Very disappointing new M3 experience

[jjrandorin]

Personal attacks have no place on a forum, agreed. However, when a poster starts a rant thread, especially when a lot of it seems to be a simple lack of research, naturally many will disagree and it may seem like piling on, but it's not on purpose, and I don't see how it can be avoided. Not everything is going to be spoon fed to the owners. And this is industry wide. Also, not every Tesla experience is going to be the same. My experience was the opposite. I had a sales rep who made himself available to answer any question, and who followed up after I had the car for a week. Should it be like this everywhere? Sure, but it's a work in progress and there are other factors to consider.

Another thing with rants is we're only reading one side of the story. We don't know the demeanor of the poster when they approached service.

If 'piling on' is not something the forum wants, then I have to agree with those who said threads like these should be locked.

Im not disagreeing with you on the reason, actually. I was just pointing it out, because a lot of the same discussion points have been made a few different times toward the OP. My goal in pointing it out was to encourage people reading along that, if "hey the point I was going to make toward this OPs post has already been made by several others, maybe I dont need to post and make that point again, as well".

The moderator note I made earlier in the thread (under my "mod hat") was because I DID have to move a personal attack from the thread ( a deliberate, fairly aggressive one), which is why I posted that under moderator notes. The other "piling on" statement was more "gentle coaxing" but not moderation, as it were (thus, no "moderator note") in it.

There are plenty of times when I feel one specific way or another, but do (or dont) take action as a moderator because its not appropriate, regardless of how I may feel (or not feel) about something.

For me personally, its a fine line I walk, because I still enjoy participating in the forums as a regular person so many times post stuff "as myself". If I am posting as a moderator, I try to be very clear about it by putting a note in the post (or part of the post) that applies to. With that being said, I am WELL aware that, for some people, no matter what I say or how I say it, it will be looked at as "a TMC moderator said".....

Shrug... lol

 

[Sunny5280]

Just because someone has had a car for 8 years, that doesnt mean they are scrolling through forums and such all the time. The OPs mistake was expecting / not verifying things like "what does the delivery experience look like now vs when I bought my car 8 years ago?" if that was important to them.

IMO the OPs largest issue was not with any of the individual things he listed but rather how the Tesla experience has deteriorated so much since he purchased his Model S. IMO this was the primary reason he started this thread.

 

[Sunny5280]

Homelink is being obsoleted by smart devices and home automation applications. MyQ and other similar tech will likely be integrated down the road.

I use my Apple Watch to open my door regardless of the vehicle I’m driving (or if I’m out walking or running). I can also use Siri for voice command if my hands are full. This is the future, not programmable Homelink modules, internal combustion engines, blockbuster video, or AM/FM radios.

In the car I did command strip an opener to the drivers side door pocket. Just don’t see the value in investing $325 in tech that’s clearly on its way out.

Tim

It may be being obsoleted but it's not obsolete now. Many people still use it and I don't think it unreasonable to add an option to purchase it at the time the vehicle is being ordered.

 

[ChopinBlues]

It must be purchased after you own the car. Its one of the silliest things tesla has done, imo. I dont have an issue with them charging for it and not including it standard. They dont want to pay the licensing fee for each car. Its fine for them to charge for it, but it should be a clickable thing on the order screen.

There is virtually zero chance tesla is making money on this because the cost of it (currently $325? I dont follow it I am not sure used to be $300), includes labor to install it, including from mobile service.

not making money? As I pointed out earlier, this is no more than a 5-dollar piece of silicon. So, figure around 300 bucks to drive to your house and probably 1 hour to install (I will know the exact time in 2 days, when I get mine). Not bad money for a mechanic

 

[jjrandorin]

not making money? As I pointed out earlier, this is no more than a 5-dollar piece of silicon. So, figure around 300 bucks to drive to your house and probably 1 hour to install (I will know the exact time in 2 days, when I get mine). Not bad money for a mechanic

We also dont know what the license costs, nor tesla's cost structure, however "rolling a truck" + 1 Hour labor charge + license, whatever it is, it certainly wouldnt be significant money if there is any at all.

 

[stopcrazypp]

not making money? As I pointed out earlier, this is no more than a 5-dollar piece of silicon. So, figure around 300 bucks to drive to your house and probably 1 hour to install (I will know the exact time in 2 days, when I get mine). Not bad money for a mechanic

It's not a $5 silicon, you are ignoring the licensing costs and the module cost from Gentex:

Tesla Model 3 HomeLink 1114984-00-A Control Unit Garage Opener Easy Install 17+ | eBay

Even a small little ATV remote costs $150 from Gentex so this isn't cheap. Gentex has a monopoly on this so it's going to be hard to change, which is why automakers are starting to move away from making this standard.
https://www.amazon.com/GENHLBP1-Wireless-Homelink-Tractor-Motorcycle/dp/B077NYF667

Someone above thread linked the Homelink option costs $365 in a Subaru Forester, so it's not out of line for Tesla to charge $325 including installation.
Very disappointing new M3 experience

Model 3/Y Automatic Garage Opener

Not sure where you are getting $5 from.

 

[tomas]

There is a bit of "piling on" happening here. I understand some of the responses, but its also quite true that Tesla has changed a TON in the last 8 years, both as a company and as a product.

Just because someone has had a car for 8 years, that doesnt mean they are scrolling through forums and such all the time. The OPs mistake was expecting / not verifying things like "what does the delivery experience look like now vs when I bought my car 8 years ago?" if that was important to them.

Given that much of the world is still in an ongoing pandemic, its not surprising that there is less handholding, but even if there was no pandemic, the experience the OP had on pickup would be much different than it was 8 years ago, and thats just facts.

Like I said, I understand some of the responses, but also think that there is a bit of ganging up happening here.

Sorry JJ, I think you are discouraging an interesting conversation. I have also owned an S for almost 9 years and 2 3s for 3 years. Owning the S for 9 years has involved 3 major UI updates with no documentation…. Probably over 100 software updates… and til a few years ago there were no release notes. The manual used to be worse, less accessible, and more out of date than now. In very early days the SC personnel knew the car pretty well, but since 2014 it’s been hit or miss. I don’t remember a bow around my 2012 S. Surely they were not as busy back then, but I think my pickup and orientation was no more than the 3s in 2018: about 10 minutes. Sure, if someone bought a Tesla in 2012, sold it in 2013, and then bought again in 2021 I could see being alarmed. But it’s hard not to notice these same issues over 9 years of ownership, so it is the alarm that surprises me. Maybe OP had a real plum that never had any issues.

NOT piling on, just discussing as someone who has been in exactly same ownership boat as OP.

 

[ChopinBlues]

If you park the car and go back to the car more than hour later, it will have nothing since it'll delete all the clips

Is there someone at Tesla I could contact to try to explain to them how pointless and self-defeating this approach is? At this point, I really do feel justified in calling this implementation 'idiotic' on another thread, which I took a lot of grief for. Erasing perfectly good video, rather than just overwriting the oldest clips when it gets full accomplishes nothing. You mentioned the lifetime write cycles of flash earlier in this thread. Even though the erasing accomplishes nothing (other than possibly pointlessly using up write cycles), let's do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation anyway:

Each of the 4 cameras records a maximum of about 40 MB per one minute clip. Doing the math, it takes about 13 hours to fill the supplied 128 GB flash device. Even cheap flash memory is guaranteed for 100,000 write cycles. So let’s take the extreme case of a maniacal traveling salesman who drives 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. It will take that guy 274 YEARS before he exceeds the write cycles on the device. Even if I’m off by a factor of 10, it will last far longer than the car. And if I’m off by a factor of a hundred, I’m pretty sure that someone who just dropped 60 grand on a car can spring for 10 bucks for a new flash device every couple of years. And that’s for a maniacal traveling salesman. For any normal person, with a current, quality flash device, it will never happen.

 

[ChopinBlues]

It's not a $5 silicon, you are ignoring the licensing costs and the module cost from Gentex:

I don't care what over-engineered package they put this in -- this is nothing but a cheap low-end, short range radio, with a minuscule amount of cpu. Have you ever opened up your standard garage-door opener to replace the battery? Or consider an iPhone, which has multiple radios, far more complex than this one, and that is only a tiny piece of what's inside (which is mostly battery)

 

[Sunny5280]

Is there someone at Tesla I could contact to try to explain to them how pointless and self-defeating this approach is? At this point, I really do feel justified in calling this implementation 'idiotic' on another thread, which I took a lot of grief for. Erasing perfectly good video, rather than just overwriting the oldest clips when it gets full accomplishes nothing. You mentioned the lifetime write cycles of flash earlier in this thread. Even though the erasing accomplishes nothing (other than possibly pointlessly using up write cycles), let's do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation anyway:

Each of the 4 cameras records a maximum of about 40 MB per one minute clip. Doing the math, it takes about 13 hours to fill the supplied 128 GB flash device. Even cheap flash memory is guaranteed for 100,000 write cycles. So let’s take the extreme case of a maniacal traveling salesman who drives 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. It will take that guy 274 YEARS before he exceeds the write cycles on the device. Even if I’m off by a factor of 10, it will last far longer than the car. And if I’m off by a factor of a hundred, I’m pretty sure that someone who just dropped 60 grand on a car can spring for 10 bucks for a new flash device every couple of years. And that’s for a maniacal traveling salesman. For any normal person, with a current, quality flash device, it will never happen.

I am puzzled by the behavior of the dashcam. I have a BlackVue in my other car and it does exactly what you described: When the microSD card fills it begins to overwrite files starting with the oldest. It also records date and time (not sure if the Tesla cameras do because when I went to check I found that there were no videos on the USB drive) and the speed (audio too if enabled). Tesla definitely could improve the dashcam functionality.

 

[JohnnyMa]

Everyone else has said it all. Your last two comments sound like you're trying to re-engineer features and functionality - to what end? I don't know that anyone else is clamoring for the dashcam to be recording and saving all the time, nor are we really fighting the Homelink implementation - it is what it is, why waste time debating it. Tesla is by no means perfect but most of your concerns are addressed through research and reading the manual.

 

[ChopinBlues]

Everyone else has said it all. Your last two comments sound like you're trying to re-engineer features and functionality - to what end? I don't know that anyone else is clamoring for the dashcam to be recording and saving all the time, nor are we really fighting the Homelink implementation - it is what it is, why waste time debating it. Tesla is by no means perfect but most of your concerns are addressed through research and reading the manual.

Do you understand what a dashcam is, and why you would want one? Tesla's implementation here could easily turn out to be completely useless in a situation where you might desparately need these recordings. Again, no other commercial dashcam (that I'm aware of; also see the comment above from Sunny5280) operates this way, and there's a reason for that: it's illogical and self-defeating

 

[tomas]

HomeLink 60-HMLKV5BLK Wireless Garage Door Opener Control System for Car Headliner or Sun Visor: Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A79G9FY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_E7XPDQHNXFKG8XGWH068

Even the amazon cheap visor gadget is $150. It’s the licensing.

I suspect with the way Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and home automation are going, homelink will seem like a dumb thing to have paid even $150 for in a couple of years, so understand why Tesla deleted to help keep their list price low. There are more better options every day.

 

[tomas]

Do you understand what a dashcam is, and why you would want one? Tesla's implementation here could easily turn out to be completely useless in a situation where you might desparately need these recordings. Again, no other commercial dashcam (that I'm aware of) operates this way, and there's a reason for that: it's illogical and self-defeating

Is there another car that comes with an integrated dashcam standard? Or are you talking about the full function ones made by companies which depend on that core competency to stay in business?

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

It's not a $5 silicon, you are ignoring the licensing costs and the module cost from Gentex:

Not sure where you are getting $5 from.

Start with the full retail price of $11.88/ea for the latest "Security+2.0" remote.
Then remove about $3 worth of shipping for a full retail cost of $9/ea
Then remove 50% profit at the retailer for a cost of $4.50/ea
Then remove 50% profit at the distributor for a cost of $2.25/ea
Then cut the cost in half as quantities approach 1M/year, for about $1.12/ea
Then give $1 in royalties to Gentex for a cost of $0.12/ea
Then replace all the buttons, battery, and lights with a simple 4-pin connector.

 

[Sunny5280]

Everyone else has said it all. Your last two comments sound like you're trying to re-engineer features and functionality - to what end? I don't know that anyone else is clamoring for the dashcam to be recording and saving all the time, nor are we really fighting the Homelink implementation - it is what it is, why waste time debating it. Tesla is by no means perfect but most of your concerns are addressed through research and reading the manual.

Yet here you are doing just that.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Start with the full retail price of $11.88/ea for the latest "Security+2.0" remote.
Then remove about $3 worth of shipping for a full retail cost of $9/ea
Then remove 50% profit at the retailer for a cost of $4.50/ea
Then remove 50% profit at the distributor for a cost of $2.25/ea
Then cut the cost in half as quantities approach 1M/year, for about $1.12/ea
Then give $1 in royalties to Gentex for a cost of $0.12/ea
Then replace all the buttons, battery, and lights with a simple 4-pin connector.

View attachment 712031

That's not Homelink, so prices of that is irrelevant. Homelink is proprietary to Gentex. The cheapest Gentex module I found is the one I linked at $150.

Garage remotes are dirt cheap, but Homelink is not (due to their monopoly).

 

[Trekker_]

Do you understand what a dashcam is, and why you would want one? Tesla's implementation here could easily turn out to be completely useless in a situation where you might desparately need these recordings. Again, no other commercial dashcam (that I'm aware of; also see the comment above from Sunny5280) operates this way, and there's a reason for that: it's illogical and self-defeating

The dashcam was an afterthought to start with dude. The cameras are for autopilot, Tesla let us access them for dashcam as an add on.... Secondly, dashcams have to be triggered to save their recordings indefinitely. Your tesla is the same. Turn on the "save on honk" feature or click the save button when you want to save a clip. Really isn't all that hard to process here. I have had a few dashcams and not one saved everything until SD full. They save a certain amount of time and then cycle through. They leave a bunch of empty space for saving clips... Just like tesla

 

[Sunny5280]

The dashcam was an afterthought to start with dude. The cameras are for autopilot, Tesla let us access them for dashcam as an add on.... Secondly, dashcams have to be triggered to save their recordings indefinitely. Your tesla is the same. Turn on the "save on honk" feature or click the save button when you want to save a clip. Really isn't all that hard to process here. I have had a few dashcams and not one saved everything until SD full. They save a certain amount of time and then cycle through. They leave a bunch of empty space for saving clips... Just like tesla

Mine, a BlackVue DR750S-2CH does exactly this. It continues to consume space until it is completely used and then begins to overwrite existing files starting with the oldest file. If I were to pull the microSD card from the camera and insert it into my computer it would be almost at full capacity. I can go out to that car right now and retrieve video from last Friday (when I last drove it) and possibly even before that. This circular method of storage makes sense and would be welcome for Tesla to implement.

As for it being an afterthought it may be however that doesn't mean it can't, or shouldn't, be improved.

 

[Trekker_]

Mine, a BlackVue DR750S-2CH does exactly this. It continues to consume space until it is completely used and then begins to overwrite existing files starting with the oldest file. If I were to pull the microSD card from the camera and insert it into my computer it would be almost at full capacity. I can go out to that car right now and retrieve video from last Friday (when I last drove it) and possibly even before that. This circular method of storage makes sense and would be welcome for Tesla to implement.

As for it being an afterthought it may be however that doesn't mean it can't, or shouldn't, be improved.

It does cycle on teslas... Over an hour as previously stated. The main use for that USB is really supposed to be music storage so it wouldn't make sense to fill it with footage. No one else has an issue with how it works but you. Want to save a clip? Honk your horn. I guess I don't understand what the problem is with that. If something happens I usually am honking my horn and if it was something I saw not with me involved, I can click save on the screen