Hacker News Reader

Comment by semiotagonal | Hacker News Reader

That's true, I'm not looking to buy a Tesla. I'd include touchscreens as another problem but that's separate from the article's subject.

View on HN

I appreciate your consistency.

We've been looking to buy an electric vehicle and thought Tesla was a no-brainer. Random reports of software issues have persuaded us to wait.

Now, I'm learning there are more options from more mature brands that just don't receive as much attention as Tesla.

According to a Bloomberg survey of 5,000 model 3 owners, 98% say they would buy it again and the vehicle had surpassed their expectations. 99% percent of respondents said they would recommend the Model 3 to their family or friends.

I live in Puerto Rico where a Tesla doesn't make much sense due to the infrastructure, but these numbers still made my neck hurt with a little bit with FOMO.

I am glad there are people who buy the Tesla and like it.

I was very excited when they were first announced and was heavily considering the Model 3 as an option before it was released. Then I started reading about the features; touch screen controls, OTA updates, telemetry. None of those things are features to me, they are detriments.

Touch screen means that I have to context switch when adjusting temp.

OTA updates means that my car can end up bricked or have a buggy update.

Telemetry is removal of my privacy.

If you disallow remote telemetry (which is an option), I wonder what it would do. You should try one for a weekend. They are a fantastic car. Tesla is very careful and successful with their software updates. You can just refuse to update them (in my 7 years of owning now two of them, I've never had a problem with updates). There have been 2 or 3 updates that were required because they were safety issues (they changed the way the s adjusts the height of the car at high speed to be more conservative in one of them). Tesla software is not like the shit software you'd expect in legacy car companies.

According to a Bloomberg survey of 5,000 model 3 owners, 98% say they would buy it again and the vehicle had surpassed their expectations.

I don't doubt those numbers at all, but here's the trick: I'll bet you could find similar numbers for just about any electric vehicle. And here's why: the odds are extremely good that if you own an electric vehicle, it's your first electric vehicle. The market just isn't that old. I bought one of the first Nissan Leafs, and it's only eight years old.

Okay, so if we can agree that most EV owners are on their first EV, then of course 98% of them are going to buy another one because regardless of make or model, EVs are just that good. Yeah, yeah, you drive from SF to LA every day, but we're not talking about you, we're talking about people that already decided to buy an EV. I'd venture that many are like me, and after a bit feel that ICEs are downright primitive. So their next car is going to be an EV, and why not buy the one I'm already happy with?

The Model 3 has not existed for long enough for those statistics to make any sense. It's very easy for somebody to love a new car.

People say about the same for the S, and they came out in 2012.

It's true that there are bugs in software updates. However my car has gotten 5% faster twice from 2 separate software updates. Never had this experience in another car and it's truly fantastic.

Let's be fair. The most recent release has also caused a few people to have near misses as their car goes in a direction opposite to what they intended. Frequent software updates comes with risks.

Yeah of course. As I understand it we all checked boxes basically agreeing to be on the bleeding edge of software updates so that issues like this can be identified fixed before general rollout. Yes it's crazy.

> Random reports of software issues have persuaded us to wait

Case in point, the current release that has been rolling out over the last week or so definitely has some ominous bug reports.

But on the other hand, updates aren't forced, you can cancel them when they're offered.

It's a double edge sword, really. I've had several cars that desperately needed an update but it was impossible to get. I think I lean in the direction of having OTA updates available, as long as I maintain 100% control of them. And I need to be able to control data from my car going into the cloud. I think Tesla has both of these covered, though it could be implemented more elegantly.

Every car has some random problem. Don't forget there are 30k fires every year in the engine of internal combustion engines (of course there are a lot of those cars). But no one says I won't buy a gas car because it might catch on fire. Tesla quality is generally very high. They are made by humans so there will be some problems, but they can be fixed. My car is 4.5 years old now, recently decided to buy the extended warranty and keep it till it's 8 years old.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com