It’s no secret that I’ve not been a fan of yoke-type steering wheels. Sure, they look kind of cool, but they don’t really offer any actual improvement in the way a car is controlled, even in situations where steering ratios are altered or other compensations made. It’s just not making things better. The same goes for Tesla’s implementation of turn indicator controls on the yoke, which they accomplish with a pair of buttons, one atop the other. This approach got an unusual amount of attention recently, as a Tesla owner and fan posted a video on Twitter that suggested the buttons were superior to stalks, and the post got over 16 million views and over 4,000 replies. Clearly, people have thoughts about how they indicate their turns, and, unsurprisingly, so do I. The indication of turns is what separates us from the baser animals, and the methods by which we accomplish this matter. So let’s dig in a bit.
First, if you haven’t seen the post and video, here you go:
To everyone arguing against Tesla removing stalks: what looks easier to you? pic.twitter.com/UE0Cl57xZh
— Jeff ????✌️ (@JeffTutorials) May 25, 2023
Not much to it, is there? And yet, in these meager six seconds of video, a lot is revealed and, perhaps more importantly, a lot is not. First, the miming of how a hand would activate the turn signal stalk here is wildly exaggerated. Nobody moves their hand like that to flick the turn signal stalk. That’s more like the motion you’d make to shift the three-speed manual transmission lever on a Studebaker, if it was on the other side. You don’t need to put your whole arm into the act of flicking the signal lever; it can be done by extending your fingers as you’re turning the wheel, and the direction the wheel is turning is the direction the stalk needs to move. It’s almost like you just reach out as you’re already going by.
It becomes muscle memory, and effortless.
Maybe we need some diagrams. Here’s the basic situation, with both types of controls in place:
Okay, so let’s look at what it takes to indicate a turn while making a right turn here, without the shitty overdone pantomime of the video:
You can flick the stalk with your fingers as you turn past it clockwise, flicking the lever up; or, you use your thumb to push the “up” button on the wheel. I’d guess once you’re used to it, you wouldn’t really need to look at the wheel to do it, but there is more target accuracy required to hit the button – which is close to the button for the other direction below it – than there is required to flick the stalk, which pretty much just requires extending one or more of your fingers off the wheel and encountering the stalk as you rotate past. As anyone who has ever done this in a car can tell you, it’s tough to miss.
Now, here’s the other significant advantage of the stalk approach: a stalk never moves. Let’s look at where the indicator controls are if you’re already steering the wheel:
Sometimes, you will need to indicate a turn when your wheel is already turned. This can happen in a lot of different scenarios, like when you’re preparing to exit a driveway onto a road or you’re indicating readiness to turn into a parking spot, marking your intended plan, or you’re on a roundabout and need to signal when you’re exiting, or lots of other situations. It’s not that uncommon. And yet, in any case where the steering wheel isn’t dead straight ahead, those turn indicator buttons will be somewhere else. They can be anywhere on the circle of where that steering wheel can turn. They can be 45° above or below where you expect them or 120° away. Once they get to, say, 90°+, the orientation of the controls in relation to one another changes, too.
What was once a button atop another will become two side-by-side buttons. Where top button meant right and bottom means left reverses once the wheel passes that 90° mark. There’s no way that’s better. A stalk stays in the same place, requiring the same motion for left and right, which is how muscle memories are formed. When the wheel is turned, you’d have to give at least some kind of glance to know where the buttons are and how they’re oriented. Sure, if you keep your hands locked at 9 and 3 like they say you should when track driving, I guess that could be okay, but let’s be real: that’s not how people tend to drive.
Sometimes we just hold the wheel at the bottom, sometimes we rest a hand on top, and okay, if it’s a yoke, you can’t do that, and you mostly have to keep your hands at 9 and 3, but, well, that sucks.
I noticed that a lot of the replies imply that people don’t like the buttons simply because of tradition or habit or the unenviable state of being a boomer:
buttons are easier, but people dont like to get out of their comfort zone and try something new… ahem boomers
— Mystic (@Mystic2133) May 25, 2023
I also see replies analogizing this decision to other tech-based interface decisions:
I remember friends telling me the iPhone would never catch on because pressing buttons on the screen wouldn’t provide the physical click feedback .
— Pango (@Nateyesme) May 26, 2023
These aren’t really germane, not just because we don’t have decades of muscle memories for smartphone controls like this, but also because we’re not controlling 4,000 pound machines going at high speeds with our phones. Well, most of us aren’t.
There are also many replies stating much of the same things I’m saying here, too. It’s remarkable how many people feel strongly about all of this, and, really, why shouldn’t they? Change can be important or scary or needed or difficult or frivolous, or maybe even all of that, but when a change seems to be happening for reasons that don’t actually improve things, I think people are pretty good at assessing that. If there’s some huge advantage here, usability-wise, I don’t see it. What a number of replies have been suggesting as a valid reason is cost:
Cost Keith, No stalk saves how much? say $2 x how many million? Ever notice Elon keeps removing parts not adding parts, cut part cost + production cost. And you thought he did it for our convenience????
— robert baillie (@robertbaillie16) May 26, 2023
…or just the idea that nothing can be better than something:
Best part is no part
— Fabian Rudengren (@fabianrudengren) May 26, 2023
I am curious to hear what you, the Autopian Collective Mind, think of all this. Is there some advantage I’m not seeing? Am I just a pawn of Big Stalk? I’m willing to listen, especially to people who don’t flail their arms to turn on their blinkers.
I am beyond sick of Tesla and Teslastans. There are just so many idiots who feel they have to rationalize their purchase. It’s just an overpriced BEV with a stupid steering system. Buttons are worse when it comes to turn signals and Tesla only did it to save money so Elon can spend more feeding his fragile ego.
Tesla is the Apple of cars in many ways.
One seems a little more fraudy than the other to me, but I see your point.
My bmw r1200c has an individual button on each side, then a separate one to cancel and I absolutely hate it. Every other bike ive owned was the standard single switch: left, right, push to cancel. It worked flawlessly. I have to think about these stupid buttons Every time.
My husband used to have an R110RT and he HATED the turn signals on it.
BMW’s gone back to conventional switches on, I believe, all their bikes. They’ve indicated that a large reason is to give more space for other controls, like radio, trip computer, and navigation controls.
But when they had the buttons (love ’em, by the way) they were constantly beat upon in reviews.
I learned on an R75 /6. The turn signal was an up/down toggle by the right hand grip, up for left, down for right. Easily managed, as it’s intuitive in the same way the direction for the stalk is, just on the right.
I then rode an R80 RT for a while. That bike was a peach. Standard left-right toggle– it’s fine.
Next bike was an K1100 RS, and it had the two buttons. Loved it. For me, easier to reach than the toggle was, slight lift of the correct thumb to cancel. Have to know/recall which thumb cancels, but the toggle requires you to know/recall which thumb has the signal. Yeah, they could put ‘cancel’ on both grip pods, but the other side had the horn there. You could also put the toggle on both pods, but the other side has the horn or starter or something there also. The only complaint I had about it was that the buttons didn’t ‘click’, so you got no physical feedback that your press was registered.
My R1200 ST has clicky buttons, and I prefer it over any version of the toggle I’ve ever used.
Reviews called the buttons counter-intuitive, but they’re not. The toggle is no more intuitive, it’s just what most riders are used to. And reviewers are constantly switching bikes and not spending enough time on one to become completely used to it.
On the other hand, when I switch between my R1200 ST and my Suzuki DR650 I flub the first signal (sometimes with an inadvertent toot of the horn) and then every time I signal after that is automatic.
To TESLATI: get over yourself!!!
If hitting a stalk with a dumb fist like a gorilla is too primitive, why doesn’t Tesla just eliminate the stupid buttons too? That’s like soooo 1995 GenX ish to us Boomers!
Why cannot the car simply have a sensor read your head movements. That way I can just nod which direction like a bidder at an auction and the car will magically indicate to others and begin my turn for me.
Let’s talk about when all the manufacturers decided to move the gear selector from the column to a center console. Talk about a solution to NO problem. Unless your problem is that you have too much room in your center console and you want to clog it up with something else.
This is the same thing. File it under stupid shit that doesn’t need changing.
As someone who actually has driven significant miles using a 3-on-the-tree manual, the idea of a 5 speed (let alone 6) manual column shift would be bad, very bad. Accuracy for a manual is way, way better on the floor/console). Now automatics with column shift are fine by me, so long as the wiper stalk is not an obstruction to smooth operation.
I hope someone was as flamboyant as dude was with the stalk while responding about “how hard it is to press a button”…. man was just way over the top with that hand.
I could understand if the buttons were one per side, as in left on the left, right on the right, but both on one side is kinda stupid. I have no issue using the stalk while my hands are on the wheel…. I can even touch the little nipple or whatever it’s called on the end and use the “analog stalk” even easier.
The buttons are what happens when you fix something that ain’t broken.
“it can be done by extending your fingers as you’re turning the wheel, and the direction the wheel is turning is the direction the stalk needs to move. It’s almost like you just reach out as you’re already going by.”
Please don’t wait to signal until you’re turning. That’s terrifying advice. The order of operations is always: Signal, Brake, Turn
That way you’re fully communicating with the cars around you at all times. The signal first tells people that you’re going to brake and why you’re braking. It’s safer and doesn’t require any guesswork from other drivers to understand what you’re doing or why when you press the brake pedal.
Stalk or stalk analog wins. Even Citroën the supreme iconoclasts of controls used a rocker switch on a fixed position pod rather than buttons on the steering wheel.
FWIW motorcycle turn signals use a switch, but handlebars always stay in the same general spot unlike steering wheels.
The Citroen method with that giant gnarly burl of buttons on the left wasn’t entirely bad. The turn signal switch was large and didn’t compete for space along its plane, so it was impossible to miss.
I think the true litmus test is can it be used by touch alone? I’ve never driven a yolked Tesla but based on the video it sure looks less than intuitive. Remember the good Saabs? The ones with controls designed to be used without taking your eyes off the road? Change for the sake of change is frequently not good. It feels like Tesla did this just to be different while saving on production costs.
The amusing thing about the iPhone argument is that touchscreens are a shit interface for the reason he mentions, but they’re the least shit interface anyone has come up with for phones so they became the norm anyway. Assuming their popularity is indicative of quality or that the paradigm should be applied to any other use case (ahem, cars) is foolish at best.
Stalk is certainly better, for drivers of ALL ages.
I actually just came across the “when wheel is turned” example yesterday, I wanted to adjust the radio while waiting to turn and realized the button was “gone”
I run into this all the time in the car. Steering wheel controls are fantastic, but when you turn the wheel, your orientation goes all wacky. A radio is one thing. When it comes to the turn indicators, simpler is safer. Stalk is the better interface for now, though I’m open to something better in the future…like a wink to one side or something.
Growing up we had a 57 Mercedes 219, the turn signals were activated by turning the metal horn ring, it worked surprisingly well once you got used to it- there was a stalk where the turn signals would be but it was for the high beams
Why is minimizing effort the key factor in signaling a turn? Is brake pedal pressure a key criteria in choosing a car? Using a car in the first place already eliminated 99.8% of the effort required.
Also, you should be signaling before you turn the wheel.
I prefer the stalk-mounted solution, but it might be ingrained. I’d never find the right buttons once the wheel starts rotating. I’ll play my own devil’s advocate though and suggest the left blinker button on the left side of the wheel (yoke?) and right on the right. You couldn’t one-hand turn & signal, but it’d be easier to tell them apart. Until the steering wheel rotated… so, nevermind.
“Tesla Bjørn” Bjørn Nyland on YouTube has already addressed this in a recent video.
Button indicators are fine in Uhhhh-merrrica-land where you don’t have any roundabouts. But in Europe you will frequently need to signal left when entering a roundabout before switching to signal right as you prepare to exit the roundabout. With a stalk, this movement is in the same direction of the turning steering wheel, but with buttons you have to make the signal while the wheel is upside down and the physical arrangement of buttons is reversed.
Not really a problem in Norway, since there is no requirement to signal left when entering a roundabout. Only when exiting 🙂
Who says there are no roundabouts in America? Some of the routes I have to take are lousy with them (like every flippin’ quarter mile).
Even when taking muscle memory into account, finger flicking a turn signal stalk is faster and requires less thought than lifting your thumb and pressing a button. Using a stalk is also less error prone because the finger flick is directional (up for right, down for left) as opposed to placing your thumb on a precise location on the steering wheel.
As much as we rag on Tesla for trying to literally reinvent the wheel, just wait until the news gets out about BMW’s new “look to change lanes” feature.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/05/25/bmw-5-series-change-lanes-using-eyes/70255812007/
at least they will use the turn signal now. lol
As someone who likes to frequently scan his mirrors to maintain situational awareness, this sounds like a terrible idea.
Much like their warm your ass subscription BMW charges the registered driver of their cars $1.00 USD every time the turn indicator is used, that’s why you rarely see a BMW driver use their blinkers 🙂
For a company that loves their sci-fi references, I’m waiting for someone at Tesla to remember the Ford Probe exists (you know, the most popular car in Hill Valley 2015) and go with the dashboard mounted stalk.
https://youtu.be/MIGAI7gIrKQ?t=276
I believe my Acura Legend had those too, and a few others of that era.
I know there have been alternatives to the stalk—flippers sprouting from dash-mounted pods—but I’ve never tried them. I can imagine them being a viable alternative.
But buttons on a spoke of the steering wheel? Even if we grant they might be good in principle, this implementation is manifestly bad in practice. There’s no tactile quality. You can’t feel when your finger is on either one of them, which should be a fundamental feature.
Also, tangentially, what car is that dashboard from? The Utopian Turtletop?
OK, once other comment: Nobody had a problem with it when [domestic?] car companies moved the high beams off the floor onto a stalk, because that <i>was</i> obviously superior. I mean, I’m sure there was a little get-off-my-lawn grumbling, but I guarantee that no car writers defended the (frankly bizarre in retrospect) floor-activated high beams. And it’s not like Chevy brought it back for the 5th gen Camaro as a retro highlight—there was no looking back.
Whereas I guarantee clignotants will persist as long as human-driven cars do.
Counter-point….floor mounted high beam switches were great! (so long as you were in a giant pickup with enough footwell space to house one)
Clignotants mean blinkers. With a stalk or buttons, it would still be called clignotants
I’m just here to note that the French have a single, elegant work for “turn signal stalk”—clignotant— and it makes me envy them almost as much as the ubiquitous boulangerie.
And yeah, clignotants are clearly superior to buttons. I could maybe see having a single button on either end of the yoke would be about as simple and memorable, but top/bottom on one side? Stupid.
Clignotants are the blinky lights themselves. The stalk or Citroen switch is called clignotant by metonymy. You’d use different words for button, stalk, or column mounted switch to differentiate.
It seems as if there has been a lot of change just for the sake of change over the past 15 years (maybe longer). Sometimes it works out great. The changes lead to an improvement over something that many thought couldn’t be improved. But, of course, many changes were a regression. They made the thing worse.
I am pretty ambivalent toward Tesla — neither a fan nor a hater. I want to remain open to their innovations, but they make it pretty difficult.
I see how excited the fans are in the embedded tweets above, and I want to be that excited, but I just can’t get on board. I wish they’d come out with some change that is actually better than the status quo, but the changes all make things worse, not better.
As a recent buyer of a Model 3, I’m going to take exception to your first point. The only instruments right in your eyeline are projected HUDs, which are rare. Every other instrument implementation requires you to take your eyes off the road. I’ve found no functional difference between an eye flick down vs an eye flick to the side. I think this issue is way overblown (at least for EVs where instrumentation is fairly minimal anyway).
On your other points I absolutely agree.
ETA: I bought the Model 3 used, so none of my money went to Elon.
I feel like I need to say this, Jason: OK, Boomer…
Honestly, didn’t Knight Rider already bridge this gap? Push buttons mounted on a non-movable stalk! Best of both worlds. Are you listening, Elon?
Jason’s genx though
Anyone who has ridden a motorcycle is used to signalling without a stalk, but at least we have a switch that you either flick left or right and not stacked buttons.
I honestly don’t know if the Harley solution (separate turn signal buttons on each side) is better or not, although it seems to work fine in practice.
None of these items mentioned change in location with reference to your hands. They are cleanly designed to function around where your hands are always going to.
True but the difference is that unlike a steering wheel handlebars don’t spin around (if they do you’ve got bigger problems than an unsignaled lane change).
BMW motorcycles used a push button on each handlebar to activate the turn signal with a third button on the right handlebar to turn it off if it didn’t self cancel. I ride one of said bikes and it really sucks.
I don’t know why manufacturers are always trying to reinvent solutions to problems that have already been solved.
IMHO, paddle shifters that turn with the steering wheel are much worse than this. I’ve upshifted when I intended to downshift or vice versa numerous times. Turn signal controls and paddle shifters need to remain static to the driver. Shifting while turning happens a lot more than signaling while turning.
Disagree about the paddle-shifters. If you’re doing “spirited driving,” you should have you hands locked at the 3 and 9 positions, and so the shifters will always be right behind your hands.
Sorry, i usuallly read to the end before commenting, but you raised my hackles early. Pro-stalk here, but if you’re not flipping the stalk until you start turning the wheel, you’re signaling way too late my friend. And you’re younger than me. (Ageism, i know, but in the old, country-club suburb next to my neighborhood, drivers signal very late, and usually after they’ve come to a complete stop.)
“You don’t need to put your whole arm into the act of flicking the signal lever; it can be done by extending your fingers as you’re turning the wheel, and the direction the wheel is turning is the direction the stalk needs to move. It’s almost like you just reach out as you’re already going by.“
usually
word