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Nothing surprising here. People don't buy Teslas because they want the same thing as those who buy an expensive gas-powered luxury car. They buy them because th

by api 11y ago

Nothing surprising here. People don't buy Teslas because they want the same thing as those who buy an expensive gas-powered luxury car. They buy them because they want to be early adopters of cool new stuff. If I bought one I would not expect the ease of road tripping afforded by gas -- at least not today and not for a while -- and thus would not be disappointed for not getting what I never expected to get. The review seemed gratuitously negative. Fact is that almost everyone in the traditional car industry wants Tesla to fail. I know some folks "back home" who are into cars, and when they talk about electrics it's like mockery mixed with a tinge of dread. If you're a CS/software person, imagine if a new computer came out that is far superior to existing computers but has almost nothing in common. The way you program it is alien to anything you're accustomed to. That's the situation car people will find themselves in if things go electric... not to mention the waves upon waves upon waves of bankruptcies as entire swaths of the economy find themselves obsolete. Electric vehicles are armageddon to what probably accounts for a double-digit fraction of our economy.

joshuapants 11y ago
> If I bought one I would not expect the ease of road tripping afforded by gas -- at least not today and not for a while -- and thus would not be disappointed for not getting what I never expected to get. Exactly. I'm bullish on electric cars, and the next time I car shop I'll probably get one, though at the moment they are better suited as town/station cars. The typical person doesn't need much range day to day, but it can be pretty difficult to take a long trip in one. If I got a BMW i3, for example, I couldn't take it for a weekend trip down the shore because I'd run the battery down halfway home, and there are no public charges near the beach I go to.
- JohnBooty 11y ago
  Another Philadelphia area resident, I see!
MBCook 11y ago
> The review seemed gratuitously negative. I disagree. I think Teslas are interesting, and I never tend to road trip so it's an edge use case for me. But the descriptions of the navigation system are just flat out baffling. That's a horrible fault in a car that can't be easily/quickly charged at tens of thousands of gas stations. A navigation system should never have you drive FURTHER BACK to the PLACE YOU CAME FROM rather than the SHORTER distance to the NEXT supercharger. That's insane. And having him get off the highway to stop at a supercharger where he needed "0 minutes" of charging? Why wasn't that cut from the route? I understand him losing mileage to the A/C, but it's a connected car. If it knows where it is, where you're going, and can access it weather it should be able to predict you'll probably end up using the A/C and adjust the expected range accordingly. That should't have been a surprise either. At the end of the article he said he could do the trip in about 12 hours if he planned by hand with 3 stops instead of 6-8 stops and 17 hours if he let the Tesla software plan it. That's a disaster. This sounds like one of those cases where bad software ruins (or significantly detracts from) an experience that shouldn't otherwise be that bad. This article is an indictment of the navigation system. I'll also say it sounds odd that you can set the car up to control the heat and sunroof and such with the phone app when the car is driving. If it's moving, why allow that? If you're driving or in the car you already have access to the controls. Sounds ripe for abuse/pranks (as happened in the article).
- mikeash 11y ago
  "This article is an indictment of the navigation system." Yep, for sure. But note that that's all it is. It's not an indictment of Tesla overall, or the Model S's ability to road trip. The trip planner does need some serious work. But if you ignore it, road trips can be a joy. As far as remote access while the car is driving, why not allow it? That means that, for example, somebody in the back seat can adjust the controls using their phone instead of bothering the driver to do it for them. It's only ripe for abuse if you give your account credentials to someone you shouldn't trust. And why would you do that? It's pretty much on the same level as giving your car keys to your coworkers and then complaining when they prank you by moving your car to a different parking lot behind your back. Don't give them your keys!
  - MBCook 11y ago
    > It's only ripe for abuse if you give your account credentials to someone you shouldn't trust. That assumes perfect security. I'm more worried about someone external hacking in to the Tesla site via a security vulnerability (or even just username/password dump from another site) to do such things to random cars than little Billy in the back seat.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Saying "don't allow remote control of this stuff while driving" also assumes perfect security. We can discuss the plusses and minuses of various intentional access points, or we can discuss security. But they're different topics.
mikeash 11y ago
The great thing about the Model S is that, unlike other electric cars, it's a great car, period. It happens to be an electric car, but it stands on its own merits. You don't need to be an enthusiast or an environmentalist or anything like that. Lots of Tesla owners were in the market for a similarly-priced Audi or BMW or Mercedes and chose the Tesla because they thought it was better. If we want electric cars to catch on, they need to be better. They can't be crapboxes that you justify with "at least it doesn't pollute so much." They need to be, "I want that awesome car!" Tesla has achieved this, and a big part of that is the supercharger network and the ease of long-distance travel with their cars. The experience described in this article is surprising and definitely should not happen at this point. Fortunately the problems were due more to bad choices on the part of the driver than anything to do with the car. The car's trip planner certainly had problem here, but the driver could and should have ignored it when it was being dumb.

by api 11y ago

joshuapants 11y ago

> If I bought one I would not expect the ease of road tripping afforded by gas -- at least not today and not for a while -- and thus would not be disappointed for not getting what I never expected to get. Exactly. I'm bullish on electric cars, and the next time I car shop I'll probably get one, though at the moment they are better suited as town/station cars. The typical person doesn't need much range day to day, but it can be pretty difficult to take a long trip in one. If I got a BMW i3, for example, I couldn't take it for a weekend trip down the shore because I'd run the battery down halfway home, and there are no public charges near the beach I go to.

JohnBooty 11y ago
Another Philadelphia area resident, I see!

MBCook 11y ago

> The review seemed gratuitously negative. I disagree. I think Teslas are interesting, and I never tend to road trip so it's an edge use case for me. But the descriptions of the navigation system are just flat out baffling. That's a horrible fault in a car that can't be easily/quickly charged at tens of thousands of gas stations. A navigation system should never have you drive FURTHER BACK to the PLACE YOU CAME FROM rather than the SHORTER distance to the NEXT supercharger. That's insane. And having him get off the highway to stop at a supercharger where he needed "0 minutes" of charging? Why wasn't that cut from the route? I understand him losing mileage to the A/C, but it's a connected car. If it knows where it is, where you're going, and can access it weather it should be able to predict you'll probably end up using the A/C and adjust the expected range accordingly. That should't have been a surprise either. At the end of the article he said he could do the trip in about 12 hours if he planned by hand with 3 stops instead of 6-8 stops and 17 hours if he let the Tesla software plan it. That's a disaster. This sounds like one of those cases where bad software ruins (or significantly detracts from) an experience that shouldn't otherwise be that bad. This article is an indictment of the navigation system. I'll also say it sounds odd that you can set the car up to control the heat and sunroof and such with the phone app when the car is driving. If it's moving, why allow that? If you're driving or in the car you already have access to the controls. Sounds ripe for abuse/pranks (as happened in the article).

mikeash 11y ago
"This article is an indictment of the navigation system." Yep, for sure. But note that that's all it is. It's not an indictment of Tesla overall, or the Model S's ability to road trip. The trip planner does need some serious work. But if you ignore it, road trips can be a joy. As far as remote access while the car is driving, why not allow it? That means that, for example, somebody in the back seat can adjust the controls using their phone instead of bothering the driver to do it for them. It's only ripe for abuse if you give your account credentials to someone you shouldn't trust. And why would you do that? It's pretty much on the same level as giving your car keys to your coworkers and then complaining when they prank you by moving your car to a different parking lot behind your back. Don't give them your keys!
- MBCook 11y ago
  > It's only ripe for abuse if you give your account credentials to someone you shouldn't trust. That assumes perfect security. I'm more worried about someone external hacking in to the Tesla site via a security vulnerability (or even just username/password dump from another site) to do such things to random cars than little Billy in the back seat.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Saying "don't allow remote control of this stuff while driving" also assumes perfect security. We can discuss the plusses and minuses of various intentional access points, or we can discuss security. But they're different topics.

mikeash 11y ago

The great thing about the Model S is that, unlike other electric cars, it's a great car, period. It happens to be an electric car, but it stands on its own merits. You don't need to be an enthusiast or an environmentalist or anything like that. Lots of Tesla owners were in the market for a similarly-priced Audi or BMW or Mercedes and chose the Tesla because they thought it was better. If we want electric cars to catch on, they need to be better. They can't be crapboxes that you justify with "at least it doesn't pollute so much." They need to be, "I want that awesome car!" Tesla has achieved this, and a big part of that is the supercharger network and the ease of long-distance travel with their cars. The experience described in this article is surprising and definitely should not happen at this point. Fortunately the problems were due more to bad choices on the part of the driver than anything to do with the car. The car's trip planner certainly had problem here, but the driver could and should have ignored it when it was being dumb.