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Comment by bsbechtel | Hacker News Reader

Dealing with Apple Store level service for a car that needs regular maintenance isn't going to fly. Imagine waiting 2+ hours for an oil change entry three months.

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I have a hard time imagining how Apple Store level service wouldn't be a big improvement over what I currently receive.

Also there's nothing routine I do at the Apple Store that requires me to wait any significant amount of time. Anytime I have a question, or want to buy something, or pick up an online order the service could hardly be any more prompt.

The only thing I have to wait for is the Genius Bar, and if I schedule in advance I don't usually wait very long. And I only have to do that when something actually breaks.

When my car breaks I generally have to schedule something in advance as well.

Dude, the car is self-driving, why are you waiting for it to get its oil changed?

Agreed, also why would it need oil changes since it would most likely be electric? Scheduled maintenance is a very occasional thing in electric vehicles.

I don't know much about engines nor cars but I am guessing that even with electric motors one needs gears? If so then there would be a need for gearbox oil.

No you don't need a gearbox.

There isn't a transmission/gearbox, but Teslas undoubtedly have differentials in some form which is where you would definitely find oil. I change the axle oil about once a millennium in my Jeep, so Tesla owners probably don't even think about it. To your point, though, there is probably a single reduction gear to lower the rotation speed of the motor and it might need oil. (Reverse does not require reconfiguring anything in an electric system, given that one just flips polarity. Electric motors have different torque characteristics which obviate the need for traditional gearing.)

I'm guessing service on Teslas is the usual: brake pads every century given that regenerative braking does most of the work, greasing bearings every now and then, coolant, tires, wipers. Internal combustion is extremely complicated in comparison.

Electric is a much smaller market. And nothing about self-driving requires an electric vehicle.

I'd consider buying self-driving features on a regular car. Electric would be a total deal-breaker for me with today's technology.

Edit: upon further reflection I think it's likely that Apple is just developing the self driving tech and is unlikely to be actually planning to build cars, electric or otherwise.

That last paragraph. The Android model would be very attractive for cars, even for Apple. On smartphones, that model suffers from the hardware being all too indistinguishable. Glass rectangles with or without rounded corners, maybe a button here and there. Car manufacturers by contrast have a century of experience with making mechanical differences count, on top of the same UI everywhere.

For Apple and Google, the case is clear: if they want to defend their incredibly valuable gatekeeper position for local search (the market formerly known as the yellow pages) they need to provide the UI for the car or else they lose much of that gatekeeping. The question is, will any car manufacturers be willing to play, or are they all trying to succeed where Nokia failed?

This user clearly is a troll and has basically no experience with actual service at the Apple Store, which consistently has the highest marks for service among all retail stores.

Is Apple Store service not the gold standard?

It is for electronic devices. Why someone would think they would do exactly the same model for a car division is very strange.

Their service may be good for hardware, but from personal experience it has been far from great if you're an app developer. We're in the top 100 grossing apps and can't even get a callback from them, let alone a point of contact if there are issues.

Surely their vehicle would be electric. Likely some occasional maintenance but you wouldn't be getting your oil changed.

Not to mention that it would drive itself to the maintenance....

Disclaimer: If it wasn't clear from the username, this is a throwaway. I don't want to endanger my business by associating my rant with my >7 year old HN account :-(

There is a 0% chance that I would ever purchase a car from Apple with their self driving functionality in it.

We recently had issues with a whole bunch of rejections of our app for reasons that are not clearly defined in their guidelines (allegedly they were "new terms" [not documented]... they pointed me to official documents that didn't match what they were telling me). The functionality that they were rejecting our app for initially wasn't new, followed by several rejections for functionality that had been in the app for nearly 2 1/2 years and had approved numerous times over that span.

I've been waiting almost a month for a phone call that they promised me "within 3 business days" to discuss the App Review issues, and have yet to receive it.

While I think that Apple creates some great hardware, and their end user support is likely better than their B2B support (which is IMHO atrocious, unless you're buying more hardware from them), there is no chance I would put my life in the hands of their product or expect them to provide me with safe travel.

You . . . argue that you wouldn't trust an apple car on the basis that they make good hardware, but you have a software dispute with apple?

I'm sure you are very frustrated, but this comment really doesn't make sense to me.

I would tend to think of an apple car as hardware, which you admit is good. And it's probably being driven by apple software, which is sometimes iffy and buggy and downright crappy. I can't imagine a world where your argument makes sense because 3rd party/app story complaints really have nothing to do with this.

It feels like a total non sequitur to me. I'm not going to flag you, but I am going to downvote.

While looking back at it, my comment was a rather vague as to the target... Apple's customer support is spotty if you factor in their B2B (?assuming being an app developer puts you in that position?). I don't want to trust my mode of transportation to them as a result of my experiences.

In this situation, a self driving car is a combination of hardware and software. As you said:

> it's probably being driven by apple software, which is sometimes iffy and buggy and downright crappy

Whether it rolls well is one thing, but I question the consistency of the software from them, as well as their consistency on policies (app rejections)

Apple's software would be a huge improvement over what traditional automakers produce. See Toyota's pile of spaghetti topped with 10,000 global variables, Jeep's "remotely disable brakes through the entertainment unit", etc. Meanwhile iOS, while not perfect, still has the best security architecture of any mobile platform.

It sounds like you have a beef with Apple, but frankly, I want my automaker to be overly cautious with 3rd party apps. Can you imagine the Android model applied to self driving cars?

It looks like the comment you were replying to was trying to equate dealing with oil changes/maintenance to poor customer support in an ongoing relationship.

I don't know that I can fault them for feeling frustrated with Apple's support. The number of times that things have been made obsolete by Apple after just a couple of years doesn't lend a lot of confidence to the thought of a vehicle purchase that you may wish to own for 10+ years.

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