Does Tesla beta test?

[Gt1948]

Every recent update I’ve installed on my 2017 Model S AP 2.5 FSD has had serious flaws. Most recently was voice control and now sentry cam usb drive full alert.
As a Tesla owner I expect better service.
At least provide a speedy update correcting the flaw.

My recent experience, updating to 2020.12 on 3/14.

Tesla, time to beef up the S/W division.

 

[Kmartyn]

Every recent update I’ve installed on my 2017 Model S AP 2.5 FSD has had serious flaws. Most recently was voice control and now sentry cam usb drive full alert.
As a Tesla owner I expect better service.
At least provide a speedy update correcting the flaw.

My recent experience, updating to 2020.12 on 3/14.

Tesla, time to beef up the S/W division.

There never has been a vehicle manufacturer that provides so many new features, and other updates, as fast as Tesla. My experience since last June has been steady improvement. At this rate there will be some bugs, and regressions, but they seem to fix them pretty quick.

I wonder if it is a smoother experience for newer vehicles, particularly those with HW3 like mine. Backward compatibility for older hardware with new Software is probably more challenging.

If you have updates set to advanced, participating in early betas, you might consider turning that off, and updating more polished firmware updates.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Does Tesla beta test?

In a word: no.

Long answer: Not in my experience anyway. I've had four Model S cars now and with each new firmware update (over nearly two years or so) has introduced some new bug. Possibly several. They may fix one in the next update but usually introduce at least two new ones. It's getting worse and worse with each new update so there's no possible way they're investing much in the way of resources on testing before pushing out to customers.

Bottom line is if you don't care about customer care you delete your testing past alpha and let your customers do your beta testing for you. Makes for an awful customer experience but sure saves a lot of time & money. Tesla has proven time and again that customer service is the absolute least of their concerns as they race to crank out more and more Dodge Neons and make Wall Street happy at the expense of their customer's experience.

This approach will come back to bite them in a manner that they won't be able to recover from.

 

[jjrandorin]

Every recent update I’ve installed on my 2017 Model S AP 2.5 FSD has had serious flaws. Most recently was voice control and now sentry cam usb drive full alert.
As a Tesla owner I expect better service.
At least provide a speedy update correcting the flaw.

My recent experience, updating to 2020.12 on 3/14.

Tesla, time to beef up the S/W division.

Since this bothers you, make sure you set your software update to STANDARD, and dont click the update button until you read about the performance. I have a rule in my household that we do NOT do apple updates until 1 month after a new version number comes out (12-13 for example, 1 month wait). We do "point" releases as soon as they come out (13.1 to 13.2 for example) as those are software bug fixes.

To answer your question, I am sure they do, but we are all beta testers of tesla software for the cars. Its part of the ownership experience. I would much rather have it the way it is with tesla, and deal with little bugs here and there, than not get updates at all.

Once its available no one is making you click the install button on the latest update until you are ready. Since it bothers you, wait... simple enough.

 

[MrBadger]

Once its available no one is making you click the install button on the latest update until you are ready.

Actually they do psychologically. Once you are offered the update, you are constantly nagged to install the update every time you drive. Before you can drive, you have to clear down the nag.

With last our install, even on standard setting, it was 5 days between the version being spotted on TeslaFi and being nagged into submission. This wasn't a bug fix, this was a major version update from a previous stable version that we had happily been on for 28 days.

 

[jjrandorin]

Actually they do psychologically. Once you are offered the update, you are constantly nagged to install the update every time you drive. Before you can drive, you have to clear down the nag.

With last our install, even on standard setting, it was 5 days between the version being spotted on TeslaFi and being nagged into submission. This wasn't a bug fix, this was a major version update from a previous stable version that we had happily been on for 28 days.

You still could have ignored it for as long as you wanted to.... long enough to read online if you wanted to, to see if people were reporting issues. Its "suggested" to you repeatedly, but you can ignore it long enough to research it, should you want to.

 

[JBT66]

For new non safety related features I’m sure it’s less. They likely perform numerous perfect scenario tests failing to do negative testing and of course can’t have every make and model cell phone or config that people have set in their car.