Tesla and fonder Elon Musk have announced that the new Model S will have no shifter as the car will “guess” which direction the driver wants to go based on what it sees with its sensors, its navigation map and the context of the data. Basically, the Model S is making an educated guess on whether to go forward or backwards.
Electrek reported that the car will use its Autopilot sensors to decide, intelligently and automatically, the intention of the driver and chose a drive mode for the vehicle. As an example, if the Model S is facing a garage wall the computer will detect this and automatically shift to reverse once the driver presses the break.
According to Musk drivers will be able to manually override this feature and shift the car themselves from the main touchscreen. Though Musk stated he believes after a few days of driving people won’t want to go back to having to use a shifter.
Tesla no longer keeps a communication or PR department so these details cannot be confirmed.
One big change to the new model is a yoke-style steering wheel. It was originally though this new steering wheel was part of the new AI shifting system but that now does not seem to be the case.