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).

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.

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.

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.

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)

I still chose the BMW because the better interior and build quality, but it was definitely a sacrifice.

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.

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.

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

Navigation is easily controlled with the iDrive knob. Previous destinations are sorted in reverse chronological order. New destinations are easy to enter. Adding destinations works as expected (insert/append). When the fuel gauge reaches 1/8 of a tank the car prompts to add a gas station on the route which can be accepted with a single button press of the main iDrive knob. When a trip is in progress I can search on the route by category for points of interest like rest stops. It picks up traffic information over AM radio and uses that information when routing.

Similarly pleasant experience when operating the radio/built in mp3 player. Everything can be done with iDrive but there are also dedicated buttons on the steering wheel and dashboard.

Climate control is managed by physical knobs.

Bluetooth calling is supported but Bluetooth audio (music) is not.

Overall an excellent experience. It's obviously dated and a little slow but completely serviceable even today. The system is completely self-contained so it does need map updates from time to time. OTA updates, even on wifi would be nice.

From a design perspective I have no complaints at all, it is well integrated with the car and otherwise stays out of the way. A helpful tool.

I hate radio. I don’t listen to much music. When driving I mostly listen to podcasts and audiobooks which sounds like is not really practically possible.

It does have a "cradle" in the center console to connect a phone, I believe audio is supported by that. Unfortunately it requires an adapter and 2010 was the era of phone minification so there's not physically room for modern mega-phones to fit between the cradle headers, even if BMW kept up with adapters. There's also an iPod adapter but it uses the 30-pin plug. I haven't tried plugging in a regular 30-pin to USB A plug to the console USB port, that might work as well.

The navigation functionality is far superior to anything else I have seen.

It's probably kinda the same story with great mechanical and industrial engineers, which is why approximately nobody finds GM cars exciting.

Building and then maintaining that software, year after year, without slowing to a crawl because of all the tech debt that's piled on (especially so since you have subpar engineers or you're contracting out to cheap workers abroad), is even harder.

And if you want to provide a user experience comparable to what the top software companies in the world are capable of, that's just not gonna happen at these car companies.

Tesla was born from the software industry, that's why they're the only ones that can compete.

The real problem is dumbass “features” (my MDX likes to show an animation of the keyboard typing out all the words a half second a letter, whenever you click autocomplete… for some reason) The real issue is that the infotainment systems are underpowered, because they’re considered an afterthought.

Also, cars sell in the millions. Car manufacturers will redesign a circuit board if it will save them cents on each board.

So it is always a struggle to put a more powerful CPU in there.

You don't need a fast chip to eliminate lag. It's just incompetence.

We don't want slow and laggy UIs because the software is bloated.

But I responded to this part:

> The real issue is that the infotainment systems are underpowered

And my point was that it is far harder than it seems to put more powerful CPUs in cars.

You definitely don't want these systems intertwined. It has the side benefit of allowing you to do pretty aggressive things like using more modern hardware, software, etc. E.G. last time I checked, Tesla uses Godot for a decent amount of their UI.

you'd hope that there'd be some kind of filtering to prevent the infotainment system from sending (arbitrary) CAN messages, but I recall some crazy demos of researchers pwning a car's accelerator after rooting the center console.

(And it’s lower ID messages which have priority over higher, which is more trivia than argument against your premise.)

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig... is one such example (might be the one GP is referring to).

1) The general public has private physical access by design.

2) The chain of custody is unclear and hard to prove. This undermines trust in the system.

When I vote where I live now in Massachusetts, I fill out a paper form in private and then I manually feed the forms into a voting machine where I have only supervised physical access.

I think it's entirely possible to have machine-counted ballots without giving unfettered and unsupervised access to the counting machines and I prefer the MA system (for the reasons you describe), but I also recognize the Constitution is clear in its reserving the power to each state for how to conduct the election (at least for President) in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2.

Here in Washington we vote on paper but the results are counted by machine. The counting process is overseen by representatives of both parties. In a recount the paper votes could be manually counted to reconcile with the machine. I’m not worried about any of that.

What is scary about voting machines is that the output isn’t guaranteed to match the input. This is for any number of reasons. The best defense against this is to print the choices in a human-readable format… on a piece of paper. Which means you don’t really need the machine at all. If it’s on the network you can’t trust anything.

The problem with chasing $25bn in subscription fees is you don’t know the opportunity cost of alienating your customer base.

They think they’ll make $25B themselves. They also want your data.

IMO, the bureaucracy isn't that big a problem; all big companies have this problem. The big problem for GM is their locations: who the heck wants to move to Detroit? Or any of the other places their suppliers tend to locate?

I'd bet that the problem is absolutely going to be more of a bureaucracy and salary issue than a location one. GM is a hilariously broken company and I can't imagine an enjoyable one to work for.

Automotive OEMs don’t work that way, they spray money at hundreds of the cheapest engineers they can get away with and hope something good comes out the other side. I’ve seen it over and over. Their problems could be solved by paying a small team of excellent engineers proper Silicon Valley wages. It would be cheaper and produce a better product, but they don’t think that way. The concept of a highly paid software engineer is objectionable to the executives in that industry.

There used to be a zoom out/overview feature, but it's def not in Android Auto these days.

I just look at both in the morning, make my own opinion on what road would be best, then I close them both and use Waze for the alerts.

But for example, if I'm traveling somewhere far away, with charging stops, I _have_ to use the Tesla maps because the car will then start preheating the battery on approach to a charger.

which is why it becomes less and less crazy to imagine apple offering a car subscription - might as well, they have the payment platform and the customers have already spent their anger on the incumbents. not that apple is alone.

Worst-case scenario these days is not too bad either, you'll get an aux connector or somewhat stable Bluetooth (if you set it up once and avoid doing anything other than play/pause/next). Yeah, from the software engineering point of view it's slow unreliable crap, but as a consumer you have little power to fix things.

So my cars are always about 5 or 6 years old when I buy them. I optimize for price and costs of running and maintaining them. What's important is that they handle well, brake as they should, be reasonably safe in case of crashes and that's it.

Infotainment and navigation, I put my phone on a holder and I use it. The car could be a dumb one from 70 years ago and I wouldn't notice. I only use Bluetooth to make hand free calls. If it had no Bluetooth I guess I'd have to find some solution for a noise canceling mic.

By the way, my current car came with a version of Android auto that Google stopped supporting the year before I bought it and the manufacturer never updated the car. However I don't care, my phone is always updated and it's exactly the same UI I'm used to when I'm not in the car. This beats having to learn two of them.

(this car pre-dates the emissions scandal, I checked.)

Also, it appeared to have no network connection so would not pick routes according to traffic.

I spent $600 on an aftermarket CarPlay and Android Auto device and couldn't be happier.

The navigation/infotainment space is a thoroughly solved domain. We don't need biweekly OTA updates to add the latest trendy thing. I don't want controls moving around or menus changing based on a perverted engagement metric.

BMW "pathced" several mechanical features of my car. This is called a "recall". Auto manufacturers try to avoid them.

As Bluetooth standards evolve, you'll want non-recall updates in your car.

Yes, that's the way most phones have gone.

> I can also not use a cable and turn the volume up to max.

My experience with 1/8" connections is that you have two means to change the volume, the one on the source and the one on the destination. There can be some issues with driving both hot (or one hot and one weak), but you set the destination in the modest middle and it works just fine.

> Either way, that's a workaround for something that's actually broken and could be fixed with a software update.

"Workaround" is the wrong way to refer to a "just works" physical standard that functioned reliably and adequately for decades without any need for continued attention / updates.

Especially when comparing it to a sand-castle software stack.

Wireless audio protocols have a few nice situational advantages, but they have not yet really reached a point where they're suitable outright replacements, and short of attaining wireless power combined with an utterly boring level of commodified stability, it's possible they won't get there.

I mean, GM doesn’t seem to have a reputation for building the best, most reliable vehicles as it is — even just looking at domestics (factor in imports, and there’s no comparison). Every time I shop for a vehicle, it’s crazy how GMs are almost universally lower rated than all other vehicles.

I mean, maybe they have cost on their side, but they better hope that and brand loyalty is all they need.

Maybe this was once not a major factor, and maybe it’s still not for some. But I’d say the number of people that don’t care about CarPlay or Android Auto is shrinking.

they did call it as it is. it's in the article:

> In addition to potentially buying things from GM or GM’s partners through their car’s infotainment system, GM is also looking at subscription services that would be managed through the same interface. GM’s chief digital officer, Edward Kummer, told Reuters as much when the decision to drop CarPlay and Android Auto was announced. Automakers see subscriptions as huge new source of income to be tapped, with GM alone hoping to make as much as $25 billion per year just off subscriptions by 2030.

> though Babbitt admits that GM hasn’t exactly tested this in a controlled setting to see whether or not it’s true.

they did:

> Automakers see subscriptions as huge new source of income to be tapped, with GM alone hoping to make as much as $25 billion per year just off subscriptions by 2030.

and the following quote is from a different part of the article:

> though Babbitt admits that GM hasn’t exactly tested this in a controlled setting to see whether or not it’s true.

specifically:

> Essentially, the thinking is that if a car’s in-built infotainment system is good enough, drivers will be less likely to use their phone for what they’re trying to do while they’re behind the wheel, — though Babbitt admits that GM hasn’t exactly tested this in a controlled setting to see whether or not it’s true.

The enshittification of everything is making me want to go berserk.

I bet repair costs on used are less than depreciatiom + finance costs on new, and there's pleasure to be gained from a retro aesthetic.

But eventually old phones stop working on the new network and you realize every major new phone has followed suit in the cash grab. sigh

My biggest issue with it is that it's been sold to us on a lie - the whole nonsense about "reclaiming the space" - it's BS. There is space for it in nearly every phone on the market.

I'm feeling like a dinosaur pointing out that I still have headphones which just work and there is literally nothing wrong with them. I own two pairs of bluetooth headphones too, and they are great - but let's not kid ourselves, there are drawbacks to it too.

I'm young enough that I will very likely need to buy a new-to-me car eventually, and there's a good chance that by then a lot of the used cars out there will be the enshitted versions. I'm not looking forward to it.

There are more considerations than simply cost of repair. Used cars break more than new cars. You are more likely to need some sort of backup plan if you have a used car. I'd be fine here in Norway: My 25 year old car is only used a few times a month. Otherwise, my partner and I walk and/or use public transportation. But I'm lucky enough to live in an area with a fairly robust public transport and pedestrian path system.

I couldn't be this secure when I lived in Indiana. Most places had little public transport, and fewer had affordable public transport (taxis only, though they likely have uber now). These options only worked if you stayed in town - but if you were like a lot of Midwestern folks, you have to drive to work and working in the next town over wasn't uncommon.

Which means: Something happens to your car, you might wind up unemployed or minimally, it pushes you ever closer to being unemployed. Hope your kid doesn't get sick and you have to miss even more work.

I'll also add that "another low mileage car" will still be expensive and you won't generally save yourself a car payment. I was lucky to find mine and if it weren't for a friend finding it, I wouldn't have it at all.

But again, it is luck. Some cars seriously went downhill before they were 10 years old.

The rest of the comments aren't specific to 25 year old cars. I've had an array of used cars in an array of ages. Anything over 4-5 years starts to break due to wear and tear. Alternators and starters go out. Brakes have wear and tear. Things happen. You still likely have a car payment - and you are more likely to if you are poor. Being poor brings the bonus of opting for a car that's been driven more instead of less simply because of the price difference.

'Pretty reliable' isn't the same as the reliability of a newer car.

Maybe at your location. For example in Spain, many people will just not be able to drive in many places in 2024 if they don't qualify to have a good-enough "environmental distinctive" which is a label you put in your car that shows how much your car pollutes. No label or too bad of a label? You can't drive in many places.

Note: In reality it's bs as many other regulations since e.g. any ECO-labelled car (2nd best distinctive) can be a 600 CV Ferrari with a tiny electric engine.

GM profit margins have been stable for the past 13 years:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GM/general-motors/...

now look at Tesla's profit margins:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/profit-...