Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#231

Post by Latteland » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 4:47 AM UTC

xltk wrote: post #222

Latteland wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You needed to do at least read the minimal manual provided in the car's screen or on the web at tesla.com. Autopilot does not stop at stop signs or for people . You can't use it to drive the car when you are drunk. It's not for merging lanes. The things it does are following lanes as they curve, slowing down on curves, and detecting a car in front of you and slowing down. They have demonstrated other things, but it's…

Neither the onboard screen nor the person I was renting from made clear the limitations you describe. If the limitations are indeed that dangerous, more effort should be made to make them abundantly clear instead of requiring a user to search for them. Furthermore, the brand name of the technology is "Autopilot" and the copy from Tesla’s own website is as follows: "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars. All Tesla ve…

I agree with you that they should be much more explicit about this autopilot stuff and the name autopilot is very misleading. The other thing they say on their website (https://www.tesla.com/AUTOPILOT?redirect=no) is this longish quote: "Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction. It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available". But I can imagine you are just in the car and you don't have immediate access to that. A normal car's cruise control doesn't steer on most cars, and people don't expect it to. Because of all the hype around teslas its not surprising that you could think it could do all that stuff. But it's not trivial to turn on the autopilot, did you get that from the person who gave you the car? I think they could have explained it.

I'm happy that you were not hurt nor was anyone else. Tesla could be more explicit about this.

I guess it's another thing that you learn from experience, and they do talk about it but it's not obvious but when the car is more full, they charge the batteries at a slower rate, they can only charge them at a rate based on how close they are to full. I know that's confusing, that's just how they work. If you use the trip planner in the car, it will route you through the super chargers and tell you how long to stay at each one and what the likely % of charge will be. I traveled from Seattle to Banff and the superchargers have been placed at a good distance apart so that I never need to charge more than about 75%.

I hope if you ever try another EV that the people renting it to you provide proper instructions so that you can drive it safely.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#232

Post by Latteland » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 4:49 AM UTC

Fins wrote: post #160

Latteland wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try driving one. All gas cars just seem archaic, even my wife's new camera, which has some connected car features doesn't compare. That car has crappy ui, terrible app on phone. The human factors design by Toyota is just kludgey. It drives fine, the engine seems efficient with electric battery driving. But it's not fun to drive.

Not aq big fan of Toyota's design, but is their UX seriously worse than "oh, let's control AC system from a touchscreen" nonsense from Tesla?

Yes, I think Toyota is bad. The S is maybe a little bit better than the 3, but they'll improve the 3. On the S the AC controls are always at the bottom of the screen, touch it at any time and they show up. The tesla isn't perfect, but it's so much more advanced than the competitors. Tesla needs competition so they can get better. Today's model S is the same as the first one I bought in 2012, except for a bit better battery and now AWD is available.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#233

Post by Latteland » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 4:57 AM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #128

alexandros wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to go on the record as saying that the big car companies of today, short of a miracle, are on track to meet the big mobile phone companies of the pre-iPhone era. Remember when Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel, Sony seemed unassailable?

Both Audi & Jaguar are looking on track to, on their first attempts, quite soundly beat Tesla at the electric SUV game. Similar price, similar range, and vastly better quality. And really if you think about it that shouldn't be surprising. The big car companies today don't need a miracle at all. They are in a pretty good spot. They know how to do all the really hard stuff about building a car (the actual manufacturin…

It should be that Audi and Jaguar can make a nicer interior. But their dealers hate electric cars, because there's no maintenance. Tesla's biggest advantage is their worldwide network of charging stations that is available to everyone. They also have billions of miles of ev driving experience, input into the autopilot program.

The real engineering advantage tesla has is their proven battery heating and cooling technology - none of the other companies have that, and the recent cars have adopted some of tesla's ideas about heating and cooling but they don't have experience.

Finally, don't forget that there's a world wide shortage of electric car batteries. that's why tesla had to build the irritatingly named giga factory, because without it they couldn't build a lot of evs. and other companies can't either, without new battery production coming online.

Audi announced they wouldn't keep the audi ev at dealers, it's special order. I don't know if this is because dealers didn't want it or they didn't want to train them or what. gm dealers are said to not be enthusiastic about the bolt.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#234

Post by dingaling » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #189

stephengillie wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really this is like the start of digital cameras. Computer companies made the first digital cameras, then eventually camera companies made good digital cameras.

Are you sure about that? The best cameras nowadays seem to be made by computer companies (Apple, Samsung, Huawei, etc)

Sony, Samsumg and Canon dominate the camera sensor market in that order of volume.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#235

Post by Zarel » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:12 AM UTC

rjplatte wrote: post #66

kidsnow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Even without self-driving technology, people would buy these cars. Several friends specifically deleted the self driving hardware on their Model 3's.

I'm super curious about the hardware deletion process.

I assume he just means "chose to omit the Autopilot hardware when buying the car", which makes the car $5000 cheaper.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#236

Post by dmckeon » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:15 AM UTC

jbob2000 wrote: post #167

RickS wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been driving the C class cars through CarToGo, their rideshare-as-marketing operation. They are horrid . Clunky, with seats that could never pass as leather, gaudy plastic bits everywhere, and needlessly complex interfaces. Not to mention their touch screens, which... ugh. They are like a poor person's idea of what a rich person's car might look like. Flash and trim and affectation with no underlying reason what…

I actually really like my 2016 C-class. It has a “hold” feature where, if you are at a stop light, you can give the brake pedal an extra push to “hold” the brakes and you can then take your foot off the brake pedal to rest, while the car keeps the brakes on. Then, when you start to accelerate, it automatically releases the brake and you go, just as if you swapped from the brake pedal to accelerator. You can also do t…

> t also has this eco game thing, where you earn “points” when you drive efficiently, and it penalizes you for driving inefficiently (hard acceleration, braking instead of coasting, inconsistent speed). This “game” has transformed the way I drive, it should be in every car.

If it also earns a driver "points" for not impeding other traffic while driving efficiently, and penalizes a driver for blocking other vehicles that want to pass, when the driver could safely move to a space in a non-passing lane, then it might be welcomed by many drivers.

IMHO, the main reason that Prius drivers have a reputation for driving selfishly while hypermiling is that Toyota put the current MPG in big numbers on the default display screen, and many Prius drivers got into the habit of optimising their driving for a lager MPG number, to the exclusion of being aware of other traffic on the road.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#237

Post by xltk » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:16 AM UTC

Latteland wrote: post #231

xltk wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither the onboard screen nor the person I was renting from made clear the limitations you describe. If the limitations are indeed that dangerous, more effort should be made to make them abundantly clear instead of requiring a user to search for them. Furthermore, the brand name of the technology is "Autopilot" and the copy from Tesla’s own website is as follows: "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars. All Tesla ve…

I agree with you that they should be much more explicit about this autopilot stuff and the name autopilot is very misleading. The other thing they say on their website ( https://www.tesla.com/AUTOPILOT?redirect=no ) is this longish quote: "Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction. It is not possible to kn…

Thanks, to be clear I tried Autopilot's street capabilities in a non-busy area, so the risk of anyone getting hurt was pretty low. I'm still bullish on electric/hybrid cars and plan to get one in the future.

Appreciate the extra info on supercharging, good to know.

I think the misunderstanding of Autopilot came from a few things:

- The hype you mention around Tesla and some of the language they use.

- My own mistake in conflating self-driving technologies that Google, Uber, Lyft (Cruise), etc. are working on with Tesla's.

- Videos like this posted on Tesla's site two years ago: https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-.... Notice the car fully stops at intersections in that video.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#238

Post by Apocryphon » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:18 AM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #200

Apocryphon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two values you're comparing differ by 60x.

Is a car 60x more useful than a phone? (Honest question, and probably varies by user. Though most cars last longer than most phones.)

Well, the point is that it’s 60x more expensive.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#239

Post by King-Aaron » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:26 AM UTC

MetallicCloud wrote: post #193

King-Aaron wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies, I'm not from the United States.

As a fellow Aussie, I still find it ludicrous that $60,000 AUD isn't much to spend on a car. Obviously only an anecdote, but I don't know anyone who has bought a car that even approaches that price, let alone for that to be the norm.

Did you happen to price up an SS commodore before they stopped selling them? Or look at the price of a Landcruiser? Very expensive vehicles yet the roads are plastered with them.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#240

Post by hndamien » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:42 AM UTC

hndamien wrote: post #204

xref wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if it is still touchscreen only there's not much way to improve it, you'll have to watch the pane of glass and not the road since there's no tactile information.

Tech for tactile feedback on touch screens exist today. https://www.theverge.com/ces/2017/1/5/14185134/tanvas-touchs...

Not sure I understand the downvotes with no comment...? Maybe a video is more convincing... https://youtu.be/JelhR2iPuw0?t=17s

Or this from BMW....https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/15/bmws-holoactive-touch-in-c...

Or Ultrahaptics... https://www.ultrahaptics.com/