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Comment by cmer | Hacker News Reader

I think pretty much every single person who owns a Model S/X would tell you that they're never going back to the old German crew. Tesla enjoys the strongest brand loyalty of any car manufacturer. Apple-like loyalty.

Tesla doesn't feel like a toy, it feels like the future. They're years ahead of everybody else in terms of tech that is usable today.

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Had 2 BMWs before my Model3 LR. Never going back.

Briefly thought of BMW i3, but once I tested Model3 & played with its Autopilot on stop/go commute - Teslas are years ahead of the game. Best part is, they can only get better.

- The very thought of dealership, auto repair shops feels very old now. I had a problem with my left indicator stalk, booked an appointment in the same Tesla app, a mobile mech pulled up, took out the whole driving wheel unit and fixed it on the spot.

- They have bi-monthly, monthly updates (feels like our software dev 2 week sprints) where they release NEW features, yes, brand new features... not just bug fixes or improvements.

The Model3 body feels like a frame-housing with an ever improving hardware/software under it to constantly make it better n better.

It feels like the iPhones vs Nokia smart phones debate in 2010.

The problem with software updates in cars is that they change the car's behavior, and you end up with a car that did one thing yesterday, and a different thing today. Like steering into a barrier. https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8a0jfh/autopil...

These videos are getting old, boring, and annoying.

Everyone who drives a tesla knows how their car behaves. I don't expect it to see that barrier when I'm driving my model 3.

Listen - it's hard to imagine what it's actually like to drive a Tesla and learning what it can or can't do. Everyone driving a tesla right now knows that the autopilot is more like a rookie co-pilot that needs monitoring and checking all along the way. Despite its limitations its still the best car out there from what I've personally experienced.

Are you actually serious right now? The number of people I see driving a Tesla on the freeway and doing anything other than monitoring and checking all along the way is ridiculous. A huge percentage of Tesla drivers absolutely do not know, or care, that autopilot requires constant attention.

Tell that to the woman I saw driving down I-45 recently in a Tesla. Going well under the flow of traffic in the left lane, doing her makeup, completely not paying attention to anything but herself.

I agree these people are risking their lives.

That shows just how badly people want to do something else instead of driving though, and how important autonomous cars are. If tesla (or some other company) can get it right, this is transformative.

They are not just risking their lives. They are risking the lives of everybody around them as well.

This is already happening with people driving.

Pay attention to other drivers, I've seen people watch a movie on their phone while driving.

I've seen people move their hands completely off of the wheel and drive.

At least with this you usually don't go hitting other cars, rather hit barriers and walls.

People do that in ICE cars.

So you missed the point about how it started behaving differently overnight after an update? Getting people used to one behavior and then changing it without their knowledge is fine in mobile apps, not so much when it's driving your car in traffic.

I didn't. I got this update too. It didn't start entirely behaving differently - it was handling the outside world a little differently and was fixed within a couple of days.

I'm not defending tesla here, I'm just saying this tech is still far better than the average driver paying barely any attention to the road.

There is a parallel with Apple. When owning the first iPhone, you knew you were holding the future and there was no coming back.

The competition was a joke for years, but eventually things normalised. Going Android is not at all the same feeling than going back to an nokia or blackberry of old.

So, who knows what current owner are going to do when every car manufacturer has a full line up of electric cars ?

Have you seen this thread [0] that's supposedly about their backend? Doesn't sound like years ahead, it sounds like an overstretched software startup chasing the latest silicon valley trends. How well will their cars work in 20 years? Will they have sorted out the service issues in five years?

Besides, when the other car manufacturers starts putting out electric cars with interiors that consists of more than a cost saving touch screen, their manufacturing and service experience will be a great benefit. Granted Tesla is pretty much the only option in their segment at the time, and have been for years. So why are they making such a big loss now, before the competition has really started?

I think Tesla was great for the car industry, and they do some things really well, but they've also made some questionable decisions. I still think betting on autonomous driving is a strange decision for a small company that have plenty of other stuff to focus on. The cars would still sell without it, let subcontractors worry about stuff like that.

[0] https://boingboing.net/2018/08/24/oh-boy-tesla-gossip.html

I don't understand why some perceive the big screen as a "cost-saving touchscreen". It's so much bigger than any other car uses, I would guess other makers perceive it as a "way too expensive touchscreen”.

I do not know the actual manufacturing cost comparison between the Tesla big screen and the corresponding set of buttons and other cars, but I think the key difference is a radically minimalist design aesthetic. I suspect both a bunch of buttons or a big screen are sufficiently inexpensive.

The Tesla decision is more similar to Apple's decision, who was not saving money when they put the largest screen ever used on a cell phone, covering most of the front of the first iPhone. Even though in the long run it probably turns out that the big touchscreen is cheaper than a bunch of buttons which individually wear out and must be warrantied etc.

I've worked on the costing side of things for head units and instrument clusters, so let me weigh in here since there are a couple things at play.

First is that Tesla just straight up doesn't play the traditional head unit provider game. Most OEMs go with one or two hardware suppliers (Denso, Pioneer, Kenwood, etc.) for their head units, pretty much all of which are completely and utterly behind on technology and also ridiculously overpriced for a variety of reasons. They also add expensive OS/software licenses or in-house development for, again, behind the times products to run on the head units and pair with your phone. Tesla, on the other hand, just grabs a good-enough touch screen, powers it with Nvidia hardware, and cranks out some pretty software built on top of Linux that mostly works.

Second is labor cost. Instrument cluster hardware isn't free, but it also isn't terribly expensive for your standard gauges in mass-manufacturing bulk. However, labor is not cheap to actually wire up, place, and test all those gauges. Wiring is one of those things that's hard to automate, so your costs between the hardware and labor boost the BOM cost up quite a bit. Tesla, on the other hand, just runs a single CAN bus connector to their center console display hardware, pulls the info they need to update it, and calls it a day.

The net result is that the total production cost of a single center screen ends up being quite a bit lower than the equivalent head unit + instrument cluster in a traditional car.

I could understand if they just replaced the infotainment with a big screen like in the model S, but the only reason they replaced the gauge cluster with a section in the center screen is to save costs. Comparing for example with the interiors from Audi A3, Mercedes A class, or Volvo XC40 they all look much more finished and developed and practical, where the Tesla model 3 looks like an unfinished afterthought.

Wait–let subcontrators worry about developing state-of-the-art capabilities for them?

FWIW I think they should be way more conservative with how they advertise Autopilot, but the only way something like that is getting shipped at this stage is from in-house.

My point was that there's no reason Tesla needs to be first to market with self driving cars, they already have a unique selling point in their electric cars. The car industry is full of suppliers doing all kinds of advanced stuff. Ferrari uses dampers from MagneRide and Öhlins, brakes from Brembo, transmissions from Graziano, and so on. Rimac makes hybrid drive trains, Bosch makes ABS and ESC, few brands makes their own seats, and so on.

Bosch have their own autonomous driving development. I don't know how far along they are compared to Tesla, partly because Elon likes to boast where others prefer to hold back, but so what if Tesla would've been a few years later with self driving than others?

https://www.bosch-mobility-solutions.com/en/highlights/autom...

> I still think betting on autonomous driving is a strange decision for a small company that have plenty of other stuff to focus on.

Yeah, but how expensive is that team?

Considering that

1) it gets some good PR (although other manufacturers are slowly starting to catch up with their own lane assistance + lane departure + adaptive cruise control features)

2) that PR effect probably generates a good influx of resumes from software engineers well-versed in AI, hardware, data science, etc.

3) those engineers can then be assigned to work on other software features, as shifting priorities demand

If you fired everybody on Autopilot team, you'd probably need to spend most of that saved cash on recruiting funnel.

Conflicting reports about car brands .. I see people saying Tesla lack a lot of quality compared to German cars. Some youtube car guys like scotty kilmer are saying german brands quality has gone to the toilet compared to early 90s. Lots of over engineered electronics, a lot more cheap materials for parts (except for the actual traction subsystem).

They're not conflicting because they refer to different senses of quality, in my estimation. Tesla's models can be said to lack in quality by design (materials, luxury features) compared to German and especially Japanese cars at a similar price point. The German cars generally lack in quality in terms of longevity and robustness, statistically and anecdotally.

Well, yeah they're playing on the meaning of quality. When you spend 80k on a car you expect it to be both solid, pretty and not a money pit on the long run.

$80k cars are the poster children of money pits. You must not be familiar with the space.

I am completely out of touch with this world and based on this thread I may never spend a minute being accustomed to it.

Recent Mercedes C class electronics are junk, software ditto. The interior has been 'upgraded', as a result of which everything feels flimsy and weak. You'd expect stuff like that on consumer electronics from the 90's, not on an A brand car. Usability is down, bling factor is up.

I owned a Model X for a couple of years. I didn't go back to the "German crew," but I did go "back" to an I-PACE. Maybe it's just my lifestyle, but I never need more than about 120 miles of range in any given day. Give me a car that can go about 250 miles, and I'm perfectly happy with the range part of the equation. Differentiate on things like the quality of the interior and the handling, and you have my business.

True but that's only a fraction of a small segment of the market, and brand loyalists aren't enough for Tesla to sustain growth.

The question is whether the existing base of premium-paying fanboys is enough to sustain a company that’s losing nearly a billion dollars per quarter. Think Apple, except if Steve Jobs never returned, and with almost triple the losses.

They're saying that NOW. What will they be saying in a year or three?

Were iPhone 2 and 4 users less loyal than iPhone 1 users?

That's the implication. Apple/iPhone customers were happy a decade ago, and are still happy today.

That's survivor bias. What about the happy blackberry customers?

They became unhappy Blackberry customers, prompting them to become a happy customer of something else. Nobody forced them to stop buying Blackberries.

And there's the point. There's no proof Tesla customers will be happy as Apple or happy as Blackberry customers in 3 years.

It's even worse here because the buying cycle for cars is longer than phones, and Tesla needs more cash right now.

Model 3 owner here:

Tesla already feels at least three years ahead of other manufacturers, and the cars other manufacturers are promising in the next few years are aiming to possibly compete with what Tesla's been selling for at least a year.

The Model S is being sold today with 370 miles of range, Autopilot, and the Supercharger network. Where will Tesla be in a few years if/when other manufacturers catch up with that?

>370 miles of range, Autopilot, and the Supercharger network

>Where will Tesla be in a few years if/when other manufacturers catch up with that?

wouldnt that be highly dependent on teslas cash burn and desperate cash grabs to survive the next quarter?

in a few years you should hope to still retain some form of autopilot, maybe the supercharger network is shared/sold off,

370 miles of range? battery tech isnt improving so much but usually battery life drops

> usually battery life drops

Tests have shown that is not really that big of a factor.

E.g. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/28/350000-miles-in-a-tesla...

https://electrek.co/2017/09/04/how-tesla-model-s-holds-up-ti...

I expected replies to my comment with links to those sites, you do know how hard they shill tesla right? only recently elons been reeing at the very author of that elektrik article

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1120820597347377152 >@FredericLambert Also, how did you manage to get shamed into being de facto anti-Tesla by social media trolls. Jeez …

but.. im sure the numbers are thoroughly researched...

Well, here is one bit of data then.

The Tesla model S 100D I bought in December 2017 now has over 17,000 miles on it, with 95% of those miles fast supercharged.

My max range has declined 2 miles. That's well under 1%, which is especially impressive given that most battery capability loss happens in the beginning of it's lifespan.

How? Well, I suppose the battery management software and hardware is as advanced as is claimed.

> supercharger network is shared/sold off

Selling the supercharger network to a separate company, and enabling it to serve all EVs, seems like an obviously great idea. Rebrand it from "Tesla Supercharger" to “Supercharger". Tesla cars can stiull be sold as compatible with “the Supercharger network”.

I'm not a financial modeling kind of person, but I suspect such a beast could sell for quite a lot of money, strengthening Tesla's finances. Perhaps one of the gigantic oil companies that owns/franchises a gigantic chain of gas stations would like to stake out a leading claim on EV charging, those folks have plenty of money.

It would also further Tesla's stated goal of accelerating the transition to EV's or whatever.

Of course there are downsides, giving up this proprietary advantage. Still, that downside versus retiring some risk seems like a nice trade-off.

>could sell for quite a lot of money, strengthening Tesla's finances

yes a trustworthy company run by a well regarded ceo that could raise money

tesla? not so optimistic. until tesla finds significant backing they're just going to keep playing the desperate cash pump game

im all for it tbh, its hella funny

Bankrupt?

Traditional automakers better hope so, because it's otherwise not going to get any easier to compete with Tesla in the next few years.

They also said that seven years ago when the first Model S was released. In three years, some auto makers might be where Tesla was seven years ago, but it'll be a good while before anyone reaches the point Tesla is at right now.

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