Tesla Is Finally Fixing a Giant Issue with New Model 3s. You Just Can't Have the Fix in America

[Desmond Milligan 0]

Back in 2023, Tesla updated its Model 3 Sedan with a facelift that brought a few new features. Unfortunately for Model 3 buyers, one of those new features involved dropping the traditional turn signal stalks for the frustrating buttons also seen on the much-maligned Model S steering yoke. Fortunately, buyers now have a chance to fix the problem with an official Tesla retrofit—at least, in China.

The option, which was brought to broader attention by Electrek, costs the equivalent of about $350 on the brand's official Chinese market site and directly replaces the buttons with a more conventional stalk. It is currently available only to cars that have been built since February of 2025, but the listing states that the program will later be expanded to other Model 3s with the same issue. The option is only available in China at the moment, but the fact that it can be done by Tesla there suggests that other markets could benefit from the same fix in the future.

Although Tesla removed the turn signal stalk on both the Model S and the Model 3 in recent updates, the feature survived on the Model Y when it was updated earlier this year. Between that choice and this new Chinese-market option, it seems that company leadership finally is grasping that stalks have generally been the turn signal control of choice over buttons for most of automotive history for a good reason. Just two years after first embracing a yoke in place of a steering wheel and then demoting the control system to a paid option, Tesla finally seems to be learning the right lessons about its unusual driver interface choices.

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