stealth.pilot

I had an interesting thought driving home last night in our Tesla. I had it in autopilot on the highway and I noticed that when I have it on autopilot I rest my right foot on the floor. Now I can imagine that if an emergency occurred, some people might end up pressing the wrong pedal and crashing. It wouldn't surprise me if this is exactly what happens in some number of Tesla autopilot crashes.

This led me to think that the pedal layout may need to be rethought in a world of self-driving or driver assist technology. The current pedal layout is ancient and it is based on manual transmission cars where your left foot handles the clutch, and your right foot toggles between throttle and brake.

In a world of autopilot or highway assist, both your feet need a rest pedal because you are not actively on any pedal. So ideally you would have the pedals further left, and toggle your right foot between rest pedal and throttle, and your left foot between rest pedal and brake. Since electric cars won't have clutches, there is no point saving space on the left for a clutch pedal. This model would likely reduce pedal misapplication, and also be more comfortable.

Any thoughts on this?

stealth.pilot

BTW I'm guessing for now, nobody would want to change it because people like to be consistent between ICE and EV vehicles. But the same principle may apply to ICE vehicles too, since the manual ICE is also going away.

superswiss

Most people wouldn't be capable of left foot braking. That takes practice unless your left leg happens to be the dominant leg. Would pretty much be a disaster while people are try to learn it. I see your point, though. When I'm cruising along with DISTRONIC, I often don't know where to go with my right foot, but I certainly wouldn't want the pedals to be shifted to the left. Never had an issue with stepping on the wrong pedal, though. With level 4 and 5 if we truly get there the likely approach will be that the pedals will retract, along with the steering wheel. Some concept cars have already shown that. Audi's Skysphere concept car even extends the wheelbase during autonomous driving and shrinks it for manual sporty driving, providing more legroom and folding away the steering wheel and pedals.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/12/2...ic-transformer

stealth.pilot

Either way adding a rest pedal on the right of the throttle seems like a good idea. I think even that would improve the ability to find the right pedal as well as general ACC comfort.

superswiss

Since EVs don't require a transmission tunnel it would be easy to do, or even without one you can rest the foot to the right of the throttle pedal if the particular car doesn't block it with a center console. I'm not sure, though, if that would prevent anybody from stepping on the wrong pedal. In a panic, those people would likely just step on the nearest pedal. One should actually rest their foot near the brake pedal at all times, but moving the throttle and brake pedal further apart to make room for a foot rest in between doesn't sound like a good idea, either, because then changing from throttle to brake would require moving the leg further, or somebody would accidentally try to push down on the foot rest instead of the brake pedal. I actually often pull up my legs towards me and comfortably rest both of my feet in their normal position in front of the seat.

Tjdehya

Very Bad Idea. Sounds like you are trying to fix a non existing problem... like the yoke in a Tesla. This will be more of a problem for drivers, and a solution for nothing... like the yoke in a Tesla.
Some may like a foot rest on the right, I personally just rest my foot on the floor as I have always done with cruise control. But the Go and the stop pedal should not move any further left.