Comment by codeulike | Hacker News Reader

Comment by codeulike | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Safety

Tesla Model S Achieves Best Safety Rating of Any Car Ever Tested http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-tesla-model-s-achieves-...

> Upgrades

Due to dealerships, most cars can _only_ have their software upgrades during services. Tesla can push it out over the air. I'm not aware of anyone else doing that, and they probably can't due to dealership rules.

> Luggage space

But there's the frunk. Because the motor is the size of a watermelon instead of 1/4 of the car. The Model S has nearly twice as much cargo space as, say, the Audi A6. http://cars.axlegeeks.com/compare/1525-4509/2013-Tesla-Model...

> Solar

Yep we can agree on this one, solar wont help on cars.

> Licencing > Tesla does not own the IP for the battery tech nor the superchargers

Do you have a source for that? Tesla batteries are damn complicated, its not just a load of laptop batteries glued together, there are very complex support systems around the battery cells. Are you telling me they dont own the IP for that?

The "Safety Rating" may be fantastic, but if it translates into an average fatalities per mile, it's likely the metric is inadequate and shouldn't be lauded too greatly (at least, by itself).

Of course it could be that reckless drivers purchase Teslas, confounding the statistics. But given the safety ratings only account for how likely a passenger (or pedestrian) is to die/be injured in certain kinds of impact, it is a very incomplete picture.

Even if the metric is perfect at measuring this, the average result for fatalities per mile would seem to then suggest an increased number of high-risk collisions per mile.

If the OTA updates is something customers want, it will be straightforward for other car companies to follow suit.

As for luggage space: I was talking about an estate/wagon class car, so this is the correct comparison:

http://cars.axlegeeks.com/compare/1525-17575/2013-Tesla-Mode...

Also, just counting cubic feet with two luggage compartments is only helpful in some situations. You wouldn't be able to fit a washing machine in a Model S, for instance, or a dog cage, nor most baby prams (without significant disassembly).

Tesla does own some patents on the battery pack assembly, but Musk famously declared a while back that these are free for all other car companies to use in good faith. (He "open sourced" them.) Also, Tesla is the only electric car manufacturer going for the 18650 cell as the basis, all others are going for much larger individual cells in their packs, so most of Tesla's battery pack IP doesn't apply to others since it's specific to the cell form factor.

> OTA

You don't understand. Most car manufacturers have agreements with dealerships that will prevent OTA updates from being possible.

> Musk famously declared a while back that these are free for all other car companies to use in good faith

Yep, but 'good faith' means opening up their IP in return, more or less, so not many companies are taking that up. Anyhow Tesla still own the IP, so your original statement is incorrect.

> You don't understand. Most car manufacturers have agreements with dealerships that will prevent OTA updates from being possible.

There are also legal frameworks that make OTA updates edgy. Tesla is being investigated in germany because pushing additional features ("auto"pilot) might substantially alter the car from the approved version, leaving it without approval to drive on german roads.

OTA also suffers from all the beautiful issues that networked updates suffer from, most notably security, authentication, encryption. I for one prefer updates done via good old fashioned removable media.

So yes, OTA updates are nice, but I'm not certain I really really want that in my car.

sure, but thats a different argument. I am arguing with semi-extrinsic who claimed that Gasoline cars have similarly complex ECUs and entertainment systems and are already being updated for free (usually at regular services).. I'm arguing that no-one else comes close to what Tesla are able to do with updates. e.g. in the next month or two autopilot 8 will be pushed out, bringing significant new functionality to the 30,000+ autopilot equipped Teslas already on the road.

There's also the problem all software updates can suffer: a code change breaking something in production. In this case it would be a car carrying humans.

I'm not sure what type of software updates we're talking about but BMW allows idrive updates (nav/media) via the USB port. They provide the updates for free on their site.

I drive a Hyundai that has a navigation system. I purchased it in 2010. I have to dish out $250 or something at the dealer to get updated maps. The nav system's update process is password-locked so I can't just do it myself.

We're talking about pretty major things like new features for Autopilot, and performance enhancement from better battery/motor management.

> Tesla can push it out over the air.

Maybe it's just me, but I find that terrifying.

I don't want there to be any possibility of my car changing its behavior unless I take the deliberate action of bringing it into a dealership for that purpose. It's one thing if an update bricks my laptop, it's quite another if it bricks my car. Let alone if one day a malicious update somehow gets pushed out.

It's not just you, there are a bunch of people like you, but you are a minority.

I see four categories of people here:

1) People who really don't want to think about it, and fully trust Tesla to take care of them. This is the vast majority of people.

2) People who understand security, and want security patches applied as quickly as possible by a professional. This group also likes OTA updates, but is admittedly quite small.

3) People who want to minimize their security surface area entirely. These people wouldn't buy a Tesla, nor would they allow their dealer to plug into their car. They buy a car that's carefully vetted to have a small attack surface, and do the maintenance themselves (or by a trusted contractor). This is, like, the Secret Service, etc. This is a tiny group.

4) People who need some degree of "control theater" so that they can maintain the sensation they are in control of the status of their vehicle, but who aren't actually applying any sort of rigorous security protocol (as evidenced by leaving their car unattended at a random dealership). It's is a bigger group than #2 or #3, but much smaller than #1.

> maintain the sensation they are in control of the status of their vehicle

Hopefully it's more than the sensation. Anyone who's ever had a Windows update take over right before a presentation, or an Apple update brick their phone, wishes they had more control over when and if to accept an update.

Being able to upgrade/downgrade helps a lot. "Bluetooth for my headphones broke, after I upgraded. I'll downgrade, until they've fixed that bug."

You get to pick when or if an update is applied in a tesla. It suggests 2am, but you can say now, a different time, or don't do it.

> Tesla Model S Achieves Best Safety Rating of Any Car Ever Tested

So what is this?

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/tesla/model-s/7897

Euro NCAP vs. NHTSA

One's a European institution; the other is American.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com