The issue is deeper than “it works for me” or “I don’t use those features anyway”.
If you check around, there is definitely more noise this time than the previous upgrades - here, and in the press, in general. If there are mass car sites that talk about it then it is in the mainstream. Whether there are more happy customers or more angry customers - we don’t know because we do not have a representative sample. And it does not matter anymore. The doubt is already out there.
There are well established design principles for systems UI and they violated them (assuming a human driver; it is a different story for fully automated system). There is a reason why everyone else, including those with touchscreen interface, have the driver controls easily accessible. Sometimes ignoring established practice is genius; in most cases it is dumb. It is puzzling why they prioritized the entertainment controls over driver controls. 90% or the complains would have been resolved with the ability to add driver controls to the app tray. In fact, I think that would have had a super positive reaction across the board.
I can think of two reasons:
1. sloppy work, deadline pressure, releasing a half-baked product. They have a well established track record there, so it is possible. In that case, they will fix those issues in a relatively short period of time and we all be (almost) happy. However, the question of sloppy QA remains. At some point they will mess up something more important (heat pump?)
2. This is part of an “automation” trend and (from my perspective) things will only get worse from now on. Not sure if Elon’s words were taken out of context but Tesla has an established track record of “my way or high way”. This is probably a virtue in a startup; definitely a problem at their maturity level. They may be very advanced as technology but there are 10k lb gorillas out there and they know how to produce high quality, luxury cars and not to alienate whole segments of customers.
Automotive manufacturing at scale is a cut throat business and even small mistakes are punished. Once the big guys unlock the range, efficiency and charging, Tesla will have a very, very tough time unless they get their act together. Don’t forget that the mass consumer buys Toyota, Honda, Kia, etc. and they issue a higher quality product than Tesla and have better support system (the mobile centers are so easy to replicate that they are not an advantage at all). On the other hand, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche not only offer higher quality but also luxury that is totally absent in Tesla. Let’s not forget that we are looking at their first EV release. In another couple of years they will get to 400miles per charge (Tesla is not the only company working on advanced batteries). EA will mature despite all VW efforts in the opposite direction. Performance-wise, Porsche is already very close to Tesla. It is true that Plaid has amazing acceleration but Taycan’s handling is on a whole different level.
So, Tesla could afford to make mistakes or ignore segments of customers but not for long.
