NHTSA Complaint #11464695 — 2022 TESLA MODEL X

New Tesla model s/x gear shifter(shift on screen) is unintuitive and dangerous. In a traditional car, or even model 3/Y. Gear shift is intuitive, can be confirmed by visual, muscle memory, sometimes audible as well. In the new Tesla model x/s, the shift happens on the side of the center screen. A thin but very long slide , going up from middle point vertically all the way goes to drive, going down to reverse. The problem is, sitting in driver’s position with your elbow sweeping up and down , especially such a long sweep perfectly needs extra attention. And it needs to be vertical, which is hard to do since the natural elbow motion make your hand movement curved. But in order to get engaged with gear successfully it needs to be perfectly straight. The worst part is, there is no redundancy to confirm your gear engagement except visual — by confirming a tiny text showing gear , on a different screen(cluster) , sometimes laggy response . While the traditional gear shift that people used to can be done by muscle memory , then confirmed by touch/feel, like crisp stalk click or shifter lever steady stuck in new gear , and audibles. You can always confirm by visual as well but it’s not always the case. This makes back and forth maneuvers in a time critical situation ( like parking parallels in a busy street) more stressful and much more room for fail to engage the gear you want. I had an minor incident due to fail to shift to drive , stuck at reverse then hit a parked vehicle in a parking lot at a low speed. Had I been in a traditional car, this kind of mis-shift would never happen, I had been driving for over a decade and never had a collision before, this is the first time. not to mention such a ‘stupid mistKe’ This design is unsafe for seasoned drivers, and needs to be improved.