I rented a Tesla for a month. It was a steep learning curve

3 years ago by Zagorath to c/australia

A major car rental company was renting Teslas out for about one-third the cost of a petrol car. We figured, how different could it be?

set_secret 36 points 3 years ago

I've driven one, the learning curve isn't steep, it's fairly logical. the person who wrote this I think is maybe just really bad at adapting to new situations.

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Lintson 14 points 3 years ago

My dad and I once sat in the cabin of a push to start vehicle for 20 whole minutes before admitting defeat and walking back to the rental office and asking how to start the car. If an action is completely alien/illogical to you, it's not a matter of being bad at adapting, you'll just never get it.

In this case we needed 3 actions done correctly: fob in dock, brake pressed down (even though its in park) and hold the start button down for longer than 2 secs. It was the last step that really screwed us around

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No1 9 points 3 years ago

Bruh, I've driven a manual pretty much all my life. Always handbrake on, foot on brake, wiggle to make sure in neutral, fire it up.

Got a manual in the US -same make/model i had in Aus- and couldn't start it.

Had to depress the clutch. Gear/neutral didn't matter. No clutch in, no ignition.

Had to go get help. The bloke looked at me like I was an idiot and asked if I'd driven a stick before. Meanwhile I'm looking at him like he's an idiot wondering why neutral means you need to hit the clutch.

Somehow I still ended up feeling embarrassed. But he must have been surprised about how I got out of the parking lot without stalling or -with the accent- without kangaroo hopping down the street.

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XTornado 3 points 3 years ago

Interesting 🤔.... I actually have never started a car in neutral, as far as I am aware, but yeah I would had the same issue as I would have expected it to work without the clutch in. (not form the US).

Now not sure if my car would work as in the US or as I expected and just turn on anyway without the clutch in.

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No1 3 points 3 years ago

I could understand the clutch in requirement. So you don't leap forward starting it in gear.

Was taught to start a car under minimal load; no A/C, no heat, no lights, no wipers etc. And clutch normally involves hydraulics, so neutral means minimising trans load too.

But also, I've been in situations where people drive cars after the clutch has failed. 2nd gear, fire it up, then it's all about rev matching for changing gears 😆. AFAICT, you couldn't do it with the US ECU setup...

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No1 1 point 3 years ago

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Zagorath 3 points 3 years ago

Clutch down is how I've always started manuals. I'm not even sure if my current car works the way you were used to or the way your American car worked, but tbh I suspect the latter. It's not an American car, either.

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zurohki 4 points 3 years ago

Mine needs you to press the start button with a foot on the brake, but if you press either pedal, the start button, or attempt to shift to drive you get a message on the screen telling you what you're supposed to do. So it's simple to figure out by just trying something.

Holding the start button is weird.

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phillaholic 3 points 3 years ago

So are a lot of people. My parents recently bought a new vehicle and while I can figure it out, it is often needlessly complicated and confusing for people who aren’t used to all the tech.

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HellAwaits 3 points 3 years ago

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akulium 34 points 3 years ago

When you reverse, the mirrors tilt to the ground so you can't use them to back up. That's to force you to use the image from the rear camera on the screen.

What. Isn't it just tilting down the mirror on one side so you can see the curb when parking, like other cars do?

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Aurenkin 16 points 3 years ago

Yeah.... this is also an option you can choose based on what you prefer. Not to 'force' you to do anything

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Thisismyusername169 9 points 3 years ago

My 2002 Statesman does that. That was probably pretty high tech for a Holden back then, but surely not hard to figure out by today's standards.

It always feels a bit weird getting in a new hire car for the first day and learning where everything is, but if the author spent a month driving this thing, you think they would have worked a few things out by then.

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sploosh 6 points 3 years ago

Also, one should not rely on side mirrors to back up unless you're driving a car with no rear camera and no visibility out the back.

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Nath 2 points 3 years ago

My car is also 9 years old and doesn't do this. I can see how he'd assume the mirror did that to force you to use the screen, because it's the sort of jerk move Elon would do and I wouldn't know why else it was doing it.

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akulium 3 points 3 years ago

Always assume good intentions first

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Zagorath 8 points 3 years ago

That's usually good advice, but I'm not really sure it applies where Musk is concerned.

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akulium 1 point 3 years ago

I think even then, the actual important issues get drowned if everyone gets out their guillotine on every bait headline.

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Zagorath 13 points 3 years ago

The thing is, driving and charging this car was not a problem.

Definitely glad to see that’s the case. Instead, the article details a large number of design decisions Tesla specifically has made that are either objectively bad, or theoretically neutral but practically a problem because they "redesign the wheel" so-to-speak, for no real added advantage. Things like the door not opening by just pulling it like normal, or all the interfacing needing to be done through a giant touch screen with convoluted menus, instead of regular buttons in their long-standardised locations in the centre console. And the hazard light button is on the roof, for some reason?

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notfromhere 4 points 3 years ago

I don’t think the hazard button on the roof is awkward. I’ve had a couple cars that did that, actually in my mind that’s the first place I go for if I need it. The rest of those changes could be considered the style of the car.

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autotldr 3 points 3 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

We read the emails, looked at EV electric vehicle charging options, and when we picked up the Tesla in downtown Toronto we thought we were ready.

You have to go through the screen, find "mirrors", choose left and right and use this ball toggle thingy on the steering wheel to make adjustments.

For example, in the default setting for when you reverse, the mirrors tilt to the ground so you can't use them to back up.

Instead that's displayed on the top corner of the control screen (just to your right in North America, or your left in Australia).

On the third day, after consulting a YouTube video, we figured out we were pushing the wrong part of the control screen to open it.

But for the driver of a low-tech, nine-year-old manual hatchback in Australia, the things this Tesla decided to do on its own were maddening.

The original article contains 839 words, the summary contains 148 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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brlemworld 2 points 3 years ago

Bad bot. Not a good summary.

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