Tesla steering wheel counterweight argument

[Eric]

I know there's a lot of pushback against this out there but hear me out. First of all, for those who don't know what a counterweight does on the Tesla is puts a couple of pounds of lean on the wheel so it won't nag you to touch it every 30 seconds to a minute, which is a built-in safety feature for most cars that have an auto steering feature. In the BMW it was capacitive, meaning you it knows the human touch (like an iPhone senses your finger) and much harder to trick, in the case of Tesla, it uses the feel of weight.

Prior to Tesla I owned the BMW and it had CarPlay which made using the iPhone seamless on road trips, texts were easy to dictate with voice and notifications were all super clear and easy to use. The Tesla does not allow CarPlay and has a crappy messaging system that's so cumbersome to use that I pretty much ignore texts until I am off the road or manually type on the iPhone, for longer trips it's hard to ignore for a couple of hours.

Additionally, the inside cabin camera catches you looking down with no hands on the wheel it immediately sounds an alarm and threatens to disengage, yet another safety feature and one could see why they do this as well. So what I've found myself doing is trying to keep the tension on the wheel while texting with the other hand. Also not safe, I get it but the reality is people text and drive all the time, just look at any car driving beside you, so why not make this work safely?

Me and my buddy devised a counterweight using some wire and fishing weights to gently hang off the side and it works like a charm, I rarely use it but if I'm on a long straight stretch (usually longer than an hour) with minimal traffic it allows me to bring my phone up just above the wheel so I can watch both the road and type in a quick message.

This is far safer than their way of screaming alarms at you and cutting it off and my hands are never more than an inch away from the wheel with my eyes trained forward through the windshield.

After testing with this for a while I've decided that I'm going to buy one designed for the car.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I know there's a lot of pushback against this out there but hear me out. First of all, for those who don't know what a counterweight does on the Tesla is puts a couple of pounds of lean on the wheel so it won't nag you to touch it every 30 seconds to a minute, which is a built-in safety feature for most cars that have an auto steering feature. In the BMW it was capacitive, meaning you it knows the human touch (like an iPhone senses your finger) and much harder to trick, in the case of Tesla, it uses the feel of weight.

Prior to Tesla I owned the BMW and it had CarPlay which made using the iPhone seamless on road trips, texts were easy to dictate with voice and notifications were all super clear and easy to use. The Tesla does not allow CarPlay and has a crappy messaging system that's so cumbersome to use that I pretty much ignore texts until I am off the road or manually type on the iPhone, for longer trips it's hard to ignore for a couple of hours.

Additionally, the inside cabin camera catches you looking down with no hands on the wheel it immediately sounds an alarm and threatens to disengage, yet another safety feature and one could see why they do this as well. So what I've found myself doing is trying to keep the tension on the wheel while texting with the other hand. Also not safe, I get it but the reality is people text and drive all the time, just look at any car driving beside you, so why not make this work safely?

Me and my buddy devised a counterweight using some wire and fishing weights to gently hang off the side and it works like a charm, I rarely use it but if I'm on a long straight stretch (usually longer than an hour) with minimal traffic it allows me to bring my phone up just above the wheel so I can watch both the road and type in a quick message.

This is far safer than their way of screaming alarms at you and cutting it off and my hands are never more than an inch away from the wheel with my eyes trained forward through the windshield.

After testing with this for a while I've decided that I'm going to buy one designed for the car.

Wow that sounds like a nightmare. How does the insurance deal with a modification like that? I could imagine they would certainly frown upon it.

 

[Eric]

Wow that sounds like a nightmare. How does the insurance deal with a modification like that? I could imagine they would certainly frown upon it.

My guess is if they could show you were using it that they could make an argument. But it's far safer than trying to keep a hand on the wheel while texting, which is what everyone has to do now. If they don't want people to circumvent it they should simplify the system.

 

[Apple fanboy]

My guess is if they could show you were using it that they could make an argument. But it's far safer than trying to keep a hand on the wheel while texting, which is what everyone has to do now. If they don't want people to circumvent it they should simplify the system.

Can't you just dictate a text?

 

[Eric]

Can't you just dictate a text?

Yes, but not easily. Their system is cumbersome and hard to use, I'll reiterate though that if it had Apple CarPlay it would be no problem as that makes life in a care seamless with your iPhone. It's a shame these billionaires play stupid games like this, make your shit compatible with all cars and all devices.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Yes, but not easily. Their system is cumbersome and hard to use, I'll reiterate though that if it had Apple CarPlay it would be no problem as that makes life in a care seamless with your iPhone. It's a shame these billionaires play stupid games like this, make your shit compatible with all cars and all devices.

Looking forward to having Apple CarPlay on my new BMW!

 

[diamond.g]

My guess is if they could show you were using it that they could make an argument. But it's far safer than trying to keep a hand on the wheel while texting, which is what everyone has to do now. If they don't want people to circumvent it they should simplify the system.

<back in my day>. Lol there used to be a simple system, then a couple folks died and others got up in arms about how lax the simple system was on a Tesla and here we now are.

 

[fischersd]

Does the Tesla allow Android Auto? Or neither? Not surprised that Elon's still acting like the spoiled child he is and keeping CarPlay from being in his cars.

Going to be interesting to see how the market shapes up in about 5 years when the other car makers have competitive offerings.

And, per the topic at hand - yeah, I see that. Also, if you need to pee on a long road trip, you need one hand to hold the bottle and another to aim.

My fiancee would hate a Tesla then - she drives with her knees A LOT!

 

[Cmaier]

Does the Tesla allow Android Auto? Or neither? Not surprised that Elon's still acting like the spoiled child he is and keeping CarPlay from being in his cars.

Going to be interesting to see how the market shapes up in about 5 years when the other car makers have competitive offerings.

And, per the topic at hand - yeah, I see that. Also, if you need to pee on a long road trip, you need one hand to hold the bottle and another to aim.

My fiancee would hate a Tesla then - she drives with her knees A LOT!

No android auto, no CarPlay.

 

[Eric]

Anyone tried a third party display for this? I see a few out there that have carplay and android built in, I'm tempted to try it.

 

[DT]

Does the Tesla allow Android Auto? Or neither?

Neither, and I don't miss CP in the Tesla. I had it in a number of cars, including right now, our other vehicle (Wrangler 4xe), which is nice, since the uConnect lacks a few things (though the wife doesn't care, she just flips on XM/Sirius ... done).

With the Tesla, native OS phone, messaging, works great. The native nav is much better for the following reasons:

I was reading some conversation elsewhere, and I don't think people are aware of how nicely integrated the Tesla nav (or Lucid, or any of the ground up EV companies) is with the battery and charging management and planning systems.

Not only does the native nav provide directions, real time traffic, full location info (restaurants, hotels, with full web display/phone/etc), all through the vehicles GPS/cellular system, on a nice large display - it also shows information that is really integral to the EV ownership experience. 3rd party nav systems don't, and that's a major deficit.

I can see L2 and DCFC/Superchargers on the map, and for the SuCs, the actual chargers available, in real time, I can see the cost for the specific location. My battery level is estimated (now with overall temp/weather conditions factored in), and adding stops/waypoints refactors that in real time.

Additionally, and this is pretty significant, when selecting a DCFC (SuC) as a nav point, the car prepares the battery (aka, pre-conditions) for maximum charging speed upon arrival.

Until car APIs provide an interface for tightly coupled nav integration, the primary mechanism for me will be the native system, with <other_maps_nav_here> as a sort of backup being used by my trusty 1st officer

The biggest thing is music (and to a slightly lesser degree for me, podcasts). Though, some people aren't aware there's a native, on-demand/streaming service that's not bad (after a few rounds of curations, it's decent at selections, and the "Tesla faves" is shockingly good), and you can of course stream from your phone. I tend to queue up music and not f*** with the audio other than volume/pause/mute.

There are a couple of native streaming apps, and that's exactly what I'm using now, Spotify Premium. I asked the little G if she had a preference, since all our Apple Music freebies had run out, without a bit of hesitation, she said Spotify, so I picked up a Premium Duo service (so she can have her own account), and it works fantastically well in the Tesla for both music and podcasts, it sounds stellar, and I'm using it at home on a local Mac app, on my iPhone, and both of those have integration into our Sonos system, so I've got great in home music too.

My fiancee would hate a Tesla then - she drives with her knees A LOT!

I put on TACC (vs. AP) and drive with knees all the time

 

[Eric]

Neither, and I don't miss CP in the Tesla. I had it in a number of cars, including right now, our other vehicle (Wrangler 4xe), which is nice, since the uConnect lacks a few things (though the wife doesn't care, she just flips on XM/Sirius ... done).

With the Tesla, native OS phone, messaging, works great. The native nav is much better for the following reasons:



The biggest thing is music (and to a slightly lesser degree for me, podcasts). Though, some people aren't aware there's a native, on-demand/streaming service that's not bad (after a few rounds of curations, it's decent at selections, and the "Tesla faves" is shockingly good), and you can of course stream from your phone. I tend to queue up music and not f*** with the audio other than volume/pause/mute.

There are a couple of native streaming apps, and that's exactly what I'm using now, Spotify Premium. I asked the little G if she had a preference, since all our Apple Music freebies had run out, without a bit of hesitation, she said Spotify, so I picked up a Premium Duo service (so she can have her own account), and it works fantastically well in the Tesla for both music and podcasts, it sounds stellar, and I'm using it at home on a local Mac app, on my iPhone, and both of those have integration into our Sonos system, so I've got great in home music too.





I put on TACC (vs. AP) and drive with knees all the time

I continue to try and work with the native messaging and still just can't get used to it, IMO it's worlds behind CarPlay when it comes to ease of use, undoing, canceling/resending and integration with the iPhone. I'm not giving up on it entirely but TBH it's easier (and safer for me) to text and drive than to navigate that awful system they've designed.

 

[Cmaier]

I continue to try and work with the native messaging and still just can't get used to it, IMO it's worlds behind CarPlay when it comes to ease of use, undoing, canceling/resending and integration with the iPhone. I'm not giving up on it entirely but TBH it's easier (and safer for me) to text and drive than to navigate that awful system they've designed.

Agreed. And without CarPlay i have to fiddle with my phone to listen to baseball games, listen to Apple Music, etc. My wife’s BMW has wireless CarPlay and its worlds ahead of what my Tesla has. Even the GPS is much better.

 

[Eric]

Agreed. And without CarPlay i have to fiddle with my phone to listen to baseball games, listen to Apple Music, etc. My wife’s BMW has wireless CarPlay and its worlds ahead of what my Tesla has. Even the GPS is much better.

I came from the same setup with my previous 2020 BMW (lease). I still enjoy the Tesla much more as a whole but really miss CarPlay because you got used to the ease of use, also mostly used Apple Maps for navigation since it was so well integrated.

 

[DT]

I continue to try and work with the native messaging and still just can't get used to it, IMO it's worlds behind CarPlay when it comes to ease of use, undoing, canceling/resending and integration with the iPhone. I'm not giving up on it entirely but TBH it's easier (and safer for me) to text and drive than to navigate that awful system they've designed.

It's about the same for me, it works as expected: click, "Send message ...", double/cancel, single/send, tap messages bring up the messages history (tap reply from there if desired). I sent a message from the Jeep via CP just the last day or so, it was the same process, same accuracy, etc. I've had the Tesla for almost a year and I had CP in vehicles for about 4 years (GT #1, GT #2, DD/RT and now the Wrangler), and I just don't feel much difference, for me it's sort of an occasional thing anyway (sending a message from the car).

The music thing is a little more complicated if you're already an Apple Music subscriber, we did a few freebies, including a 6 month that came with our phone accounts, I liked it, but at the end of the day, I'm just looking for on demand music, with a huge catalog, the ability to stream to various devices, and with the little G giving the nod to Spotify (she engaged with her friends through it), I'm just as happy, I've lost nothing really, but I was in a position to choose. Hahaha, and of course, I can use Spotify in the Jeep through CP

If there was a really well integrated version of CP, that worked well with the huge Tesla display, and it provided charging data through the nav, I would most probably use it, but I just don't feel like it's a loss for me. YMMV.

 

[diamond.g]

Agreed. And without CarPlay i have to fiddle with my phone to listen to baseball games, listen to Apple Music, etc. My wife’s BMW has wireless CarPlay and its worlds ahead of what my Tesla has. Even the GPS is much better.

You looking to trade your Model S for the i4 M50? It should get 300 miles (I know it says 270 EPA but everyone else is beating EPA but Tesla).

 

[Cmaier]

You looking to trade your Model S for the i4 M50? It should get 300 miles (I know it says 270 EPA but everyone else is beating EPA but Tesla).

I’m hoping to somehow keep the Model S running another 5 years and then move to NYC so I’ll never have to buy another car, but we’ll see.

If i had to replace my car today, I’d go with something electric, as cheap as I could get, as long as the range is over 120 miles, and with CarPlay. I guess.

 

[diamond.g]

I’m hoping to somehow keep the Model S running another 5 years and then move to NYC so I’ll never have to buy another car, but we’ll see.

If i had to replace my car today, I’d go with something electric, as cheap as I could get, as long as the range is over 120 miles, and with CarPlay. I guess.

Why not go back to a gas powered car?

 

[Cmaier]

Why not go back to a gas powered car?

because electric is better in pretty much every way?

 

[DT]

You looking to trade your Model S for the i4 M50? It should get 300 miles (I know it says 270 EPA but everyone else is beating EPA but Tesla).

Heck, I wouldn't straight trade my M3P for an i4 M50 right now, even configured to my spec (which would be about $10K more than the MSRP on my car).