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Comment by bhauer | Hacker News Reader

There's a flagged & dead comment in this thread that argues (in four snarky words) that a Tesla would be a better choice for a software-oriented car.

Snark aside, it's a fair point. If software quality is important, of all current manufacturers, Tesla seems the best fit since their product is as much software as it is car.

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My biggest gripe with Tesla is their lack of carplay and android auto.

They offer their own navigation software to automatically plan charging stops on long trips, but for most trips I just want Waze and their excellent traffic aware routing and speed trap notices.

FWIW, the Tesla nav is traffic-aware. I believe it's based on Google Maps.

I've used both and I'm sorry but CarPlay is far inferior to Tesla's UI.

In addition, Tesla's screen is the only interface to the car's critical functions. They're not gonna hand it over to CarPlay unless they were to provide a separate screen for the purpose.

They could put CarPlay on just part of the screen (this is what Volvo does)

Tesla's touch UI design is great, the screen is huge and responsive, and the maps are imperfect but tolerable. But phone integration is lacking (messages, music control) and voice controls are primitive. What I want is to replace the Tesla map window with a CarPlay/Android Auto window, and Tesla voice control with Siri/Google Assistant. The rest of the UI can stay.

What's stopping you from using Waze in a Tesla? It has worked great for me in the past, and I assume would now as well.

This is like people who think that by using one browser you must "switch" and get rid of the others... no.

But the latest updates of the Tesla stuff are great so I can't remember the last time I used Waze.

CarPlay, I can't speak to, but I find the built-in music features just fine.

Does Tesla support CarPlay or Android Auto?

No, they have decided not to for some reason.

Well, it is really scary for them.

Cars buying decisions are becoming more and more about UX and entertainment experience rather than HP and engine specs and even driving experience. It is scary for them to cede control of UI and UX to Apple and Google.

Auto OEMs have can't beat Apple and Google as far as the head-unit is concerned. They should accept this and find better ways of differentiating their overall experience.

Nope.

No.

This article is absolutely how I've come to feel about cars in the past 12-24 months. If a car doesn't have both CarPlay and Android Auto, I just won't get it[1]. It's like the top feature I care about after number of doors and the engine.

[1] - And there's no way I am paying extra to use it, sorry BMW.

$300 (for 20 years of use) is hardly anything when considering the total cost of a BMW.

BMW (uniquely) has moved to a new model that requires you to pay annually to use CarPlay. They do not support Android Auto.

There are two options. You pay $80/yr or $300 for 20 years. If you're leasing for 3 years then $80/yr is what you go with.

You're totally right, and it's <1% of the car, but perception is everything. BMW doing it the DIVX way[1] for a feature that's included on a Ford Focus rubs me the wrong way badly.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX

That's exactly the conclusion I've come to as well. My current car has CarPlay and there's no way I'll go back. And trying to charge me a monthly fee to use it is just insulting.

Same. My previous car had CarPlay and was totaled after about 10 months when someone hit me on the freeway. When I shopped around to replace it, I didn't even consider any car without CarPlay.

Yeah, it’s a shame that Tesla does’t have CarPlay. However nice Tesla’s interface is, most of what I want is access to stuff that I already have on my phone.

For people interested in Tesla's software quality standards, I found this link interesting.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/99sbwa/form...

Take it with a grain of salt, as I think it is sourced from the SomethingAwful forums.

"ssh to as many cars as possible in 15 minutes" oh lawd.

FWIW the bit about the Canadian kid hacking the slack is definitely true and doesn’t seem to exactly be public knowledge.

I’d assume the other stuff is true as well.

I don’t know. While they’re better than many OEMs I keep hearing that they e had Bluetooth bugs (like album art not showing) for something like 5 years that they just don’t seem to care to fix.

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