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The consumers who mock Tesla (and other auto manufacturers) that deliver continuous updates are rapidly dying off or moving into assisted living facilities. The

by nradov 11mo ago

The consumers who mock Tesla (and other auto manufacturers) that deliver continuous updates are rapidly dying off or moving into assisted living facilities. They're not going to be buying many new cars in coming years. Pursuing that market segment seems like literally a "dead" end.

hateselfdriving 11mo ago
Funny, I have another 30-40 years before I'm "dying off or moving to assisted living". Yet, because I work in software engineering and cybersecurity, you'll have to rip my human-driven cars out of my dead hands before I ever use or own a self-driving vehicle. Don't get me wrong, as another commenter brought up, I hate traffic too, and the annual fatalities from vehicles are obviously a tragedy. Neither of them motivate me to sign away my rights and autonomy to auto manufacturers. What happens when these companies decide they suddenly don't like you, cancel your subscription, and suddenly you're not allowed to drive, or I suppose rather use, the vehicle you "own"? It will become the same "subscription to life" dystopian nightmare everything else is becoming. Or how about how these subscriptions will never be what the consumer actually wants? You'll be forced to pay for useless extra features, ever increasing prices, and planned obsolescence until they've squeezed maximum value out of every single person. I mean imagine trying to work with Comcast to get your "car subscription" sorted. You know else reduces traffic and fatalities? Allowing workers to actually work from home. Driving during COVID was a dream come true. Let's let the commercial real estate market fail as it was primed to.
- bluGill 11mo ago
  Have you ever looked at how humans drive? Not the drunks, but the average person - they are terrible. You are not better. Self driving doesn't have to be very good to be better than humans.
  - hateselfdriving 11mo ago
    The _average_ person drives just fine. It's specifically the idiots who either should never have been allowed to pass a driver's test in the first place (i.e. lack the motor skills and/ or mental capacity) and the idiots who are so addicted to their phones they can't go 2 minutes without looking at it. I have a very hard time believing those are the majority or even average based on all my time driving. Which, these issues can be reduced if we stop giving people small slaps on the wrist for driving in ways that greatly endanger others. Hefty fines, temporary/ permanent driving bans, etc. Make people actually pause to consider their actions for once in their lives. Wow, an improvement we can start doing _today_, that doesn't involve forking over billions of dollars to tech companies to pump out half-baked "self-driving" capabilities. These companies' mission isn't to save lives, in case that's not obvious, it's to _make money_. They are not and have never been interested in potentially simpler/ better solutions if they don't lead to sucking the consumer dry of their money.
margalabargala 11mo ago
That's definitely the attitude I hear from the Tesla-can-do-no-wrong crowd, but in reality most of the people I meet in the Tesla-mocking crowd are under 40- younger on average than the other group. The non-Tesla manufacturers have noticed this and positioned products accordingly. Tesla does Musk-driven-development so only caters to the one group.
dzhiurgis 11mo ago
That's my impression too. You'd need to be 80 years old to be excited by a toyota.
- hateselfdriving 11mo ago
  I'm 31 and I'm very excited by the '86 Chevy truck I just got. You know why? It's _not_ "smart". The smartest thing on it is the old-school AM/FM radio. There's no software updates, there's nothing (built-in) tracking my every move. It's just a simple, repairable truck, for, you know, _driving_. People have this strange obsession with over-complicating everything they possibly can.
  - dzhiurgis 11mo ago
    Car and house are usually most expensive persons purchases. It is absurd to not make them smart.
    - hateselfdriving 11mo ago
      Have you ever stopped to think _why_ cars specifically are so expensive? The manufacturers need to put on a fake show to the market and consumers and pretend they are innovating with new "features" every year. But in reality they stuff so many expensive, fragile, and difficult/ impossible to replace electronics and gadgets into cars because 1) every single piece in that car is marked up from the price they paid. The more (ideally expensive) components, the more they get to mark up as the middleman, the more they get to gouge the customer. 2) The more challenging it is to repair the car, the more likely you _must_ come back to the manufacturer (i.e. dealer) and pay them exorbitant fees to fix problems only they know how and have the parts to fix.
      - mbg721 11mo ago
        I thought it was safety and environmental regulations, primarily. You have to have airbags, and now antilock brakes, and now rearview cameras, etc. If you were allowed to buy a new car built to the standard of the 1970s, it would be cheap.
thfuran 11mo ago
I know a lot of people who work on medical device software and think Teslas approach to updates is insane. A safety critical system simply should not have routine updates that affect UX or major performance characteristics.
jerlam 11mo ago
Tesla owners aren't that young. This site claims the average age of Tesla owners is 48 (updated for 2025): https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner-demographics/ https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner-demograph... Which should not be that surprising. Teslas were priced as premium vehicles initially, and then dropped as competitors appeared and to take advantage of tax credits. Teslas also benefit dramatically from owning a garage and adding a charger to it, which mostly homeowners can do. A homeowner buying an expensive car is very likely older and richer. Teslas aren't cool anymore, they are what your parents and your Uber driver has.
- LightBug1 11mo ago
  >>Teslas aren't cool anymore, they are what your parents and your Uber driver has. Exactly.

by nradov 11mo ago

hateselfdriving 11mo ago

Funny, I have another 30-40 years before I'm "dying off or moving to assisted living". Yet, because I work in software engineering and cybersecurity, you'll have to rip my human-driven cars out of my dead hands before I ever use or own a self-driving vehicle. Don't get me wrong, as another commenter brought up, I hate traffic too, and the annual fatalities from vehicles are obviously a tragedy. Neither of them motivate me to sign away my rights and autonomy to auto manufacturers. What happens when these companies decide they suddenly don't like you, cancel your subscription, and suddenly you're not allowed to drive, or I suppose rather use, the vehicle you "own"? It will become the same "subscription to life" dystopian nightmare everything else is becoming. Or how about how these subscriptions will never be what the consumer actually wants? You'll be forced to pay for useless extra features, ever increasing prices, and planned obsolescence until they've squeezed maximum value out of every single person. I mean imagine trying to work with Comcast to get your "car subscription" sorted. You know else reduces traffic and fatalities? Allowing workers to actually work from home. Driving during COVID was a dream come true. Let's let the commercial real estate market fail as it was primed to.

bluGill 11mo ago
Have you ever looked at how humans drive? Not the drunks, but the average person - they are terrible. You are not better. Self driving doesn't have to be very good to be better than humans.
- hateselfdriving 11mo ago
  The _average_ person drives just fine. It's specifically the idiots who either should never have been allowed to pass a driver's test in the first place (i.e. lack the motor skills and/ or mental capacity) and the idiots who are so addicted to their phones they can't go 2 minutes without looking at it. I have a very hard time believing those are the majority or even average based on all my time driving. Which, these issues can be reduced if we stop giving people small slaps on the wrist for driving in ways that greatly endanger others. Hefty fines, temporary/ permanent driving bans, etc. Make people actually pause to consider their actions for once in their lives. Wow, an improvement we can start doing _today_, that doesn't involve forking over billions of dollars to tech companies to pump out half-baked "self-driving" capabilities. These companies' mission isn't to save lives, in case that's not obvious, it's to _make money_. They are not and have never been interested in potentially simpler/ better solutions if they don't lead to sucking the consumer dry of their money.

margalabargala 11mo ago

That's definitely the attitude I hear from the Tesla-can-do-no-wrong crowd, but in reality most of the people I meet in the Tesla-mocking crowd are under 40- younger on average than the other group. The non-Tesla manufacturers have noticed this and positioned products accordingly. Tesla does Musk-driven-development so only caters to the one group.

dzhiurgis 11mo ago

That's my impression too. You'd need to be 80 years old to be excited by a toyota.

hateselfdriving 11mo ago
I'm 31 and I'm very excited by the '86 Chevy truck I just got. You know why? It's _not_ "smart". The smartest thing on it is the old-school AM/FM radio. There's no software updates, there's nothing (built-in) tracking my every move. It's just a simple, repairable truck, for, you know, _driving_. People have this strange obsession with over-complicating everything they possibly can.
- dzhiurgis 11mo ago
  Car and house are usually most expensive persons purchases. It is absurd to not make them smart.
  - hateselfdriving 11mo ago
    Have you ever stopped to think _why_ cars specifically are so expensive? The manufacturers need to put on a fake show to the market and consumers and pretend they are innovating with new "features" every year. But in reality they stuff so many expensive, fragile, and difficult/ impossible to replace electronics and gadgets into cars because 1) every single piece in that car is marked up from the price they paid. The more (ideally expensive) components, the more they get to mark up as the middleman, the more they get to gouge the customer. 2) The more challenging it is to repair the car, the more likely you _must_ come back to the manufacturer (i.e. dealer) and pay them exorbitant fees to fix problems only they know how and have the parts to fix.
    - mbg721 11mo ago
      I thought it was safety and environmental regulations, primarily. You have to have airbags, and now antilock brakes, and now rearview cameras, etc. If you were allowed to buy a new car built to the standard of the 1970s, it would be cheap.

thfuran 11mo ago

I know a lot of people who work on medical device software and think Teslas approach to updates is insane. A safety critical system simply should not have routine updates that affect UX or major performance characteristics.

jerlam 11mo ago

Tesla owners aren't that young. This site claims the average age of Tesla owners is 48 (updated for 2025): https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner-demographics/ https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner-demograph... Which should not be that surprising. Teslas were priced as premium vehicles initially, and then dropped as competitors appeared and to take advantage of tax credits. Teslas also benefit dramatically from owning a garage and adding a charger to it, which mostly homeowners can do. A homeowner buying an expensive car is very likely older and richer. Teslas aren't cool anymore, they are what your parents and your Uber driver has.

LightBug1 11mo ago
>>Teslas aren't cool anymore, they are what your parents and your Uber driver has. Exactly.