Plaid vs. (prev gen) LR Plus

[ammulder]

So I had an FWD latch actuator go bad on the new X (very obnoxious as it thought the door was open and beeped all the way to the service center). But the good news is, the service center took it immediately and gave me a loaner X Long Range Plus and had it fixed the next day. (Philly tip: the West Chester service center is brand new, less busy, and has loaners. It took a day to get the replacement part from another service center though.)

This gave me the opportunity to drive the previous-generation X for the first time, and I have to say I like EVERYTHING better about the new one:

• The front center console has more space and it's better arranged
• The front cupholders hold small bottles better
• Phone rest/chargers are better
• You don't lose the cupholders if you want a full armrest, and the armrests are better positioned
• The horizontal screen is WAY better for the backup camera, and in 1/3 music 2/3 map view you see way more map than the 1/2 1/2 in the old one
• Speaking of music, the sound system seems better.
• The air vents and inside door handles seem almost retro on the older one. It's also easier to control the air direction with multi-touch on the screen vs. physically moving two vents around.
• Stalks... I didn't super-mind stalks when I used them every day, but having THREE was too much, especially since they operate differently from the Model 3. Mainly I had trouble operating autopilot because I'd hit the wrong stalk to use the wrong control on the stalk for what I was trying to do. I guess you'd get used to this... but I've not hit the turn signal or instructed the car to shift gears while attempting to operate Autopilot on the new X. Somehow 3 stalks was significantly worse than the 2 stalks on the Model 3.
• The steering wheel controls -- buttons above and below a one-way dial -- I guess they just moved my cheese because I'm used to the two-way orbs on the Model 3 and new X. The above and below buttons felt a little flimsy, but worked fine.
• The lower trunk cover wasn't easy to move/remove -- it kept getting wedged against the walls
• I like the extra visibility over top of the yoke, though I can't say I actually had any trouble viewing the driver display through the wheel, so I'm not sure why this should be
• My kids said "where's the YouTube?" while sitting in the back seat
• We had to fuss a bit with the back cupholder panel to get it to pop out, whereas the new one pops out easily.
• It was a 7-seat, and honestly, how's anybody supposed to get to the 3rd row of that thing? I moved the middle row all the way forward (with substantial effort) and there was still no space to pass a human behind it. I guess you fold them and climb over? Way worse than our old minivan or the 6-seat X.
• It had plenty of power from a stop, but seemed laggier during a highway merge at 40-50 mph. I don't know if it's the new refresh in general or the plaid in particular, but the new one seems to jump from 50 to 100 as easily as 0 to 50. So much so that I'm surprised when I push the pedal and suddenly see a third digit pop up. Oops, I didn't just say that.
• It doesn't automatically shift into gear. I know the new one doesn't always pick correctly, but either it does and saves you the trouble, or it doesn't and it's no more work to switch into the correct gear than it would have been to pick the gear manually to begin with. I'd hit the pedal on the older model and it would tell me I have to switch into gear first. Sigh.
• It doesn't automatically shift into park when you take off the driver seatbelt. Why should this almost trivial thing matter? I don't know. But I stopped and took off my seatbelt and then it complained when I opened the door.
• When I had my phone connected via bluetooth and got a call, I couldn't figure out how to answer it. It looked like "answer" was the selected option, but when I pushed the right-hand wheel that I thought would execute that action, it hung up instead. I assume you get used to that too, but it was pretty inobvious -- I would have rather had a big "answer" button on the touch screen, but the call only appeared on the driver display.
• It was lame to put on the turn signal to change lanes on Navigate on Autopilot, and the car would change lanes, but the turn signal would stay on until I physically moved the stalk back to neutral. The turn stalk in the Model 3 is better in that it always returns to neutral so it can just cancel the signal when done with the maneuver. I did discover you can initiate a lane change with a half push on the stalk (unlike the Model 3 IIRC), but I kept getting the full push so I guess it needed more getting used to.
• The older one didn't have cooled front seats

In fairness, though, I guess I shouldn't say EVERYTHING was better:

• It was nice on the old one that it lit up a ring around the charger socket, so you know where to insert the charger in the dark
• My one complaint about the yoke controls is that if auto-brights are on and not working well, to turn them off, you hold down the lights button a bit -- which seems to turn the brights on (during the hold period) before turning them off.
• And my one issue with the yoke itself is that on AP/FSD I can take my foot away from the pedals and put it flat on the floor. This puts my knee up. Then a AP-initiated turn can rotate the yoke until it bumps my knee and disengages. A wheel, even a half-wheel on the bottom of the yoke only, would occupy that space all the time and force my knee away from where it could cause a problem. Having driven both I still don't think I'd opt for a full wheel, though. (My wife definitely would -- her relaxing driving position is hand near the top of the wheel so she finds the yoke uncomfortable.)
• The old one had a mode to show the energy consumption on the driver screen, which was nicer than the new one, where the energy screen will only take over the entire center display (not a partial window like other functions, so no map visible, etc.). I can't say I value having this in my face 100% of the time, but it's hard to make good use of that screen in the new X.

 

[laceyboy]

It was lame to put on the turn signal to change lanes on Navigate on Autopilot, and the car would change lanes, but the turn signal would stay on until I physically moved the stalk back to neutral. The turn stalk in the Model 3 is better in that it always returns to neutral so it can just cancel the signal when done with the maneuver. I did discover you can initiate a lane change with a half push on the stalk (unlike the Model 3 IIRC), but I kept getting the full push so I guess it needed more getting used to.

I have been using auto lane change a lot so I know you don't have to push turn signal stalk all way up/down to activate auto lane change.

The old one had a mode to show the energy consumption on the driver screen, which was nicer than the new one, where the energy screen will only take over the entire center display (not a partial window like other functions, so no map visible, etc.). I can't say I value having this in my face 100% of the time, but it's hard to make good use of that screen in the new X.

I believe you can activate energy app by voice command

 

[BostonBurley]

What they emphasized to us with new S LR was that voice command reliance is sort of an unspoken carry-over from previous gen, and they were right. I much prefer using voice commands when not familiar with the system, and when I got back into my old broken down S and couldnt figure anything out, voice commands helped. But it doesn't work half as well on a 2012 as it does on a 2022.
I'll agree with the minor annoyance of the Auto-Brights disengage by holding down and, in effect, doing the opposite of what you want for a second or two. It is annoying. I predict a future software fix.

 

[ammulder]

Yeah, I don't mind using voice commands to show the energy screen ("show energy" or even just "energy" seems to do it).

What I mind is that it can't be a partial-screen view that allows music or navigation to still show (it consumes the entire screen). I wish you could have like music on the left, energy on the right, map in the middle, or something like that. Then if you minimize the music to the lower left you'd get essentially 2/3 map and 1/3 energy with just the mini audio display to show what's currently playing.

 

[DCGOO]

Yeah, I don't mind using voice commands to show the energy screen ("show energy" or even just "energy" seems to do it).

What I mind is that it can't be a partial-screen view that allows music or navigation to still show (it consumes the entire screen). I wish you could have like music on the left, energy on the right, map in the middle, or something like that. Then if you minimize the music to the lower left you'd get essentially 2/3 map and 1/3 energy with just the mini audio display to show what's currently playing.

Agreed. Monitoring energy consumption is one of the most important data elements to be displayed in an EV. I used to depend on the condensed version continuously displayed on the IC display. I don’t really need the small graph that came with it, but at least give me the number. I have to believe somebody just forgot about the energy graph and came up with a quick solution to give us something. I’ve seen some speculation that a UI update is coming. I sure hope that is true, and it gives us a usable energy, perhaps a large one, and something smaller for the IC. But the current situation is an embarrassment.

 

[JimNY]

I also miss the trips screen that you could put as one of the options on the dashboard in the old X. Love seeing my consumption for the trip. Now it cant even be displayed as a separate pop up and it takes up the whole screen. I hope they fix this.