My outdated 2016 Model S

[theslimshadyist]

Well said @bmah

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Why are people faulting Tesla for innovating? Shouldn't the same people be criticizing Tesla's competitors for a lack of innovation?

Do we buy cars because we like what they offer, or do we buy them to maintain a sense of superiority over others? Those who fall into the latter group will never be happy.

 

[Chris P]

Bought my S70 in June. Couldn't be happier, and couldn't care less about "missing out" on AP2. I got exactly what I paid for and am happy that Tesla used some of the money they made from me to continue innovating and bringing M3 to market.

 

[joebiker25]

I missed AP 2.0 by 3 weeks and spent one sleepless night fuming about the unfairness of it all. Then I drove my gorgeous Silver Dream the next day to work and could not stop giggling like a teenage girl. I absolutely love my car and AP in its present iteration is far more enjoyable and useful than I ever imagined when I ordered the car. A long MS time owner I met recently, whose car doesn't have any of the major features my car has, couldn't stop telling me how much pleasure he has received from his "old" car over the years and frankly, I envied him! I should have been driving an MS years ago!
Just my $0.02

 

[whitex]

Thoughts: how is your Tesla less useful today than yesterday? It isn't. Your happiness has been affected not by anything wrong with your car, but with knowledge that someone else may have something better than what you have. That's completely irrational and illogical.

While I agree with you on most of your post, your argument is incorrect if the main purpose of purchasing said car is to show off to others that you have the absolute best, latest and greatest car money can buy, even if you don't need the full functionality. While I am not in that group, there are people who are (think people who bought the "I am rich" app from Apple). By constantly innovating, Tesla is potentially alienating the aforementioned group of people - but maybe they are ok with that.
PS> I suspect a small portion of that group would be happy with a nosecone and badge retrofit as long as it also updates the on-screen badge.

 

[whitex]

Yes, my apologies. I misread your post. Sorry.



$3k upon purchase and $4k after. Buying it up front may be a better investment than TSLA stock in the same time period, in addition to the fact that there's no risk.

So I can see a lot of people buying it.

Uhmmm.... that is assuming how long before the full functionality is ready and approved by the regulators? Optimistic a litle? Are you a betting man?

 

[ShotgunF15E]

I got over it. AP 2.0 is going to be years of maturation and frustration before it can do what they show in the promo video. By that time I'll be ready to trade in my car for a new one. I'm guessing my next car might be a 2025, or P200D, whichever comes first....

By the way, I find myself using the AP less and less and having more and more fun driving the car myself anyway....

 

[whitex]

Agree completely. I have a 3 month old 140k car that now is outdated. I pay for nice stuff because I want the best.

I'm not sure we have any other option than to eat dirt, trade the car in, and pay up.

You can just pay and upgrade, no need to eat dirt. Having the absolute latest and greatest always costs money, sorry if you assumed (or someone lied to you that) it only costs what it takes to buy one car today to always have the latest and greatest. The only way you can get the latest and greatest if your model car that is no longer in production, so I would suggest a Ford Model T instead of Tesla Model S. There is a reasonable chance that the latest Model T you can buy today is not going to be eclipsed by a newer one any time soon.

 

[singleview]

I've ordered my P90DL on April, received it end of June. 10 days later, had a small accident. It stayed 3 months in the approved body shop, mostly waiting for parts from Tesla because of their shitty communication and logistics. I got my car now, and they've done a shitty job, it is going back tomorrow again. I also had some issues spotted on delivery, and of course, they are also not fixed.
Now, ask me.
I'm really pissed. I've ordered my car about 7 months ago, only driven 300 miles. It is already outdated twice. Depreciation is huge.
I think I'm done with Tesla. They are just trying to keep stock value high by making people talk about them. By rolling changes every 3 months, they just make existing customers angry.

THIS is worrying. I hope the great demand, and enthusiasm gets matched with better support for existing owners. This is critical for sustainability of the brand and for a loyal customer base.

 

[wdolson]

While I agree with you on most of your post, your argument is incorrect if the main purpose of purchasing said car is to show off to others that you have the absolute best, latest and greatest car money can buy, even if you don't need the full functionality. While I am not in that group, there are people who are (think people who bought the "I am rich" app from Apple). By constantly innovating, Tesla is potentially alienating the aforementioned group of people - but maybe they are ok with that.
PS> I suspect a small portion of that group would be happy with a nosecone and badge retrofit as long as it also updates the on-screen badge.

That "keeping up with the Jones, looking down on Smith" thing I think is more common with cars among the more well heeled people buying Teslas today. The average car age in the US is currently around 11 years old, and the average age of new car buyers is something like 49. Most younger people are driving older cars, in many cases bought used. Those who buy a Model 3 it may be the first new car they ever own.

Though millennials have done the status thing with electronic like phones, so I could be out to lunch.

Ultimately it's hard to tell exactly how many current Tesla owners really are upset. People tend to speak up more to complain than express their pleasure.

I got over it. AP 2.0 is going to be years of maturation and frustration before it can do what they show in the promo video. By that time I'll be ready to trade in my car for a new one. I'm guessing my next car might be a 2025, or P200D, whichever comes first....

By the way, I find myself using the AP less and less and having more and more fun driving the car myself anyway....

Same here. It's great when stuck in a traffic jam, and nice on a long stretch of fairly strait highway, but most of the time it never occurs to me to turn it on. I do it occasionally as a kind of lark, but it's more playing with a gadget than really using it.

On my recent road trip I had AP on with the stretches of very boring road, but the only places I had it on were the sort of places I would have used cruise control on my last car. Give the right leg a bit of a rest as well as the shoulders. On the curvier parts, it was waaaay too much fun to drive myself, and I did not like the line AP took on the curves at all.

 

[wdolson]

THIS is worrying. I hope the great demand, and enthusiasm gets matched with better support for existing owners. This is critical for sustainability of the brand and for a loyal customer base.

Tesla is very good about supporting owners with service, but accident repair has a lot of complaints. The problem is they need to put more effort into making spare parts. Most car makers have known for a long time that when making any car, you make a complete car in spare parts (as well as extras for more commonly replaced parts) for every x number of cars that come off the production line. Car makers have warehouses full of parts for current production cars and most cars that recently went out of production.

Tesla seems to only make spare parts occasionally and the pipe-line for spare parts is very slow. That will have to change soon. They can't keep that up with production ramping up like it's going to.

Right now I'm waiting to replace my seats with next gen seats, both of us found the cloth seats very uncomfortable so I ordered next gen front seats. One came in almost right away (they probably had one extra someplace), but the other one has been on order for about 7 weeks now. Fortunately it isn't a critical problem, the car is still driveable as it is, but it can be frustrating waiting that long.

 

[whitex]

[AP is] ... great when stuck in a traffic jam, and nice on a long stretch of fairly strait highway, but most of the time it never occurs to me to turn it on. I do it occasionally as a kind of lark, but it's more playing with a gadget than really using it.

On my recent road trip I had AP on with the stretches of very boring road, but the only places I had it on were the sort of places I would have used cruise control on my last car. Give the right leg a bit of a rest as well as the shoulders. On the curvier parts, it was waaaay too much fun to drive myself, and I did not like the line AP took on the curves at all.

I've had AP 1.0 for a while. Stop and go highway traffic is pretty much it's only real use, and then only in areas well populated by Tesla's (recently tried AP while traveling coast to coast, it works so much worse in areas with less Tesla population than around Seattle where I live). Where it works well, it works well enough to make you trust it, but not well enough that you should (hence the warning about being ready any time take over). Self parking never worked for me, nor do I trust it to not damage the car. Similar with summon, I don't even have it enabled. Auto high beam works well but not on every software version - it seems to get better or worse with different software updates.

 

[wdolson]

I've had AP 1.0 for a while. Stop and go highway traffic is pretty much it's only real use, and then only in areas well populated by Tesla's (recently tried AP while traveling coast to coast, it works so much worse in areas with less Tesla population than around Seattle where I live). Where it works well, it works well enough to make you trust it, but not well enough that you should (hence the warning about being ready any time take over). Self parking never worked for me, nor do I trust it to not damage the car. Similar with summon, I don't even have it enabled. Auto high beam works well but not on every software version - it seems to get better or worse with different software updates.

I found AP on I-5 in California kind of iffy. It kept wanting to steer the car into the railing on bridges. I've only had the self parking P show up once. I did try summon once when the cars were parked too close together in the garage. I've yet to see it flip to auto highbeam.

AP does seem to know the main freeways around Portland pretty well too. Probably the fleet learning effect.

 

[whitex]

AP does seem to know the main freeways around Portland pretty well too. Probably the fleet learning effect.

I hope it's fleet learning, rather than hand curated for frequently travelled areas. The latter doesn't scale, hence my hope that is not the case.

 

[Model S M.D.]

I missed AP 2.0 by 3 weeks and spent one sleepless night fuming about the unfairness of it all. Then I drove my gorgeous Silver Dream the next day to work and could not stop giggling like a teenage girl. I absolutely love my car and AP in its present iteration is far more enjoyable and useful than I ever imagined when I ordered the car. A long MS time owner I met recently, whose car doesn't have any of the major features my car has, couldn't stop telling me how much pleasure he has received from his "old" car over the years and frankly, I envied him! I should have been driving an MS years ago!
Just my $0.02

Agree with you here. It's just way too much fun to drive to be worrying about AP 2.0