Hacker News Reader

Comment by antoniuschan99 | Hacker News Reader

I went ahead and googled if tesla uses android auto or carplay and apparently it doesn’t either. Neither does Rivian.

In almost every car I turn the screen as close to off as possible and just use my phone for navigation and music. The Tesla is the only exception: Their software is good enough to use rather than automatically ignore.

Ehh, hard disagree. I rented a Tesla for a few days. I didn't have time to spend an hour learning their UX before driving off in it, and I expected the Coca Cola of EVs to have intuitive controls. Huge mistake, I came away with the impression that Teslas are designed by people who don't actually drive cars, and I was thrilled to get back to Carplay and sane Honda ergonomics.

What were you unable to figure out? To navigate you tap the large NAVIGATE text box and enter a destination.

I was able to figure everything out fine eventually. I'm just accustomed to normal car UX. It doesn't matter if it's a Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford, whatever: I can get in a car, take ten seconds to have Carplay working, and the rest of the controls are completely intuitive without any mental effort. I don't have to navigate through on-screen menus to do literally everything. The established auto manufacturers learned these ergonomics lessons over the past 50+ years, and things are designed based on that experience. Teslas just don't have that ergonomic finesse that you don't notice until it's not there. If you feel like you're doing sysadmin work to operate your car, the designer screwed up.

Tesla didn't cram everything into a screen because it's the superior ergonomic design, they did it because it's cheap. It definitely feels cheap and very mentally cumbersome.

I don't want to be rude but if Tesla UX is not intuitive to you, you are not safe to navigate a motor vehicle.

Tesla absolutely refuses for some reason.

Rivian has said they might add it later, but they didn’t seem to think it was enough of a priority over everything else they were doing. That’s somewhat understandable.

If I was in the market for a car, they would both be a no-go though because of that. I like CarPlay too much.

> Tesla absolutely refuses for some reason.

That reason might be the $10/mo they get people to pay for live traffic, satellite maps, and access to music streaming.

Yes which is a major factor in why I bought a Mach E and have held off on getting a Rivian for now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com