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Comment by oblio | Hacker News Reader

> But for me, when I ride in a Tesla, I get a giddy feeling, like the first time I held an iPhone. You just know it's the future. There are so many radical, bold, and correct ideas. Every time I get a software update I'm a kid on Christmas morning. It is just such a fun experience, and for those of you who love to be on the bleeding edge, you'd probably love it too.

I'd love to agree with you, but the thing is, with a car the "bleeding edge" can literally be a bleeding edge.

A phone can do comparatively much less harm. Even ones with high radiation levels and batteries exploding didn't do much harm, all things considered. An out of control car... that's another thing entirely.

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> with a car the "bleeding edge" can literally be a bleeding edge.

And that's precisely why I used the term "bleeding edge" :) But more with regards to the support/repair experience, and less with regards to safety.

I think Teslas on the road today are relatively safe. You have idiots using Autopilot incorrectly, but you have to go through a fair amount of effort to abuse Autopilot. The car handles phenomenally and performs well in crash tests. I haven't really seen cases of "out of control Teslas" - at least, nothing suggesting an anomaly compared to other manufacturers.

The only "out of control" Teslas I've heard about are people misusing autopilot.

I could engage the cruise control in my 2011 VW Scirocco and drive straight into a concrete barrier, I don't see any material difference.

In fact I'd imagine that this is happening all over the world on a pretty much daily basis but we don't hear about it because it's not Tesla.

The difference is, using your example, on Tesla it's called Autopilot, while on the VW Scirocco it's called cruise control.

Naming makes a very big difference in how people perceive and use things.

Other cars get software updates too, just you need to go to the dealership to get them. And they are not exempt of bugs either, but its just more trouble to have them fixed.

> Other cars get software updates too, just you need to go to the dealership to get them.

Not in every case. The past two software updates I've gotten for my I-PACE have been over-the-air. In fact they installed while I was driving the car without interrupting anything.

I didn't know they did that. Would be really nice if it became widespread.

My dealership wants to charge me $330 to do software updates to several components in my pickup that will fix some bugs, since its out of its bumper to bumper warranty.

I know for a fact based on prior employment that other OEMs have the capability and infrastructure in place to implement OTA updates. I don't know why they don't since as a vendor we weren't privy to those kinds of business decisions and I assume they have their reasons. The infrastructure mostly gets used for telemetry (drive-train related stuff so they can decide what they can and can't skimp on) at present.

I’m curious... what kind of car do you drive? I’d like to look up the safety data.

Volvo V40.

It's a shame Volvo hasn't brought that car to the US for almost a decade. I may consider the new XC40 electric when it arrives over here.

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