The relevant info will be on the center screen. Center instrument clusters aren't that uncommon. Priuses have them, for example, and they're pretty popular.
Almost every vehicle, even budget sub-compacts, have driver displays now. The utilization of that display varies from nigh useless (odometer, oil minders, etc.) to very useful (navigational directions, at-a-glance music selection via steering wheel based controls, etc.).
Removing this display from the Model 3 seems like a design choice intended to artificially distinguish and demote the Model 3 from the Model S.
Not artificially, but to keep the cost of the car at target. Nobody makes a car cheaper by removing the wheels, you have to nickel and dime where you can. A single display saves money.
Lest we not forget, Tesla is likely to lose money on the base Model 3.
At $35K, Tesla is entering the world of the C class, the 3 class, and competing with that by 'nickel and diming' doesn't seem the wisest idea when you look beyond the "electric" aspect.
Hell, even the S has been criticized for it's shoddy interior construction quality that more resembles a Ford Escape than a $100K Audi.
Probably more reasonable to compare it to other electric cars in its price range - the Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf. Neither of these cars have particularly luxurious dashboards, interiors, or other extras.
Both the Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf have two displays, a driver display and a center display. Further, the driver displays are particularly large and robust, even when compared to more expensive vehicles. The Tesla Model 3 completely lacks the driver display.
And the Bolt has it's base model listed at $37.5k vs $35k for the Model 3. There's also a pretty clear difference in... style here. The Bolt is Mr. Practical and the Model 3 is Mr. Fun. Pretending that these two cars are the same thing is absurd, they happen to have one thing in common: they are both electrics.
But I'm not going to compare a Volkswagon Bug to a Ford Mustang just because they both have combustion engines.
How many people do you think would rather have a tiny cramped display crammed in the hole of the steering wheel (and often partially occluded depending on user height, seat, and steering wheel position) vs a nice clear 15" display that both people in front and see?
That's something that I hadn't considered. Have we received confirmation that the Model 3 will be available with the optional full suite of self-driving sensors?
On the Model S, this includes two high-priced options:
1. Enhanced Autopilot ($5000) quadruples the number of cameras from 1 to 4 and adds 12 ultrasonic sonar sensors and additional computing power to crunch the data.
2. Full Self-Driving Capability ($3000) doubles the number of cameras from 4 to 8.
>It's a design choice toward a self-driving world, where instantaneous road notifications are less important to a person in a car than they are today.
People sure are willing to reach with their rationalizations.
You might be right. But consider that, maybe, Tesla has to remove what they can because they now realize that making a $35k EV without losing piles of money is very, very, difficult.
I agree with this, but cost savings and forward thinking design aren't mutually exclusive. I think the constraints of the former make the latter even more evident. Most cars with only one screen provide a driver's display. So why did Tesla choose a center display instead? I think it's because in the world they see coming, the center screen will be more useful.
If it is ever going to be used under human control, particularly on public highways, it needs basic information displayed in a proper above-the-wheel driver display, especially speed information.
You wouldn't want that info in a self-driving car for the same reason you don't want that info when you hop in an Uber or a Lyft. When you aren't driving, it's not useful.
That world may be five years away, but Tesla claims the Model 3 you buy this year will be fully self-driving, so it stands to reason they'd design it with that future in mind.
I wonder if there will be aftermarket driver displays. If all the data you need is on the CAN bus, should be just a question of mounting points and power wiring.
I joined the Model 3 wait list the day it opened and I'm really looking forward to getting one. The biggest concern I have so far is the lack of driver display.
Dunno, I'd prefer a nice clear 15" screen over every in car display I've ever seen (except for the model S 17). Being larger and visible at all times is pretty nice. Doubly so with a passenger that's helping out can handle nav duties.
Generally I look at fuel levels rarely, tach almost never (and doubly irrelevant if you can't shift gears), and speedometer only occasionally since I'm usually just pacing traffic.
Anything else normally on the dash display is often a tiny small icon that's hard to see. Was that a check engine light? An upshift light? Oh, is one of the doors open?
Several production cars have a centre speedometer, Minis for one. I've seen digital centered dashtop speedos in other mass market cars too... I just can't recall them at the moment.
I have used a GPS speedo on my screenmounted device for years, and looking down and forwards for my speed seems unnatural now.
Which Prius? 2007 had it available in the deep well with a mirrored display over the steering wheel, not in the centre (http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/1f0271de306e45aab983f8c2c6e0f6ad/2...)
Later models had either that or a heads up display on the windshield.
Hunh, so I'm assuming then that the prius must have some changes there, or it's just not sold...
As I knew someone that owned a 2012 prius that has literally nothing behind the driver's wheel (along with my wife's old saturn, but I'm almost positive that wasn't sold in europe).
Actually now that i'm thinking about it, it seems about 30% of the cars in my life have had the main dash cluster in the center of the car!
> Hunh, so I'm assuming then that the prius must have some changes there
The Prius has an above-the-wheel driver display (source: I drive one, and have been in every generation of Prius sold in the US, and my wife drives a Prius C) in addition to the center console touchscreen.
It's higher, and nearer the centerline, than the old behind the wheel displays, but that is to allow your eyes to not come as far from the road in looking at it.
That's quite different (in a sense, diametrically opposed) from having the only display be a center-console touchscreen that isn't above the wheel.
Well to be completely honest the screen on the Model 3 [0] looks to be about the same height as the dash cluster on the Prius [1]. Or at least it's close enough that the shorter half of the population won't notice.
But again, either way I'm confident that Tesla is going to be within regulation. They are already getting so much scrutiny/bikeshedding about the center display, I can't imagine them not following the required laws. With so much attention on it, it'd be silly to have it all get fucked up by not having the screen positioned a few inches differently.
> Well to be completely honest the screen on the Model 3 [0] looks to be about the same height as the dash cluster on the Prius [1].
It's not a similar eyeline (it's maybe only a little lower, but also not as far back from the driver; you are looking down toward the wheel not at the road past the wheel to see that display.)
> But again, either way I'm confident that Tesla is going to be within regulation.
"Not in violation of the law" is a pretty low bar, but, yes, I'm quite sure anywhere they actually deliver the Model 3 it will probably clear that bar, at least for obvious things like display position.
> But again, either way I'm confident that Tesla is going to be within regulation. They are already getting so much scrutiny/bikeshedding about the center display, I can't imagine them not following the required laws. With so much attention on it, it'd be silly to have it all get fucked up by not having the screen positioned a few inches differently.
Considering Tesla has actually lobbied to a few European governments to change the law, it seems like they try to attack the problem from that side instead of actually fixing it on the hardware side.
The example shown has speedometer and other info on a display above the wheel and on the driver side, which is a driver display. Yes, it's near the centerline, but it's at a place the driver naturally can view it with a very small change in eyeliner from the road (or in peripheral vision while watching the road) not a centered display level with the wheel like the console display on the Model 3.
