useless but I haven't played around with it very much, mainly because everything I tried failed. At the very least it's not as good as Siri, and I think Siri is generally useless.
Can we please put to rest that canard that only people who did not drive a Tesla criticize it?
Depending on what you want from a car it is entirely possible and reasonable to discover that while Tesla is the best EV on the market, they do pretty crappy job of being a car as good as one that costs half as much.
"they do pretty crappy job of being a car as good as one that costs half as much"
I would disagree emphatically with this assertion.
The UX in particular seems to have been very thoughtfully considered whereby the few controls that are used frequently get some dedicated buttons and the remainder in the touch screen and/or voice control. The degree of thoughtfulness between Tesla and nearly all other manufacturers is very starkly different.
Well, Tesla lovers do seem to believe that recalling a saved seat position from several layers deep in the center screen menu is more convenient that pressing a button on the door, but I will just respectfully disagree here. I suppose there must be some car, somewhere, that is thought out worse (for UX, obviously) than a Tesla, but I haven't seen one.
Uh, isn't that one click at the top of the screen? I have a Tesla, fwiw, and to say the UX is the worst just makes me dismiss everything you say. There are a couple things that I don't like (eg turning odd the headlights takes a couple clicks), but after owning one for a few years while also owning a Toyota and Audi, I'll take the Tesla.
Well, I'll take the Audi. And according to someone who was bragging about how great Tesla does it (with all their software updates I will not insist that my experience several years ago is indicative of today's UX) claimed that you need to switch to the right screen, select correct user profile, and press a button from there. And even if it is, in today's software revision, a top-level UI element that's always present, it's still located on the bloody center screen that you can reach only after you've squeezed yourself into the seat.
Seriously, I am not really going to take seriously any claims from anyone who says that a touchscreen in a moving vehicle is a good idea. This is an idea that is absolutely ridiculous on its face.
This criticism was one that anyone who drives a Tesla should know is BS. That's why I said it. It is the kind of stupid thing that people think when they haven't experienced the car.
But if you claim, for example, that the tires wear out too quickly, I'd never question whether you're an actual Tesla driver. (But I would bet money that it is your fault for coming out of your stops heavy on the accelerator...)
(sigh) that;'s exactly what I am talking about. I drove a Tesla (not 3, it wasn't even out yet). And you know what? I was not impressed. Sure, it got nice electric torque, but in every other regard, from fit and finish to UX to dynamics to practicality for my usage it was at best unimpressive, considering the price, and at worst just bad. And didn't Elon, in one of his hissy fits with a supplier, drop the cooled seats option -- something you get in a $30K Hyundai?
That's exactly why Tesla fanboys (and Tesla, by extension)_ aren't taken too seriously -- no, Elon is not Lord and Savior, and Tesla is not the Second Coming. It's a car, with some nice properties (if you want an EV), some serious shortcomings, and with some greatly deceptive marketing around pricing, savings, FSD etc.
Quite literally there is nothing that Tesla Model 3 does better, than being a car.
Take away all the whiz bang, all the software, the AutoPilot, the dashcam, the dog mode and the arcade games, the massive touch screen and the smartphone app. Touch nothing but the steering wheel, shift wand, accelerator and brake... and drive it fast and hard on a winding summer road. Nothing can touch it, certainly nothing anywhere near its price point, and nothing that you pop the family in comfortably when you’re done.
Maybe TM3 is a great improvement over S, which wasn't all that impressive.
But there's a little problem -- if you take all of this stuff out you end up with a car that can't even be controlled in any way. I don't think you'd be allowed to drive a car with a steering wheel but no speedometer on a public road. And all of those things are exactly where Tesla... well, sucks. Batteries and motors they do well. Probably better than anyone else at this point. I'll even believe that they figured out how to do suspensions and other automobiley things right. But fit, finish, and that touchscreen on the side, sorry, that's not impressive. And I can think of quite a few quite practical cars that can take twisties as well as TM3 for same or less money, and faster, at that. And with real buttons to control everything.
I use the touch screen for about 30 seconds when I hop in to adjust HVAC, set my route, select a radio station, and that's about it. After backing out of the garage I rarely touch anything but the steering wheel or accelerator.
Most of the stuff that I want to do is steering wheel, or is controlled by voice after hitting a button on my steering wheel.
If you have to look at the screen while driving, you're doing something wrong.