this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 114 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Tesla’s reasoning for going away with a method universally used for signaling turn for decades is that it enables them to remove a physical part, the stalk, and it believes activating a turn signal will soon be unnecessary with the advent of self-driving.

Why the hell do billionaires keep laughing in our faces? I swear every time one of them or their companies opens their mouth, it's like they're making fun of us, the poor people.

"We care about your privacy" — (they don't) "a turn signal will soon be unnecessary" etc.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

a turn signal will soon be unnecessary with the advent of self-driving

That's like not including a stick for the manual transmission, because the automatic one is just around the corner.

I wish I possessed this kind of optimism in my daily life :D

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I enjoy driving stick, but stick will likely not last forever. We will not be able to burn fossil fuels for that much longer in the grand scheme of things. Electric vehicles usually have a single speed transmission, so there are literally no gears to change. Perhaps there may be an alternative fuel vehicle that still has multiple speed transmission, in which case stick could still exist, though how many car manufacturers would make them?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Probably no one, but there is nothing preventing from enthusiasts from hooking an electric drive motor up to a traditional manual transmission just to be perverse. I would.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What would the manual transmission do? Unless you literally mean it doesn't impact the cars driving and is just there for you to move around. Electric vehicles are not changing gears, so there are no gears to hook up a manual transmission to

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It would give you a manual transmission driving experience. Nothing more.

(There are no gears in an internal combustion engine, either. At least not in the context you're thinking of. The gears are in the transmission. That's why anyone in the Commonwealth calls it a "gearbox.")

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Even in petrol cars automatic transmissions are more common than manual for new cars now. Automatic has just become better and better, and there's just very little reason to have a manual these days.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

And worse is that people have been complaining about the lack of buttons and knobs for some time already.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

it believes activating a turn signal will soon be unnecessary with the advent of self-driving.

Okay, but self driving hasn't happened yet and still faces significant problems. Removing a turn signal for this is like smoking constantly because you think cancer will be cured in the future.

Plus it breaks one of the unspoken rules of new designs. You never take away functionality, you only add it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Man, the other day I saw an entire row of prime spots free in a packed parking lot... "electric vehicles only" parking.

So rich people parking... Cool. This feels great.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Get a used leaf and park there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Where I have driven the chargers are always in the furthest corner of the carpark

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This has been my experience, and really the right way. As an EV owner, I don't need to charge most of the time and I should be willing to walk further if I really want to charge away from home.

Of course, in general EV is great when you can charge at home. Not so great if you can't do that. Other than at a house, I only ever charge at work, and then only because work offers it for free.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

That's it. I almost only charge at home. Never at work, never at the shops. I can imagine people who can't charge at home will want work carpark charging

On my Christmas/new year holiday I drove 1200km away, 600km a day two days there two back.

The charge stops were three a day, each 10 or 15 minutes, though we could generally have skipped the one after lunch since the time to order, get, and eat lunch meant getting a full charge, and the car has something like 400km range on the highway, though only 350 on the freeway/motorway.

One thing I found on that drive is that the charging network is mostly in the small towns (I guess that's because they can get competition between neighbouring towns to get the best deal on land leasing) and the chargers are always either near the town centre, or next to a park. One is behind the roadhouse restaurant near the motorway services - behind the staff parking, general parking is in front of the restaurant

On the night between the two halves of the trip each way we stayed in a motel, and they give EV drivers a parking spot with a power point 10A x 240V so I could get about 80% full over night, which is enough for the next day's first drive. Calling them out since they're good: Goldfields motor inn, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

DC charging is fine for the occasional road trip, but I would absolutely hate it if that were my everyday charging solution.

Home charging is fantastic, but without it, I'd find an EV impractical for day to day. With it, it's hands down better than dealing with a gas car.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Shopping centres and work parking charges tend to be slow chargers

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Which at my work, is fine. 3 hours of work charging gets me about 60 miles of range replenished. I am at work that long so it's fine.

For 99.9% of my trips to a shopping center, it wouldn't be worth the trouble to plug in.