In February this year, reports from China highlighted that Tesla was aiming to bring the indicator stalk back into the refreshed Model 3 sedan in later parts of 2025.
Now, the company has done just that with the new Model 3 now including the indicator stalk in the Chinese market, just as it does with the new generation Model Y.
The lack of the indicator stalks was one of the most controversial aspects of the Model 3 upgrades, and Tesla clearly thought it had gone a step too far and retained that stalk for the Model Y upgrade.
Now, it is also making a retrofit available for the stalk. Owners of the Model 3 vehicles in China who would like the indicator stalk instead of buttons on the steering wheels can purchase it for the equivalent of $A540.
Tesla labels this as “Model 3 Steering Wheel Turn Signal Lever Modification” on its online store in China and states it as coming soon.
This retrofit will be offered for cars manufactured after 7 February 2025. According to the website, cars produced before this will have a retrofit available further down the track.
Tesla was one of the first brands to remove many physical buttons from its cars and with the launch of the refreshed Model 3 back in 2023.
At that time, some believed that it went too far and when Tesla unveiled the refreshed Model Y earlier this year, it did keep an indicator stalk.
In an interview with Jay Leno earlier this year, Tesla’s senior vice president of engineering, Lars Moravy touched on why Tesla bought the stalk back: “We always say at Tesla, if you aren’t deleting so much that you have to put something back, you haven’t deleted enough. Well, maybe we deleted too much.”
On the current generation of Model 3, the indicators are operated by buttons on the steering wheel.
Some owners have also reported that it can be difficult to cancel the indicator signal if leaving roundabouts but in our experience, it doesn’t take long to get used to the indicators with that setup.
It’s unclear when this will be introduced in vehicles outside of China but if history is anything to go by, its likely to be in the coming months, so we’ll just watch this space.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.
