Like do we really need our cars to have random shapes added and removed from them every 3 years? Why? Sure, novelty feels good, but the impact of this behavior is pretty clearly not positive. A lot of waste is generated, both at a societal level but also at a personal and familial level, and also in terms of industrial production resource direction, basically in the name of fashion. The new BMW design isn’t any “better” than the old design, it’s just visual social memes.

So anyway it makes sense that Elon is being stubborn against this, and it also makes sense that he will probably fail at doing that because not everyone is a turbo autist.

Hi, it's me, I've driven Tesla's and yes - I prefer carplay and android auto, and I have good reasons for it.

The first being that touch displays, even if they are the best displays that could be manufactured on Earth, will always be inferior to physical controls for many functions.

Me swiping up and down or pushing plus or minus to turn up the heat does not compare to a rinky dink dial found in a 1999 Toyota Corolla.

So then, what's left? The software-only stuff: navigation, music, notifications.

I think CarPlay and Android Auto does all of those better. Navigation is best on Google Maps and Apple Maps. And, even if you disagree, just have ONE app to do it across the board and share the data is a superior experience.

But, even if you're still not convinced, consider: your phone is 500 - 1000 dollars, and your car is tens of thousands of dollars. Why are you tightly coupling these throw-away software functions to such an expensive thing?

What happens if, tomorrow, some service goes away and your Tesla doesn't update? Then you'd be like those bozos who bought a fancy SiriusXM subscription in their 2015 car.

The blower speed can be mapped to the steering wheel button. And it’s actually easy to map things because the software is made by a company with real software people, the software quality in terms of intuitiveness is night and day compared to the legacy companies. I find it easier to adjust the heat/cooling in my Tesla compared to the standard buttons. I don’t generally mess with the temperature though, and turning AC on and off is very slightly annoying through the screen, but that doesn’t happen much. Also the voice controls actually work well enough that I can use them reliably. You do have to figure out what to say (“my butt is cold” does not turn on the seat heater, unfortunately), but once you know that the system is very good at reliably picking up what you’re saying.

> What happens if, tomorrow, some service goes away and your Tesla doesn't update?

I would sell it at a greater loss due to it being nerfed and I would at that point buy a different car. I don’t generally drive cars that old anyway, just because random issues become a lot more frequent and I don’t want to deal with that.

For example Tesla uses a very large press to make the Y monocoque body in one or two pieces. They get a lot of their manufacturing capability this way, reducing assembly costs and weld time, but then they do weird stuff like bolting the control are inside the passenger wheel well interior under the carpet. This kind of stuff isn’t replicable , each vehicle is for the most part a siloed manufacturing process

This is fine for a one off model, but now the manufacturing process is bespoke across the board. Any other maker can switch out parts of the line and make a different vehicle, Tesla needs to redesign the process, supply new assemblies, get another Gigafactory Press from Idra Group, and then retrain everybody. So they don’t.

Instead you get Full Self Driving.

Pretty much every Tesla product has been seen more than a decade ago (cybertruck was first discussed in think 2014) except the Semi, which doesn’t exist, but had lots of press regardless.