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Can you give examples of this? I was recently looking for a car and saw the discounts and credits for a Tesla and thought it was finally time to go electric.

Can you give examples of this? I was recently looking for a car and saw the discounts and credits for a Tesla and thought it was finally time to go electric. Then I started researching the interface and saw so many people talking about how clunky it was and they decided to just use bluetooth with their phone to listen to music rather than the interface or even worse hacks where they setup a web server on their phone to mirror to the interface and have to type urls so they can use waze. My wife has a Honda CRV with android auto and it works great when I drive it. We both use Youtube Premium (formerly Google Music) for our music and I use (soon to be going away) Google Podcasts for my podcasts. Those both work great with Android Auto. My understanding from looking it up is that it is near impossible to use non-supported software with a tesla without ugly hacks. My experience with Android Auto is good that it, or something better, is an absolute requirement on my next car. From my research, it seemed like Tesla added more walled garden annoyances than improvements.

andruby 3y ago
My personal opinion: 1. The navigation works really well for me. Including routing via superchargers 2. The UX of not needing a key. The bluetooth phone key works so much more reliably than other car manufacturers (n=1) 3. The screen is very responsive. Touch UI is fast. 4. The backup and side camera view is the best I’ve seen on cars. 5. Record the last X minutes from all cameras when you honk (someone backed into my car and it’s nice to have easy access to the video footage via the usb stick) 6. Auto defogging. 7. Heating and de-icing the car from the app when I’m having breakfast. 8. Autosteer (the free included one) works surprisingly well. It handles more roads and situations than I’ve seen on other manufacturers 9. Auto detect different drivers from the phone key and sets their seat/steering/settings (and even their spotify account) There’s dozen more small things that show the attention to detail that some car manufacturers also have in their hardware but almost never have in their software. It’s not all perfect (eg the Spotify app could be better) but it’s a lot better than any other car or rental I’ve been in, including carplay).
- verhaust 3y ago
  2-8 do sound great. They are the reasons I was looking at a Tesla. Hadn't even heard of some of those. The car I'm looking to replace is a 2009 toyota corolla commuter car that is really starting to have maintenance issues. The right speakers even stopped working a few years ago. The speaker on my phone is better so I just put the sound all the way up and use that. The audio sucks, but it's easy. I sit down, press play, and I'm listening to what I want. My wife's CRV is a 2018 which I only drive when we are driving long distances. Still, I just plug my phone in and all my data is there on android auto. I have starred places on google maps going back almost 15 years. I click a place on recents and it maps me there. I press shuffle on youtube music and it has all my history there to play through. Youtube music also has the download option so I can play music in non-signal areas. That was another thing I couldn't seem to find an answer for with a Tesla. Does spotify work without a signal? If so, how much storage does the tesla offer to spotify? I have multi-gigs of downloaded music on my phone. We hit 30+ minute terrible signal areas on our holiday travels to family. The options seemed to be switch my apps to spotify/tesla navigation for "car riding" and have to double-entry everything from my home-listening or completely switchover. Which could maybe work for spotify (does that have the same option to upload your own music that google music had?), but definitely wouldn't work for tesla navigation. Then there's the privacy concerns that I'm now sharing more data with two places rather than one. Then the added monthly fee of using Tesla's data plan vs. android auto being free. All that made me think that getting a tesla would only increase my annoyances and costs rather than providing me a benefit. The advantages you listed are really, really nice, but hard to justify with the rest of it.
  - Rebelgecko 3y ago
    FWIW a lot of the things in 2-8 aren't unique to Tesla. My non-Tesla does 3, 4 (camera view seems higher res than the Model Y I test drove, although I don't find the blind spot cameras that helpful because you have to take your eyes off the road to use them), 6, 7, 8 (Although I don't have enough experience to say how Tesla's compares), and 9 (except the Spotify bit, but since I use Android Auto and anyone who DJs in my car has either that or Carplay it's a non-issue)
  - 3y ago
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
I bought a BMW i4, not a Tesla 3, so this is just my comparison. But Tesla software works really well, they have navigation to chargers, something that doesn’t really work in the BMW, you are pretty much on your own. They have sentinal mode, and it actually doesn’t suck like BMW’s drive recorder does. You can open your car with your phone, like for real via UWB, not just some NFC thing that works only in one place, or over the slow cellular unlock. I guess I didn’t explore the Spotify/music streaming experience. I still chose the BMW because the better interior and build quality, but it was definitely a sacrifice.
- hedora 3y ago
  I have an i3, pre-carplay, and I like that the computer works well with just a jog wheel. It has a navigate to charger feature that works reasonably well (though there are too many steps to “only show fast chargers”, and many stations are broken, though hopefully the tesla supercharger deal will fix that…) Range estimates seem to be accurate, unlike Tesla’s high-balling. Anyway, I’m hoping they can do at least that well moving forward.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    The navigate to charger lotion in BMW maps is just too hard to bother with. It’s almost better tk just ask siri to navigate to a charger of some kind. The jog wheel is nice, but I get away with voice for most functions. I hope it improves over time, especially the random GPS bug that displaces you by 100 meters and makes navigation useless.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      (I'm still mostly happy with my i4, but I knew what I was trading off)
- tirant 3y ago
  I also own an i4 and I still prefer its navigation system to Google Maps or Tesla. Navigating to chargers works perfectly, and it notifies you in realtime if for some reason it gets occupied. Yes, Tesla sentry mode is really good, but I really cannot live without a parking front and lateral cameras in the narrow streets of Europe. Specially without a working PDC system. I’m very happy with my i4, best car I’ve ever owned. And much better that all my Tesla experiences.

andruby 3y ago

My personal opinion: 1. The navigation works really well for me. Including routing via superchargers 2. The UX of not needing a key. The bluetooth phone key works so much more reliably than other car manufacturers (n=1) 3. The screen is very responsive. Touch UI is fast. 4. The backup and side camera view is the best I’ve seen on cars. 5. Record the last X minutes from all cameras when you honk (someone backed into my car and it’s nice to have easy access to the video footage via the usb stick) 6. Auto defogging. 7. Heating and de-icing the car from the app when I’m having breakfast. 8. Autosteer (the free included one) works surprisingly well. It handles more roads and situations than I’ve seen on other manufacturers 9. Auto detect different drivers from the phone key and sets their seat/steering/settings (and even their spotify account) There’s dozen more small things that show the attention to detail that some car manufacturers also have in their hardware but almost never have in their software. It’s not all perfect (eg the Spotify app could be better) but it’s a lot better than any other car or rental I’ve been in, including carplay).

verhaust 3y ago
2-8 do sound great. They are the reasons I was looking at a Tesla. Hadn't even heard of some of those. The car I'm looking to replace is a 2009 toyota corolla commuter car that is really starting to have maintenance issues. The right speakers even stopped working a few years ago. The speaker on my phone is better so I just put the sound all the way up and use that. The audio sucks, but it's easy. I sit down, press play, and I'm listening to what I want. My wife's CRV is a 2018 which I only drive when we are driving long distances. Still, I just plug my phone in and all my data is there on android auto. I have starred places on google maps going back almost 15 years. I click a place on recents and it maps me there. I press shuffle on youtube music and it has all my history there to play through. Youtube music also has the download option so I can play music in non-signal areas. That was another thing I couldn't seem to find an answer for with a Tesla. Does spotify work without a signal? If so, how much storage does the tesla offer to spotify? I have multi-gigs of downloaded music on my phone. We hit 30+ minute terrible signal areas on our holiday travels to family. The options seemed to be switch my apps to spotify/tesla navigation for "car riding" and have to double-entry everything from my home-listening or completely switchover. Which could maybe work for spotify (does that have the same option to upload your own music that google music had?), but definitely wouldn't work for tesla navigation. Then there's the privacy concerns that I'm now sharing more data with two places rather than one. Then the added monthly fee of using Tesla's data plan vs. android auto being free. All that made me think that getting a tesla would only increase my annoyances and costs rather than providing me a benefit. The advantages you listed are really, really nice, but hard to justify with the rest of it.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  FWIW a lot of the things in 2-8 aren't unique to Tesla. My non-Tesla does 3, 4 (camera view seems higher res than the Model Y I test drove, although I don't find the blind spot cameras that helpful because you have to take your eyes off the road to use them), 6, 7, 8 (Although I don't have enough experience to say how Tesla's compares), and 9 (except the Spotify bit, but since I use Android Auto and anyone who DJs in my car has either that or Carplay it's a non-issue)
- 3y ago

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

I bought a BMW i4, not a Tesla 3, so this is just my comparison. But Tesla software works really well, they have navigation to chargers, something that doesn’t really work in the BMW, you are pretty much on your own. They have sentinal mode, and it actually doesn’t suck like BMW’s drive recorder does. You can open your car with your phone, like for real via UWB, not just some NFC thing that works only in one place, or over the slow cellular unlock. I guess I didn’t explore the Spotify/music streaming experience. I still chose the BMW because the better interior and build quality, but it was definitely a sacrifice.

hedora 3y ago
I have an i3, pre-carplay, and I like that the computer works well with just a jog wheel. It has a navigate to charger feature that works reasonably well (though there are too many steps to “only show fast chargers”, and many stations are broken, though hopefully the tesla supercharger deal will fix that…) Range estimates seem to be accurate, unlike Tesla’s high-balling. Anyway, I’m hoping they can do at least that well moving forward.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  The navigate to charger lotion in BMW maps is just too hard to bother with. It’s almost better tk just ask siri to navigate to a charger of some kind. The jog wheel is nice, but I get away with voice for most functions. I hope it improves over time, especially the random GPS bug that displaces you by 100 meters and makes navigation useless.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    (I'm still mostly happy with my i4, but I knew what I was trading off)
tirant 3y ago
I also own an i4 and I still prefer its navigation system to Google Maps or Tesla. Navigating to chargers works perfectly, and it notifies you in realtime if for some reason it gets occupied. Yes, Tesla sentry mode is really good, but I really cannot live without a parking front and lateral cameras in the narrow streets of Europe. Specially without a working PDC system. I’m very happy with my i4, best car I’ve ever owned. And much better that all my Tesla experiences.