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Tesla Model S owner here. The software on iOS and car is several years ahead of the competition. It embarrasses luxury German automakers. It’s made with the use

by cbeach 4y ago

Tesla Model S owner here. The software on iOS and car is several years ahead of the competition. It embarrasses luxury German automakers. It’s made with the user in mind, it is elegant, and it is innovative in many surprising ways. For balance, there have been bugs - the linking of key fobs to driver profiles has always been glitchy, and Tesla’s decision to use an inadequate eMMC chip was shortsighted given the volume of data logging. This caused issues for a few owners when the chips started to degrade over time. But to Tesla’s credit they later offered a free chip upgrade to all owners, and even covered the costs of those (like me) who got a third party replacement. I rate Tesla’s software engineering. I’ve had years of issue-free OTA updates and sheer pleasure from driving the car. And having access to the car via an API is cool too :-)

slaw 4y ago
Not a Tesla owner. I sat in a demo Tesla. Infotainment UI looked clumsy. There was no Apple CarPlay. The most basic things didn't have knobs and required touch screen to use. Usability was years behind everyone else.
- moooo99 4y ago
  This was my impression as well (although I just sat on the passenger seat for 150km). The cockpit is all nice and shiny, but not having any haptic feedback for any kind of regular controls you'd use (switching media, A/C control, etc) is a very questionable choice and a worrying trend among automakers in General. The center screen in the Model 3 to get something as basic as your current traveling speed seems equally questionable from a safety perspective. I've also seen my fair share of Tesla summon close calls on the neighboring parking lot. When it comes to the app, Tesla owners seem to have a broad spectrum of opinions. Personally for a car as expensive as a Tesla, the quality of the app would be the last thing I'd care about as I would consider it absolutely unnecessary. The main thing where I totally agree Tesla is absolutely ahead are OTA updates for car firmware. However, looking at it from a security standpoint, bad security practices could really backfire and from a privacy point of view I'm not a fan of permanently internet connected vehicles either.
jjfoooo6 4y ago
I also own a Tesla and I'd rate their user facing software at a C+ at best. It's better than the competition, sure, but the competition is legacy auto manufacturers with no tradition of expertise in software. Examples: the mobile app is very clunky and slow, the in-car dashboard devotes half of it's real estate to a visualization of the car's object detection, serving no purpose other than to distract the driver. It's fine. But the problem domain of Twitter is dramatically different than anything Tesla engineers are working on.
jquery 4y ago
I drive a Mercedes and Apple CarPlay works fantastic (Tesla’s driving OS would probably be a sidegrade at best). And I get all the fit and finish of a Mercedes instead of Tesla..

by cbeach 4y ago

slaw 4y ago

Not a Tesla owner. I sat in a demo Tesla. Infotainment UI looked clumsy. There was no Apple CarPlay. The most basic things didn't have knobs and required touch screen to use. Usability was years behind everyone else.

moooo99 4y ago
This was my impression as well (although I just sat on the passenger seat for 150km). The cockpit is all nice and shiny, but not having any haptic feedback for any kind of regular controls you'd use (switching media, A/C control, etc) is a very questionable choice and a worrying trend among automakers in General. The center screen in the Model 3 to get something as basic as your current traveling speed seems equally questionable from a safety perspective. I've also seen my fair share of Tesla summon close calls on the neighboring parking lot. When it comes to the app, Tesla owners seem to have a broad spectrum of opinions. Personally for a car as expensive as a Tesla, the quality of the app would be the last thing I'd care about as I would consider it absolutely unnecessary. The main thing where I totally agree Tesla is absolutely ahead are OTA updates for car firmware. However, looking at it from a security standpoint, bad security practices could really backfire and from a privacy point of view I'm not a fan of permanently internet connected vehicles either.

jjfoooo6 4y ago

I also own a Tesla and I'd rate their user facing software at a C+ at best. It's better than the competition, sure, but the competition is legacy auto manufacturers with no tradition of expertise in software. Examples: the mobile app is very clunky and slow, the in-car dashboard devotes half of it's real estate to a visualization of the car's object detection, serving no purpose other than to distract the driver. It's fine. But the problem domain of Twitter is dramatically different than anything Tesla engineers are working on.

jquery 4y ago

I drive a Mercedes and Apple CarPlay works fantastic (Tesla’s driving OS would probably be a sidegrade at best). And I get all the fit and finish of a Mercedes instead of Tesla..