Scathing!
When conceived initially, it had some pretty interesting ideas. The thought process was probably like:
Hmm... What if we use stainless steel instead of regular steel and avoid all the expenses of the paint shop? But then we need to use thicker panels because stainless steel is not great mechanically. So let's double down on thickness and make the panels a load-bearing "exoskeleton", this will also help us to avoid the weight penalty of the frame! But we can't stamp panels that are this thick, we just don't have big enough presses. So let's try to do this "flat" design.
But they failed to achieve that. And now they have a regular boring body-on-the-frame car, with thick panels just adding useless weight and cutting down the battery range. And then there's this steer-by-wire gimmick because Elon really wanted the yoke to happen.
The only remaining true improvement is the 48V power-over-Ethernet architecture.
The uniwiper. The wheel-supporting bolts made for a much lighter vehicle. The glued on cantrails. The glue-installed light bar. The snow-collecting headlight shelf. The frequently jamming tonneau cover. The panel gaps. The sharp edges. The gear selector that likes to fall down from the ceiling. The weird discolorations and scuff marks the bed often has on delivery. The shitty cupholders.
People paid $100k for this. It's criminally bad at that price.
I ordered one on announcement day (11/21/2019). Yeah, I thought it was ugly, but the main selling point for me was its promised ability to go 500 miles on a single charge. (Apparently Musk has a habit of making promises he cannot keep.)
I really wanted that 500 mile range. My two homes are 300 miles apart, and I don't want to waste my time at a charging station while traveling between them. I also liked the idea of using the truck as a power-wall for my (4kW) solar plant.
I cancelled my order and got my $100 back (after inflation ate about 20% of it).
The Lucid Air (GT) offers similar range (512 miles), but it's not a truck, which I also really wanted. (I have enough cars already.) Also, the price of the Lucid Air was more than double that of the promised CT price. In the end, the CT price went up and the Lucid Air price went down, so they're now within about 10% of each other.
That sounds like a problem solvable by a 3rd home.
leakycap•7mo ago
[Edit to delete references to LIDAR]: Then front radar was disabled/disconnected https://www.carscoops.com/2023/05/tesla-is-disabling-radar-s...
Then he stepped into his problematic political role.
It is hard to imagine any technically competent buyer getting past either of the first two, given they trust the vehicle with their mortal shell.
bastawhiz•7mo ago
Radar, not lidar. Tesla cars never had lidar.
leakycap•7mo ago
I recall Tesla having vehicles in their testing with Lidar and had no idea they never shipped it.
My 2015 towing VW has two radar sensors on the front for adaptive cruise and 5 cameras for lanekeeping. The cameras constantly come on and offline depending on visibility, cleanliness, and even weather. The radars have never once misperformed.
I can't imagine even trusting automatic cruise control to "vision only", much less what they are calling self-driving features.
Having driven plenty of cars with adaptive cruise using only one front radar, I can't really even suggest that - false positives are likely to happen to any driver that racks up mileage when the brakes can be fully applied based on single forward radar sensor covered in bug guts.
gruez•7mo ago
Have you looked at other car manufacturers' source code? AFAIK Toyota's source code got scrutinized as a result of the unintended acceleration lawsuits, and it was also criticized for sloppy coding.
edit: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_...
laweijfmvo•7mo ago
leakycap•7mo ago
I can't think of another transport/medical/safety related software leak that left the same kind of impression on me. I was somewhat considering a Tesla back then, but the source code stopped me from that idea.
tim333•7mo ago
Zigurd•7mo ago
There are standards for this type of software and there are products that meet those standards. Maybe we need different standards for software that's meant to blow something up versus software that avoids sudden energetic outcomes, but these aren't new problems and there's no excuse for not establishing, updating, and meeting standards.
general1726•7mo ago
vincekerrazzi•7mo ago
Some of the most horrifying code and technical designs I’ve ever seen came out of Stellantis, GM, Ford, Toyota and Tesla.
jazzyjackson•7mo ago
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1032939617404645376
leakycap•7mo ago
I seem to remember one of the leaked images was rumored to be from Elon's own garage showing an odd item he owned at the time.
goalieca•7mo ago
Ivoirians•7mo ago
dzhiurgis•7mo ago
bigyabai•7mo ago