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Your loss I guess? I absolutely love the fact that my 2018 Tesla has all the features of a 2023 Tesla. Literally hundreds of things made better about the car o

• singleshot_ 3y ago
  I’m very excited for you that you like your Tesla. That sounds like a fun experience. From my perspective, everything that you are describing is software enabled and software has no place in my car. The idea behind eschewing over the air updates for your car isn’t that we like old software; it’s that we hate software and don’t want anything to do with it. Put another way, if you look at all the features that I want in a car (robust safety cell, powerful propulsion, quiet, smooth ride, rare) none of them can be upgraded without physical modifications. And in fact, once those things are achieved, there is really very little reason to change anything. In general the trend appears to be in favor of your style of consumption which is cool for you, but I for one am a little concerned that when I get a hundred or so thousand more miles on this 98 SL500 there’s going to be nothing out there I want to buy.
  • b7we5b7a 3y ago
    > Put another way, if you look at all the features that I want in a car (robust safety cell, powerful propulsion, quiet, smooth ride, rare) none of them can be upgraded without physical modifications. And in fact, once those things are achieved, there is really very little reason to change anything. disclaimer: I own a 2019 M3. IIRC Tesla's acceleration boost (powerful propulsion) upgrade essentially keeps the front engine correctly-aligned at all times to make the most out of the usually-unused torque. AEB and TACC were upgraded multiple times over the years, becoming better and better and solving issues (smooth ride). As for quietness, MS and MX got active noise reduction through software upgrades. All of this was done using existing hardware, and I didn't even mention the constant data-driven tweaking of battery pre-conditioning to allow faster charges while still extending battery life (powerful propulsion/smooth ride), or the camera features (dashcam recording, blind-spot camera pop-up, ...). Some are amazing tweaks you didn't even know you wanted, but are a constant time-saver (blinkers auto-off). I'm pretty sure that also the other high-voltage components handling also got the data-driven treatment (better regulation of currents to extend component's lifetime, for instance). These kind of software modifications were also seldom done when I brought my old ICE cars to the dealer for the regular checks - "remapping the engine parameters to better handle some cases" - but in reality I recall this happening at most once in the lifetime of the car. I believe that new features can be developed using existing hardware in new, unforeseen ways. What I agree on is that this needs to be done in a secure and non-intrusive manner. Some UI reworks were definitely controversial at first, but Tesla has a good track record of listening and adapting to user requests at least. I cannot say the same for any other brand I've had a car from.
  • zaroth 3y ago
    Cars are absolutely packed with software, and that’s never going to change. The question will only be if that software is getting regular updates or just safety critical recall type updates. Auto makers have gotten away with basically walking away from their software once they “ship” a given model year, and then leaving their owners to deal with whatever issues are present. And the issues are certainly plentiful, and I don’t just mean in the infotainment system. Cars are also now required in the US and EU to have a myriad of advanced safety systems which require complex software which often performs poorly. Emergency braking, lane departure warning, emergency lane keeping, drowsiness/attention monitoring, intelligent speed assist, etc. All this software will be constantly evolving as technology improves to better avoid false positives and false negatives, but most brands will only provide the best software for their newest model years and leave the existing fleet with whatever they were able to achieve at the time it shipped. Then there are features like intelligent speed assist which alerts drivers when they are speeding, which requires up-to-date maps and speed limit recognition in order to maintain accuracy. This is all before we get into further developments of more advanced driver assistance and drive automation that will eventually be achieved. The reality is that driving kills hundreds of thousands of people and causes trillions of dollars in economic damages every year due to human error or human callousness, and software is the only way out of this bloodbath. So despite a niche desire by some drivers to own “legacy hardware” the market through strict regulation will continue to incorporate highly advanced and complex software features into automobiles, and ultimately human driving will be a relic, along with the massive toll of lost human life that went along with it. In the meantime, given that complex software stacks are a regulatory requirement for every new car today, it’s a massive advantage to have that software maintained and upgraded across the whole fleet instead of only releasing upgrades with each successive model year and leaving the existing fleet with sub-standard safety systems.