But in general with the UI, there was a lot of, "Hey, how do I do [elementary car function]" and he'd be like "Oh I think they changed that [or moved it in the menu] in the last update, uh let me have a look"...
Elon Musk's antics had already basically made me decide my next car wouldn't be a Tesla, but driving one a bit didn't really sell me on it anyway...
And we are not even talking about "safety critical" things like the hazards switch or parking brake or whatever. If I want to adjust the airflow to my feet by a little bit, I want to do that regardless if I'm driving or standing still. If I need to navigate a menu to do that, then I'll do that, whether I'm moving or standing still. Nobody has the patience to learn the UI up front, or pull over to navigate through a menu safely.
This dead horse has been thoroughly beaten, but please: give us physical controls! Say no to touch screens!
Your friend should have warned you that there are conditions where AP is expected not to work well, they're also clearly stated in the manual. I tend to agree that Tesla oversells the AP/FSD functionality just by the name, AP should be renamed to "vision lane assist", or something along those lines.
> But in general with the UI, there was a lot of, "Hey, how do I do [elementary car function]" and he'd be like "Oh I think they changed that [or moved it in the menu] in the last update, uh let me have a look"...
As an M3 2019 owner, I recall 2 instances since 2019 where stuff was moved around a lot, otherwise it's pretty stable.
While the first big update sacrificed some navigator real estate space for non-FSD users as well, it also grouped speed, speed limit and AP limit better at the top left corner, which used to be placed further away (now I don't need to turn my head anymore, I just glance bottom-right). The second one introduced dynamic tiles at the bottom for the less used stuff (things which were otherwise hidden behind non-intuitive areas, like the T Tesla logo at the top center of the screen).
After 6~10mo ago (can't recall) they grouped all car commands in the same panel when you bring up the settings to make it easier and more consistent to access those when required.
UI has gotten much snappier since I got the car, even though it's still running on a very low-end Intel Atom chip.
My feeling is that some breakage is sometimes required to achieve better solutions, and while there's the usual outrage of "changing my workflow" ® in the beginning, Tesla UI updates are usually for the better in the long run.
In aviation, all autopilot does is keep your plane going in a straight line at the same speed. So the use of autopilot to describe auto-cruise, lane keep assist (not just going in a straight line, but keeping inside the lane and slowing down when other cars slow down in front of you), well, an aviation autopilot doesn't go that far, so it sounds like underselling rather than overselling to me.
If Tesla is outlawed from using the term auto pilot to describe their feature, it would force the aviation industry to stop using the term as well, so I don't think the NSTB will go there, even if there are public misconceptions that auto pilot is somehow equivalent to full self driving/flying.
I see these problems with the naming:
- non-technical people have a "magic" grasp of the "autopilot" word that was passed down by movies, as a "set-and-forget" magical button that will make all the problems go away
- non-technical people won't read manuals (most of them, at least), so they are not aware of limitations, and WILL get distracted thinking AP will safely operate the car for them
- Tesla's AP, as of today does NOT handle most streets in most conditions well enough, and still has some caveats on highways, which are its intended operational domain; I understand FSD would do better, but still not a set-and-forget experience
So while I agree that it's being undersold feature-wise, I really think the issue is that "autopilot" is tied to unrealistic expectations in the mind of the average person, which easily leads to dangerous situations in the case of operating a 2-ton vehicle.
I'll put that into a checklist of things to try whenever I'll buy my next car.
edit: Locking the glovebox is a great use case, but not the typical one.
I am somewhat surprised it's not one of the actions you can customize on the hotbar. I have no doubts that if people complained about it, Tesla would add it.
My wife has a Honda CRV with android auto and it works great when I drive it. We both use Youtube Premium (formerly Google Music) for our music and I use (soon to be going away) Google Podcasts for my podcasts. Those both work great with Android Auto. My understanding from looking it up is that it is near impossible to use non-supported software with a tesla without ugly hacks. My experience with Android Auto is good that it, or something better, is an absolute requirement on my next car. From my research, it seemed like Tesla added more walled garden annoyances than improvements.
1. The navigation works really well for me. Including routing via superchargers
2. The UX of not needing a key. The bluetooth phone key works so much more reliably than other car manufacturers (n=1)
3. The screen is very responsive. Touch UI is fast.
4. The backup and side camera view is the best I’ve seen on cars.
5. Record the last X minutes from all cameras when you honk (someone backed into my car and it’s nice to have easy access to the video footage via the usb stick)
6. Auto defogging.
7. Heating and de-icing the car from the app when I’m having breakfast.
8. Autosteer (the free included one) works surprisingly well. It handles more roads and situations than I’ve seen on other manufacturers
9. Auto detect different drivers from the phone key and sets their seat/steering/settings (and even their spotify account)
There’s dozen more small things that show the attention to detail that some car manufacturers also have in their hardware but almost never have in their software.
It’s not all perfect (eg the Spotify app could be better) but it’s a lot better than any other car or rental I’ve been in, including carplay).
My wife's CRV is a 2018 which I only drive when we are driving long distances. Still, I just plug my phone in and all my data is there on android auto. I have starred places on google maps going back almost 15 years. I click a place on recents and it maps me there. I press shuffle on youtube music and it has all my history there to play through. Youtube music also has the download option so I can play music in non-signal areas. That was another thing I couldn't seem to find an answer for with a Tesla. Does spotify work without a signal? If so, how much storage does the tesla offer to spotify? I have multi-gigs of downloaded music on my phone. We hit 30+ minute terrible signal areas on our holiday travels to family.
The options seemed to be switch my apps to spotify/tesla navigation for "car riding" and have to double-entry everything from my home-listening or completely switchover. Which could maybe work for spotify (does that have the same option to upload your own music that google music had?), but definitely wouldn't work for tesla navigation. Then there's the privacy concerns that I'm now sharing more data with two places rather than one. Then the added monthly fee of using Tesla's data plan vs. android auto being free. All that made me think that getting a tesla would only increase my annoyances and costs rather than providing me a benefit. The advantages you listed are really, really nice, but hard to justify with the rest of it.
For some strange reason the Spotify app in Tesla doens't have the option to download playlists, it will only buffer ahead and cache things. I've had it happen that it stopped playing because it lost connectivity and I tried to shuffle ahead quite a few times. I think all Teslas come with at least 60GB of internal user accessible storage, you can also expand that by just plugging in a USB-drive in the glovebox. The Tidal app in Tesla does offer offline playlists, and much higher bitrate. I think Tesla is doing their audio engineers a disservice by the atrocious bitrate that they provide through the Spotify and Apple Music app. And Tidal is borderline unusable if you want innovative and ground breaking features like Shuffle, but apparently that is coming this "holiday update".
You don't need to have a "Premium Subscription" to use Spotify or any other streaming service in a Tesla, you just set up a hotspot on your phone and it will automatically connect to it. I've also seen some people connect a mobile hotspot to the glovebox USB-port. Some of them even come with additional storage and things like internal battery so it'll stay connected even when the car powers down the infotainment system. If you have an iPhone it's a little more convoluted, but it's easily sorted out with just using a Shortcut to enable hotspot that fires automatically when it connects to your car.
Tesla does a lot of things very well, and some things just don't make any sense at all. Like when they removed the "repeat playlist" option in Spotify for a year or so. It made impossible to use shuffle, as you'd usually reach the end of the playlist within a couple of shuffles, and it would just change to radio or something. It still supported the option, I could toggle it on in the Spotify app on my phone, they just removed the UI element. Luckily it came back not that long ago.
My non-Tesla does 3, 4 (camera view seems higher res than the Model Y I test drove, although I don't find the blind spot cameras that helpful because you have to take your eyes off the road to use them), 6, 7, 8 (Although I don't have enough experience to say how Tesla's compares), and 9 (except the Spotify bit, but since I use Android Auto and anyone who DJs in my car has either that or Carplay it's a non-issue)
But do you still have a key?
My phone ran out of battery some 80 km far from home last Thursday because I forgot to charge it. I could enter my car and drive back home because I open it and start the engine with a traditional physical key.
Additionally, if I were to be stranded somewhere there are 2 other people with phone keys that I could contact for them to remotely open the car, or just find a charger somewhere.
I have had more bad luck losing physical phone keys in the past.
I'll never go back to a car without being able to use my phone as a (reliable) key and store the credit card sized backup key in my wallet. Because it's just that - a backup key. In over two years I've used the key a total of zero times. And one thing I've noticed is that key fobs seems to become bigger and bigger, every year. Just look at the new Volvo key fob. It's the same size as AirPods charging case.
I still chose the BMW because the better interior and build quality, but it was definitely a sacrifice.
It has a navigate to charger feature that works reasonably well (though there are too many steps to “only show fast chargers”, and many stations are broken, though hopefully the tesla supercharger deal will fix that…)
Range estimates seem to be accurate, unlike Tesla’s high-balling.
Anyway, I’m hoping they can do at least that well moving forward.
Yes, Tesla sentry mode is really good, but I really cannot live without a parking front and lateral cameras in the narrow streets of Europe. Specially without a working PDC system.
I’m very happy with my i4, best car I’ve ever owned. And much better that all my Tesla experiences.
BMW navigation system is not very good for my needs. Maybe it is just better suited to Europe? That would explain the German-accented English it uses :). Our charging networks are so few and so saturated here in the PNW that it probably wouldn't mean much anyways.
Apple Podcasts is coming in the next (holiday) update in +- 2 weeks (seriously)...
My main issue with spotify is that the syncronization is not great (and there are no audiobooks, at least in my market).
For example, I am listening to a podcast at work during the morning. Then some hours later I get in the car to drive home and want to continue the podcast, but often spotify would not be up to date with the current listening position in the podcast and I have to manually try and find the right location.
Also navigation makes idiotic moves lately.
That said though, there are route planners that can give excellent range estimation (both for online and offline cars), by taking into account the terrain/temperature/etc, like ABetterRoutePlanner - ABRP