Jan 17, 2016
brooklynrab Recently, in this thread, Firmware 7.1 - For Classic Model S, a number of us emotionally debated what Tesla should be spending its time on for 7.2, now that 7.1 is out. In that thread, a number of us Classic MS drivers expressed disappointment at Tesla's seeming abandonment of refinements of half completed essential and nice-to-have features, like voice commands, the all-essential NAV, UI, Favorite voice call list, the internet radio interface, and abortions like auto-condition (or whatever its called). Some of you argued that auto-pilot is the future of the company, and Tesla should be spending al of its resources on perfecting that.
I argue that if the purpose of Tesla enhancements is to sell more cars, rather than to pump the stock price or create a revolution (debatable, I know), that Tesla should be focussing on optimizing the overall user experience with the car, and just hang in the hunt on auto pilot, since the best car companies are all doing it anyway, and this will not be a differentiator of Tesla from other cars a year from now (look at the auto shows and CES this year if you don't believe me). I believe that Tesla can make more hay and differentiate by optimizing its user experience, making it elegant and usable, turning the combination of the gorgeous 17 inch screen, voice command (which is where the entire world is going) and the steering wheel controls into the "Apple of cars", than by throwing all apparent programming resources at auto pilot, which an occasional sop to the rest of us like the garage self opener (which is great -- if I would upgrade from 6.2 -- which I won't because the UI on 7.0-7.1 sucks).
The electric drive train is a differentiator, sure, but I think Tesla needs more than that to sell a lot of cars, especially for as long as oil prices stay low, as we approach the mass market 3's.
What do you think Tesla should be doing with its programming dollars?�
Jan 17, 2016
cytranic As of 7.1 Autopilot is basically useless for me in South Florida. The restrictions put in place make it useless on the roads since nobody drives the speed limit. Summon is pretty much a toy to show and impress your friends...
With that said, I would really like to see programming dollars spent on fixing the web browser, developing the SDK for apps, and improving the aging interface.�
Jan 17, 2016
msnow IMHO the priorities should be:
1. Complete and fix the most essential things such as navigation, beta range assurance/trip planner.
2. Finish and refine the beta AP features.
Also, I think selling more cars DOES pump the stock price. To me the new 7.1 UI is a major improvement over the old 6.2 firmware but I can understand how the non-AP car owners would not agree.�
Jan 17, 2016
chriSharek Just want to add that just the fact that you can post this about this car is amazing. NO other automobile manufacturer is doing OTA updates. Wicked cool. Can't wait for MS . . . 94 days.�
Jan 17, 2016
kort677 the restrictions are only on undivided roadways, which BTW according to the notes, you shouldn't be using AP.�
Jan 17, 2016
msnow Yeah your right, it is pretty cool. My guess is the OP's purpose is to influence priorities.�
Jan 17, 2016
cytranic
That is 100% not true. The restrictions are GPS based, it has NOTHING to do with a center divider. I've driven on 6 lane streets with a median so clear you'd have to be blind not to see it... Autopilot is restricted..
In addition, if you lived in South Florida, you would know that we have highways that are schools zones during the morning. However driving on them during the day still allows the car to see the 15MPH sign, making autopilot slow the car to 20MPH.
I understand Autopilot shouldnt be used on non-highway roads. However, Tesla does not seem to be basing those restrictions on what the camera sees. Its all GPS and the roads they choose to be "non-highway".�
Jan 17, 2016
msnow Getting off topic.�
Jan 17, 2016
LetsGoFast Or on the many divided highways where the restrictions are in place either accidentally or because the real rule is more complex than simply "divided highway."�
Jan 17, 2016
slevit1md Tesla has a lot of work to do on previously released features. They need to focus on that for a while and stop introducing half baked new features to get media attention.�
Jan 17, 2016
David_Cary Autopilot is everything. Very few people don't buy a car because the supercharger routing is messed up. Name one navigation on another OEM that routes to superchargers better.
Just the promise of improvements OTA is not matched. So any weakness to a new buyer is temporary anyway.
The new differentiator of 2016 and beyond is autopilot. Tesla's is the best and because of OTA, they have essentially taken over first mover advantage.
Of course the restrictions suck. I hate the new nag. Speed limits aren't an issue for me - if I want to go over 5 over, I'm not using autopilot except on interstates and then it works. Summon is a party trick and not much else. But I do love the garage auto opening....�
Jan 17, 2016
BertL As I've said many times, and cast my recent votes for... I'd much prefer many of the non-Autopilot Beta and non-sexy basics be brought up-to-date before significant resources are expended on more of this futures stuff.
I appreciate Autopilot and Performance improvements get Press; it's the latest thing that turns really smart and impatient people on; and it's what a number of outspoken individuals live to banter about on forums like this. IMHO, finishing what was started, and bringing basic functions that may have been OK, or even best-of-breed when MS was first introduced years ago, up-to-date to match (or even better, surpass) what the competition has would serve many more existing and future Tesla Owners with functionality many more owners can use every day.
As volumes ramp up, there won't be as many perhaps forgiving early adopters. Many of these things are what new owners expect luxury brands to just have, not things they may be disappointed with after they begin to live with their new purchase and understand what's really missing. Given Tesla could send updates OTA, it makes it worse when the basics are not just there to begin with. Let's also not forget, most of what I call basics like Nav Waypoints, alternate routes, Media Player & USB deficiencies, UI tweaks, etc require only programmers behind a desk to design, test, and document with no physical engineering required. These are capabilities or changes even base model MS can utilize, where I'm sure the code could be easily reused for MX and likely M3 -- but only if Tesla prioritizes some resources to continually plunk away at these things, seeking ways to improve and deliver on what Tesla already provides. I get that Autopilot is the future, but so many of "the basics" cannot be ignored as they truly are being today.�
Jan 17, 2016
BozieBeMe2 As a 2015 85D owner, I too appreciate the fact that Tesla has brought to the market an automobile that is second to none!
Many have already extolled it's features and the shear joy of driving this car. But, many features that were major selling items at the time, seem to have been,( for the lack of better explanations ), dropped.
As per OP 'brooklynrab's post, I too would like the car's previous selling points to be 'fleshed out', improved or competed.
The voice commands should be as good or better than what you can find on any smart phone. In doing so, the NAV and sub systems, should improve greatly.
Allot of the owners seem to want more hardware updates and or, the equipment updated just like the latest models. Me, I'd settle for more optimizing and polishing of the user experience that we ALREADY have.
This car uses around 67 CPUs and has features that are already baked in, and are not even implemented yet! I understand the new toys sells this car and that is what drives the financial model, but how about finishing / completing, what you have already started?�
Jan 17, 2016
Kim.T Spend time on Nav : update the aging maps from Navigon (Navigon on my iPhone gets updated 4 times a year !) and make it possible to choose between alternative routes, and let me add way-point.
The problem with aging maps in Navigon is that TACC/AP is depending on them. I have 11km of new highway that was opened 12 month ago. When I use TACC on this way the car is constantly slowing down because it recalculates the route - it thinks im driving on small sideroads and must make a turn. I'm surprised that the car IS solving down at all, because when I make a normal trip planner - driving on small roads where I have to make a turn - why doesn't the car slow down in this case - here it knows that I have to make a turn???�
Jan 17, 2016
RDoc Perhaps they should make most of the UI open to third party programmers while they get their own house in order.
From what I see from the outside, Tesla's software development is seriously unimpressive. Since Tesla cars are so software dependent, the company really needs to be able to effectively do software development, something they seem pretty inexpert at currently.
My guess is that the lower level (or maybe all) AP functionality may be off limits for proprietary reasons, but a lot of the other annoying and incomplete parts of the UI should be open to outside development. The result would likely be great improvements in many areas quickly and simultaneously.�
Jan 17, 2016
msnow Makes sense and I wonder why that isn't being done. You would think they could source something like NAV to companies like Waze/Google or even Navigon and say build me a world class system and support it. Same with other UI components where there is a resource issue.�
Jan 17, 2016
ItsNotAboutTheMoney As a non-owner ...
Emphasis should be on AutoPilot and Trip Planner (which includes anything related to Supercharger status information).�
Jan 17, 2016
msnow If you were an owner you would likely know why we keep saying "NAV". Also there's a dependency on it for trip planner.�
Jan 17, 2016
aronth5 Why is this bring presented as one or the other? It should be a combination of both and I would be surprised if Tesla did otherwise.�
Jan 17, 2016
BertL I agree with you. As I suggested earlier, I would be OK with a slow but sure approach to knocking some of this off with perhaps an internal team who owns the non-Autopilot/Performance capabilities -- while a majority perhaps continues work on the jazzy new stuff that is needed to attract the Press and some new buyers at the same time. There is little (note I didn't say "nothing") to demonstrate Tesla Mgmt is focused that way.
As a software guy many years ago, I was hired out of college into the "maintenance team" who's job it was to fix code that was broken and do minor enhancements as the need arose... (I was the guy that got the call at 2AM when e.g. Payroll blew up, or there was some new terms in a negotiated union contract to integrate with Time & Attendance). The more senior "development" teams built new capabilities and new releases that once accepted by the user community, was turned back over to "maintenance". Both had to work in a coordinated manner, but it allowed future investments to move forward, at the same time what was running the business kept working 7x24x365 with any minor fixes and a few improvements were slipped in along the way. It does not appear Tesla operates like this, and I know a lot is different in the 35+ years since my programming days, but don't you agree the old concept sounds like something that is a lot more customer-centric than perhaps is being delivered today??
I'm a relatively new MS Owner, but i must say I find it a little disillusioning to find some of the problems and usability issues I've encountered are the same as have existed from Day 1, with now 100K MS on the road -- especially when resolution will be via software only and can be distributed OTA. I do love my MS. I also appreciate where Elon is likely headed into the future, but he and Tesla must have more attention to these littler details as Tesla grows and matures. The unresolved problems and little nits add up with some of us, and at least for me, my love for my MS becomes ever-so-slightly less as time goes on and nothing seems to be done to resolve issues I have every time I drive my MS. I'm sure if Tesla does not gain focus on doing more "maintenance" as well as future "development" at the same time , it will catch up with them in the longer run. "The masses" will expect more, yet pay less, than some (or is it "many") earlier enthusiasts have and will.�
Jan 17, 2016
green1 Their track record so far is minor changes to AP (we can argue about improvement or not) and adding half-baked features that never get completed. with few to no fixes for previous issues.
So while I agree they SHOULD do both, I actually believe that they're most likely to do neither.�
Jan 17, 2016
dpodoll My guess is that the top priority is integration of the 2017 compute platform with a new AP sensor suite. All to be used in MS, MX, and M3. MS and MX should see the new AP hardware 6 to 9 months before M3 launch (so we can debug it). A nice interim step would be an updated nav package with tight integration with AP (we are building the future nav data base as we drive with AP). It all makes so much sense.�
Jan 17, 2016
AmpedRealtor It makes me sad to say this...
Unfortunately, at this point I would not be able to recommend that any of my friends or family purchase a Tesla. We are three years into production, but Tesla still appears to be for beta testers only and not for those who want a finished, polished product. My business partner would never accept a navigation system that did not perform on par with her existing Lexus navigation system. My brother-in-law would not accept a Trip Planner that did not work well enough to rely on for determining when and where to charge. We live in the real world where we look for real solutions, not in a bubble where "just okay" is good enough.
Tesla lost me in a big way after Elon's idiotic and embarrassing "end to range anxiety" press conference. The last 12 months of software updates, with essentially no focus on polishing existing features, has left me disillusioned and questioning Tesla's focus and how it is being managed. The reality of Autopilot is that Tesla is catching up to existing auto makers, not blazing a new trail of its own. Self-parking, summoning, and auto-steering are all features that have been offered by other makers. The only feature Tesla has that others don't is automated lane changing. Other than that, BMW has already beaten Tesla to market with these features. Tesla has no first-mover advantage in anything anymore. I will note that BMW's software is NOT in beta and is release-level.
After two years I still love my car and how it drives, and service has been excellent, but in everything else my overall experience has been disappointing. Once you get beyond Tesla's electric drive train, you quickly realize that Tesla is far from a technological leader. In fact, it's quite a bit behind everyone else. BMW has already implemented gesture controls into its flagship vehicles, which is superior to a touch interface in terms of distractions. Tesla can't even give us a decent navigation system or provide a function as robust as EVTripplanner - a tool that was created by a student and is barely being maintained anymore. But even that is better to what Tesla came up with.
I have nobody to point to at Tesla other than Elon Musk for being ultimately responsible for the state of stagnation with the car's core software. Either Elon is spending too much time at SpaceX and not enough time at Tesla, or he is a terrible, awful manager who doesn't know how to properly delegate tasks and hold members of his team accountable for what they create. Given the horrible state of communications at Tesla for years despite multiple hires and executive turnover, the one common thread is Musk himself. There's nobody else visible enough at Tesla to hang this on but Musk.
The fact that Model X uses the same gimped navigation, trip planner, and media system as Model S should be alarming to the Tesla faithful. Even with its newest crown jewel that Tesla is taking extra time to perfect, nothing is happening on the software front to fix the core software and bring it up to par with the rest of the industry. Based upon this track record, I have dim hopes for Model 3. Tesla will most likely continue down this path and expect its Model 3 customers to cut it some slack, forgive the shortcomings of a new product, etc. I hope that's not the case, but if it is, Tesla and its shareholders are in for a major reality check.
It's my opinion that Tesla's Board of Directors needs to put Musk into more of an advisory/visionary capacity and should hand over the day-to-day functions of CEO to a more skilled and competent manager who can actually finish what he or she started.
Do I also need to bring up the Roadster 2.0 update, as in where is it? Maybe best not to go there.
Look at the garage auto open/close function as a prime and recent example of Tesla's failures. This feature was released but it doesn't work at all. Apparently nobody at Tesla actually tested the feature in any real world conditions before it was released. Who approved this feature being ready? Who tested it? NAMES! But we will never know. All I do know is that Tesla's software team is showing a propensity for incompetence. It's likely that the incompetence is coming from upper management, but ultimately it reflects back on the software team because they are going to be the ones blamed for the terrible state of software. This may offer one glimpse into why Tesla is losing talent to the likes of Apple and others.
About a year ago we were laughing at the horror that was Fisker's software interface, comparing it to the beautiful and functional Model S interface. Then we got version 7 which essentially "Fiskerized" a lot of what we thought was superior in version 6, and even lost some important informational feedback. Look no further than the speedo/instrument cluster to validate Tesla's software issues. Autopilot drivers, even though they may not be using Autopilot, are forced to watch a video game on their speedo instead of getting useful and valuable feedback as provided by the version 6 circular dial. Anyone with average intelligence would understand that the Autopilot interface is only useful when Autopilot is enabled, so use one mode without Autopilot and use another mode with Autopilot. Even those who are not paying for Autopilot are being forced to use the Autopilot interface - which is essentially useless for them.
I have tweeted my concerns to Elon Musk and encourage others to do the same. Unfortunately, short of a negative high profile media piece, I don't believe Tesla is going to change its focus. Has anyone noticed that Elon Musk no longer attends enthusiast gatherings? In 2013 we often saw him in front of enthusiastic throngs of owners and supporters, fielding their questions and offering his insights. The last time I remember seeing anything like this was at the last annual shareholders meeting. Tesla cannot even keep its own web site updated with regard to the executive management team, take a look:
Management | Tesla Motors
Only two people listed - JB and Elon. If you were an investor, wouldn't looking at this page scare the hell out of you? One does have to ask, on many levels, what on earth are Musk and Tesla thinking. Or are they?�
Jan 17, 2016
BozieBeMe2 What with many auto manufactors now offering Adaptive Cruise, Adaptive Lane Keeping, Adaptive Braking and Forward Collision Warning with Braking,
Tesla really is in the hot seat to make our systems 99.99%
Also, don't get me started about our UI and it's various needs.
�
Jan 17, 2016
ArtInCT Fix or enhance everything else would be my preference.
First Navigation.
Second Enhance Voice Commands.
Third speed up the browser.�
Jan 17, 2016
S4WRXTTCS As an owner who's put on quite a few road trip miles on it I'd say this biggest thing Tesla has to work on is glitches. Once the glitches are reduced then the nav needs to be worked on.
Here is was priority list should be at least as I'm concerned.
The lack of Cell connectivity after pulling out from an underground parking lot is unacceptable.
The need to reboot either the IC or the CID a couple times a month is unacceptable. The CID is mostly the problematic one.
The NAV, and the vastly outdated maps is unacceptable.
The trip planner was badly broken in V6.2/V7.0. I haven't had a chance to test V7.1 so I can't say how it performs.
The traffice based routing was badly broken in V6.2/V7.0. I haven't had a chance to test V7.1.
I think Tesla needs to have one update where they don't worry about adding in new functionality, and they just concentrate on fixes with a few added enhancements to existing features. I do feel like Tesla is in the position of doing this now that AP is feature complete in the eyes of those who purchased the AP package.
The biggest problem is sorting out the disaster that is Nav + Trip planner + Traffic Rerouting + Supercharger Status. As it currently stands one has to turn off the beta trip planner, and to use something like Waze to route for traffic.�
Jan 17, 2016
brooklynrab You are correct, great point -- it's really cool that our cars can improve with online updates like a smart phone, which is why so many of us want to see our cars improve with such updates.�
Jan 17, 2016
Mark Z Very well stated and I agree that someone should be making sure that each vehicle that leaves Fremont is fully functional for the customer without expecting the Service Centers to finish the job as properly working parts become available.�
Jan 17, 2016
SabrToothSqrl I'd like to not have to set my car to 80 to not freeze to death... Is that so hard?�
Jan 17, 2016
brooklynrab AmpedRealtor captured it pretty eloquently.....�
Jan 17, 2016
msnow +100�
Jan 17, 2016
S4WRXTTCS The problem with that is it's not that simple. There is only so much one can update, and it often leads companies to selling hardware with beta versions of SW. Tesla has had Trip planner on Beta for three major releases AFAIK. (V6.2, V7.0, V7.1) because they had to focus on AP to deliver on what they promised people who purchased that package. That's a big part of why they didn't focus on anything else. It's also partly was some of the added functionality seems more gimmicky than useful. It's that way because the current sensor suite on the AP 1.0 doesn't support everything Tesla is trying to do with the SW. For example AutoPark relies on ultrasonic sensors so that's why it goes through a very specific sequence of events. It's why it looks like a beginner.
Software upgradability is a sword that cuts both ways. When one designs a UI they take into account not only the features available today, but the features that are coming tomorrow. So you give the plumbing for it, but this plumbing might take away things that people with a previous version loved. This happened with the center instrument cluster where the current design really looks like it's designed for AP 2.0. Where it has some functionality for AP 1.0, but looks downright silly for non-AP with the little toy car sitting there.
Tesla is also extremely reliant on third party solutions. They have a navicom solution for nav so aside from map updates we're not exactly sure what they can do to improve it. Or at least I don't have a clear understanding as to what's possible.
Then there is the problem with the outdated CID Tegra 4 solution. It's really too slow to offer people the kind of speed/functionality they want. It's my understanding that they're going to switch it to a NVidia TK1/TX1 solution, but I don't know when that's going to happen. If it does happen I hope they allow people to upgrade like they allowed people with 3G to upgrade to LTE.
I'm not mad at Tesla for the current state of things. The entire Automotive market is in a upheaval, and this is the first car that had such an extensive amount of stuff that could be updated.�
Jan 17, 2016
bhuwan I agree with your points but I think this is a bit harsh. Believe it or not this feature works 100% on my car , which is hard to believe, given that the tesla engineering team built it.�
Jan 17, 2016
trils0n I feel like the other car company's driving assistance/autopilot features are the equivalent level of Tesla's Nav/Trip Planner. Just there to check the box for "lane keep assist" or self parking, but otherwise kinda lame/useless. Tesla's implementations of autopilot is way better than the newest stuff I've tried from BMW/MB, etc.
That said, Tesla really needs to step up their game on Nav and Trip Planner (and other basic stuff like linking keyfob to driver profile, etc). Nearly 3 years ago when I got my Model S, I was expecting them to make significantly more progress with the software than what they have accomplished to date, because the software was so basic/sparse/devoid of features. It still feels pretty sparse -- and lots of features don't seem like they would be a lot of work, yet would greatly improve the ownership experience. Lots of bang for Tesla's buck to get the basics right.�
Jan 17, 2016
cpa I think AmpedRealtor nailed it too.
I would just like to add a couple of things:
I am not an automobile enthusiast. I am not a software/computer person who understands all the intricacies and capabilities. My last car was a 1995 Mustang GT convertible that I owned for almost 20 years before buying my Tesla. I have no understanding of a lot of the sexy, contemporary goodies like voice commands, UI (what is that?). Autopilot, automatic summoning, and other nifty features are lost on me. This does not mean that I think they should go into the scrap pile. I am sure that there are valid safety and convenience reasons why these "luxuries" (for lack of a better term) are being introduced. But I question why they are so important now. Moreover, I really do not know if any or all of these features are standard on all makes and models or only on a selected few.
I do not think that anyone knows just what the customer base will be when the Model 3 comes out. I submit that there will be a lot of unsophisticated, earnest people who want to own a Tesla who have been driving around in a 2005 Nissan or a 1999 Pontiac. They will want a car that works 100% of the time so they can commute to work each day, run errands and take an occasional road trip to visit friends and relatives. They want to drive electric!
Most of us on here represent a very tiny and isolated fraction of the automobile-buying public. I do not believe that for statistical purposes our composition is statistically accurate. Our population skews the sample.
Tesla needs to address the chronic issues that have been problematic from day one in order to sell a car that anyone--anyone--can drive and enjoy with minimal issues. Tesla needs to walk before it runs.�
Jan 17, 2016
jeffro01 We have talked about this in other threads and as you know I agree with this sentiment 100%. I realize he's the face of the company, that doesn't necessarily have to change, but Tesla needs a "Tim Cook" at this point...
As to the rest of your post, I see at someone who sees "Tesla" in the glass half empty perspective, which is quite reasonable given the current state of affairs.
I still see it from a glass half full perspective so I wouldn't take quite the negative viewpoint to the issues you've brought up, not to say that I disagree. Hopefully that makes sense...
I still have faith that Tesla will get things smoothed out and I don't have the issues that some do with v7/7.1, NAV, auto open\close garage door (works really quite well for me
Jeff�
Jan 17, 2016
msnow I'm drifting more and more to AR's position and level of frustration. I had thought, wrongly, that Elon said 7.1 was about the UI which I took to mean this update would go a long way towards fixing the half finished features. Add to that my growing frustration with the 90D displayed range issue and I really wonder what's going over there. One of my best friends put down a deposit last year using my referral code for a fully loaded P90DL and after careful thought I recommended that he cancel until many of these long standing issues are resolved. As great a car as this is I just don't feel like defending Tesla to my close friends and family, not yet anyway. That is so sad.�
Jan 17, 2016
jerry33 Fix everything else. Especially the horrible 7.x interface, which is unsafe in many situations. Not being able to read the information for the sake of "style" (and a horrible style at that) is just plain unacceptable.�
Jan 17, 2016
Cyberax BOTH!!!
Autopilot programming and general UI programming require almost completely different skillsets. Internally they should have at least two teams, one doing the AP stuff and another doing the UI design. And a third one doing the low-level microcontroller programming.�
Jan 17, 2016
davidc18 I think AmpedRealtor nailed it too.
++1�
Jan 17, 2016
RichardL AR +100
Reading this thread (and the other similar ones) I get the feeling that many (myself included) heard what was implied by Elon's tweet about features to go in 7.1 and are deeply disappointed by the PR version we actually got. It feels like something fundamental has changed in our attitude.�
Jan 17, 2016
Cyberax For better or worse, a lot of people these days buy cars based on the media/infotaiment features.
And it actually makes sense, if you think about it. Pretty much all cars on the public roads travel at the same speed - your 40 minute daily commute will take 40 minutes on any car. It doesn't matter if you have a Hellcat or a lowly Honda Civic. So as a result most regular buyers don't really care about stuff like V6 vs. V8 and turbopumps vs. naturally aspirated engines.
Ditto for regular trim options - even lowly cars these days have electronically adjustable seats, autodimming mirrors and multi-zonal climate control. There's little left to differentiate.
Infotaiment and assistance systems are another thing - it makes sense to buy a car with a good infotaiment system since you're likely going to be using it constantly.�
Jan 17, 2016
calisnow I sympathize with you, and understand it must be frustrating to have a UI in your car that you do not find optimal. However I would make two observations: 1 - I imagine Tesla knows better than you what will sell more Teslas. 2 - You have absolutely no idea what the autonomous car market will look like in the coming years - you are an outsider writing on an internet forum (as am I). The history of AI going back to the 1940's is to assume that whatever challenges remain are simple and will be fixed shortly. Just because everyone is discussing self driving and researching it does *not* mean that everyone will have it shortly. For all you know the challenges in expanding autopilot's capabilities are deeper than they appear and require more resources to develop than you think they do. And 3 - Self driving is in my opinion, as a person who has two Teslas currently on order - absolutely the most important priority I want Elon to focus on. Sorry man but if forced to choose between a better internet radio interface and a car which will more reliably make the right decisions when driving itself down the road - I'll take the improved self driving.�
Jan 17, 2016
brooklynrab If you want the most reliable and polished self driving package 3 years from now, I'll bet you that you will be looking at a BMW or Mercedes, not a tesla. They have the resources to bury tesla on this, they are focusing on it now, and they (unlike tesla) have the experience in perfecting a thoroughly refined product. My point is that few people are going to buy one car over another because of perceived minor differences between their auto pilot suites. If tesla is perceived as being among the class leaders, that will be plenty good. The differentiator for this car, in addition to the electric motor, is the similarity to and utility of your smart phone. Which means making the user interface as perfect and simple to use as possible, starting with nav and voice command.�
Jan 17, 2016
Cyberax Quite a few C?O types I know actually looked at Tesla.
Actually, I for one bought a fully-loaded-except-P Tesla just because of these minor AP features and promises of future central console upgrades.
Except right now Tesla has worse voice commands and navigation than my 3 year old Chevy Volt. If you insist on comparing Tesla with cellphones then it's a phone from a bargain bin at Walmart checkout line, not a sleek new iPhone 7.�
Jan 17, 2016
ohmman I would argue that the differentiator is simply the electric drivetrain, the knowhow that has gone into creating that drivetrain, and maybe a head start on a serious charging infrastructure. The utility of your smart phone and user interface aren't differentiators if autopilot isn't. You can't cherry pick one without selecting the other. The thing Tesla has on everyone is a dedication to an electric drivetrain. Other manufacturers will continue to be distracted by their core businesses - until they're not. I don't know when that'll be, or if another pure electric entry (Apple?) will come to market. But that, and nearly only that, is the thing that separates Tesla from the alternatives.
When we ordered our MX, it wasn't because I think that the MX body, UI, doors, etc. have anything over the shell of the competition. In many ways, I think it lags. The only reason I ordered was because of the drivetrain. In a lot of ways, I did that in spite of the drawbacks. I want an electric car that I can take on road trips. I want my garage to have no ICE vehicles in it, and I want to be done with gas stations and oil changes. It's nearly 2020. I expected flying cars. This is the closest I can currently get.
I like the idea of giving Tesla feedback on what people would like to see. I don't like the idea that Tesla should be focused on legacy vehicles like my classic MS, though. They should focus on properly supporting my vehicle (and definitely fixing Navigation), but new features are unnecessary. I wasn't promised more voice features, and I'll still be satisfied if I don't get them. The car was more than good enough for me when I took delivery of it, and it continues to exceed expectations.�
Jan 17, 2016
byan1232 Hey what little problems are you having that's annoying? I'm awaiting delivery of my model s and would love to know more about the car.�
Jan 17, 2016
calisnow The differentiator for this car *to me* is not having the interface be as slick as an iphone - the interface is already great (I've spent 2 weeks renting two different Teslas before I ordered - one with no AP and one with). The differentiator is that it is the best damn driving car I have ever known and it doesn't use gas. And I'm not coming to Tesla from boring cars - I've been a sports car nut my entire life and have owned a string of German and Italian iron (still have the Italian iron and the Tesla will be replacing an AMG Benz). The Tesla is more fun to drive than all of them (with the exception of the Italian, but that isn't relevant competition).
As for where you think the rest of the industry will be with autopilot in 3 years - we shall see. One data point right now is in the February 2016 edition of Car & Driver (or Road & Track, I forget) - did you read the article? The BMW and Benz current in-production driver assistance systems both have error rates over 100% higher than Tesla's system, despite having more sensors.
Will everyone improve rapidly? Of course. But it is possible that Tesla's massive on-road beta testing fleet is giving them a first mover advantage that will get them to market with TRUE autonomous go-to-sleep driving several years earlier than competitors can. And if so that will be ANOTHER differentiator. I don't know about you, but if I can take a nap while my Tesla drives me 300 miles north from L.A. to Mammoth to go skiing I will upgrade in a heart beat.
Also - these two Teslas are the first cars I've leased in forever. I never lease - stupid financial decision. I keep cars til the wheels fall off - typically over 200,000 miles for daily drivers. But Teslas are improving so ridiculously fast that I don't want to get left behind.
You people can keep whining about the half-baked software features - the larger buying public doesn't care. It's a tempest in a tea cup for a bunch of geeks like us who spend our time arguing on the internet.
Three years from now both the software and hardware will be more fully baked. Their dev teams will be deeper as they grow. The range will be longer, the cars will have more autonomous capability.
Neither you nor I have any idea what the competitive landscape will look like, and this conversation will be a forgotten memory.
In the mean time Tesla's sales continue to show explosive growth while we sit here being keyboard jockeys. They're doing just fine.
And if Tesla has been dethroned 3 years from now in the autonomous driving/efficiency/handling/UI area - well then free markets will have done what they always have done - improved the product. You'll be able to get something even more magnificent to drive than the Model S you have now.
- - - Updated - - -
Perhaps they do?�
Jan 17, 2016
ecarfan My thoughts exactly. I am so pleased to own two Teslas and know that I will never visit a gas station again. I'm driving the future...today. Sure my S isn't perfect, and it has no AP, but it's a much improved car over when I bought it two years ago. That's astonishing! No other car manufacturer has ever done that.�
Jan 18, 2016
David_Cary Ok - I'm a relative newbie having started with 6.2 in 5/15 so I don't get the level of frustration you have - and I suspect the thread title has brought out a certain position. I have very little issues day to day and I am nowhere near frustrated. My only issue is with the media browser needing to hit FF sometimes to get a song to load from a playlist.
Nav - works pretty good for me. Better than other cars. Voice recognition for location entry - nearly perfect and better than other OEMs that I've had. Essentially as good as Siri for me. Time prediction and traffic routing - certainly better than iOS but not better than Google. No OEM can match Waze or Google. If anyone could, it would probably be Tesla allowing us to use those two. Waypoints? I couldn't care less. The supercharger thing is ridiculous.
Improvements for me have been great. Calendar function is slick. Auto homelink works great. TACC - even something out less than a year has improved markedly.
Ok - there is lots of room for improvement. But honestly so is every other software I've ever used. I use software every day that sucks - I mean truly terrible. I hate to say it but I have very few good things to say for the entire field of software development. Anyone in medicine will agree with me (I think???).�
Jan 18, 2016
davidc18 We like our car and we are going to replace our second car (honda odyssey) with a second MS. With that said, I have to agree that outside of the drivetrain and TACC/AutoPilot the car could use some attention.
1. browser - seriously outdated
2. music player - as basic as it comes
3. nav system and maps - how about updating the browser so we can use google maps?
4. charging system - why can't you set a time to have a set charge level?
anyway, I now understand that Tesla will devote Zero resources to finishing these products, which is sad.�
Jan 18, 2016
511keV The Tesla Model S has been on the road for three years and I've had mine for 7 months but I still consider mine a Beta status vehicle. Tesla's 7.1 release was a non-event for me and still leaves the car in Beta status. I see half finished projects not only with Autopilot, stable NAV routing, and kludgy UI but the sparsely populated Apps tab of my center console. Where is the application API? While there might be a NAV improvement, the much maligned Apple IOS Map app is far ahead. I've come to accept better integration with smart phones via Apple CarPlay (or its Goggle equivalent) will probably never happen and I'll soon be consigned to be a habitual law breaker if proposed laws are adopted in Massachusetts for having to handle my iPhone to perform some function that should be controllable via voice commands, steering wheel controls, or center console. Also, Tesla consistently turns a deaf ear to features that people in non-California coastal climates (aka climates that regularly go below 0 C) such as scheduling charge end time and decoupling battery heating from range mode while connected to a 240V circuit desperately need to have a warm battery allowing the car to drive consistently with regen.�
Jan 18, 2016
byan1232 Sorry if this is a stupid question but what do you mean by this? I live in Boston so when I receive my model S in March, I would like to know as much as possible.�
Jan 18, 2016
BertL Specifics are listed in many other threads (do searches and you'll find the discussion). For me, there are two lists -- one is what's broken or significantly missing compared to my former Lexus, BMW and MBZ -- and another set of items on my improvement wish list I hope someday to receive as an unexpected gift. To a large degree I knew what my MS came with when I placed the order, so I try not to gripe as much about new features and improvements that I'd love to have some day. What I do complain about are things clearly broken, not operating consistently, or are what I consider basics that I had and do make use of on a regular basis, e.g.
- Safety issue with 7.x UI choice to move Speed, TACC, Autopilot and all "idiot lights"/indicators to top of the IC -- It's a significant issue for me since after I've moved the steering wheel to an even higher and much less comfortable position since I took delivery with original 6.2 firmware, I still can't easily see the most important things on the IC and possible warnings needed to safely drive my MS. (I'm 5'11" and others here have said they have the same problem. See representative photo below.)
- 90kWh Battery has inaccurate Rated Range -- Tesla-acknowledged defect -- see other threads on the long detail
- USB Media Player Support -- Several Tesla-acknowledged defects. Of particular note for me, is if I play USB music (which I do all the time) it will sometimes continue to play when the car is off - further draining my battery by 2-4 mi/day. It also makes listening to longer tracks like audiobooks nearly impossible since there is no way to stop and ensure MS will pick up playing where YOU stopped listening; Occassional "unable to play" message upon restarting MS; No/inconsistent use of personal or Gracenote Cover Art like other music sources -- instead Tesla presents a huge grey static (and very annoying) box on the IC and 17"; No playlist support (I wrongly assumed this would just be there when I purchased, since Tesla elected not to provide native iPod support like most other brands)
- Driver Windshield Wiper Chatter - Tesla-acknowledged defect (yes, I know this is hardware not software, but the problem has been there since MS was first produced.)
- Navigation needs Waypoints; Alternate route choices (e.g. time vs distance); Ability to exclude toll roads, etc in route selection. These were not there when I ordered my MS, but honestly are basic usability capabilities in nearly every other non-luxury vehicle with OEM NAV the past several years, and it existed in my previous Lexus and MBZ which my MS replaced.
Other people could chime in with other things that are broken and bug them (cold feet/heating, etc), but lets not go too far off topic. There are plenty of other threads with those debates, but hopefully byan1232, that gives you a feel for my top-of-mind concerns.
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Jan 18, 2016
msnow I think the NAV/routing must be geographical thing because if you lived where I do NAV will misroute and get lost 6 out of 10 times. You wouldn't like it. Agree about the voice recognition being good but I think the OP's issue with it is they want more than just 4 or 5 commands.�
Jan 18, 2016
byan1232 Wow, I agree Tesla should focus on issues like these. I thought the NAV uses GoogleMaps so shouldn't it have the same capabilities as GoogleMaps?�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow During the rain storms we just had I paid special attention to see if my car had any wiper chatter and I can say it didn't. Unless there are some special circumstances that cause this to happen I think you should revisit this topic with your SvC because our cars were built around the same time so I assume they have identical hardware.�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow No, it uses Garmin/Navigon and hasn't been updated in over two years.�
Jan 18, 2016
ecarfan I recall the Navigon map data being updated sometime in 2015.�
Jan 18, 2016
stevezzzz If you leave your car in Range mode, you get the range benefits of more aggressive torque sleep and a limited draw for climate control while driving. But when you're plugged in to 240V shore power at home, overnight, Range mode turns off or severely limits battery heating during pre-conditioning of the interior (which many people do using the smartphone app, before unplugging in the morning), which kind of defeats the purpose of Range mode, because without a warm battery you will find that regen braking is severely limited or non-existent when the ambient temperature is low.�
Jan 18, 2016
BertL There are actually two mapping systems. The one on the IC is the real one using built-in maps and how the route is "calculated"; The 17" displays Google Maps but the route (in my overly simplistic terms) from the built-in maps is just overlaid upon it -- i.e. what shows on the IC and is used for actual routing can vary from what is represented on the 17". ...more on that in other threads too.�
Jan 18, 2016
brooklynrab I guarantee you that you are in the minority of potential tesla buyers today, and will be even more of an exception in Tesla's future as it rolls out the 3. Telsa is not an Iphone 7 (whatever that will be) -- more like an Android three or four years ago --cool, but with flakiness that needed to be worked out in order to compete with Apple. Tesla should ignore the success of Apple at its peril.
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Jan 18, 2016
msnow The map "data" that both systems use is Navigon which, according to my Service Center, was last updated October 2014. Tesla claims this is the main issue with the NAV system but since mine seems to get lost and circle around destinations that existed years before 10/2014 I'm skeptical that's the only issue. The other issue is that if you have the feature that auto routes based on traffic conditions turned on it will reroute you mid trip without you knowing it happened.�
Jan 18, 2016
Julian Cox Maybe I can help here.
Clearly there is some case for some focus on ongoing software refinements. Why not create a community sourced list of requested refinements - like a concise list of valuable user feedback.
BUT!
Most of the issues I see here relate to navigation and mapping and a sense that Tesla has moved on to AutoPilot while leaving Navigation unattended.
NOTHING could be further from the truth.
Tesla's current Nav system is based on Navigon and Google Maps. Tesla's future Nav system, the one that they are actually working on is based on Tesla Maps. There is no point in Tesla developing incrementally on Navigon and Google Maps because Tesla's system will blow it away.
I'm talking about a map system so tight that Auto Pilot sensors are reduced to the role of active collision avoidance. Tesla's Maps will drive the car with data for lanes within roads, paths through junctions, steering angles, speeds to take bends, speed limits plus Super Charger locations, status (and fleet coordination), active traffic and doubtless a whole bunch of interactive content regards places of interest, calendar integration etc etc.
Furthermore, suggesting BMW has anything like Tesla's Auto Pilot is to compare BMW's geranium to Tesla's Jack's Giant Beanstalk when both have reached a roughly similar height. They are incomparable.
Tesla's general Auto Pilot will allow Tesla to offer a Uber like service at 1/20th of the price with 100% gross profit with the added benefit of removing the random stranger sitting in the car with you operating the controls. That is how important Tesla's Auto Pilot is. It is the basis of a private transport system that the Internal Combustion Engine cannot come close to competing with whether it is Autonomous or not. Auto Pilot in conjunction with Tesla Maps, Tesla EVs, Tesla automated Super Charging and Tesla Company-Owned Service is end of global oil dependency important.
Tesla Maps is a benefit that will go fleet wide and radically improve vehicles, even those that have no Auto Pilot hardware. For example cruise control that adjusts cornering speeds for comfort - this will be applicable to 2012/2013 vehicles because these too will join the first cars that 'gain sentience' in a meaningful way of where they are in the world. No other car knows where it is in the world, all of them are dumb, even those with the best of the previous generation of Google Maps, Apple Maps, TomTom etc. These vehicles are completely reliant upon the driver processing that information. All competing Autonomy initiatives including Google's own are 'don't crash' systems, not 'driving systems' with knowledge of the task they are trying to achieve.
Naturally if Tesla announced Tesla Maps now then the next topic would be 'when' and 'why is it taking so long'. The best I can say is that it will be Free, available when it is ready and progress is rapid. When it arrives it will leap-frog any other navigation system in existence.
This is not a lack of caring, lack or leadership or a lack of foresight. This is foresight that is apparently beyond some customers imagination.
To answer the last line of your piece, I am an investor and it excites me that Tesla has surprises up its sleeve of this magnitude - but it makes me sad to see entitlement mentality turn to presumption that Musk knows not what he is doing. He does and it should probably be understood that Tesla pre-announcing this information to Tesla's Mapping and Vehicle competitors (and Mapping suppliers like Google that they plan to drop) just to calm you down would not be the optimum move for the business.�
Jan 18, 2016
liuping Ugh, this was driving me crazy, it recently changed it's mind 5 times while I was driving to location during heavy traffic. It started be routing though some surface streets, to avoid the highway traffic, then after I passed the on ramp to the highway, it decided I should take the it after all and tried to rout me back the the on ramp I just passed, then it changed again to a different highway, then other surface streets, etc. over and over again. Every time I looked down at the map had changed routes.
I've since changed the settings of the traffic avoidance to only change if it saves at least 30 minutes, and it seems to hold one particular route more often now, but I think that basically just turned it off in most situations.�
Jan 18, 2016
ohmman Well, to be fair, that statement doesn't appear to be the truth. Tesla's current navigation uses Navigon. Google Maps is simply display mechanism for the 17" upon which the maps are drawn.�
Jan 18, 2016
1208 Model 3 and Gigafactory. :smile:�
Jan 18, 2016
brooklynrab ...and Model 3 and Gigafactory will only have a chance of being a success if tesla gets all these usability issues corrected by then. Alternatively, the company will bust, stock price will go below $100, and Apple buys it -- which will then do the things that need to get done with is car. Either way, we should be long term winners -- I just dont want to wait three years to get there, after having already waited two years!�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow Julian, can you give a source for this Tesla Maps project? I too am a shareholder and I want to believe it. What gives me pause is your statement about the current NAV system being Google when Tesla says its Navigon. Further if you enter in the same destination on Google maps that you entered in the Tesla NAV you will many times get route choices not a predetermined route. When the route is the same you get different ETA's and the directions are very different.
The biggest reason I support AmpedRealtor and Jeff's argument about separating the Chairman and CEO roles is to keep the main visionary, Elon, as the top person (I love Elon and his vision) but to get a professional manager in there now that the company has grown. I think EM may be too spread out and TM deserves a dedicated top executive. It's also a better governance model.�
Jan 18, 2016
woof Regen is initially limited in the cold weather, but to me it's not much of an issue. I end up using the brake pedal more, that's all. Eventually the limitation goes away as the battery self warms with use.
I don't see the need to use extra shore power on this. Now, that's not to say it shouldn't be an option for those who do.�
Jan 18, 2016
Spidy How the hell is Tesla going to get all that map data in a reasonable timeframe? I have contributed to OpenStreetMap and it's a huge pain in the ass to get everything right and takes a lot of time and effort to keep up. Maybe they can get it for California and a few other places, but if they actually want to sell the car across the world then they need a Navigation system that works now. There is a reason the German automotive companies brought HERE maps.
Also this isn't the shareholder section. Most owners care about their car they spend their money on not some potential Uber service. Stop looking at some bigger picture, when people buy a car they want a car that does the stuff the expect it to do when they buy it.�
Jan 18, 2016
wart I vote for Fix Everything Else.
I believe that Tesla rushed out 7.1 with new automation features to steal some thunder from other automakers who were talking about vehicle automation at CES and NAIAS. Possibly good for publicity but maybe not so good for the day-to-day experience of current owners.
I have an Autopilot car. I'm glad that TACC and Autosteer exist and I use them sometimes. TACC is pretty solid but I'm always aware that Autosteer is still learning. I'd like for it to be better, but I can live with it how it is for a while.
The other glitches though - poor automatic HVAC logic, moving the outside temp display around, changing the clock, changing the energy app, etc. That kind of stuff is annoying. I used to use the media app source select menu pretty much every day. Now it's gone and the absence is annoying pretty much every day. (I'm trying to get used to using the right steering wheel knob for this. Previously I used that knob for fan speed, so I have muscle memory to retrain).
I feel like this stuff needs to really be stabilized before the Model 3 comes out. Regular folks will be less forgiving than early adopters.�
Jan 18, 2016
David99 I'm 100% with AmpedRealtor here. What he wrote pretty much is true. Tesla has created this image of being the future of technology by being the first to create a really good EV. We all give them credit for it! But looking at the details there are so many things where Tesla really is lacking compared to other cars.
I have been frustrated with Tesla's focus on few features all released as 'beta' while basic functionality is still not up to the standard of current upper class vehicles.
The reason is obvious. Summons or AP are features that everyone gets excited about and makes videos and talks about. It's creating a buzz and attention for Tesla. Fixing a broken navigation system won't get any attention. Tesla likes to do the cool features, the ones that get a 'WOW'. Everything else is on the back burner.�
Jan 18, 2016
Mark Z IMHO, why couldn't Tesla be gathering the data from the Model S AP models as they travel the highways and roads of the world? The speed changes that the drivers make plus the kW used and the data from the sensors and cameras might be fed into a database for processing. Compare and improve with map data from multiple sources that already exist and a database of all the known data in existence only gets better.�
Jan 18, 2016
green1 Mostly because there are not enough Model S cars going enough different places for this to make a reliable map. Even if it could map out every single road and every single turn, it would still be missing all the addressing information that makes navigation useful. as the car has no way of learning street names/numbers.
Can that be used to augment mapping from another provider? sure, that would be a great idea, but it can't be it's own map source.�
Jan 18, 2016
ohmman Agreed. Look at the resources Apple poured into their project and the difficulties they had. I don't think that Tesla has any real upside in getting into that game when the established maps are so strong. However, the high precision maps from AP make plenty of sense as a layered function.�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow They don't have enough cars and the distribution of the cars is limited geographically. They have to source this aspect of it.�
Jan 18, 2016
Cyberax The timestamps on the mapping data in the central console are from 2014 (some time in September, I think).�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow Where are you seeing that timestamp?�
Jan 18, 2016
Julian Cox I have edited my comment to "Navigon and Google Maps". Better now?
If you don't know why it is important that Musk remains the CEO at least up until auto industry disruption is past the tipping point with the Model 3 in mass production then the best thing to do is to support him getting on with it.
This company is not getting built the way you imagine it is being built. If you think that Tesla doing nothing but running around responding to pressure from current consumers will make the oil industry and auto industry lobbyists lie down and go away then I think you have missed something critical. Tesla poses a direct threat to interests that real wars with guns have been fought over, repeatedly.
This is a war on at least thirty different battlefronts simultaneously and the impatience of a small number of current owners that don't appreciate what a big deal it is that a highway capable car with an electric drive train even exists is one battle out of thirty and the least of it because it will prove to be a self-solving problem. Your frustration will be replaced by delight and surprise in equal measure.
There is no better governance model than a Musk or a Jobs type character leading industrial revolutions with concentrated authority (and earned respect) i.e. genuine leadership. No committee or professional manager could run Tesla and your contention proves it. Managers and committees weigh probabilities and risks relying on experts analyzing available data. A true leader is absolutely necessary where the correct path is into uncharted territory. That is how Ford was built, it was not built by a professional manager and Apple provides a concrete example of what happens when you remove the leader and install a professional manager and I'm not talking about Cook I am talking about Mike Scully followed by the resumption of genuine leadership with the return of Steve Jobs - and yes I was one of Apple's consumers that was royally hacked off when Steve Jobs dropped support for OS 9 shortly after introducing the first OSX Macs to the point of actually buying a Sony Vaio in protest when my Mac's screen was broken in airline luggage (and now I am writing to you on an OSX Mac and I have probably bought gifted and recommended well over $200K worth of Apple OSX and iOS based stuff since then for both office use and and houses full of networked Apple AV equipment and media servers that I can control from my iPhone).
So to answer your question. Source of the Tesla Maps project. Sure: Elon Musk, presentation on Autopilot 7.0.
Someone later in this thread asked "how the heck are they going to collect the map data". Answer: 70+ thousand sensor-equipped scout vehicles feeding back to a central database and counting. And the beauty of it is that this is an ongoing and expanding effort, updated in real time, and it does not need to be complete at launch for every single minor road for it to be useful. The Auto Pilot can drop back to scouting mode or even manual mode and do a fine job whenever it encounters a road that no Tesla has ever driven before. Nobody has ever launched a navigable mapping effort on this scale or with anything like the data precision that is being collected. For example Tesla is out accelerating Google's mapping efforts by a factor of 1000 already without any dedicated mapping drivers - and of course Tesla can add non-customer mapping drivers at will for example in advance of launching a new sales territory.�
Jan 18, 2016
Lump 100% agreement, thanks AR!�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow Ok we are going to have to agree to disagree on Tesla management topic but regarding the maps project you may be confusing the "detailed maps" that Elon was talking about for Autopilot and the kind of maps needed for navigation. Also 70,000 or 100,000 cars collecting data in a few countries is not enough. It would make more sense to utilize an existing and refined system so they the company can focus on building cars and AP. I did see your edits to include Navigon.�
Jan 18, 2016
Julian Cox No I am not confused about either the management topic or the map topic. Yes absolutely it is frustrating that there would appear to be readily easily addressed priorities affecting current owners that are not yet addressed. I can think of lots of things the business could do that it hasn't got round to or optimized yet. Just never forget that every other auto maker is actively fighting addressing any of these issues starting with the most important (the main bit of the car). Check out VW with its diesel nonsense or Toyota with its Hydrogen nonsense. If you are happy to settle for a car with a V8 then BMW will be most happy to oblige. Ultimately I think a lot of these frustrations come from a good place - wanting Tesla to do better for its own good.
I would suggest an effort to collate your feature improvement requests in a constructive and actionable format rather than dreaming that you have a better grasp on Tesla's business priorities than Musk does or taking personal offense when those priorities don't coincide or roll out in the same order as you would have done it. Musk is the guy doing it and it isn't as easy as focusing on customer satisfaction (or immediate customer gratification) and the rest will take care of itself, if only it was.�
Jan 18, 2016
ohmman Can you provide another source for the Tesla Maps initiative, then? Because it's been made very clear that the high precision maps he discussed were for AP ML models specifically. If this is something Tesla's putting resources into, I'm going to be pretty surprised. Not sure if it'll be in a good or bad way, though..�
Jan 18, 2016
AmpedRealtor + 1000
At some point the chickens will come home to roost.�
Jan 18, 2016
calisnow I don't claim to know how to go about building a mapping system but if the cars really are building some kind of high precision layer on top of the regular commercially available navigation maps then you're probably right - 70,000 or 100,000 cars isn't enough. But Tesla's sales - and thus its fleet - are currently on an exponential growth curve.
So if having a huge on-road fleet gathering data is in fact an important part of building a competitive moat, then as far as I know Tesla is the only auto manufacturer in existence which has this piece of the puzzle in place.�
Jan 18, 2016
Spidy I disagree that it does not have to be complete to a huge extent for basic navigation. If I drive my kid to a birthday party in the next village here in Germany then I would want that road in the navigations system just like every other car had it that I have driven in the last 10 years. It's simply unacceptable to basically downgrade on a premium car.
And as someone else already pointed out those cars are not equipped to collect all the information like street signs, house numbers etc. (probably not even equipped for storing and transmitting the giant amount of image data) There is a reason google has a 360� camera. And 1000 dedicated cars are not comparable to Tesla's 100k cars. Most of those people will drive their daily commute and other repeating routes every day, which gives you little new information. If they drive to visit someone somewhere they drive the shortest way there and back. A tesla driver drives to a village then takes the side road to his friends house and that's it. A dedicated google mapper will spend 15minutes in the village driving down every single road.
Even with OpenStreetMap and people on the ground we still use government or if we are lucky company street name lists (OpenStreetMap Straßenlistenauswertung)) to match them with what is mapped and what we have missed. For a whole year I didn't realize a streetname in my village had been missing until I got lucky and a local political party gave me a street name list.�
Jan 18, 2016
calisnow BINGO. Well put.
In addition all these complainers seem to be operating on the assumption that Tesla's dev teams are static - that Tesla isn't growing the teams to the point where at some point they *will* have the resources to address the UI issues. This is a silly assumption. Most likely these UI issues will in fact be ironed out as time goes by and Tesla's engineering resources grow. Right now they seem to focusing on fighting the most important battle there is in the auto industry after the powertrain issue - autonomy. Autonomy is the battle which matters more than anything else.
One thing I would love to see is a chart showing whether or not there is a correlation between the age of posters on this thread and how important they think Autopilot development is. I would hypothesize that the older the Tesla owner, the less important they think Autopilot is. But I could be wrong of course.�
Jan 18, 2016
morbot Everyone has a different view into what the priorities should be... and none of us are certain how much Tesla hears us or what they're up to. It's bound to cause anxiety.
It'd be nice if they enhanced the MYTESLA section of teslamotors.com for verified owners and included some sort of Cumulative Voting Prioritization mechanism. A user generated feature/bug backlog, prioritized by votes. Each owner could have 3 votes to identify their "top 3" wishlist. Items with highest votes float to the top of the priority list. If your item is resolved, you get that vote back to apply to another item (or you can remove a vote to place somewhere else as needed).
There'd be no guarantee from Tesla that they would (or could) address the issues in that order. But they could see where interest from owners was at. There'd be overhead, you'd need people to administer the list, review new submissions and periodically update the list (remove items that were addressed, either by fix or by confirmation that it cannot or will not be done).
Maybe a bit of a pipe-dream... but to me, that'd be my ideal way to communicate my desires to Tesla�
Jan 18, 2016
Cyberax On the SD card with the mapping data on the central console (yes, I did dismantle it).�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow Ok, I'll trust you on that then.�
Jan 18, 2016
Cyberax There's a site with the prioritized list of issues. Tesla ignores it pretty much completely.
And we're not talking about new features (like key-linked profiles), but freaking bugfixes to widely known bugs.�
Jan 18, 2016
Julian Cox Pretty sure that I didn't say anything about a downgrade - or any kind of inability to add third party or open-source meta data like street names, restaurants and house numbers. (It's not one or the other). What Tesla is doing (uniquely and at unprecedented speed) is laying down a set of virtual rails along millions of miles of roads every day - perhaps 10-20% of that figure incrementally day by day. Every time an existing or new customer or a dedicated scout driver goes somewhere new the virtual rail network gets extended. As you will know it is entirely possible for a Tesla 'scout' vehicle to navigate an unfamiliar road for the first time in autopilot and to continue to scout the road layout and the desired path and speeds through curves and junctions having fallen back to manual control - and after a few passes cars no longer drop out of autopilot because they know where they are going. No other car or Autonomous system knows where it is going or anything about what the roads will be like before it gets there. Tesla's does.
Another thing: Nobody else even has the capacity to map the roads like this. Ford is apparently boasting the largest Autonomous exploratory fleet with thirty (30) vehicles! Talk about the prize for the alternates! On top of that you can't even have a central OTA network in the USA if you are forced to use dealers because dealers wont sell cars that are connected to the OEM for fear of challenges to their warranty work income.
Dear Ford: we're replacing the transmission because customer reports a terrible noise in the cabin. Dear dealer, our OTA network clearly shows the noise emanates from a loose speaker connector on the stereo, we're not paying for a transmissions swap even if you fill it with sand-blasting grit and run it for 48 hours before returning it to us for inspection.�
Jan 18, 2016
Spidy I don't even know what to say...
We are talking about Tesla providing good navigation with up to date data where you enter an address and then the car gives you directions and maybe some traffic data.
Leave Autopilot out of this, unless you can show how your Tesla maps provide us with a global map, with street names, road restrictions, house numbers etc. in a very short timeframe.
Because that is what is has to offer when it replaces the current systems as you said in a comment before:
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Jan 18, 2016
S4WRXTTCS The rumor I heard was there was a dispute between Tesla and Navigon (owned by Garmin) regarding map updates. I find this really troubling because I seem to recall Tesla selling the Tech package (before the AP came out) on having perpetual upgrading maps. I didn't purchase the car at the time because I felt like the whole Tech package on a high tech car was really quite silly. I waited to till the Autopilot stuff came out where Tesla wanted money for SW that didn't exist yet. Somehow I felt like that made more sense.
Anyways as to the re-route for traffic my biggest issue with it is it didn't work in V7.0. No matter what you selected for the time saving limit it would ignore it. I don't want to be re-routed to save 5 min, but I do want to be re-routed if it's 30 min. Not only does that time-saving adjustment not work, but the re-routing is sometimes completely silent (as you rightfully pointed out). I turned it off to prevent the sneaky route changes.
Just fixing some glitches with the CID (so it always restores the cell connection properly without a reboot), and fixing the Nav would go a long ways in restoring confidence of existing customers who feel like they've been left out for far too long. I'd feel the same way as some of you if I had a pre-autopilot car. Instead I'm too busy playing with new features to eloquently write anything.�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow Couldn't agree more and I was told the same thing about the Tesla/Navigon relationship. I think the web site said we get 7 years of free map updates. What they didn't say was that would only be 1 update every 7 years. Sure hope this is all corrected soon.�
Jan 18, 2016
dpodoll 67 (marginally old) put me down for AP�
Jan 18, 2016
cpa
Sixty-two, just a hair less than marginally old, and no interest in AP.�
Jan 18, 2016
calisnow Actually how do you know this? Are you sure Mercedes isn't doing fleet learning and/or mapping with their lane assist cameras? Just because they're not publicly saying they do doesn't mean they're not doing it.
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I'm 38, and think autopilot should be the number one priority (assuming resources are limited and indeed it is a binary choice between bug fixes and moving to full autonomy - in reality I think we'll get both eventually).
I don't know about Ampedrealtor and the OP for this thread - Brooklynrab - but I have been ignoring vehicle OEM interfaces for years now and simply using my phone. Why? Phones improve at a more rapid rate than vehicle OEM systems do, and Android is so good now that I don't need my car's built-in system to do anything.
I can pick up my Droid Turbo (or speak into my Bluetooth earpiece), keep my eyes on the road and without hitting a single button say "Navigate to 123 Smith Street, Anytown, USA" and it just does it. Voice imprinted, voila. Auto-re-routes, always updating the OS - I just don't care about my car's built-in interface very much.
If the car has the ONE MOST IMPORTANT KILLER FEATURE - AUTONOMY - THAT IS THE GAME CHANGER. If the car can drive me down the road safely, allowing me to take my hands off the wheel and eyes off the road - I can fiddle around with an imperfect interface happily for hours (what else would I do? You can only listen to so much NPR and audiobooks before you need a break).
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Also - no matter what the whiners think about their imperfect interfaces - Tesla's sales are exploding. Model S up 46% year over year for 2015, while the luxury ICE makers, including BMW, Benz and Audi (with their refined interiors and perhaps less buggy interfaces) all showed double digit sales declines in the S Class, 7 series and A8. So whatever it is that Tesla is doing with its limited manpower - it's doing something right.
And I'm another data point - I can buy any car I want, and have enjoyed BMW's and Benzes over the years - but I've got two Teslas on order and I'm selling my E55 AMG. The autopilot and electric drivetrain are so compelling they FAR outweigh any buggy interface.
IF today Mercedes was selling an autopilot with the Model S's capabilities, and Tesla was selling Benz's gimped, error-prone lane assist system I would immediately buy the Benz instead. That's how important self driving is, at least to me.
Full autonomy is so important that I'm leasing these Teslas (which I never do - I always buy) because I want very badly the next level of Autopilot which I imagine Teslas will have out shortly. So yes - if you want some real world data on what is driving sales - it's autopilot, at least for this pilot.
A faulty OEM nav system, a buggy internet radio interface and other interface glitches - those are so far down my priority list that they don't even rank in my decision making process on a car purchase.
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Jan 18, 2016
ecarfan @calisnow, excellent post. Nice to see someone taking the long view. I agree with everything you said about the importance of autonomous driving and am glad Elon is making it a top priority.�
Jan 18, 2016
green1 I would posit the reverse, people who are older can see the future ahead where they may not be able to drive themselves, they want to know that the car will be ready to do it for them. Whereas younger people are more likely to want the exhilaration of stomping on the go pedal, carving up the corners, etc, they have less interest in the car doing all the fun stuff for them.�
Jan 18, 2016
dpodoll Being marginally old, the thought has crossed my mind�
Jan 18, 2016
calisnow That's a good point - my mom is 71 and one of the Teslas is for her. I have worried that the current level of Autopilot is more likely to cause her problems than solve them, however - seeing as how it requires a pretty high level of human involvement. Full autonomy, however, will be great for her as she gets older. She has a very active social life and retaining her independence will be easier with self driving cars.�
Jan 18, 2016
omarsultan No, the initial statement is correct - the nav in the dash is the self-contained Navigon system while the main display uses Google mapping data and Tesla's navigation engine.�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow Doesn't make sense. Is there a source for that statement? Link?�
Jan 18, 2016
S4WRXTTCS Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the nav is as follows.
When you have cell/wireless connectivity the car uses Google to look up an address based on your query (this part I really love). Then it puts that address in the navigon system, and that's what does the turn-by-turn routing. If you don't have internet connectivity you have to enter in the address manually. Anyways, once the route is calculated it overlays the route onto the 17inch screen that shows the map from google (assuming cell/wireless connectivity). At the same time on the left side of the IC it shows the self-contained navigon map and route.
The only exception to this is if you have the trip planner on which will do additional steps, and will likely route you in an endless circle. Or it will just spin the busy cursor and won't do anything.�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow ^^ That's the way I understand it too. It's Navigon mapping not Google. I wish it was Google.�
Jan 18, 2016
roblab But, as was pointed out, when you don't have connectivity (LTE, 4G, 3G, Wifi), you don't have Google. I rather like it, when the car drives out into the communication desert and the Maps goes to fog, that the Nav still works. There are a lot of those spots (like where I live, in Napa Valley, no less) all across the country.�
Jan 18, 2016
ohmman This is correct, as per my understanding for the last two years. I haven't seen anything in that time (until this thread) that suggests otherwise.�
Jan 18, 2016
msnow For me NAV accuracy works about 60% of the time. Not sure if it's just the outdated maps or something more.�
Jan 18, 2016
David99 It's not only one or the other. Waze works without a network as well. Of course it won't be able to get data from the server, but it is able to route you based on map data. In other words, there doesn't have to be such a dual system in place like Tesla did.�
Jan 18, 2016
omarsultan Correct, although IIRC, if you do not have internet connectivity at the the start, you cannot seed the address into Navigon at all which is a bit of a flaw.�
Jan 18, 2016
GuyGadois For me I would concentrate of fixing the bugs first. That being said the Bug fixers are probably not the Auto Steer developers. I hope they can push out more bug fixes and not wait for major releases.�
Jan 18, 2016
AWDtsla There is no need for priorities. Tesla employs A LOT of people. What Tesla should have been doing from 2012 is iterating quickly over software getting ready for a much more polished introduction of Model 3. But IMHO the current architecture will probably be abandoned in something close to it's current form, given how little iteration there has been, and judging by how incredibly slow the nav is. A hardware upgrade of the entire center console may be offered in the future for big $$$.�
Jan 19, 2016
BertL Not trying to be nit-picky or a smart aleck, but 7.0 2.9.68 introduced a new offline address entry pop-up, which is accessed by pressing the PLACES button then touching the wording at bottom of that screen. It was in the release notes as "Offline address entry is easily accessible for starting Navigation in low-connectivity areas".
Inclusion of this reinforces my belief actual Nav routing calculations are being done on-board using the Navigon data. If you use voice to input an address, it works via Google only while you have internet connectivity as a sort of front-end to the on-board process.�
Jan 19, 2016
Spidy Using a phone for me is just not acceptable on a premium car. I never had issues with Navigation or phone connectivity in recent years. So you might be ignoring OEM interfaces, but I never did, because the always worked. Getting into my bosse's 5-Series the other day took me 30sec to set up my phone. Then I got all my contacts on the car display and could easily make some calls why on my way. Not to mention that I had navigation on the head up display.
AND even if I wanted to use my phone I simply can't in Germany. There are no true unlimited dataplans and navigation would just rip through datalimit.�
Jan 19, 2016
bob_p Late this year, Chevy plans to start selling the Bolt - a lower cost EV with a 200 mile range. And while the hardware may have some challenges (slower charging times, lower performance, no equivalent of the supercharger network), the onboard software could be significantly better than the higher priced Model S and Model X.
At the lower cost, the Bolt won't have AP - but it will have some useful features such as Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Google maps (not the stagnant Navigon maps Tesla uses) and even playlists.
With the exception of Toyota, it appears the rest of the market will have Apple CarPlay, Android Auto or both - with Toyota going with a 3rd party alternative to provide comparable features. And, at least so far, Tesla appears to be satisfied with the limited integration they have for phone, contacts, media playback and calendar events. Tesla's Android app is still "beta" - after 3 years and continues to be behind the Apple app.
For Tesla's next software release, the choice shouldn't be between doing the "next big thing", fixing AP or improving the current features - it must be "all of the above", if Tesla wants to avoid getting further behind on their software.
Like AR, even though we've greatly enjoyed our 2012 P85 and continue to be strong Tesla supporters, unless Tesla starts making major improvements in their software strategy, I am concerned that inferior software could discourage us from buying additional Tesla cars to replace our 2nd (ICE) vehicle and to replace our P85 in several years.�
Jan 19, 2016
Mark Z You are even thinking of trading the superior performance and safety of a Tesla electric vehicle for the entertainment and UI options of the Bolt?
GM is doing well, but I will reserve judgement until next year.�
Jan 19, 2016
kort677 while this new car is not in the same league as a model S it has the potential to do quite well. the car will easily out perform other mid priced evs range wise, a nissan leaf or a bmw i3, and for the main stream middle of the curve driver this car will deliver enough range to be a viable choice for a vast amount of people. I owned a leaf before owning a tesla and the biggest complaint I had about the car, ignoring the econo-box level of amenities was it's severely limited range. the bolt appears to be able to provide the range that I would need to make it a viable choice of cars. I may be an aberration on here but all the tech do-dads, while nice to have, are not as important to me as having the range necessary to get through a day's worth of driving.�
Jan 19, 2016
AmpedRealtor Are you just making this stuff up? I don't mean to single you out, but much of what you say is pure fiction. There is no corroborating evidence to support what you are suggesting. No media articles, no words from Tesla or Musk, nothing. This sounds much more like fantasy that you are making up rather than reality. Would you care to post any corroborating articles, quotes, or any other evidence to support what you are saying? I'm sure your intentions are good, but you seem to be making up facts as you go along that aren't supported by any actual evidence.
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Except that I did not buy this car in order to take a "long view" on Tesla Motors. People who want that should buy the stock. I don't think Tesla finishing off the software it started three years ago and continuing to develop Autopilot are conflicting goals. It shouldn't be an either/or scenario. If that were true, Tesla would not have pushed any of 7.0 changes to pre-autopilot cars, but they did. Tesla seems to be wanting to keep pre-Autopilot cars updated in terms of UI, so it's clearly not all about Autopilot. Most customers judge the car as it stands today, not as it might be a few years from now. I don't think it's too much to ask that Tesla offer navigation and media functionality competitive with other manufacturers. Tesla also needs to find a way to incorporate CarPlay and Android Auto because that is where the market is going whether Tesla likes it or not. CarPlay just received a major auto industry award. People are demanding that the car's functionality be competitive. Autopilot is just one aspect of the vehicle's feature set, not the only one that matters.�
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