Is Tesla's Touchscreen Shifter Doomed To Fail?

Autonomous driving is old news - Tesla's bringing another concept on the market - the touchscreen shifter. But is it really necessary, or practical? We shall find out because not everyone is ready for such a drastic change, right? Progress was never 100% well-received.

Tesla has another feature that will give more space for your smartphone, we guess, in the place of the shifter. Their brilliant (or not) idea is to implement the shifter onto a touchscreen. The mechanism seems simple for those who are accustomed to advanced technology but might be a complex one for the late generations. The revolutionary shifter will be in  5 2021 ModelS and Model S and Model X.

The new shifter will be placed as shown in the pictures on the center screens and features an icon of the car on the left side of the same display. Drag up to put the car in drive and drag down to put it in reverse. Simple? Maybe after you get accustomed with it. Remember the drivers' struggle with the simple task of remembering that They had a "D" instead of the usual "F" and how many garage doors got bumped? Think again about how simple it seems!

The first problem with it according to experts, is that you might get used to it very fast, but a valet might have troubles with it. If you want to be a good friend and land your car with one of your friends, you might need to make time for proper instruction. Good luck with that.

Another problem and this one is a real one - would be the real risk of a touchscreen failure. And they will fail. Recently, Tesla has to recall 135,000 units due to a chip failure. This was a genuine government-mandated recall. Now take a guess which models had the issue? No second guess needed - Model X and Model S. Not to be a pessimist, but if you're lucky, you might have up to six years of driving guarantee.

It might be kinda cool and Elon Musk's tweet is encouraging - "No gear shifter, no turn signals, no problem. No more stalks. Car guesses drive direction based on what obstacles it sees, context & nav map. You can override on a touchscreen." Now the main question here remains - what happens if the touchscreen fails in the middle of the drive or, her's a funny one - if the driver wares gloves could he operate it? I guess we'll see about that.