Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know enough about the software in BMW (NBT/OS7) and Audi (MIB2/MIB3) instrument cluster stacks to know there's at least as much complexity — if not substantially more — in many of the legacy brands. Not to mention the exponential complexity which comes from their highly modularised approach, where systems from a variety of external suppliers have to co-ordinate with each other. By contrast, the Tesla software stack…
The quip is on point, correct and highly timely. Volkswagen tried to evolve to a more "touch" based HMI -that everybody hated- and is now touting it's abandoning that HMI as the largest redeeming factor of it's cars. China is banning the ridiculous "innovations" on car handles and further "innovations" on steering wheels. The Tesla software stack has few advantages: it's cheap and can be easily revised when the Beta-…
I agree Tesla door releases are silly, on both sides of the door. As a bald person in a city with hot summers, I am no fan of the glass roof either. But at least I can mitigate those. And neither are anywhere as maddening as being unable to wind windows up after opening the door. Or having to switch the radio off every single f****g time I start driving. While those might sound like mere annoyances, the repetitious inanity is utterly grating. I value physical ergonomics greatly, but there's something about pseudo-malicious software behaviours which make me angrier than any door handle ever could.
On a recent holiday I rented a Model 3 (pre-facelift) for a few weeks. It has a few quirks, but nothing that irritated me. It was an utterly pleasant experience. The quirky door handles became second nature within a day, for example. Navigating maps and music on that screen was less of a driver distraction than in many other cars I've driven. Not perfect, but well above average.
I do appreciate physical buttons, but my 1-series BMW from 2013 has taught me that there's something better than physical buttons. It's having systems behave well enough that the buttons might as well not exist. I almost never touch the climate control. Setting the internal temperature to 22 degrees seems to work perfectly all the time; somehow it always seems to do the right thing. The only intervention I regularly make is to press the "MAX A/C" button when driving home from sports or the gym. And I'm pressing that before I start driving anyway, so it's not a driver ergonomics issue.