I've had my car for about the same length of time. It is fun to drive when it's working. The first two years were uneventful, but it was evident that the build quality was subpar and the software substandard. And I'm not referring to the entertainment system here, but rather the software that controls the car itself, which falls short compared to my Volvo XC60. The fly-by-wire system lacks the necessary redundancies and telemetry/logging to fail safely. My experience involved the car's computer malfunctioning while in lane-keeping cruise control (Autopilot, not FSD). The vehicle would abruptly and violently swerve out of the lane, crossing over the white line into adjacent lanes and towards barriers. Tesla initially attributed these issues to wheel alignment or tracking. It took several service appointments and months to convince them otherwise, requiring me to mount a GoPro in my car and dangerously recreate the issue, which randomly occurred after about 45 minutes of cruise control driving. It wasn't until I contacted their PR department and threatened to involve the press that they took the matter seriously.
What a perilously flawed failure mode. Yet, throughout these months, during which the car swerved erratically at least 20 times, no alerts were triggered, nor were errors or crash dumps logged that could be detected by their technicians or the main office in California. It required GoPro footage from inside my car to highlight the issue.
Their service process is Kafkaesque. Phone support is ineffective, and you're relegated to using a text box in the mobile app that only accepts small image attachments. Videos cannot be uploaded directly; they provide an email address, but emails can;'t contain links or they will be blocked and emails with large attachments won't work. Each interaction feels like starting from scratch, as they don't seem to review the history or notes of your issue.
As for the humidity or fog in your headlights, they claim it's within specifications and will dissipate once the car warms up. There's so much more, phantom breaking at highway speeds, exaggerated range estimates, slow headlight dimming, headlights that need constant re-calibration, terrible rain sensors and wiper modes, etc. etc.
I rented a model 3 yesterday. I generally like the car, but the autopilot* was indeed a big letdown. It would exit cruise control/lane keeping mode occasionally due to 'system error'. This precipitated a DEFCON 5 type emergency with visual and audible alerts, not to mention sudden drop in speed and loss of automatic steering.
Even when it runs nominally, it prompts you every 20 seconds or so to apply turning force to the wheel (counterintuitively, as you want to go straight in the lane). If you are momentarily distracted (like having a relaxed conversation) and miss the warning, boom, DEFCON 5. Do that a few times and now the car will actively prevent you using autopilot, like an overbearing mother.
The feature that is supposed to make driving more enjoyable, instead ratcheting up anxiety towards almost giving everyone a heart attack. I drive other cars all the time and they do this fine. So weird.
*autopilot = I am just talking about cruise control + lane keeping, i.e. press down on the stalk. Not sure about the naming.
> Even when it runs nominally, it prompts you every 20 seconds or so to apply turning force to the wheel (counterintuitively, as you want to go straight in the lane)
This is a huge issue with Tesla's system, they were too cheap to actually detect hands on the wheel and instead train you to exert undue force on the wheel which can lead to steering incorrectly. The timing for the system is haphazard at best and often dings you for not having hands on the wheel when you do, but you were too busy driving to pay attention to the prompts.
I admit I never had a service need that prevented me from driving: I have a preemptive A/C tube replacement and I have an appointment to replace a tire pressure monitor, so I can't attest to the quality of service.
Regarding autopilot, I agree that it's bad. I don't know how it compares to other cars - I've never driven another car with lane-keeping - only a Toyota and a Volkwagon with adaptive cruise control, and my Tesla seems to be as good as they were.
In truth I think the whole "self-driving car" idea is a horrible mess. If I were a regulator the only self driving I would approve is Level 5 - full self driving, and maybe level 4 which is really level 5 just geofenced. Either you're driving the car or the car is driving itself, you can't have it both ways.
Adaptive cruise control is still you driving - because if you lose focus or attention for more than a second or two you'll slip off lane - while lane keeping is horrifying to me because you could lose attention for half and hour and still be fine - right until you're not (and neither is the person you hit).
All this to say that yes, Tesla's autopilot is crap, but I don't use it and wouldn't use a competitor's version, so I don't measure it by that yardstick.
> It took several service appointments and months to convince them otherwise, requiring me to mount a GoPro in my car and dangerously recreate the issue, which randomly occurred after about 45 minutes of cruise control driving.
Then post the video and publicly call them out?
> It wasn't until I contacted their PR department and threatened to involve the press that they took the matter seriously.
This is where ya lose me... Tesla doesn't have a 'PR department'
> This is where ya lose me... Tesla doesn't have a 'PR department'
He probably means he contacted the email address listed under the heading "Press" on their contact page. At any other company the department that handles that address would be called the PR department.
You say this as if it is something somebody should be reasonably expected to do, rather than this is something no one should reasonably have to deal with.
Tesla had a PR department up until October 2020. It's entirely possible that the person you're replying to was experiencing the issue before that date.
What a perilously flawed failure mode. Yet, throughout these months, during which the car swerved erratically at least 20 times, no alerts were triggered, nor were errors or crash dumps logged that could be detected by their technicians or the main office in California. It required GoPro footage from inside my car to highlight the issue.
Their service process is Kafkaesque. Phone support is ineffective, and you're relegated to using a text box in the mobile app that only accepts small image attachments. Videos cannot be uploaded directly; they provide an email address, but emails can;'t contain links or they will be blocked and emails with large attachments won't work. Each interaction feels like starting from scratch, as they don't seem to review the history or notes of your issue.
As for the humidity or fog in your headlights, they claim it's within specifications and will dissipate once the car warms up. There's so much more, phantom breaking at highway speeds, exaggerated range estimates, slow headlight dimming, headlights that need constant re-calibration, terrible rain sensors and wiper modes, etc. etc.