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Is this really a surprise? There are physical realities, and a single company can't suddenly reinvent a century of industry experience with some Silicon Valley
by bmitc 3y ago
Is this really a surprise? There are physical realities, and a single company can't suddenly reinvent a century of industry experience with some Silicon Valley pixie dust and government subsidies. Tesla, like many startups, is just rediscovering what it takes to build a car and what other companies have already figured out. Bringing a new drivetrain is not enough.
- silisili 3y agoMy last two new ICE cars had horrible infotainment that crashed constantly, loose fits, and an interior that rattles until it drives one to violence. I'd say they are competing on even grounds here.
- croes 3y agoTo be fair, infotainment is a relatively recent feature of cars.
- europeanNyan 3y agoWhat is there to be fair about? We've had various iterations of GPS navigation for decades now. Yet, most maps on most infotainments are unusable slow pieces of rubbish. UX of various GUIs has been a point of research for a very long time. Yet, they are discovering it as if it was a completely new concept, the concept of touching something and it actually doing something in a short amount of time. It's like they are purposely ignoring the plethora of mobile devices and GPS units of the last decades.
- croes 3y agoBecause these are bonus features and not necessary for driving unlike tires that won't fall off. Seems like Tesla fails at the core feature of a car. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38707589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38707589
- flutas 3y ago> Because these are bonus features and not necessary for driving unlike tires that won't fall off. > Seems like Tesla fails at the core feature of a car. Thank god the existing manufacturers have this nailed down, like Toyota[0], Dodge [1], Ford[2], Mazda[3], or even high end manufacturers like Lamborghini[4]. [0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-recalls-new-ev-over-risk-wheels-could-fall-off-11655996156 https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-recalls-new-ev-over-risk... [1]: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/dodge-ram-trucks-recalled-because-wheels-could-fly-off/RMOTOOQP6ZBVPPMXIHG6DONTN4/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/dodge-ram-trucks-recalle... [2]: https://www.thedrive.com/news/2022-ford-f-150-raptors-recalled-because-the-wheels-can-fall-off https://www.thedrive.com/news/2022-ford-f-150-raptors-recall... [3]: https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/nation-world/2019/07/03/mazda3-recalled-because-wheels-might/4773406007/ https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/nation-world/2019/07/03/... [4]: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/lamborghini-aventador-sv-recall-wheels/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/lamborghini-aventador-sv-...
- sschueller 3y agoInfotainment is not a cars purpose but an addition. If you need to play video games and watch Netflix then you should not be driving.
- konschubert 3y agoI would like a map that is up to date and has a good UX. Spotify and podcasts. Voice controls that allow me to hear and speak text messages. Basic stuff, impossible for Volkswagen. EDIT: I agree with the replies that say this should be handled by CarPlay/Android Auto. In which case I’d like my cars software to support that well. EDIT2: Oh and there has to be an api where the car shares charge state and range estimates with my phone, such that my phone can plan a route around charge stops.
- switch007 3y agoVoice control is the entertainment! I only ever use it when I’m bored and to see how hilariously wrong it can be :D
- hef19898 3y agoPicking VW as an example for Infotainment is the equivalent of picking Tesla for reliability: a way to show how not to do it.
- europeanNyan 3y agoI can vouch that Dacia or Renault is not any better and serve as a pure gateway to Apple Carplay.
- hef19898 3y agoI am quite happy with Peugeot and Jaguar. Never tried Car Play or Android Auto and never will so, Bluetooth streaming is all I need. I heard all kind of horror stories from the latest VW software so. Which is funny, because Skoda seems to be a lot better despite being the same group.
- prmoustache 3y agoAren't everybody using android auto (or its Apple equivalent) these days anyway? The builtin infotainment system is usually just a second thought that exist just to showcase something in the showroom and setup android auto at first use.
- izacus 3y agoNo, because Teslas don't support it and you're stuck with whatever they thought of.
- vultour 3y agoI have no reason to use it because my infotainment doesn’t suck.
- oblio 3y agoI assume you're using Tesla. Do you live in one of their core markets? I doubt Tesla Maps or whatever it's called holds a candle to Google Maps for non-US, non-Western Europe regions.
- vultour 3y agoNo, it's a Skoda. I mostly just use the navigation which is very usable, plus with a subscription you also get live traffic. There's a few things which annoy me about the infotainment but that's inherent to the whole system (like annoying popups on boot), so CarPlay doesn't fix that.
- prmoustache 3y agoOne good reason is that your phone, or rather the account tied to your phone, already keeps all your favorite destinations.
- pmontra 3y agoGoogle upgraded Android Auto to a backward incompatible version right before I bought my second hand 2016 car. The car manufacturer never upgraded the software of the car so I don't even know what Android Auto can do. But everybody has their own phone so if it's OK at home and on a bus it will be OK in a car too.
- izacus 3y agoWhat does your poor choice of ICE cars have to say about Tesla though? Having a crap experience across the board isn't a redeeming feature you think it is.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> What does your poor choice of ICE cars have to say about Tesla though? That one of the tricks Tesla is figuring out is how to cook the books on these figures. I drive an ICE Subaru, and I love it. But some friends visited and didn’t tighten the gas cap once, which put the infotainment system into a fit, which put a bunch of other systems into a conniption, systems totally unrelated like ABS. (?!) The issue persisted across restarts and ultimately required servicing. How was this recorded? User error. In part because there is a dealership between me and the manufacturer that is responsible for servicing the vehicle.
- b112 3y agoI'm willing to bet a lot, that there was no causation between youe ABS having issues, and a loose gas cap. These events just happened at the same, general timeframe.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> there was no causation between youe ABS having issues, and a loose gas cap I wouldn’t have linked the two had the dealership not told me that was what caused it.
- janoc 3y agoWouldn't be the first time the dealership was telling customer complete BS assuming that they don't have a clue in order to either get out of a warranty repair or to inflate an invoice. Also dealerships not having a clue is not rare either. Many garages these days only connect a computer to the diagnostics port, download whatever error codes are shown and tell the shocked driver that half of their car is kaputt with the repair likely going to be several thousands of euro. All the while the real problem is a blown fuse for one of the control units or a wire has chaffed and broke somewhere - and the diagnostic codes come only because the ECU can't talk to some sensors because part of the vehicle's CAN bus is down.
- demondemidi 3y agoWere they luxury cars, like teslas?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> luxury cars, like teslas Model 3s are not luxury vehicles. By feature set, positioning or price point.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nixass 3y agoWhat exactly gives impression of luxury in Tesla, other than ridiculous price?
- TacticalCoder 3y ago> Were they luxury cars, like teslas? Teslas are priced as luxury cars but they aren't luxury cars. They have strong selling points, like the amazing battery compared to other EVs or their looks (I do find the Model S very nice / sleek) but the quality of the interior/materials and sound proofing simply isn't there, not by a mile. Here's a list, for example, of some actual luxury cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-segment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-segment I was highly disappointed when I went in a Model S: I'm used to actual luxury cars and I simply don't know how to put it nicely: to me a Model S is a complete rip off price-wise. I'd urge anyone thinking that Tesla is luxury to go in a Mercedes dealership and sit in a class S or go to a Porsche dealership and sit in a Panamera (or in the Taycan 100% EV). That is luxury. FWIW the Tesla Model S and Porsche Panamera (for example) entry models begin at the same price so it's not apple and orange comparison: that's why I say Tesla is sold as luxury, at the price of luxury, but is not luxury.
- rightbyte 3y agoTesla had the first mover advantage on offering EVs. I don't think they will be able to charge the premium going forwards compared to say Mercedes and still have the low quality interior and general mechanical quality at Dacia level.
- mdp2021 3y ago> loose fits, and an interior that rattles until it drives one to violence Confirmed. Friends in the car maintenance business have witnessed for years a quality fall (materials etc). "Infotainment", I hope I will not have the experience (apart maybe from removing some), but my last car was the first one with a sound system that hissed.
- jeffrallen 3y agoI watch Sandy Munro sometimes. His comments on how to cut costs sometimes sound brilliant, and sometimes sound like a race to the bottom. I suspect that's the problem: even the experts don't know what the consequences of a certain cost cutting measure is. At a polar opposite, I'm reminded of the wonder of walking across the Brooklyn bridge and thinking, "they don't make them like this anymore".
- mlrtime 3y agoWait until you read how many people died building the BB and how much it costs to maintain it. Althought we did learn a lot about the affects of pressure on the human body which is cool.
- uxp8u61q 3y agoHow is your anecdote supposed to counter cold hard data gathered at the level of a whole country?
- nomad_dude 3y agoWhat do you mean by “ICE cars?”
- grecy 3y ago> and government subsidies What government subsidies has Tesla received to date? Please post links to sources.
- skrause 3y agohttps://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc
- grecy 3y agoInteresting it makes no mention the federal loans were repaid in full, early, with interest.[1] As apposed to GM & Chrysler who got billions in bailouts that were never repaid. [2] [1] https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/22/autos/tesla-loan-repayment/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/22/autos/tesla-loan-repayment/... [2] https://theweek.com/articles/454749/auto-bailout-officially-over-heres-what-america-lost-gained https://theweek.com/articles/454749/auto-bailout-officially-...
- ddalex 3y agoSo what? you asked about A, you received A, now you whine "why don't you mention B!?!" The discussion is about subsidies not loans or bailouts (which are different things)
- some1else 3y agoI'm not partial to any side in this debate, but the second table in the linked document is called "LOAN / BAILOUT SUMMAY"
- Biganon 3y agoHope those goal posts aren't too heavy
- mardifoufs 3y agoIs a loan a subsidy?
- hcks 3y agoWow I love traditional automakers!!
- bayindirh 3y agoI think Tesla embodies the SV mindset very well, even demonstrates it in a tangible form. They move fast and break things.
- nickpp 3y ago> They move fast and break things. You forgot the third: they (Silicon Valley) also change the world. For the better. Most of my (and my family’s) every day work and fun are coming from SV. I would not give it up for anything else. If occasionally breaking things is the price - I am more than willing to pay it.
- bayindirh 3y ago> they change the world. For the better. That's up for a through debate, but not today. Let's leave it at I don't agree that part 100%.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> That's up for a through debate, but not today Were it not for Tesla, America wouldn’t be on a path towards electrified transport. The tradeoffs are incredibly germane to the topic.
- bayindirh 3y agoI look SV's effect on global scale, because I neither live in the US, nor located on the continent itself. Also, the debate is about SV's global impact at full spectrum, not only about Tesla. So, yes, it's up for debate. Lastly this doesn't change the fact that Tesla fared the worst in the automaking competition this year w.r.t. everyone else, and they're faking till they're making it. More automakers are always good, but more pretending is always bad (cough VW, Cummins, cough).
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> So, yes, it's up for debate I never disagreed. I’m saying the case at hand, EVs, provide a potent balance of the tradeoffs Silicon Valley’s methods involve. On one hand, you get the capacity for transformational change. Change that can be for the general good. On the other hand, we have costs ranging from a culture of normalised lying to ideological nothingburgers gaining currency due to their proximity to, well, currency. Put another way, remove Silicon Valley from the equation and yes, we have safer cars. But we also have little reason to be optimistic about ever hitting carbon zero in this country. The latter is more globally relevant than the former.
- Spooky23 3y agoFortunately, there’s a broad network of independent mechanics and third party parts to make Tesla repairs easily accessible.
- janoc 3y agoI suppose that was a sarcasm/irony ...
- palemoonale 3y agoYour views are spot on, just one thing: Tesla is out of startup mode for like what, 10, maybe even 12 years? They are just another seasoned manufacturer stringing along, well, with rock-bottom 'quality'. It is just that his highness, greatest pretengineer of recent times, SEC-convicted fraudster, CCP-affiliated (some say owned) dude whilestill holding US security clearances, documented drugster and potentially affiliated too with Mexican cartels, has a strong NIH syndrome, and thinks he's smarter than decades of engineers contributing their discoveries into our human knowledge pool. Constantly overruling the more sensible people still working for him by authoritarian decrees.
- Closi 3y agoOP is comparing them against the legacy car making industry - they are still a 'young' player by a long way, and a relative newcomer. Besides, the SEC scandal is pretty small-beer in terms of auto industry scandals - see the VW emissions scandal, the safety scandal of Toyota which is only just kicking off, General Motors ignition switch scandal, going all the way back to the classic defective gas tank scandal from Ford...
- dgellow 3y agoHow is Tesla still considered a startup? It’s a 20 years old company with a 80billion valuation and more than 100k employees Edit: I even missed a zero, it has a 800billion valuation
- bufferoverflow 3y ago> 80billion valuation You mean 800 billion valuation?
- dgellow 3y agoYes, that’s stated explicitly at the end of my comment
- exitb 3y agoTheir valuation is three times larger than Toyota, yet they manufacture only 10% as much cars a year. It’s still deeply rooted in hopes of future expansion and innovations, lack of which they might not survive.
- FredPret 3y agoYou’re right that they have a juicy valuation. But it’s about number of dollars made, not cars. And on that metric Tesla is on par with GM and ahead of Ford. I don’t know about Toyota. https://valustox.com/F https://valustox.com/F https://valustox.com/GM https://valustox.com/GM https://valustox.com/TSLA https://valustox.com/TSLA
- peterfirefly 3y agoThey sold about 1/8 the cars Toyota did in 2022 but they also made about 8x the profit per car. And Toyota has a huge debt load whereas Tesla had money in the bank + was growing + FSD will Soon™ be here (and if/when it does, Tesla's profits will explode) + there's the energy business + there will probably be something like AWS for AI in a year or three.
- linsomniac 3y agoI don't know, man, my 2016 Model S has been lower maintenance than any of my past or current cars, with the exception of our RAV-4 which has way, way lower miles on it (90K vs 30K). So, YMMV. It's a bummer because with Elon's antics I don't see myself owning another Tesla, but my experience so far has been great.
- myko 3y agoLucky you, a month out of warranty mine had an issue that was $1000 to fix. It was, IMO, clearly a manufacturing defect they should have handled but did not. It was really fun being stuck at a grocery store with my infant in below-freezing temperatures with a car that would not start!
- fredgrott 3y agoahem Japanese vehicles in the 1970s and 1980s were beating US car makers in quality and the Japanese auto companies were, get this only, 30 years old! It does not take a century to match up quality engineering with QA processes than take those inputs and re-make the automation line.
- api 3y agoTesla was necessary to tip the EV market though by bringing that new drive train, because legacy car companies would have mostly dragged their feet on EVs for as long as possible.
- hallqv 3y agoThe incumbent US car brands barely does any manufacturing themselves anymore, they are mainly big procurement + assemly + marketing blobs. Not very conducive to driving product innovation.
- hef19898 3y agoNot considering assembly to be manufacturing is an interesting take. Counter example: Apple (innivation and all that) and Foxconn. Assembly absolutely is manufacturing.
- torginus 3y agoCounterpoint: The new crop of BYD EVs seem to be really well built - up with European/Asian brands in their market segment. They still lag somewhat in other areas (drivetrain efficiency, software, ADAS etc.), but to say that a new company can't build cars well is simply just not true.
- dmix 3y agoHN is suddenly anti-innovation You must be a 100yr old conglomerate, those companies never do shady things or have failures in quality control.
- cedilla 3y agoA weird accusation. It's not the 100 year old multinationals at the bottom of the reliability indexes. Tesla is also no longer innovating, they are far behind in almost every way. They lost their lead in battery tech, marketing and assistance features.
- thechao 3y agoThe only reason I bought a Tesla in April of this year is because they'd sell me one. Every other car company gave me the same line: give us money, we'll call you in July/August. They all had outrageous dealer markups. Two weeks after I bought my car, Tesla lowered the price on the X: they sent me a check for the difference. I ended up calling customer service to figure out why they'd sent me a check!
- brandonagr2 3y agoHow is this report a reliability index? If you service your car often because it needs constant maintenance (oil changes), the safety inspection won't find minor issues to complain about
- zie 3y agoHUH? They are still innovating. For all of its other drama the Cybertruck has some amazing innovations. It's now a 48V system, uses an ethernet bus, uses un-treated stainless steel, etc. Again, I'm not remotely claiming the Cybertruck is a great vehicle or that it won't have any problems, but they definitely are still innovating on vehicles. Marketing? Tesla never really had a marketing department and now doesn't even have a PR department, last I heard.
- ak_111 3y agoSome of the Chinese companies that are now dominating some corners of the electric car market barely existed 5 years ago and they score far better than many expected on reliability scores. I guess scale allows you to compensate for years of experience. Would be interesting to see how they will test your theory in the next few years. My hypothesis is a few chinese brands will be scoring in the top 10% of reliability in the next 5 years.
- bmitc 3y agoChina's ability to manufacturer at both speed and scale is indeed impressive and scary. I think I saw some Navy worries that China is able to build naval ships and carriers at speeds well beyond the U.S. capability, and that within just decades, they will have double the ships.
- rsynnott 3y agoI mean, they could presumably afford to hire people who know how to do this. It is not a secret; for the right money you can get the process expertise.
- g9yuayon 3y agoA big concern I have with Tesla is that I have no alternative service providers. When Tesla charges one $2000 to fix a broken gear, the person would have no choice to but to accept it.
- Tommstein 3y ago> Is this really a surprise? There are physical realities, and a single company can't suddenly reinvent a century of industry experience with some Silicon Valley pixie dust and government subsidies. That may be, but Tesla didn't have to rediscover everything from scratch, just like SpaceX didn't have to reinvent rocketry from scratch but rather stood on the shoulders of decades' worth of giants.