Quote:
Originally Posted by raptor5244
You have to think of EVs as a platform now, much like our smart phones, cable services, gaming systems. You buy this hardware platform which will be enabled with new features as you own the vehicle. Performance boosts, ability to add new apps, etc. My Tesla UI and features have change quite a bit since I first bought it in 2019. When I first got it there was no "brake hold" so you could only use the reg braking until about 5-10mph and then you had to apply the friction brakes. Then you get an update and bam, you can enable brake hold. Initially, the car only used the backup camera for reverse, then they said why not add the two side cameras on the fenders as well for more camera angles. So, the OTA updates are not just fart noises and games but they can keep tweaking the UI and improve the driving experience. In the first year of ownership the car received two performance boost updates, adding about 30-40hp on my Model 3 Performance. It knocked about 2 tenths off the 0-60mph and 1/4 mile times.
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Everyone and their little pony releases "platforms" these days, that's the new buzzword that no longer means much, because platforms now change as frequently as simple applications did back when "platform" meant an OS that lasted 20-25 years at least.
Unfortunately, the only reason you are enjoying this pleasant update/feature generosity is that EVs (and Tesla in particular) are still in the market making stage. Once they take a stronger foothold, which is about now or very soon, I think we'll start seeing the exact same trajectory that cell phones have followed—locked down app stores, in-app ("in-car") purchases or "subscriptions" that will be used to make you pay extra for features (heated steering wheel, cooled seats, heck, they could charge for seat memory or even allowing you to crank your A/C down below 70 degrees, the sky is the limit).
You'll have frequent, but generally meaningless updates that no longer give you much of value, but by then the software will have become a prime vehicle
(sorry 
) for monitoring ("telemetry"), continuous data, preference and even biometry acquisition (think always on eye tracking), access control and all-encompassing remote control etc., with no way to opt out.
Case in point? My cell phone started its life with Android 9 (I think), now it's on Android 12, and I keep everything up to date on it just to be on the safe side (read: nobody really cares, but I keep up just to minimize the chances of sucking in an exploit). The number of useful enhancements that actually add to my user experience has been 0—stuff changes, icons and fonts are redesigned, settings are moved around and maybe one or two arcane new feature got added—but I've yet to receive a single update that would've improved meaningful things like battery life or application performance.
Truth to be told, though, these phone updates have remained free, so I'm not complaining, it's just that in general the nature of this "evolution" is not as rosy as one might predict based on its early stages.
Finally, the ease of update deployment with software vs hardware has the unfortunate side effect of even higher delivery pressure and quality degradation, since fixing something like an oil pump or misbehaving transmission fluid after the fact is super expensive, but no comparable foresight and care needs to be taken with software. As long as the issues aren't life threatening (read: the company doesn't get sued much), manufacturers will gradually hire more and more minimally qualified coders and focus less on proper design, because errors that creep in are easy to fix via an OTA update.
Software is indeed eating the world. Now y'all young whippersnappers, get off my lawn, will ya
