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Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)
- Thread starter FredTMC
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WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Plus, it seems to me, IF (big if?) Tesla can figure out Voice Recognition / Feature Control, with the available CPU-power, then an OTA update will make all the other dashboards-covered-with-buttons-and-dials look archaic.
I do find the touchscreen annoying sometimes. With mechanical buttons you do get tactile feedback you are on the button you wanted to push. With a touch screen you need visual feedback which means taking your eyes off the road. Better voice recognition would be great. I have a pretty standard west coast US accent but voice recognition systems just don't recognize my commands for some reason. I gave up a Siri a long time ago. I can get the car to dial the number I want by basically yelling on syllable at a time.
But a touch screen is staggeringly cheaper in the long run than physical buttons. They can also make improvements over time that are impossible with a physical system. Ultimately it's a two edged sword in the real world, but it does make the Model 3 look futuristic.
Even as Siri and Alexa home user I really don't want to do a lot of talking to control my car.
In my house Alexa allows me control without moving to a switch or other device. But in a car I want to slide my hand, without looking, onto a mechanical control that I know well.
The reason the model 3 has few mechanical controls is not because it is the best interface design.
It seems that Tesla may have originally intended to put more controls on the steering wheel. Doing this design would not make final car assembly any more difficult that it is today. But perhaps this approach was too complicated for the driver.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
When my Father taught me to drive he insisted I should reach every control without taking my eyes off the road. The radio had 4 Pre-set buttons, and the heater was a three-position off/low/high rocker button ...
.. apart from things on the stalk I don't think there is anything much I can usefully reach on the dashboard, without looking, in modern cars. Heater? Its a Climate Control rotary switch which sets the temperature on a single side of the car and has alternative usage for SYNC with other side of the car and so on ... so at the least I have to look down to see that I've set the temperature correctly (I don't think it even clicks "once per degree", whereas at least in Tesla, provided my finger stays-put on the screen-button [agreed, that can be a challenge, particularly on an uneven road!], I can do press-press-press for the appropriate number of increments and then just look down to check.
Change the Music to a different radio channel? Maybe Knobs allow me to select a favourite easily, whereas in Tesla I'm tempted to search Spotify for something "different" Because-I-Can - so a new, 1st world, problem ... but I don't think I can do much on a modern car Radio without "looking".
Not included swapping from spouse-to-my-car and Japanese/European influence, so wipers / indicators are swapped and all sorts of other "gotchas" like that. Voice would help me in that situation too, provided the Vocab isn't different in each car
I have a standard, Queen's-English, crystal clear accent. I can't get Tesla to understand anything I say, so it ain't just you
... whereas e.g. Alexa has no difficulty understanding at all, and gets it right probably more than 90% of the time (and that is without the benefit of the limited vocabulary which ought to make Car System Control by Voice Recognition doable)
Alexa is in our kitchen, around the corner from our dining table, but has no difficulty picking out the banal requests during dinner, usually after a few drinks!, from amongst the general chatter and some background music. Why so hard in a car, with limited vocabulary, I wonder.
Interesting, thanks. For me, if it worked well, I would much prefer to say "Climate 20 degrees" than fiddle with a knob. I'd like to keep the controls already on my steering wheel, as I suspect flash-lights/horn/indicate I would do better with physical controls, but I reckon I'd be happy to do the rest by voice. It would have to work reliably though ... bit like I want FSD but only when I am not at risk of becoming one of its unfortunate statistics ...
On the Model S there are steering wheel buttons for the radio presets. On the American version they are above and below the left thumb wheel. When playing a USB drive they go to the next track or back.
On my old Buick (1992) I was able to set the temperature without really looking. There was a physical up/down button and it would go up or down one degree per click. I'd usually glance to double check, but it was almost always what I expected. With the Model S I've ended up turning on the defroster when trying to adjust the temperature many times. It's really annoying on a hot day.
Not included swapping from spouse-to-my-car and Japanese/European influence, so wipers / indicators are swapped and all sorts of other "gotchas" like that. Voice would help me in that situation too, provided the Vocab isn't different in each car
I've heard some right hand drive cars swap controls and others don't. It's a manufacturer's call. Left hand drive is more common throughout the world so most car makers target that layout primarily.
I have a standard, Queen's-English, crystal clear accent. I can't get Tesla to understand anything I say, so it ain't just you
We don't have Alexa. My SO was thinking about it as a kind of note taking device so she can just call out when she remembers something she needs to do, but I haven't heard anything in months so I think she dropped the idea. I can't really think of what I would do with it. We tend to keep a fairly quiet household. I recently replaced the TV because my SO was complaining about a high pitched whine coming from the old one when it was off. I used to have bat-like hearing but unfortunately I've lost a bit of high end hearing. I could detect some 18 KHz with a sound meter but I couldn't hear it.
An interesting tidbit Elon recently mentioned is you can make a bug report on your car via voice commands. Apparently the voice recognition system is supposed to recognize "bug report".
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Me too. We bought it just to see what such technology might be like, and whether we would use it. As expected we don't make much use of it. Our house is home-automation-equipped, but I don't see the need to have voice-commands instead of light switches. It would be a boon for anyone with mobility problems. For anyone with Kids and HA it will be a nightmare "Turn off the lights in the lavatory" ... followed by lots of giggling ...
I've connected Alexa to "My Car", and it is quite cool to ask "Alex, ask My Car how far can I drive?" ... but I use it infrequently and when I want to show off Alexa says "Token has expired" ... FAIL!
Dunno if Alexa has APP for, and similarly works with, Bolt?
We have Sonos for music, and Alexa integration is not good enough (IMHO) to use that, although i find the Sonos phone APP dire. For anyone using Alexa/Google Home for music (and happy ith the speaker quality) I reckon that would be a good usage reason.
On the upside I think Alexa does well for "Add FLOUR to my shopping list" which then appears as a reminder on phone when out.
I have read of people putting Echo in car in order to use that for better quality voice recognition. I could become interested in that as a project ...
I got an Echo Dot to play with when it was on sale. With the analog audio out connected to my home theater receiver, the music sounds very nice. However, if the receiver is off you can't hear her responses to ordinary queries. I have a Harmony hub in the home theater setup so the Echo can turn on the receiver if you ask it to before you do your other queries or start playing music. However, this is pretty far off-topic. I can't think of a way to bring this back around to the Bolt. Sorry.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I have the Google variant, received free from a phone purchase. It is still in the box unopened.
Unlike the 3-D goggles that I actually used a couple three times.
scottf200
Well-Known Member
The Bolt is a (relative) juggernaut in South Korea. SK sales almost matched US sales last month.
Chevy Bolt Sales In South Korea Nearly Match U.S. In May
Chevy Bolt Sales In South Korea Nearly Match U.S. In May
Not that difficult when the US sales is the lowest in the past year, in fact never been this low since March 2017.
Maybe next month SK can reach double the US sales -- if that drops below 500
Not that difficult when the US sales is the lowest in the past year, in fact never been this low since March 2017.
Maybe next month SK can reach double the US sales -- if that drops below 500
At least with a non-Tesla brand, if they say I can come by and pickup a car by 3, they don't mean 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, or 3 years.
For those holding TSLA stocks and bonds, I'm sure sales numbers are of great concern.
For those who want EVs, all that matters is whether you can actually get a car from a manufacturer.
Right now, getting a Model 3 from Tesla is the same as getting a Mission E from Porsche. No fixed date for delivery.
In fact, it also applies to the other MS/X as well, but not as severely.
I ordered my first 'British' car ever because I no longer trust Tesla Motors to maintain a queue, and keep their word. Perhaps Jag will pooch it, but they cannot do worse than Tesla has so far in my eyes. Delivery was supposed to be Nov-Jan at first.
GM did not get my order because they failed to equip the Bolt with the advanced safety features found in the Volt and other GM products. The 2019 Bolt might be the only $40k+ car available from GM without the advanced driver's assistance.
Tesla didn't get more of my money because the MS/X are too big for what they are, and too expensive compared to the Jag, and Tesla has no idea whatsoever what the status of their Model 3 queue is or how to manage a queue. They can barely manage the handling of spare parts inventories including basic consumables. They can't even sell you a simple $35 adapter for a dryer plug over the counter, and can take 4-6 months to repair what would normally be a 3-7 day job for most brands.
If Tesla had to distribute and service cars for a living, they would have been BK long ago. Since they have not flooded the market yet, folk accept they are not going to get the level of customer service provided by other brands. That will hold exactly 1 day after they met demand, and more EV choices are out there. If a Tesla's metrics and pricing matches the competition, but it's sale and after sale experience stinks, you're going to see a shift.
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scottf200
Well-Known Member
Seriously what a stupid and irrelevant comment for a new model just coming out. I waited TWICE for my GM Volts. It is just a matter of when you are getting a newly introduced model and where you are at on the curve.
I waited months for my 1st yr Gen 1 Volt '11 and GM/dealer could not tell me when I was going to get it. Picked it up in another state (NY) as it was not offered in IL for a long time.
I waited weeks for my 1st yr Gen 2 Volt '16 and GM/dealer could not tell me when I was going to get it. Picked it up in another state (MD) as it was not offered in IL for a long time.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
In fairness when Tesla opened the Front Door for Orders-with-Deposits I don't suppose they had any idea they were going to find a queue half-a-million long ... and that they would have to tool-up to building them at a rate of 10,000 a week. Big challenge ... but it sucks if you are waiting, of course.
Pretty soon the Model 3 will have been out officially for a year. It's hard to tell. Tesla writes their own Wiki, and sometimes colors things.
But IIRC it was July 31, 2017 when the first production cars left the factory.
2018 is the second MY of production for the Model 3. Soon we will be into MY 3.
My longest Volt purchase pissed me off. It took over 2 hours. I won't go back there again.
My longest wait for a motor vehicle was a limited production 286 of 498 that I ordered in Feb 2014 day one. In August I pulled the plugged. It arrived at the showroom in October. That was <8 months from my $1000 deposit (all they would take), but production had not started yet. If you use the 'window' method the Model 3 uses, I am 6 months after Estimated Delivery without the ability to order yet. It would most likely set a new record, especially when you consider one is a handbuilt racecar and the other a GigaFactory Alien Dreadnought 500k unit a year factory.
Now note that had I lived in Illinois, I never would have hit the <8 months. The distribution went first to non-CARB states. People with higher SN's were getting cars, and when SN 4xx was tracking his car, I said screw it. And GM gave me my money back. Not something Tesla allows on special orders.
They did not stick to the 'no transfers' or I believe I would have a Model 3 today. They did not stick to the US deliveries first either, nor the California deliveries first either. Any one of those would have allowed me to be invited based on the queue rules laid down.
It boils down to if I were given a choice between a webpage estimate that has been wrong twice and soon will be wrong 3 times, and a car, I think the car is a superior choice for use as transportation.
There is somebody in Classified who was 'given' an invite or Model 3, not sure, their engrish ain't good.
They said they waited 2 months. They don't want the car, they just want to scalp it. What about the supposed queue?
diamond.g
Active Member
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