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Tesla is an AWFUL software company

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I fully agree with all of these and would add

11 Seat heater buttons next to the temp setting. Miss the temp button slightly and the seat gets hot
12 The credit card key doesn't work when inside a wallet and then it slips of the console. This is an issue because whenever I get a software update my phone isn't recognized as a key.
13 The camera displays don't show true distances
14 TBD



I was a software developer for many years and would have been fired for putting out crap like this.

Gotta love this thread... /s

Behold the common vagaries (and massive egos) of (senior) software developers knowing best. Yet know nothing about BUSINESS. Let's break it down to an easy one anyone can understand before asking for more color options on the UI (and shaking my fist in the sky!). What if you had one developer and you could either 1) use massive data mining to update the airbag deployment algos and save lives or 2) make the stupid tach bigger? Ah but you live in the theoretical world where every developer gets paid $200K, sh**ts gold ideas in their cubes at work and management is a bunch of stupid incompetents. Lovely. go start your own business and do better. When you do and learn the lessons that come with, you will come back and start a thread that says "Wow I can't believe Tesla has done so much with so little. Of course there is room for improvement. However my entitled view was so limited!".

Ps: Tesla just did the former in my example -
 
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Gotta love this thread... /s

Behold the common vagaries (and massive egos) of (senior) software developers knowing best. Yet know nothing about BUSINESS. Let's break it down to an easy one anyone can understand before asking for more color options on the UI (and shaking my fist in the sky!). What if you had one developer and you could either 1) use massive data mining to update the airbag deployment algos and save lives or 2) make the stupid tach bigger? Ah but you live in the theoretical world where every developer gets paid $200K, sh**ts gold ideas in their cubes at work and management is a bunch of stupid incompetents. Lovely. go start your own business and do better. When you do and learn the lessons that come with, you will come back and start a thread that says "Wow I can't believe Tesla has done so much with so little. Of course there is room for improvement. However my entitled view was so limited!".

Ps: Tesla just did the former in my example -
Yeah, but let's reword the question with something else that's been defended on this forum:
What if you had one developer and you could either 1) use massive data mining to update the airbag deployment algos and save lives or 2) add fart sounds?
And... they went with #2 (literally and figuratively) first.
And, they really did muck with the colors on the UI by taking *away* colors on the maps. So that was a good business decision? Or not? I think I'm losing the plot. o_O
I actually agree with your points in your posts. It's just that Tesla doesn't always do things that look like they make sense from the outside perspective. I think it's understandable that people get discontented since there's so little open collaboration/consultation between Tesla and their customers.


Disclaimer: I'm a senior software developer who sucks at UI design so badly I don't even try anymore, but I've been known to drop some gold nuggets at times.
 
What if you had one developer

Maybe your argument works If Tesla only has one developer. But it has many teams of developers. More than that, it has developers who specialize in things like machine learning, and others who special in implementing interfaces. The Autopilot team alone has over 300 "super talented engineers" according to Musk.

I'm not sure why you think that something like airbag deployment is put at risk when applying resources dedicated to improving the UI. That'd be a pretty bad idea, business-wise, to allow that kind of bottleneck to slow you down. You certainly wouldn't pull aside your Autopilot engineers and have them implement a UI color theme feature. That'd be like hiring an F1 driver to drive you a few blocks down the road.
 
I think it's understandable that people get discontented since there's so little open collaboration/consultation between Tesla and their customers.

I'm not so sure of that. I think Tesla, more than any other car manufacturer, has proven that they do listen to customers. I can't recall specifics at the moment, but I know I've seen Elon respond to tweets where customers asked for features, and they were implemented pretty quickly. Maybe that happens less frequently now? Either way, I think it's part of the reason why so many Tesla owners will dogmatically defend the brand (because they trust Tesla to be different, and better, than traditional automakers) and it's the same reason other Tesla owners are so invested in offering ideas for improvement (because Tesla listens).

What I am sure of is this: if I complained about a poorly designed part of my Subaru on a Subaru forum (eg. the oil pickup tube in the STI), I wouldn't ever expect Subaru to do a damn thing (because they don't - oil pickup fails in most STIs, and the design hasn't changed in almost 20 years). I also wouldn't have people calling me entitled for expecting something on a car I own to work better.
 
I think Tesla, more than any other car manufacturer, has proven that they do listen to customers.
That may well be true. I think where Tesla falls down is in its back-and-forth communication. Why are there no waypoints? Is there less regen now? I don't DEMAND ANSWERS! but some info now and again would be lovely. Maybe an engineers' blog. How about a poll: What do you want in the next update? That sort of thing. Telsa's fan base would eat that up. It's just such a missed opportunity. Absent that, it's too easy to assume the worst.
 
That may well be true. I think where Tesla falls down is in its back-and-forth communication. Why are there no waypoints? Is there less regen now? I don't DEMAND ANSWERS! but some info now and again would be lovely. Maybe an engineers' blog. How about a poll: What do you want in the next update? That sort of thing. Telsa's fan base would eat that up. It's just such a missed opportunity. Absent that, it's too easy to assume the worst.
Or a PR department that could field questions from the media or owners, and trace down answers. Seems like something Tesla should have by now...
 
People keep saying that Tesla is such a great software company, but their software is AWFUL. Bad words carefully avoided but thought loudly:

1. I can't get rid of the visualization. It takes up the most visible part of the display, distracting me as I drive.
2. The autopilot software can't even get the visualization right. Flickering, bouncing images of vehicles? That bus next to me is sliding back and forth even though we're both dead stopped. That pickup? It's a minivan. No! It's a sedan. No! It's a pickup.
3. The UI has no significant customization. The speedo needs to be larger, for instance, but I cannot modify anything. Elon knows best?
4. I want to turn on my heated steering wheel. Not under car settings. No way to hit a button directly on the main screen. Hitting the electric seats button doesn't do it. Nor does holding down on the seat button. Looked it up in the manual on built into the car, and it doesn't even list the feature. Finally searched on the internet and found a screenshot about the feature existing that shows it's in the HVAC screen. Click on HVAC. Look around. Find the button. I'm supposed to do this while driving? I no, I have to memorize where every single unintuitive and undocumented control is. That assumes the control actually exists.
5. The time the car wouldn't open for a few minutes. Then it opened but wouldn't start. Then it finally all turned on 10 minutes later.
6. The time the entire interior electronics were dead, including AC, speedo, and so on. But then they magically turned on 10 minutes later.
7. The charge port that doesn't want to let go, even though charging is done. No button to do it either. Gotta unplug the charger from the adapter then the adapter from the car. I love pointless extra steps. Yes, this is software.
8. Back to the UI: it's a total fustercluck. Tabs at the bottom with tiny icons. Tabs that have no discernable meaning (A circle with stars? Wut?) and then jumble a bunch of unrelated ideas together.
9. The settings menus have no discernable logic. I have to go through several items to find the settings I want, but only when they actually exist. And yes, sometimes I have to search up the location as I tire of searching through tabs.
10. Thanks, Mr. Screen, for blinding me at full brightness when I got in the car at 10:15PM last night.
11. The auto-bright headlights that turn off when signs shine back at them, but that don't notice the oncoming car.
Can you offer examples from other car makers that are better?
 
What software version do you have? I have a 2021 Model Y Long Range running (2021.36.1) and a 2021 Model 3 Long Range running (2021.36.5). I haven’t encountered the display crashing when trying to read the manual at all.

Mine was crashing on 2021.32.21. I just updated to 2021.36.5.1 but haven't tried loading the manual yet. I can try later today to see if it's fixed.
 
Well with a market valuation of $ 1 Trillion, Tesla settles the argument whether it is a valuable company of a terrible company. Its is only the 4th. company to join, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and now Tesla in the trillion $ club. It is the only vertically integrated Automobile company. Clear leadership in Battery technology, metallurgy and software which at this point in time is miles ahead of competition. You don't get to this leadership position by chance- pioneers have to cut and create their own path, granted there is scope for improvement and even a bigger opportunity ahead since the EV industry is still nascent, but saying Tesla is an AWFUL SW company is DEAD WRONG.
 
Well with a market valuation of $ 1 Trillion, Tesla settles the argument whether it is a valuable company of a terrible company. Its is only the 4th. company to join, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and now Tesla in the trillion $ club.

No one in this thread has said Tesla isn't a valuable company. They've said Tesla is an awful software company.

Tesla is not the 4th company to have a market cap over a trillion. Apple, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon are currently on that list. Facebook has been there before, but fell below $1T.

To be clear, the "trillion" in "trillion dollar club" means they reached a market cap of a trillion. All that means is that the value of their outstanding shares is worth a trillion ($1.02T as I write this). That's it. Sure, share price is influenced by profits, or speculation, or other factors, but share prices are truly only determined by what people buying shares thinks they're worth. In theory, a company could hit a market cap of $1T with zero profits, no products, and be purely hype/speculation driven. Unlikely, but possible.

Tesla didn't achieve a a market cap above $1T because of their touchscreen UI. No one said "damn, that UI makes me want to go buy a share or two." I'd think someone was crazy if they said that. Not because the UI is terrible, but because Tesla makes an amazing car despite its terrible UI.

If someone said they bought Apple shares because of Apple's focus on design and UI it wouldn't seem crazy at all to me. Apple is known for investing substantially in UI design. Whether you like using Apple products or not, you can't deny that one of the reasons that people are willing to pay $1000 for a phone that, functionally speaking, does the same thing as a $200 phone is because of the UI. Apple's profit margin on their hardware is substantial because of their focus on UI and design.

It's this sorta thing that I think Tesla drops the ball on. There will be a time soon when competitors can match Tesla's hardware and tech. The tech Tesla uses, or how that tech is produced, isn't unobtainable by other companies. Just like with phones, there will be a time when one of the major things driving a consumer to buy from one company or another will come down to how well its UI (software or hardware) is designed. If Tesla doesn't start prioritizing things like the UI, they'll fall behind.

And before anyone says it: it doesn't matter if Tesla is currently considered the best. It doesn't matter if no other auto makers have better UI's currently. It doesn't matter if you love Tesla and don't like people being critical of Tesla. Being critical doesn't mean I hate Tesla. I want Tesla to continue to succeed, and I want their market cap to grow. The more their market cap grows, the more my shares are worth, making it more likely that selling some of those shares nets me a new Tesla. I want Tesla to devote Apple level effort to their UI in terms of making it effortless and effective. If someone beats Tesla to that, it'd be hard for me to not look at them very seriously.
 
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I understand your your point and have mentioned that there is a lot of scope for improvement. My mistake I forgot to add Alphabet( Google) to the Trillion $ club. But if you read the original post the main gripe of the user is that Tesla is an Awful SW company. Granted that UI can be improved and there are other user features which can be made more intuitive as well as few obvious missing features added. There is a big difference between AWFUL and "Could be better". (Full disclosure I do not work for Tesla)
 
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Tesla didn't achieve a a market cap above $1T because of their touchscreen UI. No one said "damn, that UI makes me want to go buy a share or two." I'd think someone was crazy if they said that. Not because the UI is terrible, but because Tesla makes an amazing car despite its terrible UI.
ok, its easy to be a critic .. now be the artist .. what would you do to fix the UI ?
 
The whole trillion dollar club makes some decent but mostly horrible software. This is more of an indictment of modern software though. Hint, almost all of it sucks for a bunch of reasons. This really starts be a problem when you have absolutely no control over your devices. At least with a PC or an Android phone there are things you can do, even though some might be drastic.