Driving any LHD car in reverse converts it to RHD, with the additional safety benefit of a longer crumple zone between the driver and oncoming obstacles. I'm surprised Tesla didn't come up with this simple solution.
Yes. Also, one could quite trivially turn the driver’s seat and steering column 180 degrees in the UK model, yielding the benefits you mention, as well as that of facing the direction of travel in reverse gear.
Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. I've shown this article to multiple friends and they all immediately ask if it's a parody.
Tesla is number 50 of the Fortune 500, and you're telling me they can't figure out how to make this work profitably? Surely other car manufacturers have figured this out.
They certainly do know how to make right-hand drive cars. They have just decided it is no longer worth the effort for them to produce versions for the model S and X. Maybe because those models don’t sell in China? Presumably they do still sell right-hand drive model 3 and Y in the UK.
Profit? It makes no sense environmentally - the market size is like 10k vehicles, but they need to put up entire production line. Focusing on making 10M cars for 1/3rd price makes much more sense.
maybe some other uncontrolled decision by Elon? He could have concluded that it is too much friction to have two different types of cars and UK, Australia, Japan, etc. just should align to the rest of the world. Surely stopping production of Tesla for these countries should bring them to their knees and they will gracefully get everyone to drive on the “right” side of the road.
Why mad? I see plenty of people in the states with RHD vehicles that mostly seem to be Japanese imports, rarely it’ll be a fancy UK vehicle. (In WA state)
It seems to carry a bit of fashion but not sure if it would translate the same to other places like the UK for example. I personally wouldn’t want a RHD vehicle but more for practicality/parts availability
Edit: not attempting to vouch for Tesla in this case at all, this reacher is ridiculous and a bad move imo
You can't see around cars to be able to pass. Okay, so you often don't pass.
But much more importantly, car headlights aren't symmetrical. The one pointing towards the oncoming lane has a "cut" beam to avoid blinding other drivers while the other has a taller beam to improve visibility of anything entering the road. When you drive LHD in a RHD country, or vice versa, you are blinding other drivers while having low visibility of pedestrians and animals.
I suppose it's a bit different from small scale personal imports or niche exotica being wrong side, to having a large manufacturer selling fairly large numbers of LHD cars new? It's certainly not normal for the UK for anything new to be LHD, there's even an RHD Chevrolet Corvette nowadays...
I mainly see it (in the USA) with contract rural mail carriers. They often use RHD Jeeps or Subarus so they can reach roadside mailboxes. And of course the official USPS residential delivery vehicles are mostly RHD.
Occasionally you see some cars fitted with contraptions that use cables and pulleys to allow control of a LHD car from the right front seat. I'm surprised these are legal.
Driving in the UK is very different to driving in America, because British roads are very different to American roads.
Most British roads predate motor cars. Much of the road network is mediaeval, some is Roman, at least one road is pre-Roman.
This[0] is a section of the Icknield Way, the oldest road in Britain. The carriageway is the width of one vehicle. If you meet an oncoming vehicle, either you or the other driver must reverse into a passing place, like the dirt area visible in the link.
This[1] is the A40; until the construction of the M40 motorway, this was the road from London to Oxford. There is a white centre line, but because of the parked cars, this centre line is useless. You can see cars straddling the line, but it is a tight fit in this village. In morning and evening traffic, one normally needs to stop to let oncoming traffic pass. It's important to know the width of your vehicle, and to be able to correctly judge your position in the road, as well as the position of oncoming traffic. This is much easier to do when your eyes are closer to the centre line.
Here[2] is a junction that is particularly problematic in traffic for similar reasons.
This[3] is a roundabout, which is more effective at maintaining traffic flow than traffic lights in low to medium traffic conditions. The basic principle is to give way to traffic already on the roundabout, which requires good visibility to the right. It is crucial to be able to judge this instantly to maintain traffic flow and to prevent the formation of traffic jams, which is easiest when in a RHD drive vehicle.
On a mini-roundabout[4], the 'give way to traffic already on the roundabout' principle becomes 'give way to the right' - again, visibility to the right is improved in a RHD vehicle.
The cognitive load for navigating a roundabout is increased for the double roundabout[5] and reaches a maximum at the infamous magic roundabout[6]. RHD vehicles help with this.
Here[7] is a bus stop. There's no lay by for it; it's just in the road, which happens to be a major trunk road. In morning traffic, school buses will stop here, and traffic needs to overtake the stopped bus. While there is a central reservation, it's a tight fit for larger vehicles, and the ability to see oncoming traffic is crucial. Again, RHD is needed here.
Overtaking is vitally important when driving in the UK, not only because of stopped or parked vehicles. Vehicles that cannot keep up with modern traffic are much more common in the UK than America, such as horses with buggies, or traction engines[8].
It's outnumbered by the wrong-hand-drive countries that surround it, so LHD cars kind of have to be legal even if only to accommodate lorries and tourists.
It’s not a car tunnel, it’s a train tunnel. There are trains that carry cars but there were ferries before that. Yes you can drive a U.K. car in France and vice versa, but I doubt anyone wants that experience at home.
One of the original proposals for the Tunnel link included a road tunnel. The problem of coordination was one of the factors that pushed selection towards a rail-only solution.
Unlike cars, there is no distinct LHD/RHD split by nation for trains. French trains tend to run on the left on the up service[0] like British ones do, but Paris Métro runs on the right.
[0] except in Alsace, where they mimic German trains on the right
In the Bahamas most rental cars are LHD to make it easier for US tourists, despite the entire country driving on the left. Though I suppose the difference between mellow Bahaman roads and the whole of the UK road system is a pretty big difference when it comes to safety.
That is even more mad. A US targeted rental is automatic anyway; so the only important thing is to remember to drive on the wrong side; this would be so much harder if that ment driving curbside.
I’m amazed it is legal to own a car that doesn’t match the local orientation.
This seems like the kind of joke suggestion that somebody in engineering might make in response to an annoying decisions made in the levels above them.
It's pretty common for some low production cars. For instance many Lotus cars in continental Europe are RHD, because RHD Lotus are much more common and less expensive.
Its common to see UK plates all around western Europe. They all are RHD. Its a bit tricky for the first time but you get used to it quickly (or the opposite as I've found out ie in Australia, straight from airport rental into congested highway with tons of roadworks, I forgot that 11h jetlag due to all the adrenaline pumping).
I recall a number of imported cars in England from the USA during the 90s. These were road taxed and MOT'd insofar as they also had British license plates. For added emphasis, these were huge vehicles from the 80s on tiny English roads.
Wherever you're driving you want to be positioned towards the center of the road. Tesla are mad for selling these in the UK regardless of their 'stick'.
> Customers with a RHD Model S or Model X order had three options; cancel their order, get a RHD Model Y or Model 3 with a £2,000 credit, or get a LHD version of the car they’d already ordered.
Readit News
Remote controlled through VR they would allow the user to live vicariously without risk of injury when doing things outside of the comfort zone.
and even better if you have some baby seats strapped into the (formerly) back seats, those things are designed to be tough and safe!
Tesla is number 50 of the Fortune 500, and you're telling me they can't figure out how to make this work profitably? Surely other car manufacturers have figured this out.
Note that cars in China are also left-hand drive/right-hand traffic, same as in the US/continental Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic#/...
I don't know if times are indeed changing, or deteriorating.
It seems to carry a bit of fashion but not sure if it would translate the same to other places like the UK for example. I personally wouldn’t want a RHD vehicle but more for practicality/parts availability
Edit: not attempting to vouch for Tesla in this case at all, this reacher is ridiculous and a bad move imo
You can't see around cars to be able to pass. Okay, so you often don't pass.
But much more importantly, car headlights aren't symmetrical. The one pointing towards the oncoming lane has a "cut" beam to avoid blinding other drivers while the other has a taller beam to improve visibility of anything entering the road. When you drive LHD in a RHD country, or vice versa, you are blinding other drivers while having low visibility of pedestrians and animals.
Technology Connections did a great video about this. His solution was to stop driving his RHD car in low light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8
Occasionally you see some cars fitted with contraptions that use cables and pulleys to allow control of a LHD car from the right front seat. I'm surprised these are legal.
Most British roads predate motor cars. Much of the road network is mediaeval, some is Roman, at least one road is pre-Roman.
This[0] is a section of the Icknield Way, the oldest road in Britain. The carriageway is the width of one vehicle. If you meet an oncoming vehicle, either you or the other driver must reverse into a passing place, like the dirt area visible in the link.
This[1] is the A40; until the construction of the M40 motorway, this was the road from London to Oxford. There is a white centre line, but because of the parked cars, this centre line is useless. You can see cars straddling the line, but it is a tight fit in this village. In morning and evening traffic, one normally needs to stop to let oncoming traffic pass. It's important to know the width of your vehicle, and to be able to correctly judge your position in the road, as well as the position of oncoming traffic. This is much easier to do when your eyes are closer to the centre line.
Here[2] is a junction that is particularly problematic in traffic for similar reasons.
This[3] is a roundabout, which is more effective at maintaining traffic flow than traffic lights in low to medium traffic conditions. The basic principle is to give way to traffic already on the roundabout, which requires good visibility to the right. It is crucial to be able to judge this instantly to maintain traffic flow and to prevent the formation of traffic jams, which is easiest when in a RHD drive vehicle.
On a mini-roundabout[4], the 'give way to traffic already on the roundabout' principle becomes 'give way to the right' - again, visibility to the right is improved in a RHD vehicle.
The cognitive load for navigating a roundabout is increased for the double roundabout[5] and reaches a maximum at the infamous magic roundabout[6]. RHD vehicles help with this.
Here[7] is a bus stop. There's no lay by for it; it's just in the road, which happens to be a major trunk road. In morning traffic, school buses will stop here, and traffic needs to overtake the stopped bus. While there is a central reservation, it's a tight fit for larger vehicles, and the ability to see oncoming traffic is crucial. Again, RHD is needed here.
Overtaking is vitally important when driving in the UK, not only because of stopped or parked vehicles. Vehicles that cannot keep up with modern traffic are much more common in the UK than America, such as horses with buggies, or traction engines[8].
[0] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6170961,-1.0404844,3a,75y,21...
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6445943,-0.8029467,3a,75y,26...
[2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6450754,-1.0041556,3a,75y,21...
[3] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6064949,-0.6935902,3a,75y,13...
[4] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6449846,-0.731184,3a,75y,120...
[5] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6684331,-0.7022783,3a,75y,31...
[6] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5628488,-1.7715014,130m/data...
[7] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6412382,-0.7853479,3a,75y,28...
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH5pRQwlxc4
Unlike cars, there is no distinct LHD/RHD split by nation for trains. French trains tend to run on the left on the up service[0] like British ones do, but Paris Métro runs on the right.
[0] except in Alsace, where they mimic German trains on the right
That sorta makes it worse. There's something about everything being backwards and looking wrong that reminds you to drive wrong.
Deleted Comment
This seems like the kind of joke suggestion that somebody in engineering might make in response to an annoying decisions made in the levels above them.
I mean its not a great choice is it?
Deleted Comment