[Flying_john]

Anyone buying EV simply to save money is somewhat missing the point.

Still a decent benefit though for the time being, until the government pounces..

Rob P

Shhhhhhh - I keep saying, stop encouraging people to buy EV's it will end in higher prices for us. Tax on electricity, road pricing, increased VED, no more free congestion charges. Someone has to pay, let it be gas guzzlers

[malcolmfrost]

Regarding the software updates, I have found that after the update the car behaves very much the same in the important aspects, new features may appear such as traffic light visualisation, but you are told about them and then can enable them, rather than them just happening.

[skydriller]

Anyone who buys a Tesla really needs to be aware that the car is in constant development!

Wow..!! Really??

I wonder if conventional car manufacturers would get away with that?

[malcolmfrost]

The car was great when I bought it 15 months/12k miles ago, it's just greater now!
Old fashioned manufacturers haven't set up their cars to do OTA updates (AFAIK) and are getting caught out. having to fix software bugs with a recall isn't a good look!

[Jim Jones]

Clearly, Tesla are only for people who read the manual over and over again.

[cjrpaterson]

Normal cars have OTA updates, just not to critical systems. Usually things like the entertainment system.

Presumably when new features are added to Teslas (like the lane steering mentioned earlier), they’re not turned on by default?

[Colonel Panic]

Normal cars have OTA updates, just not to critical systems. Usually things like the entertainment system.

Really? How?

[stevelup]

BMW started getting this a couple of years ago. Originally was just infotainment but is now all modules on the latest cars.

I-Pace has had OTA for the infotainment since 2018 and can now do almost all modules.

Pretty sure Audi has OTA for at least infotainment. Ford have announced it.

[Flyin'Dutch']

VW have it for sure for the ID3.

[stevelup]

As to how? Well, pretty much all cars these days just use ethernet / WiFi when they're in the workshop - so this has been theoretically possible for years. Over a decade in fact on some cars.

The massive technical issue that needed overcoming was making this process transparent and resilient. If something goes wrong when you're updating in a workshop, you can zap everything and start again, and if you run out of time you tell the customer 'sorry, we need your car for another day'. If something went totally wrong, you still have the fallback of plugging a cable in.

OTA updates have to be 100% reliable and 100% failsafe. You can't have drivers coming out to a bricked car in the morning. I expect this has been a long time coming due to the conservative nature of legacy manufacturers as much as anything else.

[johnm]

I had to Google OTA, I really am becoming a dinosaur

I am impressed with the pace of change and it seems to be generally providing functions that folk find useful, I think I would have been very tempted by a Tesla had they been around in my company car days....

[malcolmfrost]

It's a complete step change in how cars are designed, built and maintained, the cars leave the factory with Full Self Driving built in. if you buy it, then it's enabled and you can do that at any time after purchase, although the price may have gone up! Heated seats are the same, I don't need heated rear seats (or even front!) so I don't need to spend that money.
Many of the features most people don't realise, similar to mobile phones. Tesla are also responsive to user input, for some bizarre reason Cruise control used to engage at speed limit or current speed if higher, rather than current speed. We now have that option thanks to our feedback, directly to Elon via Twitter......

[riverrock]

My Renault Zoe does small OTA updates to infotainment.
Larger ones, it comes with an SD card which they provide instructions on how to use.
However other systems require hardwired connection using their dealer only CLIP tool ( via OBD port.

All new cars have mobile phone SIMS in them (eCall) - up to manufacturers if they use this for anything else.

[skydriller]

The more I hear this kind of stuff about software turning on/off options which may or may not have been paid for, just as you would get a "free trial" on an app, the more I think that my next car will be pre-2000. In fact I might even go for something older still. Call me a luddite, but I like the idea of being in control of 2 tonnes vehicle myself...

Regards, SD..

[Rob P]

Hey @skydriller

I have long been an EV evangelist

Thinks, should that be EVangelist?

If I had to choose a car as a mode of essential transport I wouldn't hesitate, I would go EV in a flash (not literally one hopes)

But for an entertainment vehicle then ICE (Flat 6, V8 or V12) has to win hands down. But then I guess we are both dinosaurs?

Rob P