I've come to the conclusion that Tesla's problem is that it's a $40B revenue company that's run like a start-up. I see now that back in 2015 when I bought the Model S that I still have and love, all the inventive energy of what was then a much smaller start-up was focused on inventing the key differentiators that set it apart - basically the power train, but also autopilot. That took all of that smaller company's energy, so they made the rest of the car out of standard parts and technologies available to the rest of the industry, perhaps the paradigm example being the stalks from Mercedes. Any driver could get into a P85D and be comfortable with its familiar stalks, wheel, shift selector, door handles, etc. Yes, the screen was new, but at that point it wasn't taken quite to the dogmatic limit of absorbing everything else, like the shifter.
But now that Tesla is a much bigger company with more resources, and yet a company that still has the same passion to invent new things that it had when it really was a start-up, they are trying to re-invent everything because they frankly can't help themselves. Now it's "let's reinvent the wheel, the car key, the door handles, the shifter, the turn signals, the horn," and everything else. Tesla now has a lot of resources, but because they are still run like a start-up that's focused on almost nothing but invention and showing us how smart they are, they are running amok.
The problem is that so much of the usability of the driver-facing parts of a car has been developed and refined by the industry over a very long time, where there is deep industry experience of how the ergonomics plays into all the situations and corner cases that a driver is likely to encounter. Tesla's inventiveness has not been tempered by experience in this way.
It is very tempting to ultimately replace my P85D with a plaid that can be my everyday hypercar. But my more cautious instincts tell me my next high-end EV should be a Mercedes EQS.
Compared to the Model S, I think the EQS looks like a large potato, although a very luxurious one. There would be little barnstorming down twisty roads in the EQS or flinging myself past slower cars on two lane country roads before they even realized they've been passed.
However, the thing about Mercedes is that I trust their long experience designing safe, usable cars. Because of Tesla's passion to show us how smart and inventive they are, I don't trust them as much right now.
Fortunately, the P85D is still running well, so I don't have to make a decision until things shake out and we all see how usable the new, refreshed MS really is, and how safe it is when those corner cases arise, as they eventually will.
