Would you be willing to run "Beta" software on your Model S?

[ElSupreme]

I remember how long it took to ship games in the past because of how long the test cycles were. Now they can test, less thoroughly yes, but find most bugs, and if any others arise (usually minor), patch them OTA. Surely that's better than delaying the product 6 months or more?

I don't know. My copy of Starcraft 2 still crashes randomly. :tongue:

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

In a less cynical light, the mere fact that games and software can now be patched usually means that deadlines can be met, and that by the time you install your software or run your game updates are available to enable functionality or find bugs that were found after shipping.

I remember how long it took to ship games in the past because of how long the test cycles were. Now they can test, less thoroughly yes, but find most bugs, and if any others arise (usually minor), patch them OTA. Surely that's better than delaying the product 6 months or more?

Works for games, mobile apps, hosted content on websites and such but, strider's right about on-premise business software in particular. If QA finds a 'showstopper' bug late in the game, Prod Mgmt does find a way to try to squeeze more features in with "Oh, we have one more month now and customers X, Y and Z would not buy unless we put these features in!". And, business software updates are adopted at a glacial pace (not quickly OTA) in IT shops in corporate houses - customers end up finding more bugs while testing in-house leading to more patch releases (with more regressions elsewhere) and the vicious cycle continues

Personally, I'd want Tesla to run a tight ship wrt all software aspects of the car rather than live on the bleeding edge in terms of quality and experimentation.

 

[dsm363]

There are so many computer people and engineers here that they could have an opt in for release candidate software. These people would get the finished software a little early then work with the software team at Tesla to work out any remaining bugs.

 

[VolkerP]

WRT beta software: I think Tesla is closely watching what Fisker does with the Karma in-car software. There are some lessons to learn and Elon is all about quality in the first place. Software makes up a fair bit of customer experience in Model S. They just cannot afford to have bugs there. Too many naysayers sit on the perch, ready to dive down on even the most minuscule functional bug, e.g. some panel accessible via three menu iterations not updating SOC % when left open for several minutes. Can you imagine the Jalopnik head line? "TESLA gets it all wrong about the charge level! Haha it's electric but you don't know if it's full or not!"

WRT software engineers: There are a surprising number of forum members in the fruit business. They should be familiar with the banana sw development model: ship green, let it ripen at the customer's. :tongue:

I personally don't want to have experimental features in our car. My wife will do most of the driving. Whenever there is some unexplainable behavior, my wife would expect me to "make it work again" by going back to the last good version

 

[markn455]

Yes I certainly would. I don't really want to put a lot of conditions on my willingness. I would feel better if it had snapshot capability so I could roll back in the event of an issue which would make the vehicle unsafe or unable to operate.

mark

 

[msnow]

First of all Tesla claims to have over 700 beta testers. They mentioned this during the testing phase of 7.0 and AP last year. Also, the fact is we've been production release testers for years. Personally I don't mind it.

 

[bob_p]

Beta testers are provided software that has limited functionality and known bugs.

Tesla's Android App continues to be marked as "beta" along with elements of the on board software.

The current software has several obvious bugs (USB music playing automatically after resume from sleep, losing radio presets, ...) and some problems cause drivers to periodically reboot the software (while the car is in motion).

Sounds like we're all beta testers...

Even if Tesla has 700 beta testers, clearly either that's not a large enough sampling to find problems before releases or distributed OR they're using beta testers who either or not exercising enough of the software OR they lack experience in being a quality beta tester.

Before V7 was released, didn't Elon say that they were planning to have an open beta for V7? That didn't happen.

Tesla should open the beta process, and allow owners to "opt in" or "opt out" of beta testing.

They should provide release notes before software is installed, so owners have more control of what is being installed on their cars.

And, owners should have the ability to "rollback" to the most recent "stable" release, if the owner decides they don't want the features or new bugs introduced by the latest release.

 

[boonedocks]

As long as the worst results would NOT be a disabled car I certainly would consider it. My daily commute is 100+ miles of which ~85 miles are totally A/P. Anything that would further advance A/P would be something I would completely be willing to do.

 

[mmccord]

Did someone just bump a thread from 2012?

 

[anxman]

Aren't we all already running beta software?