Tesla comes up with the weirdest solutions to problems that don’t even need a solution, to begin with. Tesla has just shown off their new Touchscreen-enabled car shifters. That’s right you heard me, Car shifters, meaning instead of a stick that you would slide, push, pull, or whatever to get your car in gear is no more. Now everything can happen with just a swipe up or swipe down.
Sounds convenient right? But it’s not. We’ve been using stick shifters for as long as I can remember. The days of manual cars are almost over, However, even with the new electronic sticks, there was still some feedback you could get. The new touchscreen shifter was shown by a Tweet by Tesla Owners. You can check it out below.
Okay, this may seem futuristic and all but there is a very big problem with touchscreens. They are prone to errors, they can fail, and what happens if the touchscreen just goes poof. Tesla’s recent big recall was also related to their touchscreens. They had to recall over 135,000 cars due to faulty screens. The problem was is the screens were faulty, drivers could no longer access hazard lights, the front, and rear defrosters, etc.
The faulty touchscreens were from the Model S and Model X, the same cars that will be getting these new touchscreen shifters. As a sign of relief, CEO Elon Musk did tweet about the ways to override the touchscreen. He said in a tweet that “No gear shifter, no turn signals, no problem. No more stalks. Car guesses drive direction based on what obstacles it sees, context & nav map. You can override on a touchscreen.”
I wonder how the valets will react when they get into a Tesla only to see there are no stick shifters. Not to mention the driver will have to look at the touchscreen to confirm the gear has been shifted or not. Only time will tell how this plays out.