Tesla is an AWFUL software company

[Jigglypuff]

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.

 

[chengka]

Don't worry.. It is all fixed in the FSD Beta! Someday.. Maybe.. Why does any of that matter when your car can fart better than any other car?

 

[ScottNY]

I always try a voice command before drilling down into menus on the touchscreen. Surprisingly it often works. When it doesn’t, it can sometimes be pretty funny what the car does instead.

 

[Hapless]

As far as #7 goes, the button is on the top of the actual plug. Look for a little circle. You can also press it to open the charge port door.

I haven't had any of your other problems.

 

[Kimmi]

Want some cheese with your whine?

 

[Jigglypuff]

I always try a voice command before drilling down into menus on the touchscreen. Surprisingly it often works. When it doesn’t, it can sometimes be pretty funny what the car does instead.

The voice control is laughable. I told it to switch to the radio and it gave me navigation directions to a local radio station. I asked it for directions to the Marriot and it gave me directions to the Marriot Theater in Illinois. I am not particularly close to Illinois. All voice control is laughable, but Tesla's is particularly bad. I hate to say it, but the best I've used so far is Alexa, which is far better than Google, which is far better than Tesla.

 

[Jigglypuff]

As far as #7 goes, the button is on the top of the actual plug. Look for a little circle. You can also press it to open the charge port door.

I haven't had any of your other problems.

You're in Illinois! Do you know the Marriot Theater?

There is no such button on the Model Y. There is a light up T that does nothing when pressed.

My son tried to unplug the car today. First he pulled but the plug didn't come out. Then he pulled the plug out of the adapter. Then he said "uh oh". Then he tried to pull the adapter out, but it had already locked. Then I put the plug in, waited a sec, and pulled the plug out. Then the adapter was unlocked and I could pull it out.

#ExcellentSoftwareDesign

So no.

 

[JD M3]

Some people are so particular that they're never happy with anything. Other people just can't stand change and hate anything that's not exactly the same as what they've had for their entire life. There's no problem with that, but if you're one of those people you should have thoroughly vetted the car before buying it. All of these things are readily apparent in just minutes after sitting in the car. In the time it took you to write this you could have evaluated the car during a test drive and decided that it wasn't for you. If you need to complain about the brightness of the screen (which is adjustable in the settings) then this car clearly isn't for you. Oh, and in your complaining about how the visualizations appear on the screen you appear to have completely overlooked the fact that almost no other car company in the world can even produce these visualizations of the car's 3D environment. Perhaps having things move around a little bit isn't such a big deal in perspective.

 

[kavyboy]

I especially love that viewing the user manual crashes the car's computer. Embrace the change! Eventually you'll love the black screen and the HVAC going full blast for a few minutes, or they wouldn't have kept this feature for several versions now.

 

[Jigglypuff]

I especially love that viewing the user manual crashes the car's computer. Embrace the change! Eventually you'll love the black screen and the HVAC going full blast for a few minutes, or they wouldn't have kept this feature for several versions now.

Full blast hvac is better than none at all. I haven't had that one happen to me. Yet.

Some people are so particular that they're never happy with anything. Other people just can't stand change and hate anything that's not exactly the same as what they've had for their entire life. There's no problem with that, but if you're one of those people you should have thoroughly vetted the car before buying it. All of these things are readily apparent in just minutes after sitting in the car. In the time it took you to write this you could have evaluated the car during a test drive and decided that it wasn't for you. If you need to complain about the brightness of the screen (which is adjustable in the settings) then this car clearly isn't for you. Oh, and in your complaining about how the visualizations appear on the screen you appear to have completely overlooked the fact that almost no other car company in the world can even produce these visualizations of the car's 3D environment. Perhaps having things move around a little bit isn't such a big deal in perspective.

Tesla's visualizations are so awful, I'm not sure why you'd think them an accomplishment. So, nobody else bothers to do such a bad job on a publicly available product? It's not really a problem for me. I knew autopilot was a turd. That's why I didn't pay for Fool Self Driving. Except that I cannot turn the stupid visualization off and put things I'd rather have there. I can customize what goes where on the Jag, and that's supposedly a company that's awful at software.

As for screen brightness, it's on automatic. It's just that Tesla screwed the pooch on the software so it turned on full blast in the middle of the night, for no reason other than poor coding. Is ruining my night vision not an issue with a car?

The fact that the steering wheel heater control is buried behind three non-intuitive clicks is not something I would notice in a few minutes unless I was specifically looking for that control, which I wouldn't do on a test drive. The same goes for the glovebox controls, the chargeport use, and most other things that a person only really understands once they've lived with a car for a few weeks.

The fact is, Tesla is an awful software company. Another fact is that you have awful reading comprehension. I didn't say I hated change or want everything the same as always. I didn't even say anything close to that. I also didn't say the car wasn't for me. I wonder if you read what I wrote. I'd guess you skimmed it at most.

 

[Jigglypuff]

Two things really sparked this post:
1. Having to do a web search to turn on the steering wheel heater since the manual said nothing.
2. Watching this video and wanting to throttle whatever moron made these design decisions:

 

[JD M3]

Kimmi, you haven’t come out of your Masturbation Cave in eons!

Another fact is that you have awful reading comprehension.

Judging by the incredibly rude and unprofessional way you are interacting with people who don't agree with you and the long list of (minor) complaints, I'd say my assessment of you being someone who is never happy with anything is spot on.

The way the heated steering wheel is turned on is a design issue, not a software issue. They intended to put it in that location and it works in that location as intended. Just because you personally don't agree with their design choice doesn't mean that it's a software problem. The same with the UI, just because you personally don't agree with it doesn't mean it's a problem. For comparison the majority of car manufacturers either have a similar uncustomizable interface or just knobs and buttons. Regarding your other complaints, I have had two teslas for close to 4 years and have not personally had any of the issues you listed apart from the visualizations which you mentioned, which while not perfect are far ahead of anything else that any other care manufacturer is doing. Just because you personally had some issues doesn't mean that they extrapolate to the millions of other cars they have sold. The fact that you expect perfection immediately from a new technology such as the visualizations again shows that you are someone who is never happy with anything.

 

[Hapless]

You're in Illinois! Do you know the Marriot Theater?

There is no such button on the Model Y. There is a light up T that does nothing when pressed.

My son tried to unplug the car today. First he pulled but the plug didn't come out. Then he pulled the plug out of the adapter. Then he said "uh oh". Then he tried to pull the adapter out, but it had already locked. Then I put the plug in, waited a sec, and pulled the plug out. Then the adapter was unlocked and I could pull it out.

#ExcellentSoftwareDesign

So no.

It's not on the car itself. It's on the plug that goes into the car, at the end of the charging cable. That is, unless you're using a different charging cable than what came with the car along with the J-1772 adapter. In that case, that's not a Tesla issue.

 

[thimel]

It's not on the car itself. It's on the plug that goes into the car, at the end of the charging cable. That is, unless you're using a different charging cable than what came with the car along with the J-1772 adapter. In that case, that's not a Tesla issue.

It sounds like you are using a non-Tesla charging cord since you mention an adapter. First, make sure the car is unlocked. Press AND HOLD the the button on the charging cord until the light on the charging port turns white. That means the charging cord has been unlocked. Continue holding the button as you pull out the cord. If the car was charging it will take several seconds before the light turns white. If it wasn’t charging, it takes less than a second.

Note that these instructions are for a Model S, but I’m pretty sure a Y works the same way.

Hope this helps.

 

[Rtmpaul]

It sounds like you should request service for numbers 5, 6, and 10, especially since there aren't other complaints about them in the forums.

Numbers 2 (flickering incorrect visualization) and 11 (automatic high beam behavior) really are 'software bugs'. Annoying, sure. But certainly not deal-breakers and presumably Tesla will get around to fixing them eventually. You did not mention the common bug of the owner's manual crashing the computer!

Number 7 sounds like user error - you push the little circle on the end of the charging cable to open your charging port, and again to stop charging and release the cable just like at a supercharger. You might need to press the little circle a little longer if the car is asleep, could that be your concern? If this really doesn't work, then again you should raise a service request.

The rest (1,3,4,8,9) were design decisions. Some people will like them, others not so much. Personally, the large visualization seems like a waste of screen territory to me and I would like some things to be optionally bigger for my older eyes, But I don't find the interface to be as counter-intuitive as you apparently do and I am happy to have a heated steering wheel that I can easily control with voice commands.

 

[smogne41]

Tesla suffers from all the problems of the rest of the modern software/tech industry. Particularly relevant here are: shipping incomplete/broken products and 'fixing' them with OTA updates, arbitrary UI changes to 'keep it fresh' (but actually just pissing off a bunch of your owners), too much (unchallenged) product decision-making from the top, seemingly no usability testing, and trying to maintain an iron grip on their products after sale (hence fighting right-to-repair).

Minimalism is great as a guiding design/engendering principle, but there are clearly ways to drastically overdo it. I would say Tesla went about 10% too far with the minimalism in the Model 3/Y (mostly with the horrible wiper controls), but unfortunately have probably gone about 60% too far with the refreshed S. How do I know they are either not doing usability testing or not listening to the testing they are doing? Because they would not be shipping products and software with so many bone-headed design elements (especially in the last 10 months) if they were.

To give some balance though, at least on the software Tesla is still better than most/all of the OEMs in overall quality and design. But that is an incredibly low bar frankly. And they are still trying to solve a lot of problems with software that would be far better off done in a dumb hardware way. That is the Silicon Valley way though unfortunately.

 

[Jigglypuff]

Judging by the incredibly rude and unprofessional way you are interacting with people who don't agree with you and the long list of (minor) complaints, I'd say my assessment of you being someone who is never happy with anything is spot on.

The way the heated steering wheel is turned on is a design issue, not a software issue. They intended to put it in that location and it works in that location as intended. Just because you personally don't agree with their design choice doesn't mean that it's a software problem. The same with the UI, just because you personally don't agree with it doesn't mean it's a problem. For comparison the majority of car manufacturers either have a similar uncustomizable interface or just knobs and buttons. Regarding your other complaints, I have had two teslas for close to 4 years and have not personally had any of the issues you listed apart from the visualizations which you mentioned, which while not perfect are far ahead of anything else that any other care manufacturer is doing. Just because you personally had some issues doesn't mean that they extrapolate to the millions of other cars they have sold. The fact that you expect perfection immediately from a new technology such as the visualizations again shows that you are someone who is never happy with anything.

You've apparently never watched Rick and Morty. No surprise. Also being unhappy with this awful software is not some defining personality trait. You started with the personal attacks, so don't be surprised when they come back at ya.

As for customizing, I have a user selectable button on the Jag plus a bunch of other screen choices I can make. Where the map goes. Where the speedo goes. Where the entertainment info goes. It's not rocket science. Being able to rearrange is one of the great benefits, or perhaps the only benefit, of having a screen only interface. Buttons in general are a thousand times better than screen interfaces, especially in cars where attention should be on the road, not on finding a non-haptic button. I'm typing this on an actual physical keyboard. Why? It's faster than using a screen keyboard, whether on a computer or a phone. The list goes on. I am thankful for the few physical controls Tesla gives. If I couldn't control audio with wheels and buttons, it'd be even worse. It's pretty surprising they got rid of a proper horn button on the Plaid. Also Tesla is not new tech. It's a decade or so old.

Hell, even the Ram pickup had an easier interface.

As for the charging cable, I don't use the Tesla supplied one. Using their own connectors is a bug, not a feature, and I've had a 240V charger in the garage for years. Well, two of them actually. Glad we're back to two EVs again. Putting the release control off the actual car is just silly, and again, it's a software choice with how the car releases the plug. Another bug.

I've been using GUIs for about 30 years now. Mac OS from 6 to whatever it is now. Windows from 3.1 through 10. OS/2 and some Linux GUIs. BMW (3 versions), Audi, Jaguar, Dodge, Ford, VW, Mercedes, and Toyota. Palm, Android, and iOS. Tesla's is the worst to use on a daily basis by a significant margin. I haven't tested everybody's interfaces, but man did Tesla mess this up.

 

[qdeathstar]

Tesla is a car company.

 

[Hapless]

You've apparently never watched Rick and Morty. No surprise. Also being unhappy with this awful software is not some defining personality trait. You started with the personal attacks, so don't be surprised when they come back at ya.

As for customizing, I have a user selectable button on the Jag plus a bunch of other screen choices I can make. Where the map goes. Where the speedo goes. Where the entertainment info goes. It's not rocket science. Being able to rearrange is one of the great benefits, or perhaps the only benefit, of having a screen only interface. Buttons in general are a thousand times better than screen interfaces, especially in cars where attention should be on the road, not on finding a non-haptic button. I'm typing this on an actual physical keyboard. Why? It's faster than using a screen keyboard, whether on a computer or a phone. The list goes on. I am thankful for the few physical controls Tesla gives. If I couldn't control audio with wheels and buttons, it'd be even worse. It's pretty surprising they got rid of a proper horn button on the Plaid. Also Tesla is not new tech. It's a decade or so old.

Hell, even the Ram pickup had an easier interface.

As for the charging cable, I don't use the Tesla supplied one. Using their own connectors is a bug, not a feature, and I've had a 240V charger in the garage for years. Well, two of them actually. Glad we're back to two EVs again. Putting the release control off the actual car is just silly, and again, it's a software choice with how the car releases the plug. Another bug.

I've been using GUIs for about 30 years now. Mac OS from 6 to whatever it is now. Windows from 3.1 through 10. OS/2 and some Linux GUIs. BMW (3 versions), Audi, Jaguar, Dodge, Ford, VW, Mercedes, and Toyota. Palm, Android, and iOS. Tesla's is the worst to use on a daily basis by a significant margin. I haven't tested everybody's interfaces, but man did Tesla mess this up.

Using their own connectors is a bug? Ok, guy. $5 says you don't even own a Tesla and are just here trolling. Either way, you've made my ignore list.

 

[qdeathstar]

I've been using GUIs for about 30 years now. Mac OS from 6 to whatever it is now. Windows from 3.1 through 10. OS/2 and some Linux GUIs. BMW (3 versions), Audi, Jaguar, Dodge, Ford, VW, Mercedes, and Toyota. Palm, Android, and iOS. Tesla's is the worst to use on a daily basis by a significant margin. I haven't tested everybody's interfaces, but man did Tesla mess this up.

palm os better than Tesla’s interface? Lol gtfo