I mean the worst of this is the Range Rover I hired for a wedding to drive the bride in. Headlights gave out due to an electrical problem with CANbus when I was driving it back to the hire return. Just give me some fuses, switches and relays thanks.
My iPhone has 100x better navigation, media and communications support than anything else I’ve used. So I just slave it to the car with BT. I don’t even use CarPlay because bugs (Ford, Land Rover, Citroen in particular).
Keep the software and hardware separate and keep the hardware simple.
I also bet on simplicity, both because it's much cheaper, and because it gives me less trouble. Fuses, switches and relays, as you say.
I simply don't trust a company who already has my money to maintain a software package on wheels, and I just don't trust software in general.
For the price of a Tesla you should be getting so much more inside especially at the S/X price level. Compared to the Mercs and BMWs I looked at a Tesla was more comparable to a nice Honda.
Look at what BMW offers for an EV. The i3, at $44k base. The i3 is basically a midlevel compact sedan. The Model 3, which you can get for $4k cheaper, is a way better deal IMHO.
As someone with similar car, you get to know it’s quirks and use it when it adds value.
And those aren't quirks; they are big stinking problems. Never write down a problem as something that isn't one. I owned a Merc 190E once that was a bag of problems. My life got better and I got happier the day I acknowledged them and got rid of it.
Toyota frames rust out. KitchenAid gears strip (and half the stuff they put their name on is just badged garbage to begin with). Snap On tools break. LL Bean stuff wears our prematurely. Being in a "good school district" fails to magically make your kid successful. The guy with the $2k fishing setup gets out-fished by the teenager with the $40 setup who knows what makes the fish in that spot bite. Fancy pans don't make you a good cook. But yet people do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify the things they paid top dollar for as still being the best crap ever even when they fail them. Nobody expects stuff made at scale to be perfect 100% of the time but the owners of premium stuff sure act like that is the case.
You see this sort of failure denialism with all sorts of premium products. People actively refuse to believe that something else, something cheaper, could have been equivalent or better for their use case.
This seems to be a very 21st century phenomenon; product marketing gets replaced by cult membership. You don't buy a Tesla to experience a great car, you buy Tesla to tell everyone how great the experience is.
And before anyone calls this sad (which it might or might not be), consider that the alternative is either isolation by rejecting all forms of tribalism, or tribes formed around more harmful old school ideas (religious cults, violence-based tribes, tribes based on race/gender/etc.), or tribes we were born into and have no choice to leave because we can’t just buy the services of a farmer, a plumber, or a babysitter and have to rely exclusively on our tribe for those kinds of needs.
It's a worldwide phenomenon that motorcyclists in general wants to be open and inclusive. We wave to each other when we pass on the road, talk when we meet at gas stations and so on. But a Harley is not a motorcycle, it is a Harley. Most don't wave back, all frown if you try to talk to them if not out on your own Harley today but some Japanese bike and so on. Tesla and Apple users are very often in the same category of religious fanaticism for no good reason except brand loyalty. That is sad as one should be able to own a Harley, be part of a Harley crowd and not be religious about it but most (not all!) fall into this trap.
A tribe that is divided because of some businesses PR is always sad and harmful.
Secondary thing is that motorcycling is just a larger and looser consumer tribe than Harley or Yamaha or Ducati riders. Not quite as large as motorcycles + trikes, which is still smaller than bikes, trikes, and scooters. To some degree it is turtles all the way down in terms of how exclusive vs inclusive you want to be.
I personally don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with consumer tribes. The question is how does each one treat its members and newcomers and is it a healthy environment for everyone involved?
I'm guessing you are from the US, which I'm not, but I have never seen this in other bikers no matter the brand. Sure Ducati guys often hang out with eachother at a meet, as do other groups, but it's not like they don't greet other riders.
Heck, I even wave (end get waved at) when I drive my Alfa Romeo by both other Alfa drivers but also people in classic cars (and a few Ducati riders even). Totally different cultures than Harley riders, which I think is sad.
It really doesn't bother me whether it gets better or they add full self driving. Charging your car isn't a big stinking problem, it's an inherent feature.
Obviously we don't know GP's dad, but that was clearly the intent of GP's post.
I’ve heard more people describe it as “a computer with wheels” than I can remember.
I’m even more sharp with the description. It’s a no brand android tablet with wheels.
My Citroen feels better put together and it’s made of cooking foil.
But fundamentally the issues are flawed analysis rather than defective implementation.
My father has a self driving enabled Tesla Model S which he paid a hell of a lot of money for that he doesn't have as he's in his 70s, living entirely off the remains of the house he just sold. He's convinced it'll be any day now that he gets full self driving and that it'll change the world. He tells me he loves the car and phones me daily to tell me about it. But at the end of the day there are a bunch of complaints hiding in his words. This covers everything from poor fitting, paint issues, weird bugs, massive safety and computer issues, lots of hidden costs and general battery life issues. He's hiding the true picture which is not the real experience.
Between Tesla marketing and the echo chamber Tesla forums, he's traded his entire cash pile and attention for what I can only describe as a prototype that is a ball and chain which limps between bouts of charging CPR and he can't tell anyone because it might damage his conspicuous virtuous electric car identity.
But Tesla will be introducing self driving any day now he tells me. All the time. For the last 3 years...
I'm not really a proponent or opponent of electric cars. I don't really care about the things as they don't factor into my life past the utility of a screwdriver. I myself drive a third-hand Citroen with a tuk tuk engine in it which was cheap to buy and run and takes me to the shops and for the odd weekend out. But from my vantage point, I can't see the return of investment that such complex technology can add to a simple problem. All it does is make it more complicated, less safe and less reliable while milking people for cash for promises which may never materialise. If there's anything I've worked out over the last couple of decades in the software industry is that this model really doesn't work - it's the marketing and development model that Microsoft uses.
Edit: he literally just phoned me to tell me how wonderful it is again. But it cost him 5% of the battery capacity to cool it down enough that it’s not going to burn his ass off (has sunroof) which means his next journey is going to have to end with a 10 mile detour to sit in a supercharger bay (which where he lives will be busy and he’ll have to wait) and thus probably cost a coffee at the same time.