Finally after multiple delays, 25 lucky reservation holders received Tesla Model S Plaid yesterday. It has some really cool technology and improvement, but one thing that is making people curious about is Model S Plaid won’t have a “gear shifter”.
Yes, you heard it right, Model S Plaid won’t have a “gear shifter” and will automatically choose the direction of travel.
Ever since Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduced this Electric Car, people have been asking exactly how that would work. Some were also wondering what options and controls the driver has with it. If you are among them, we have all covered for you here.
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The Model S / X Plaid will automatically decide for you whether it’s time to go into drive or reverse based on the surrounding obstacles and according to data of your previous trips. But since this is a beta feature, you’ll need to change a setting to get started.
To understand it better, lets assume you’re in the car somewhere where an obstacle in front of the car and nothing behind it, it should be obvious to the car that the only option is reverse.
In another scenario, if you are sitting at a red light, with one car in front and the other behind, the car should sense the car moving forward, thus moving accordingly.
The “Auto Shift” process is precisely explained in the Model S Plaid Owner’s Manual, which you can check here. Sawyer Merritt on Twitter also uploaded a useful video summary of the same which is provided above.
Elon musk also explained the”Auto Shift” process at last night’s event. He said I think all inputs are errors. If you have to do something that the car can already do, that needs to be taken care of; The software should do just that.
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However, there are options available to manually change option between Drive, Reverse, Neutral, and Park on the Model S’ touchscreen. They will appear on the left side of the screen when the brake pedal is pressed. If you have changed none of the car settings, you’ll use these controls to drive.
Owner manual also states that Tesla Model S Plaid would also sense when passengers are about to get off the car, so it goes into park mode automatically. The car will also automatically shift out of park.
However, the manual says that this feature is a beta version, and it is currently disabled by default, so you will need to make change in the setting to utilize this feature. Still, the car won’t go out of park until you press the brake pedal.
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Once you change the setting to allow the car to exit park automatically, you can start using Auto Shift. You can override any of the car’s options by simply touching the brake pedal. More details can be found in the owner’s manual which is given above.
Video Source: @SawyerMerritt | Source: Insideevs
