07ag said:
get a tesla, i've had a model3 for over a year now with zero problems. have had to fill the windshield washer fluid and rotate the tires. that's it for maintenance so far in 16k miles.
they are blisteringly quick off the line, still so fun to floor it a year later. frequent software updates keep the car feeling fresh. autopilot and future fsd make road trips less painful.
referral link in my signature
I have to lol at future fsd... Fast forward to the bottom for why.
The issue that I have with Tesla is their ignoring of decades of automotive experience while trying to reinvent the wheel. Musk took a look at the industry and decided, from a position of ignorance, that he knew better. The problem with that thinking is that in many cases Tesla did not know better, and it shows in their inability to consistently (really just ever) turn a profit and and a poor build quality and quality control.
Their body panel gaps and alignment leave a lot to me desired. They're inconsistent and noticeable and some cars.
Paint. Their paint is inconsistent. Some is good. Some is thin. Some parts get missed. Other manufacturers have this down pat. Yes, you can really paint and touch up, but you will never get the clean room, controlled conditions of an automotive plant anywhere else. It's just not the same.
Touchscreens. For years, these have been an issue. Automotive touchscreens are generally small and expensive. When Musk questioned this and wanted a giant screen on the car, he questioned why it wasn't already a thing since laptop screens were so big, pretty durable, and cheap. Turns out, automotive screens are designed to withstand insane conditions within a hot car that other screens simply can't. Tesla went with a large industrial screen that wasn't quite to the loudest automotive standards, but that they thought should work anyway. Turns out it didn't and they did LOTS of replacements. Part of their eventual solution was simply turning on the A/C when the car started getting too hot inside. This is where the dog mode originally came from. It's still an issue, though, because they still experience yellowing borders around the screen that aren't covered under warranty, and last I heard they were trying to develop one in house to address this.
And as for FSD... It's a pipe dream with Teslas, IMO (and not just IMO) because it is purely camera based. From a technical perspective, I don't ever see it being as capable as a lidar/radar/camera system, or even capable enough to be autonomous, and any future upgrades to get it there would inevitably require new hardware installation.
Lidar solves most of the issues that plague camera based image recognition systems because it offers better ranging and low light capability. AP's cameras may be able to see road lines at night, but a deer farther ahead or something else in the road that is not illuminated by ambient light or headlights simply can't be seen until you get to it. Lidar has less of an issue with this because it self illuminates and has a very long range, so objects can be detected and sensed before they can be visually recognized.
Cameras can also be obscured by rain or snow or fog in the same way your windshield can. Autonomous vehicles using radar can see through this. There is currently promising work on getting lidar to work in these conditions, but it's not quite there. There was a very interesting project or of MIT last year that filtered out noise in a lidar system due to fog and shows or to recognize and perceive objects that can't be seen through cameras.
