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’m seeing a whole bunch of nerds who paid money to the wrong website. (ba-dum-tishhhh)
You nailed it on the accuracy part. Tesla’s signal-spots are in a convenient location to press on the yoke, but it’s TOO convenient. Those weird little capacitive spots on the yoke are just too easy to accidentally hit when you don’t intend to. It’s too easy for the car to read a glancing touch as “you want me to honk now” when you’re just trying to turn the darn thing. I’m awkward with my hands sometimes as most people are, so I don’t like that from a usability perspective. Unlike “open butthole”—which hits the sweet spot of being funny and useful—this capacitive nonsense on the wheel is a step backwards.
This isn’t to say the no-stalk idea is inherently bad, though. The Lamborghini Huracán has a little switch that physically moves into place on the steering wheel. You can see it here, on the same left side of the wheel of as Tesla’s turn-stalk touchpad: https://cdn-ds.com/stock/2022-Lamborghini-Huracan-STO–West-Palm-Beach-FL/seo/ECL9929-ZHWUA6ZX7NLA19534/sz_103233/78270c342b2b67cf8be4ce47bad8d088.jpg
As a physical switch, it’s a lot harder to accidentally set that one off. Sorry, fanboiz, physical controls are still the most usable in a car, even when they’re quirky, weird things that Lambo does to be Lambo. It’s pretty easy to use once you get used to “this is where the turn indicators are,” too. That being said, I wouldn’t want to have that switch for turn signals on a car that doesn’t have a short steering rack. I could imagine that getting pretty awkward on, say, Mom’s old Sedan de Ville.
A stalk is industry-standard at this point, and frankly, nothing’s wrong with it. Wheel-mounted turn signal controls fix problems that don’t exist unless you’re really, really, really trying hard to show customers that you removed a fraction of a pound from a supercar by leaving the turn stalk out. For a mass-market car, just leave the dang stalk in. But if you want your quirky car to be extra-quirky, the right way to do this is with a physical switch.
“ba-dum-tishhhh”
My favorite joke:
Two snare drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff…
More problems!
-They appear to be capacitive buttons so you can’t use them when wearing gloves.
-They are tiny, stacked and on one side. At least Ferrari buttons are on opposite sides of the wheel so they’re relatively easy to figure out which is which. This you’re always running the risk of hitting the wrong one.
Hey it doesn’t take a big stalk to signal a turn. Isuzu Impulse had side pods around the steering wheel which I loved that had a paddle protruding on the left pod within short finger flicking reach that was sooo easy to use.
Buttons for some things on the wheel are fine, I can wait to turn the volume down if turning, but I need that signal to be in the same place.
If I recall later Dodge Daytonas and Chrysler LeBarons had similar.
As did Citroen.
Over 16.5 million views and not even 9,000 likes. Feels like a definitive loss for buttons.
Game, set, match.
As roundabouts become more common in this country, more Americans will learn that it’s a good idea to signal your intention to leave the thing. This is one of those things we don’t want to discourage. That’s enough right there to keep it on the stalk,
Of course, as others have no doubt noted, this whole debate is rather academic when most of the country doesn’t seem to understand what the little stick-thingy that makes the blinky-blink is supposed to be used for.
100% this! I just got back from driving in France and Belgium and going through at least 50 (maybe more than 100) roundabouts. Trying to find that button while turning left and about to start turning to the right is a no go.
Here in the UK on my way to work today I had to indicate right (that’s the long way round when you drive on the left) on three roundabouts (one involving holding the stalk down to continue indicating right while actually turning left on to the roundabout) then indicate left just before my exit. That’s on a five mile drive through the countryside. Roundabouts everywhere.
You can’t do that with buttons on the wheel.
Although to be fair you can’t use a stalk properly with your phone in your hand either, so indicating properly is a dying art.
Wait, you’re supposed to signal as you enter AND as you exit a roundabout? I use turn signals more than anyone I know, but I’ve never seen anyone use their signals anywhere near any American roundabouts.
Doesn’t yet happen here (unless you’re me and I’m sure that all I do is confuse people), but if you drive in Europe you’ll find that people generally use their signals to indicate what they’re planning to do in entering and leaving roundabouts. It’s pretty useful.
“… Americans will learn …”
Lol. Found the flaw in your argument, bud.
Torch is 100% right. Maybe I am one of the “boomers” that are being made fun of, but the importance of tactile feel cannot be overstated. I can change my stereo settings, HVAC settings, activate all of the lights (including turn signals), and perform other actions in my car completely by feel without taking my eyes off the road. Definitely not possible or at least not as easy with touchscreens and no stalks. I’m sure with enough time you’d have some muscle memory to perform these tasks on a newer car, but it’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
Hell, I just bought a traditional clock-radio for my bedside table for this reason. I can hit snooze or turn on/off the alarm completely by feel. Also have an inductive phone charger right next to it so I can drop my phone on it and tell it’s charging by feel without even opening an eye.
Does anyone remember on some ’90s+ cars where the manufacturers put little nubs or dots on steering wheel buttons so you feel which one of the buttons you were pressing? Maybe that’d help this a little.
Yes! I think my Grand Am had some nubs on the wheel buttons.
Gosh, your reasons for going traditional with an alarm clock are similar to my reasons for sticking with a phone. I am not a morning person. I need something to irritate me into waking up by being as difficult to turn off as possible. Hiding the off-option within a menu on a crappy tiny touchscreen seems to work for me. I hate it when I forget to turn the alarm off in the alarm app, I’m on the toilet, and my phone got left in the other room, but I know it’s for a purpose. I don’t trust myself to ever wake up if I could hit off without thinking or looking.
You aren’t a Boomer for this, Tesla fans have their heads so far up Elon’s ass they are defending their cars being de-contented. Because that’s what it is
What til they make the turn signals a subscription service. They’ll probably defend that.
BMW has had that for decades and the take rate is extremely low.
My 2013 Japanese car has those little nub thingies. I always thought they were braille labels for blind drivers, but I guess not?
Any other equally old farts around here remember when Ford had the brilliant idea to put the horn button on the end of the stalk? Anyone else’s mom spend three or four years smacking the center of the steering wheel on a 1979 Mercury Grand Marquis when she needed to use the horn, then cursing to herself, then not bothering to reach for the stalk after all because the appropriate moment to blow the horn had passed?
Remember why Ford quit doing that? Because it was as dumb as it sounds, and people told Ford how dumb it was until they quit doing it and put the horn button back on the wheel again.
This is one of the more egregious examples of cost-cutting masquerading as “tech” and resulting in an annoying technology solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist. When I go shopping for a car, I don’t think to list “counterintuitive turn signals” on my list of “cons” to watch out for, although these days, I guess I should add it at the bottom under nonsense such as “touchscreen glove box release.”
As I often joke, a 1972 Ford LTD is looking better all the time.
Ford was trying hard to “Euro-fy” a lot of their cars in the ’70s and ’80s and that’s where the turn signal stalk horn button came from – it was a feature found on lots of European cars back then.
Admittedly, it would have been much better if the horn had been activated by pulling the stock, similar to the flash-to-pass feature on modern cars. Instead, you had to push directly on the end of the stalk toward the column. There are few features on your automobile that need to do the thing right this second the way the horn does, and that set up made it take longer. Sometimes my mom couldn’t blow the horn even though she was trying to.
It was still a counterintuitive motion that customers revolted against, eventually leading to it being changed back to the old way. Also, you will notice that no one else has tried it in the 30 years since.
Agreed, it was a dumb idea, I was just providing context for why they decided to do it.
Seconding that context, fwiw.
“Sometimes my mom couldn’t blow the horn even though she was trying to.”
Insert joke here…
For me it was Aunt Betty and a 1983 Ford Escort, but yeah.
I had an’85 Renault alliance with the horn on the stalk, I liked it more than my ’84 with it on the steering wheel….but probably because of one particular horn incident on the ’84. I was pulling out of a fast food place in high school, the center of the steering wheel pops off, the horn starts baring and then the center piece for the steering wheel and the wires gets tangled up in the turn signal stalk and I can’t straiten out the wheel (which I’m doing on-handed as it’s a manual). Anyway, so horn blaring, I make a nice unintentional u-turn right over the curb and into the lawn looking like some kind of moron.
On the bright side, your moronicity was already apparent–you drove an Alliance.
Agreed, regardless of the reasons, it was stupid.
I remember being 12? 13? when my dad bought a 1979 LTD whon with the horn on the stalk. I thought “what a stupid idea!” at the time. Notably, our 1984 Crown Vic Police Package had it on the wheel again. As did our 88 Country Squire.
The only dumber thing on all three cars was that f%&#ing variable venturi carburetor.
With my long legs, I could beep the horn with my knee. So when I’d pull up to my friend’s house I’d put both hands out the window and beep for him.
It’s official: America is full of stalkers.
You’re pushing our buttons.
I’m a Tesla driver with a stalk in his car — and am very happy with it that way.
Team stalk here. Call me an old all you want, but I like the fact that the stalk remains in a fixed place and I can extend a pinky to do what is needed. Meanwhile, I rather like having my cruise control and radio/phone buttons on the steering wheel because I only mess around with them when the wheel is in its normal orientation. I also like the stalk location for my high beam controls.
I miss the high beam control on the floor. Call me old all you want, but it was satisfying to mash that metal button with your left foot.
My family had an 81 bronco ( I think). Three pedal, plus hi beam switch and parking brake all on the floor. Got a little crowded, but loved the control.
Ever need to make a small turn before a larger one and your turn signal auto cancelled? With a stalk, you can use one hand to keep your car signaling your intent to other drivers throughout the maneuver. You couldn’t turn the wheel and keep pushing the button at the same time, especially on sharper turns. Advantage: stalk.
The car should be able to sense when you’re going to turn, just like the gear lever will choose it’s own direction! At least, that’s what I assume Tesla drivers think when they don’t use their turn signals.
If a turn signal is never engaged, does it matter which kind it is?
Self professed city boy here, but I’ve done a LOT of rural driving… And there’s another thing the assine-ness that Musk’s buttons miss: controlling high beams.
Almost every turn signal stalk I’ve used controls not only the turn signal lights, but also the highs. up for right; down for left; push forward puts the high beams on; pull back puts the highs on temporarily.
When you’re driving through a country road and ya don’t know if a turn is gonna reveal a buck or a truck… Well that setup is a godsend for making quick INTUITIVE adjustments.
There’s a simple rebuttal here: bring back the floor switch, along with the crotch vent under the steering column.
But in a world where inexplicably, neither exists anymore, the stalk is clearly superior.
I don’t think distracting the feet is a better solution than the stalk. I know most people probably keep their left foot glued to the foot rest, but especially if you’re driving back roads and are concerned about surprises, keeping both feet free to quickly do their job is definitely a priority.
Plus it’s an extra hole in the floor and an electrical switch in a spot where it’s bombarded by salty slush both splashed up from the tires and dripped down from your boots.
Floor button dimmers existed in the first place for the same reason as Elon’s dumb buttons – cost-cutting. There was no lightweight easy-to-hand-click switch heavy duty enough for the function 50-80 years ago and Detroit didn’t want to run a relay so they held out against it until the mid ’70s, 20 years behind the rest of the world.
Crotch vents are another matter, I suspect there was no good way to make them coexist with a tilt steering column.
Hell yeah for the crotch vent. Never personally experienced one but they just make do much sense
My ’78 Camaro had the floor dimmer and the crotch cooler. It was easier to dim the lights while turning and the boys had no complaints.
I had one in my ’93 Toyota. My wife’s Ford Kuga kinda has one. Theres little vents in the centre just under the stereo controls, aimed directly at your crotch. Its great! You can’t have them under the steering wheel because of knee airbags.
I was very happy to discover my recently purchased ’04 Sequoia still has a ball chiiler.
I recently heard a new name for crotch vents (Female version of Ball Chiller) Coochie Cooler!
This sounds better than pointing the AC vent as low and to the left as it will go and lifting my swampy ass off the seat…
We could combine them into a crotch stalk.
Most people think that the blue light in the middle of their dash means that their headlights are on.
I’m firmly on team stalk for exactly the reasons you listed. I’ve driven a Ferrari 458 which has stupid turn signal buttons on the wheel and I hated it. On that, the signals are at least on different sides of the wheel and I didn’t really have to use them while I already had the wheel turned but I still hated that they moved with the wheel.
Infotainment buttons, cruise control buttons, stuff like that is fine to put on the wheel but something safety critical like a turn signal needs to stay stationary in some spot that’s easily accessible and not going to move around on you.
Tesla isn’t the car to use buttons, or some sort of non-typical turn indicator switch. It’s probably the worst, followed closely by the Ferrari buttons mounted on opposite sides of the wheel spokes. The problem is that the buttons move, and reverse their positions, as you turn the wheel. You have to look to make sure you’re touching the correct one if you have to signal while you’re already turning the wheel.
There have been other funky turn signal switches, but at least all the ones I can remember stayed put on the dashboard or some extension of it. It was still easy to reach for the correct control and operate it in the correct direction. Not so with buttons moving with the steering wheel.
I have a racing wheel set up to use with American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator; you have to assign turn signals to buttons on the wheel. It’s annoying and easy to signal the wrong way when the wheel is in mid-turn. Annoying in a game, but potentially hazardous in a real car in real traffic.
That’s a Gordon-Keeble emblem on that steering wheel, but it is not a Keeble steering wheel.
Hmmm.
What cars wheel is that? It’s driving me nuts.
Looks like late-model VW (to go with the Beetle dash) – so what I’m inferring is that Jason’s leaked VAG’s follow-up to dusting off the long-dead Scout brand for an EV SUV, with resurrecting Gordon-Keeble for an EV GT.
I don’t fully understand what you said there, but it makes perfect sense.
I wouldn’t play a game console with a touchscreen controller. I hope that analogy works for you Zoomers.
Steering wheel button signal controls aren’t innately bad. Ferrari’s been using them on their (pretentiously F1-inspired but admittedly kinda cool) wheels for a while. And motorcycle turn signals are simple thumb switches, so it’s not like digit control the problem.
The glaring issue here is that they’re so close to each other and have near zero differentiation. With a stalk or on a bike you’re flipping in different directions. Ferrari sets them up so that the buttons are on different sides. These? So much easier for a teeny brain fart or hand slip to indicate the wrong direction, which just up and discombobulates everyone on the road.
Tesla’s different-for-the-sake-of-different is unproductive. The cult’s sneering smugness is just irritating.
What do we think of this: We agree because it’s BS- you are correct that it doesn’t improve a damn thing, it makes it worse. Just like everything else, if it ain’t broke- don’t fix it! (Quit trying to change things that WORK PERFECTLY FINE!!!)
What kills me most is that turn-signal buttons have been done before, and done well. Look at Citroen’s PRN satellites from the ’70s and ’80s which replaced stalks with essentially a button binnacle around the gauges with fixed toggle buttons for the turn signals. (Black rocker switch on left cylinder in below image).
https://assets.rebelmouse.io/media-library/image.jpg?id=31545094&width=1200&height=800&quality=90&coordinates=71%2C0%2C72%2C0
It’s stuff like this that really goes to show Musk’s ‘innovation’ is often in the name of cost-cutting with little regard to actual ergonomic solutions discovered decades earlier. It’s just sad that people blindly support it rather than thinking for themselves as to whether it has any practical benefits.
A lot of his innovation comes down to a) cost cutting, b) wanting to do something different for the sake of different, and c) he had a lucid dream that told him this was what has to be done and won’t allow himself to be talked out of it
Yep. Those stay fixed in place relative to the steering wheel. Still easy to operate correctly and have muscle memory for. Tesla’s version is an accident waiting to happen.
I remember reading about these in thousands of car magazines, and absolutely no one liked it. Even the Citroën fans would gloss over the pods and focus on the good bits. That went for the Isuzu Piazza as well. And yet, worlds better than Tesla’s lazy ass solution.
Everything that Jason said is 100% correct and everything Jeff and his Stepford followers said is completely wrong and asinine.
This idea that people are afraid of change and confused by these new-fangled high-tech button things is completely moronic. I could make the same kind of argument – that Tesla Stans are easily impressed by anything new and shiny if it gives them a point of difference between their cars and everybody else’s car.
But the fact of the matter is that capacitive buttons in place of tactile buttons is something that will never make any logical sense. The placement of the buttons on the wheel itself is stupid for all the reasons Jason pointed out.
Completely agree!!!
Most cars nowadays have a bunch of buttons on the wheel to control secondary functions (media, cruise control, driver information displays), and I can’t see the advantage of replacing those functions with something like turn signals which already have their own home…the only way I’d find this remotely acceptable would be if the buttons were at the top of the yoke “arms”, left and right, so at least you can pretend that you’re firing weapons or something while you’re pretending that your car is some sort of plane/spaceship.
Why in blue perfect Hell would they not at LEAST put a left and right signal button on either side? This is so half-assed it’s baffling.
Also, that arm motion is only made if there’s a bee in my car.
Team Stalk, but that’s my thought as well if you’re going to have buttons. Or put them on top of each side of the yoke.
The only things I look left for is checking the driver side mirror or looking for oncoming traffic – to have me look not only left, but also down to make sure I’m pressing the correct part of the flat surface seems unnecessary and unsafe.
This is America! It’s always a stalk. Has this world gone mad!?
BLAH BLAH BLAH TESLASTAN showing how easy it is when parked. Very few accidents happen in any car brand when parked. Unless the parked vehicle is flashing emergency lights and there is a Tesla on auto pilot speeding down the road. Maybe not on autopilot maybe the Tesla driver is just trying to figure out how to signal a lane change?