My wife received a message that something was wrong with the restraint system in her M3. The car asked her to schedule a service appointment and she did. This alone would have been enough to thrill me because my wife tends to throw feminism out the window and becomes very traditional about "traditional gender roles" when she deems something to be "man work". Taking out trash, killing spiders, maintaining cars, plunging toilets... All "man work", but I digress.
The car also informed her that the required parts were ordered and would be shipped to the service center.
I'm sure most of us already know that this is the plan but seeing it in action wilth someone who actively refuses to admit she's perfectly capable of maintaining her own car was amazing. She didn't have to make any calls or explain anything to anyone, not even me. Rose said something was wrong and a few taps later, it's all better. Voila!
So what's the rub?
The first available appointment was 2 weeks out and when she took the car in, the parts hadn't arrived. Because it was a problem with her seatbelt, they refused to let her keep the car. They told her the part would arrive Monday or Tuesday, but the app says June 9th (she took it in Friday, May 31st). Thankfully, they had a loaner available so I don't have to listen to her complain about driving an ICE car for however long they end up keeping her car.
I don't know where the process broke down but once they iron out the kinks, it will be phenomenal. Admittedly, I questioned the wisdom of recommending she "schedule an appointment" instead of telling her to "contact service immediately" when the problem was with the restraint system. Considering they weren't willing to let her leave with the car, I think I'm justified in believing a stronger message was warranted. I can only assume they expected the first available service appointment to be much sooner or that a ranger should have been able to handle it. They need to address this quickly because it's a lawsuit waiting to happen... Instead of being thankful that their car warned them of a problem, someone is bound to ignore the message, get into an accident and then say "Tesla knew the car wasn't safe and refused to fix it." Ka-ching!!!
Whle it pains me, I have to give them an F on their report card for this service. They had weeks to prepare and should have been ready to go when she walked in the door. She had taken the day off and was quite happy to wait a few hours for the work to be completed. I work around the corner so she figured she'd catch up on some reading and meet me for lunch. Still, maybe I should give it an "I" for incomplete... I'll happily upgrade it to a D+ or a C- if Rose is back with the wifey on Monday or Tuesday.
With all of that said, I'm giving them an A+ for effort. Did they screw up? Yes. Am I disappointed? Yes. Could they have done better? Yes. Am I upset or angry? Absolutely not. With most other cars, we wouldn't have known about the problem until AFTER she died in an accident because her seatbelt failed so no, I'm not upset at all. I'm happy my wife safe. Tesla noticed a problem and proactively moved to fix it. Not whenever we brought it in for scheduled maintenance. They didn't wait for an opportunity to to run through TSBs like most companies. They put safeguards in place so they could address it now. Right now. What other car company does that? Not only am I decidedly NOT mad, I'm quite pleased. Particularly, when I zoom out to look at the big picture. It's getting pretty easy to see a day when your car tells you it has a problem and asks if it's ok to get itself fixed. It knows your schedule and the severity of the issue so it should be able to find time that's good for you. In the short term, it will likely be a ranger showing up to fix the problem without you having to make any calls or being inconvenienced in any way. Add FSD and Tesla taxis into the mix... Now you have a complete game changer.
Imagine you arrived at work and your car mentioned it has a problem. You just agreed to let it be serviced and it says "Thanks! I should be ready for you by 2pm. If anything goes wrong, I'll let you know and send a loaner in my place."
Now imagine it saying "Will you need a ride for lunch today? I can have a Tesla taxi waiting for you at noon. I'll likely be offline at that time, but the mothership has been apprised of the situation and is ready to take care of you while I'm unavailable."
In case you hadn't guessed this by now, I fully expect Tesla to turn our cars into some sort of personal assistant. It's a logical extension of the whole "hop in your car and it will take you to work, no questions asked" thing they keep talking about. It's just as easy to see the sheet metal of our cars becoming interchangeable, like clothing for the AI. Maybe the AI never goes offline and just transfers its main processing to the cloud whenever your hardware is powered down. Maybe the taxi that arrives at lunchtime will be "my" Tesla, dressed up as an MX instead of my personal MS. Maybe my AI specifically picked the MX "outfit" over something more practical like an M3 because she knew I'm meeting people for lunch and that I was supposed to be giving them a ride. There's really no reason to limit this to service visits either... Maybe she'll be able to swap to more appropriate vehicles whenever one is available. Picking up family at the airport? MX. Helping a friend move? Tesla pickup. Need to impress someone? Roadster.
(Ok that last one is a bit much, but if you have some seriously rich friends... Maybe?)
This may seem far-fetched because of the bandwidth and CPU cycles required, but with starlink being built and Tesla making its own custom processors... Who knows? Auto pilot was futuristic fantasy 10 years ago and now FSD is almost within our grasp. It's so close our greedy little fingers can feel it. Crazy ideas that seem like Sci-fi right now may only be a few short years away. Months, if you go by Elon time.
I wouldn't be overly surprised if Elon's Tesla was alpha testing this sort of thing today. In fact, I'd be more surprised if it WASN'T.
Want to make my view of the not-so-distant future even more nuts? Add a small dose of neurallink into the mix and see where you end up.
Needless to say, I firmly believe the future is a lot closer than we think so yes... I'm genuinely thrilled with this seemingly insignificant improvement in service, even though it failed miserably.
Please excuse my nerdgasm...
The car also informed her that the required parts were ordered and would be shipped to the service center.
I'm sure most of us already know that this is the plan but seeing it in action wilth someone who actively refuses to admit she's perfectly capable of maintaining her own car was amazing. She didn't have to make any calls or explain anything to anyone, not even me. Rose said something was wrong and a few taps later, it's all better. Voila!
So what's the rub?
The first available appointment was 2 weeks out and when she took the car in, the parts hadn't arrived. Because it was a problem with her seatbelt, they refused to let her keep the car. They told her the part would arrive Monday or Tuesday, but the app says June 9th (she took it in Friday, May 31st). Thankfully, they had a loaner available so I don't have to listen to her complain about driving an ICE car for however long they end up keeping her car.
I don't know where the process broke down but once they iron out the kinks, it will be phenomenal. Admittedly, I questioned the wisdom of recommending she "schedule an appointment" instead of telling her to "contact service immediately" when the problem was with the restraint system. Considering they weren't willing to let her leave with the car, I think I'm justified in believing a stronger message was warranted. I can only assume they expected the first available service appointment to be much sooner or that a ranger should have been able to handle it. They need to address this quickly because it's a lawsuit waiting to happen... Instead of being thankful that their car warned them of a problem, someone is bound to ignore the message, get into an accident and then say "Tesla knew the car wasn't safe and refused to fix it." Ka-ching!!!
Whle it pains me, I have to give them an F on their report card for this service. They had weeks to prepare and should have been ready to go when she walked in the door. She had taken the day off and was quite happy to wait a few hours for the work to be completed. I work around the corner so she figured she'd catch up on some reading and meet me for lunch. Still, maybe I should give it an "I" for incomplete... I'll happily upgrade it to a D+ or a C- if Rose is back with the wifey on Monday or Tuesday.
With all of that said, I'm giving them an A+ for effort. Did they screw up? Yes. Am I disappointed? Yes. Could they have done better? Yes. Am I upset or angry? Absolutely not. With most other cars, we wouldn't have known about the problem until AFTER she died in an accident because her seatbelt failed so no, I'm not upset at all. I'm happy my wife safe. Tesla noticed a problem and proactively moved to fix it. Not whenever we brought it in for scheduled maintenance. They didn't wait for an opportunity to to run through TSBs like most companies. They put safeguards in place so they could address it now. Right now. What other car company does that? Not only am I decidedly NOT mad, I'm quite pleased. Particularly, when I zoom out to look at the big picture. It's getting pretty easy to see a day when your car tells you it has a problem and asks if it's ok to get itself fixed. It knows your schedule and the severity of the issue so it should be able to find time that's good for you. In the short term, it will likely be a ranger showing up to fix the problem without you having to make any calls or being inconvenienced in any way. Add FSD and Tesla taxis into the mix... Now you have a complete game changer.
Imagine you arrived at work and your car mentioned it has a problem. You just agreed to let it be serviced and it says "Thanks! I should be ready for you by 2pm. If anything goes wrong, I'll let you know and send a loaner in my place."
Now imagine it saying "Will you need a ride for lunch today? I can have a Tesla taxi waiting for you at noon. I'll likely be offline at that time, but the mothership has been apprised of the situation and is ready to take care of you while I'm unavailable."
In case you hadn't guessed this by now, I fully expect Tesla to turn our cars into some sort of personal assistant. It's a logical extension of the whole "hop in your car and it will take you to work, no questions asked" thing they keep talking about. It's just as easy to see the sheet metal of our cars becoming interchangeable, like clothing for the AI. Maybe the AI never goes offline and just transfers its main processing to the cloud whenever your hardware is powered down. Maybe the taxi that arrives at lunchtime will be "my" Tesla, dressed up as an MX instead of my personal MS. Maybe my AI specifically picked the MX "outfit" over something more practical like an M3 because she knew I'm meeting people for lunch and that I was supposed to be giving them a ride. There's really no reason to limit this to service visits either... Maybe she'll be able to swap to more appropriate vehicles whenever one is available. Picking up family at the airport? MX. Helping a friend move? Tesla pickup. Need to impress someone? Roadster.
(Ok that last one is a bit much, but if you have some seriously rich friends... Maybe?)
This may seem far-fetched because of the bandwidth and CPU cycles required, but with starlink being built and Tesla making its own custom processors... Who knows? Auto pilot was futuristic fantasy 10 years ago and now FSD is almost within our grasp. It's so close our greedy little fingers can feel it. Crazy ideas that seem like Sci-fi right now may only be a few short years away. Months, if you go by Elon time.
I wouldn't be overly surprised if Elon's Tesla was alpha testing this sort of thing today. In fact, I'd be more surprised if it WASN'T.
Want to make my view of the not-so-distant future even more nuts? Add a small dose of neurallink into the mix and see where you end up.
Needless to say, I firmly believe the future is a lot closer than we think so yes... I'm genuinely thrilled with this seemingly insignificant improvement in service, even though it failed miserably.
Please excuse my nerdgasm...
