It's a dream to drive! But the user experience is abysmal. Menus are deep, the entire dashboard is wasted, including the most valuable real estate in front of the driver, and everything is just too hard.
E.g. Adjusting mirrors takes 3 menu clicks, don't even think of doing it while driving.
Adjusting heating takes two clicks, and when you adjust temp, it clears all your other settings and goes to "auto", which half the time will engage A/C because it's over desired temp by a small amount.
Seat warmer? 2+ clicks on center console. Radio stations? 2+ menus, minimum two if you set up a hotkey bar on the bottom of the tablet.
Map? You're practically looking at the passenger glove box to see it.
As mentioned below, the glove box itself is two menus deep.
I find my wife has a mental thermostat model where she expects the heat to turn off if she dials down the climate control, but that just turns on AC full blast.
I'd pay 5k more to have buttons and dials. I love the car for its drive, but really hate the interior interfaces. This model of "Bolt an ipad to the dash" needs to die.
Wow, that's horrible! While I set my mirrors initially while parked, I often find the need to make fine adjustments while driving (in low-stress situations).
Having to use a 3-layer-deep menu for that —on the center console, no less— is just a complete dealbreaker.
Thank you for posting that! Makes my decision tree easier and another key item to check in evaluating new cars.
EDIT: "fine adjustments" => "fine"
Also, you can put the seat warmer icon on the bottom bar, so its just one tap to toggle off/levels 1-3/auto.
I'm not sure what you mean about the map. Every car that I've used has that to the right in a similar position. The tesla layout seems fine to me.
The glovebox is my biggest annoyance, in general. I wish there was a button somewhere.
20 years ago I was taught that mirrors should have already been adjusted by the time you turn the key. Has this changed? Why would you ever need to adjust the mirrors while driving?
> it clears all your other settings and goes to "auto",
No it doesn't
> Seat warmer? 2+ clicks on center console
It's over click. It's still awful because you have to look at the screen, but it's still only 1 click. There is no reason to lie, it's still terrible.
> Map? You're practically looking at the passenger glove box to see it.
Unless you display is overlapping the glove box somehow, this is not the case.
I find it hard to get a really good setting on my mirrors unless I'm driving (I do at least only mess with it on slow roads with no one around).
To open the glove box requires 2 screen presses or activating the voice controls. On the one hand it's an uncommonly used feature, I think I've opened mine once this year. On the other hand it's rather silly that there isn't a button or sensor to allow you to open it physically.
Consider that my Model 3 has a sensor that detects if I close the center console improperly and displays a message on screen, same with the frunk. I would gladly replace one of those sensors for one that detects me groping the glovebox door.
That's an interesting way to think about it. I own a Y and have rented a 3 after owning it for more than a year. Even in that situation, the rental was less good than ownership. The rental didn't have app access, so I had to use a keycard. That made locking/unlocking much more awkward. I also couldn't precondition from the app.
It was still a great car, but it felt nothing like the day to day experience of owning one.
I believe if the car is unlocked, then the screen can be used to open the glove box. If the car isn't unlocked, then you broke in and prying open the glove box isn't beyond what you're willing to do.
I have come to appreciate my Model Y's interface for its uniformity. I do love a well designed physical interface, but what you get in most other cars is a total mishmash of control schemes and design languages that change make to make, model to model, and button to button.
That's one thing I like with my Up!. The infotainment system is a simple phone holder with USB to power it.
I don't think we'll ever be forced into buying these ridiculous computers with cars attached.
My current manufacturer of choice is Honda, but I'm sure they'll end up adding this cruft at some point to their future cars, too.
Tesla, pre Model 3, had real issues that went beyond panel gaps. Modern Tesla is doing much better, but they're competing against established players who differentiate through great interiors and "the little details".
Large portions of this customer segment are willing to trade long term reliability for perceived build quality and overall luxury. Tesla's value proposition, which is great performance and long term reliability at the expense of panel gap size and cheap leather, simply doesn't fit their expectations.
On the model S in the show room, the boot looked like they had painted over a number of bugs.
One door was higher than the other. The panel gap around the driver door was massive.
I have a 2006 kia rio, which has better paint work, and better panel gaps than a tesla, and costs £1800.
I really wanted to like the tesla as I could have got a good deal, but if it didn't fit together, then what else has crappy tolerances? is the NCAP performance rigged? will it actually survive a crash?
edit stuff like this: https://imgur.com/gallery/jlSOOHJ
Are you aware that Tesla's MCU bricks itself after a few years due to eMMC wear? They also dragged their feet before finally caving in and agreeing to a recall. I wouldn't call any Tesla reliable long-term. The older models have proven themselves to be not reliable, and the new models are too new for these issues due to poor design to surface.
It's pervasive across the whole company. Remember when Elon was complaining about the lack of car carrier trailers, and making plans to build his own? Tesla was the only company with that problem.
Or at least made it so the writes are spread out over the 64GB replacement resulting in 8x longevity.
I've seen many auto manufacturers go under over the course of my life. Tesla is just going to be another one.
And Tesla yokes fall apart, who doesn't care about that ?
But yeah, bad infotainment can make car feel very old, in the "what the fuck I spent my money on, my ancient phone is faster!" way. Especially when you save few bucks putting essential controls on touch screen instead of a knob
panel gaps are a sign of quality. Why are there gaps? at best the door hinges are not aligned properly, at worse the whole chassis is warped. Does the door close properly, as in seat where it's designed to? will that cause paint damage? when the temperature changes and the doors shift, will that make the windows fail to close properly?
If the doors are not aligned properly, does that mean that if there is a crash, the points where the load is supposed to be dissipated are missed?
Does that mean that its easier to break into? can I just get a slimjim down the inside and hoik out valuables.
If this was a budget car, that was engineered to a price so that _everyone_ can afford it, then yes, I'd let tesla off. its not a big problem. But its not, Telsa are supposedly a luxury car maker.
Seems pragmatic to me to care about it.
This is your statement.
They "don't even matter". It's not pragmatic to care about panel gaps. It doesn't matter.
That is what you are stating, that isn't me misquoting or being malicious, they're your words!
If you meant to instead say "There are diminishing returns to reduce panel gap size, and Tesla have got it right!", then I agree with the first statement, disagree with the second, but best of all it clarifies your point. Cheers!
“They don’t matter” as in “the returns on decreasing the panel gap from the 1st percentile of panel gaps on the market to the 99th percentile are so small, spending energy on thinking about it is probably more expensive. It is a cosmetic issue.”