Question....

[nowtleft]

Does Tesla spend so much time inventing future tech which is never landed on time or correctly rather than making tech on current cars work properly?
It seems that the whole ethos is to play at being inventors but never really making released tech work correctly - I am thinking specifically of AP2, auto-wipers, Nav system.

We are still relatively early adopters and find the lack of ability to do the job properly "amusing" but when "normal" car owners purchase Tesla cars in a year or two they will simply not put up with the silly things that do not work or are badly designed.

I feel Tesla should STOP designing new cars and trucks which will never ever be delivered on time and take a couple of years out making current cars work properly.

 

[BrettS]

I think there needs to be a balance (and probably a much better balance than there is now). Tesla can’t stop R&D and designing new cars. If they did, then a couple of years out they would be so far behind with nothing to sell and soon go out of business.

I think the problem is more that they tend to over promise. I think it gets people hyped up and sells their cars, but as you said once people realize that not everything they were promised actually exists and may not exist for some time (if it ever does) then it also tends to sour people on Tesla (especially the customers that they already have who expected more for the money they spent)

I think instead Tesla needs to be more realistic about exactly where their technology is now and more realistic about the timelines for the future. They still make an amazing car with great technology and I think there are a lot of good advances yet to come for existing and new cars, but like you said, I don’t think they are going to come in the timelines that Tesla has talked about.

 

[iluvmacs]

I absolutely agree they ignore improving some very basic things on the existing cars. I would not say they should stop development of other vehicles. They have hundreds of engineers working on new cars, they don't need hundreds of engineers to fix a bunch of stupid software issues & missing features. Well, maybe for Autopilot they do, but I don't have any AP on my Model S, and I could easily list a bunch of really dumb issues that could easily be corrected by just few engineers. Sometimes it's really the little things that get to be super annoying. There are about to be a lot more owners that will be far less forgiving than the early adopters and fan boys.

 

[jeffro01]

Stopping future development is insane... There is a popular business phrase on this one... "You're either growing, or you're dying"...

Tesla operates on the very edge of this phrase in that they are constantly pushing the envelop but there are plenty of examples where they haven't come back to polish things up. I'm not excusing that but I'd rather have the company in it's current form than one that's not looking towards the future...

Jeff

 

[ricebucket]

These roles are not interchangeable. Franz is designing the new Roadster. I'm sure he has nothing to do with the wipers. Not designing the Roadster is not going to make your wipers work.

The three specifics you mentioned are all mostly software. That means for the most part, they're car independent and would span more than one model once they've been developed. i.e. autopilot on the Roadster would use mostly the same software as the Model 3. But of course, by the time Roadster comes out in 2020, the AP team is probably up to AP versions 3,4,5.

 

[TexasEV]

If your car has AP2 then you’re not a “relatively early adopter”.

 

[nowtleft]

If your car has AP2 then you’re not a “relatively early adopter”.

Mine has AP1

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Does Tesla spend so much time inventing future tech which is never landed on time or correctly rather than making tech on current cars work properly?
It seems that the whole ethos is to play at being inventors but never really making released tech work correctly - I am thinking specifically of AP2, auto-wipers, Nav system.

We are still relatively early adopters and find the lack of ability to do the job properly "amusing" but when "normal" car owners purchase Tesla cars in a year or two they will simply not put up with the silly things that do not work or are badly designed.

I feel Tesla should STOP designing new cars and trucks which will never ever be delivered on time and take a couple of years out making current cars work properly.

I’d just note that the last major improvement to AP2 came ~4 weeks ago, bringing its reliability up significantly. It’s not like progress has stalled or anything, and the new cars they’ve announced are all seemingly using the same or similar features you mentioned.