A Fart Toy. Seriously?

[gnuarm]

The new toys also expect an update to the Tesla App. It hasn't been posted (yet).
I like fun as much as the next guy but when I spend $100,000 on a car I expect it to be far more reliable and deal better with safety issues. Frankly, it's the least reliable of the 26 cars I've owned since my stock 1930 Model A Ford.

You, sir, should feel honored. DeLorean had a stable of cars and every time he took out the Jag, it didn't come back under its own power. After 7 tries he got rid of it. Your model X is in good company.

I've also worked in the software industry for about 50 years. Before I retired, I had designed and built computers as well as written a lot of code and had to support it. I also wrote a dozen books on the subject. EVERY time you post an update you risk the chance of screwing up stuff through the laws of unintended side-effects. I like cool, but not when it does not enhance safety and reliability.

Perhaps I'm miffed because my Model X has failed to start on at least two separate occasions with Tesla being unable to tell me why. Seeing a new update does not assuage my fears that something new and "cool" will put me and my family in jeopardy.

"Failed to start"??? Did you have the key in the right way? Try jiggling the steering wheel.

 

[Daniellane]

Tesla Farting! Easter Egg 2018.48.12.1

 

[muleferg]

My wife and I are picking up her Model X tomorrow. I might be single again. I plan to turn it on not telling her about the fart app.

 

[jeffro01]

Someone reported that the Auto-wipers worked better in this release (48.12). I haven't checked it out yet.

I haven't had any issues with them since I got my X in Sept... We haven't had that much rain but they haven't failed to start or gone skitzoid on me either...

Jeff

 

[Bogobec]

I heard they were building a new Gigafactory to house the Easter egg developers.

Can’t wait to see what new Easter eggs come out of it!

 

[SMAlset]

While I agree with the OPs assessment regarding when the mirrors unfold as I'm constantly hitting my drivers side mirror walking down the very tight corridor between the car and the garage wall, I love the new fart app... LOL My son is going to get a kick out of it when I pick him up from school today... LOL

Yes though, for sure, the mirrors should not unfold until the driver "starts" the car... I've never understood why Tesla does it the way they do for no real reason...

Jeff

Actually with Passive Entry on, I love walking up to the car and knowing the doors have unlocked (not only by the door handles extending but the mirrors unfolding). Similarly when I leave car, I can't always notice the door handle position if I'm a good distance away but I can see what position the mirrors are in.

As much as I'm not into "toilet humor", it was the first Easter Egg we tried out this morning and honestly I thought it was very well done. Had not been expecting it to be programmable to a certain seat. I won't even go into the various choices. Just a setting one never has to activate but I know it humors alot of adults and especially little kids. All the more to make kids love their parents Tesla I guess. I can't wait to see the video posts on surprising people with this one.

 

[puritan]

For f's sake, lighten up.

This is a company trying to redefine what a car means to us. This is the official equivalent of the Blackberry to iPhone transition.

Yes, there are headaches. Yes, its a pain in the ass. But what do you expect from a company that is not even a decade into mass manufacturing?

If they resort to farting on turn signals until they figure the bigger stuff out, so be it.

I probably have a higher tolerance to failure since my other car is a Jaguar, but still.

 

[SMAlset]

Tesla is struggling with an image problem. Releasing a fart app only adds to the impression that it's run by eleven-year-old kids with no idea about how to run a company and respond to real customer issues.

Some of us are heavier, wider and taller than the 5'5'', 30" waist kids making the decisions.

I see you are a technology critic from your info. I think the image problem you refer to is mostly pushed by short sellers and the press who have a financial incentive in both cases. From what I can tell, Teslas are selling very well and their owners, certainly the vast majority of them, simply Love their car/s. There are people working on the real customer issues as well. The fact that our cars have Easter Eggs on top of the other great things the cars embody is part of the cool factor. It's customer goodwill and a real asset. And you can be older than 11 and not 5'5" with 30" waists to appreciate having some fun.

When I was in my 20s a number of decades ago, I worked for a couple of "young" companies. We put in long hours to get established and add new customers. We were all a tight-knit group of like-minded people for the most part in their 20s and 30s and we enjoyed playing games late at night before heading home -- played them on early computers in fact less powerful than our MCUs. Got our work done, the companies continued to grow and give out bonuses and actually I would say this was some of the best times being employed. I know my father never quite understood. Nor his sister who was all nose to the grindstone, just the way they were raised. Maybe with that attitude that's why so many people hated their jobs. If you hate your job, you're not likely to be creative. Tesla is a young, vibrant, creative and talented company wanting to make the world better and having fun doing it. Tesla made zero emission cars fun to drive and own. People who embrace that outlook are the ones buying the cars. If the engineers can't be creative alongside working hard on these cars, we'd have nothing different than what has been built before. Tesla vehicles attract people for many different reasons. I don't begrudge Tesla for devoting what is probably a small amount of time to turning out an Easter Egg or two once or twice a year at most -- something that if you have to look for to find BTW in the hidden tray. The smiles and laughs from owners and their passengers is what helps Tesla sell it's cars. Good image to have if you ask me.

 

[Silicon Desert]

I guess I don't need the update because I already have a passenger that farts on a regular basis

 

[HostileHarry]

I thought it was funny and fully appreciated it. Sheesh.

 

[xyeahtony]

Note to self: make list of who NOT to invite to the party.

agreed. does anyone actually think tesla stopped all their engineers from solving real problems to create a fart app? How incredibly naive.

All work and no play... Its a car, try and enjoy the little things in life and don't get all your panties tied up in a knot. If you don't like easter eggs, go buy a car that doesn't get software updates.

 

[_jmk]

So how do you guys know the fart app is the priority? Are you at the Tesla meetings?

Someone had to write the code. The same person was also qualified to figure out the socket io problems with the streaming; modem part of the equation seems to be OK as the maps load fine at the same time.

 

[_jmk]

That said, it really should not be that hard to get the hardware accelerated video apps, browser and other stuff going properly since the thing runs on chipsets where all these things work fine out of the box with linux. Heck, even the application SDK feels like a months job to me - especially if they had used yocto initially for the core system and demanded semi-ready hardware layers from the chipset providers. Toy games and farts are nice, but please focus with proper priorities.

I guess the bit sad part here is that 5 man software team from China can get a better tablet experience than Tesla now. It's heavy to build the whole stack yourself.

 

[Cory151]

The new toys also expect an update to the Tesla App. It hasn't been posted (yet).
I like fun as much as the next guy but when I spend $100,000 on a car I expect it to be far more reliable and deal better with safety issues. Frankly, it's the least reliable of the 26 cars I've owned since my stock 1930 Model A Ford.

I've also worked in the software industry for about 50 years. Before I retired, I had designed and built computers as well as written a lot of code and had to support it. I also wrote a dozen books on the subject. EVERY time you post an update you risk the chance of screwing up stuff through the laws of unintended side-effects. I like cool, but not when it does not enhance safety and reliability.

Perhaps I'm miffed because my Model X has failed to start on at least two separate occasions with Tesla being unable to tell me why. Seeing a new update does not assuage my fears that something new and "cool" will put me and my family in jeopardy.

Do you really think Tesla has the whiner AARP crowd in mind, when they develop Easter eggs? The company that's building the fastest production sports car in the world? The company who's cars quote cult films such as Spinal Tap or Space balls (those are motion pictures from the 80's sir).

Ain't nothin but Air and opportunity standing in the way of you trading that Model X in for a your old stock 1930 Model A Ford. Conversely, if you were to get a Buick or Cadillac, you would not have to worry about fart noises and updates.

 

[flar]

Perhaps I'm miffed because my Model X has failed to start on at least two separate occasions with Tesla being unable to tell me why. Seeing a new update does not assuage my fears that something new and "cool" will put me and my family in jeopardy.

While I agree with your comments on software methodology, it's important to keep in mind that there are multiple computers on board. Issues that might arise from an Easter egg should not affect safety. You can literally reboot the computer running the main display (which is also running the Easter eggs) while driving on autopilot.

I get the impression that they have different coding standards and probably different teams responsible for the driving computer(s?) and the display computer.

 

[OBX John]

Perhaps they should have included a "Get Off My Lawn!" easter egg for the OP?

A sense of humor makes the whole world better, and a better world is part of the Tesla Mission.

 

[Peteski]

agreed. does anyone actually think tesla stopped all their engineers from solving real problems to create a fart app? How incredibly naive.

All work and no play... Its a car, try and enjoy the little things in life and don't get all your panties tied up in a knot. If you don't like easter eggs, go buy a car that doesn't get software updates.

I like the fun element of the Easter Eggs, but it is irritating when basic stuff like music streaming (Spotify in my UK car) doesn't work reliably. As much as I love my Tesla and wouldn't swap it for anything else, software quality control is piss poor and adding more Easter Eggs just makes it look like they don't really care. It's about time they consolidated the software and actually made it reliable. A fart Easter Egg doesn't compensate for Spotify that freezes on a daily basis or various other software bugs. How about a non-freezing software Easter Egg next? That would be really cool! Or even a web browser that actually works?

 

[Ludalicious]

My kids love this feature..... BY far the biggest smile thus far from any car my kids got.

 

[Super_Popular]

Tesla Farting! Easter Egg 2018.48.12.1

omg that is hilarious.

 

[trmmcd]

I completely gave up on the idea that the USB interface on the X will ever work correctly. The fart app on the other hand is a great implementation. For the record - I am card carrying AARP member - but I felt about 60 years younger playing with the app. I now want them to assign the fart app developer to the USB problem.