One among the brand new Model S’s highlight features is its ability to shift routinely into Park, Reverse and Drive. This feature has been exclusive to the redesigned Model S to date, which doesn’t have a gear stalk, but Elon has now said that the Auto Shift feature will grow to be available to all Teslas with FSD in the longer term.
The automotive will shift into the gear that it feels you’d wish to use while supplying you with the power to override it if needed. The feature may be turned on and off in settings, and it’s currently limited to choosing the gear when the automotive is coming out of park. That signifies that the automotive won’t shift for you at traffic lights, complex turns or backing into parking spots.
Current Tesla models will after all keep the gear stalk they’ve today, so it’s not clear whether the on screen shifting will grow to be available on current vehicles as well.
Tesla likes to take hardware features and implement them via software. We’ve seen this quite a few times before with Tesla not implementing rain or light sensors and as a substitute choosing cameras, adding software based HomeLink controls and more recently removing radar and replacing it with pure vision. We imagine Tesla will even add an app for SiriusXM to all Teslas in the longer term. Typically Tesla has done well when transitioning to software-based features and it has resulted in reduced costs for Teslas and ease for the motive force.
You don’t even need to the touch the shifter in recent S. Auto detect direction will come as an optional setting to all cars with FSD.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 19, 2021
Keeping this in mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see recent Model 3s and Model Ys come off the road with no gear stalk within the near future.
When you’d like more information on Auto Shift, make sure you try our story about how the Auto Shift feature works.
