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> Since automakers who actually know how to make reliable cars have caught up on the EV part, that’s a pretty ridiculous claim.

Most are still years behind Tesla on the range or software quality part. Ask any Volkswagen owner, their software has gone to shit.

On top of that they're rare in numbers. Tesla makes more cars in a quarter than BMW in a year, and it's obvious that the focus of the "classic" ICE car industry still lies on huge, gas guzzling, high-margin SUVs.




> Most are still years behind Tesla on the range

FTA: "In July, the news agency revealed how Tesla had created a secret team to suppress thousands of customer complaints about poor driving range. The report, which found that Tesla rigged an algorithm to inflate its cars’ in-dash range estimates, sparked a federal investigation."


They are ahead in software side of things, so ... they fixed it in software :-)


Exactly, it worked for the Boeing 737 Max... for a while...


The end game for surveillance capitalism. Recording everything you do, storing it out of your control and then falsifying the data to screw other people over. They'll probably only get a small fine for it so all they'll learn is to hide it a little bit better next time.

You think this information will be used to make things better for you the consumer? This is war, and you're the enemy.


I don’t want software from my car manufacturer. I want a thing I can cast Apple CarPlay on.

Regarding range, pretty much any EV with a comparable battery pack (kWh-wise) is a peer. And there’s plenty of those now.


Exactly. Tesla’s overuse of software for everything is a bug, not a feature. I want knobs and dials and something to cast CarPlay on, and that’s it.


You don't want software, you just want a thing that relies on software. Got it


They don't want software they have to interact with through the car's UI. Everything relies on software these days, I'm sure they want their brakes to keep working too which requires software, but I think what they tried to communicate came through pretty clearly.


You said it yourself- even braking requires software these days, so the statement 'i dont want software from my car manufacturer' clearly makes no sense.

Maybe you could say 'you don't want UI software from your car manufacturer' but that's obviously wrong for the market as well- what about users who don't have an apple, or who prefer not to use their phone at all? Cars are moving towards more tech integration, not less, so the entire idea of auto manufacturers not needing to focus on software makes no sense. Zooming back out to the larger point, Tesla is clearly leading the software battle, and that's a battle that matters for consumers.


Maybe I'm showing my age, but braking should not require software. It should be a pedal physically linked (through hydraulics or otherwise) to four sets of brake pads. Maybe an exception for ABS, but even then, ABS can obviously be implemented without software or even electronics.


I get that brake lights can be mechanical, but man would those parts wear down and be unreliable. Also, having your trailer help with the braking is very nice (and communicated via wire).


I think the obvious interpretation is, "I want to be able to use my car without having to interact with its UI, I just want something I can cast CarPlay to". And that's understandable and unproblematic and doesn't imply that the car should be unusable without an Apple/Android phone.

Tesla's lack of CarPlay means it's far behind in the software battle for a whole lot of consumers.


That's an argument over semantics, having to preface any usage of "software" with a disclaimer about an exact meaning of it is not only cumbersome but pretty damn boring for any online discussion.

I don't think the original comment was made in a way that this nitpicking adds anything to the discussion. Cars have software for 30-40+ years if we interpret the way you are interpreting so it makes sense to ignore that meaning and actually reply to what was meant by the comment...

It's just very tiresome to have these semantics bickering when it's pretty obvious what was meant.


No less tiresome than your dismissal of my argument as semantics. I read the OP as asking to turn the center console into a dumb screen for use with a secondary device, or at least the allowance of any native casting software. That is obviously an absurd idea. Until Apple puts out a car, why would a car maker cede the center console to an indeterminate second platform? Do consumers want Apple play, or Android auto? No, they want the best possible navigation experience, and car manufacturers are not going to rely on third party platforms to deliver an increasing share of that experience (with music, navigation, games, movies) on that center screen. Forgetting even the customer benefit, automakers aren't going to pass on the monetization opportunities the console represents. [1]

My point might be overly deterministic, but it's not semantics. I'm saying software has already eaten the world, and if we're going to be making outrageous wishes, we should be wishing for the car companies to implement better UI software, not wash their hands of it. At least the former is achievable. Arguably, the latter isn't even desirable.

[1] https://www.hotcars.com/why-tesla-doesnt-include-apple-carpl....


This has gotten so far from the point of the original comment, which is that the software of VW and others is often worse. You’re not getting many buttons and nobs in those either, and the few you do don’t work all that well as they’re fake (capacitive) buttons now. You’ll be relying on the software UI for the bulk of the creature comforts of the car - not just stuff that can be replaced by CarPlay.


> Tesla makes more cars in a quarter than BMW in a year,

BMW Group produced 2,399,632 vehicles in 2022 (a decrease of 4,5% from 2021) with 2,100,689 being BMW's themselves.

Tesla produced 1,369,611 vehicles in 2022.

Not even sure where you heard that Tesla produced more cars than BMW.


> Not even sure where you heard that Tesla produced more cars than BMW.

From BMW themselves. Barely 65k cars a quarter [1], that's about 260k a year. Tesla meanwhile makes over 400k cars a quarter [2].

[1] https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T041287...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/715421/tesla-quarterly-v...


> From BMW themselves. Barely 65k cars a quarter

No, you did not get it from BMW themselves. What you did get from them is that they produce 65k EVs, not cars in general. They produce twice as many cars as Tesla.


Some quarters are clearly different than others.


Volkswagen and other ICE car manufacturers are not IT companies like Tesla. They are holdings outsourcing design and manufacturing to Bosch, Magna Steyr, and others.


Yes, but they are doing another layer of quality control on whatever comes out of Bosch. Because at the end of the day, they can't blame Bosch for the bad quality of cars sold under their brand.


I'd much rather have a door hinge[1] from Bosch, a company that has manufactured a billion door hinges[1], than from a company that's figuring out how to design and manufacture door hinges right now.

[1] these are hypothetical examples meant to illustrated a mechanism.


> Tesla makes more cars in a quarter than BMW in a year

bmw sold >2million cars in 2022, compared to tesla's 4.2million since 2008.


> it's obvious that the focus of the "classic" ICE car industry still lies on huge, gas guzzling, high-margin SUVs

Well you said it yourself, it's the margins. I guess we can blame people then for paying those margins, buying those huge, gas-guzzling SUVs.

Meanwhile Tesla releases a huge (albeit not gas-guzzling in the traditional sense of course) pickup truck. (Whether it's high margin I have no idea.)




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