I have a year and a half old Tesla and despite all the complaining about build quality I hear, I haven’t had a single issue. The interior is simple, comfortable, and has fewer components that will eventually break. It’s good enough. Why I love the car is the tech. Self driving completely aside, the software is fantastic, thoughtful, and always getting better.

Contrast that with the BMW SUV I recently rented while on vacation. BMW seems like it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. It’s loaded with buttons and physical accoutrements that they charge for as premium upgrades. When it came to the tech, it was absolutely maddening and was the single reason why I’d never buy one. Just finding and connecting to CarPlay was nearly impossible, buried 10 pages deep in a buggy and unresponsive interface.

This is representative of my experience with almost every traditional auto manufacturer and I rarely see any signs of progress. If “software is eating the world”, it’s barely begun in the auto industry.