I'm with ya. I've owned 4 (Model S P100D, Model S Plaid, Model X, Model Y) over the past 10+ years. When the lease on my Plaid expired, I couldn't bring myself to get another one.
I took a long look at the Taycan as the used ones are "almost" sensibly priced but the first 2 generations are simply not great cars. The new 2025 (3rd Gen) is much nicer but the pricing is doesn't make sense.
Hopefully 2-3 years from now brings a much bigger diversity of performance electric cars. The BYD sports cars look very interesting.
The key engineering point here is about failure modes. If the failure mode is a brick, then the engineering and design team behind that switch has failed.
The failure mode for a smart switch needs to be a "classic" switch. This applies equally to garage door openers, showers, door locks, and the rest of the smart devices.
Note: I'll give a bit of a pass to smart window blinds as a selling point is lack of strings and cables and the therefore look cleaner.
This seems like the classic boom/bust cycle of capitalism and government. One upon a time, CA had things like free education through the UC and CSU system, and a tax rate that seemed similar to other states.
With the adoption of Prop 13 they eliminated much of the property tax revenue, and then ratcheted up the income and sales tax to pretty much max amounts while only collecting property tax from new(ish) home buyers. The Trump tax cuts then penalized upper-middle-class tech workers, all while continuing to reduce benefits. Utility deregulation has led to rolling blackouts during potential windstorms, and poor forest management has brought about some big fires.
Other states are also in on the zero-sum game that is bidding tax breaks to get companies to relocate.
This seems like a normal cycle of capitalism. If CA wants to change the game, they could consider options like the return of low-cost (free) schooling for CA residents, normalizing their property tax structures, or opening a single-payer healthcare system to CA residents.
Is there wide agreement it is misbehaving and ought to be changed “somehow”? Perhaps it could be modified.
There are other ways to achieve the basic objective without creating the same side effects. For example, Colorado’s TABOR has a very similar objective with a very different mechanism that slows property tax growth but does not pressure people to stay put in their current home.
> Is there wide agreement it is misbehaving and ought to be changed “somehow”?
No, voters overwhelmingly support Prop 13 in general, and feel that property taxes (which in fact are extremely low by national standards due to the Prop 13 nominal rate limit even before considering the Prop 13 assessment increase limit) are high in California. (What's actually high is property values, as a result of both Prop 13 and development policy -- and the development policy is itself, in part, due to incentives created by Prop 13 which align with those created by homeowner NIMBYism.)
It has been tweaked before, and you could maybe pass tweaks again that would enhance revenue in general, but by and large the basic structure is going to be very hard to change.
Prop 13 has been modified several times since being passed; its not impossible that it would be modified in a way which would increase overall property tax revenue, but procedurally its basically impossible for that to be relevant to the short-term funding shortfall.
I think a modification that separately tracked the prop 13 basis and a current price and charged taxes on the current price for anything that isn’t the owner’s primary residence could plausibly tax — after all, no one would get priced out of their own home as a result.
These images all reenforce only one thing - that Reuben Wu is a fantastic photographer. For him the iPhone is just a tool, much as a knife for a chef or a keyboard & monitor for a developer.
You're not wrong but on the other hand, if the knife can't cut, that will hamper the chef.
Also Wu had this to say, “The iPhone 15 Pro is the best camera available for its size, and while it can’t replace bigger dedicated systems, it can create images which still push my own artistic vision and display them at gallery quality and sizes, and I was shocked how good the prints were.”
Only one thing? Not so fast young cowboy. They also show that the phone is capable and even if a Huawei or whatever has a better camera, it is possible to create fantastic photographs.
While I agree with what you say and it's a worthwhile point to make, it's still notable when a tool can be used in such a way by an artist. Wu could have taken amazing photos with an iPhone 1, but he (most likely) couldn't have taken these specific images due to resolution and exposure performance/control differences.
Seems like a sunlight rich area such as the Nevada high desert is about as energy friendly as one could imagine. The main requirements seem to be water, sulfuric acid, and (of course) power.
> There's no one I can call to get help with my own yard because every landscaper knows nothing about ecology and uses loud and polluting gas-powered machinery.
For my own yard, in Washington State, I've interacted with a half dozen arborists and landscapers. Every one of them has been an expert in local species, has had concrete suggestions about what to plant and how to maintain, and is generally very excited to engage on the problem at the homeowner level.
There are any number family group chats that leave my sister out of things. She's the only Android user out of about 20 people. If she's on the threads then pictures, videos, and reactions are all broken. This is 100% deliberate by Apple, but the bias against Android users is real.
People should stop treating California as the bastion of the Democrats, since it really isn't. There are 49 other states, many of them blue, that have none of the problems california has. California has been a state that struggles to govern for it's people since it was first created. It was a conservative stronghold for decades, and was no better under republicans. It seems more like there's something in the water, or rather that californian corporate interests have always been above the people there.
Conservatives scream about california because it's a useful red herring. California's stupidity is not limited to democrats, but conservatives really like to push that california is bad BECAUSE of democrats, the classic correlation causation thing.
Democrats often try to play the same dumb game with Texas, and that should be similarly rejected.
I have 20k miles driving a Model S with a Yoke. While I'm not a huge fan, the yoke itself is only part of the problem. The bigger problems are:
1. The capacitive buttons for turn signals. They are dangerous. They require taking eyes from the road, offer no feedback, and are honestly dangerous.
2. The horn. It's not in the middle. It's off to the side as a no-feedback capacitive button. Every time I've needed to use the horn, I've been unable to find the button. I think recent S/X Updates have moved it back, but it's so dumb.
It's a feature set designed to look cool on Twitter. Not really for driving.
Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) mentioned that his right capacitive turn signal button is occasionally unresponsive with his Model S Plaid and he's had to resort to lane changes without a turn signal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34VZzBWBDN0&t=648s
Granted, this is one anecdotal case. But when spending over 100K on a car, features like this should be bullet-proof.
Actually ... scratch that. Features like this should be bullet-proof because they have been a solved problem for ~50+ years. Tesla is sacrificing safety for minimal cost savings and/or style points.
Features like these should be bulletproof because they pose a serious safety hazard.
Safety features should be priority number one for any car manufacturer. You can ship with a crappy infotainment system but please don’t screw around with basic safety.
How are they not illegal to sell to drivers? I am continually astonished about the social experiment being done on drivers buying these cars and others who have no choice but to share the road with them.
physical buttons are reliable, easily repairable, more accessible to people with a variety of conditions, allow you to memorize ___location with feel, etc. I've never met anyone who's preferred capacitive buttons over physical ones yet more and more every "smart" technology seems to be opting for them. Some have even added haptic touch-like software to them... just to regain the feeling of the thing that everyone misses but without actually giving them the thing they want...
Apart from regulation mandating that safety features work, are reliable and are easy to use (physical buttons), I think we need some new economic theory.
Why is it that for products with complex spec sheets, the free market (the auto industry is arguably not a free market) does not work to provide the desired diversity?
Automakers clearly have the incentive to make any control a capacitive touch surface for many many reasons. Many people hate touch controls for important features in cars. Yet most automakers are switching to touch controls. Free market theory says that other manufacturers should appear and satisfy that desire for consumers. This isn't happening.
I do not know of a economic theoretical model that accurately explains the behaviour of complex (many orthogonal characteristics) goods.
The economic models assume consumers have more power than they do. It's easier for industry to convince (or force) people that they want (or have to take) what they produce, rather than produce what people want. For example, everyone wants a simple and reliable inkjet printer for home that doesn't have drm or other bullshit. But we aren't getting it and probably never will.
I sincerely hope that capacitance buttons and touchscreens are just a fad like digital speed dials from the 80s. They seemed cool, but ultmately analog dials (even if controlled by digital signals) were just better. I think physical knobs and buttons will come back for the same reason as round steering wheels. It's just the best solution to the problem.
> The economic models assume consumers have more power than they do.
That is a fair assessment. But what is the cause of it? What I am saying is we need better models. Better theory.
> It's easier for industry to convince (or force) people that they want (or have to take) what they produce, rather than produce what people want.
And what is the cause of the bandwagoning? I generally do not think it is a case of industry wide collusion (though in some cases it might be). Why is a company going the opposite direction of a trend and marketing that difference a somewhat rare phenomenon? At least partially, I think the cause is marketing driven development. But that still doesn't explain why marketing departments are shy to market going against a trend. It's as if marketing departments of companies buy into the marketing of the trendy company.
How many smartphone companies actively advertise they still have phone jacks? How many car companies actively advertise they are still using physical buttons? They could but they don't. Samsung used to make fun of Apple in their ads but even they became apathetic. Apple used to make fun of the rest of the industry with their Mac vs PC ads. Sony could easily make an ad showing how a DJ takes their Sony phone and plugs it in literally everywhere using the jack to play music to a crowd.
[s] Damnit, I want my car to have hot-swappable, RGB-illuminated, Cherry MX mechanical switches with double-shot keycaps. [/s]
There is probably more than one cause, but consider the headphone jack one. Apple decided it wanted to get rid of it. Reasons were that they could make regular headphones less convenient (needs dongle) while simultaneously convincing people that air pods are the thing to have. They didn't have to market 'against' the headphone jack, only add friction to use it (via dongle) while heavily marketing 'for' air pods. Nokia wouldn't have gotten away with this, but Apple could because of clout, product status symbology, and massive cash spends available for ads. Most people don't really like the loss, but the idea of not having the latest phone was worse, so they bought them. Other phone manufacturers then follow suit because they see apple sales and think, they must be doing the right thing. Meanwhile, we hate it.
Telsa was the same for cars. They came out with a bunch of style choices that most people don't really care for, but the status of having a telsa (at least until recently) was a more powerful driver so they bought the car. Other auto manufacturers interpret this as that its what the consumer wants (or will accept) and change accordingly, especially if it also saves them money. Then boom, we get cars with crappy UI.
So I guess my theory is that if an industry has a clear leader whose product offers status along with function, they can make the customer accept pretty much whatever they want. After that, the competition just copies it hoping to keep what market share they have.
I agree with your analysis and it matches my thoughts.
But then, wouldn't a naive conclusion be that in order to maintain the freedom of the market, the appearance of status symbol brands/products must be prevented?
That's a tall order. Humans really like status symbols, not only as proof of status but as reminders of status.
I think this is HUGE understatement. Humans are all about status (speaking in general terms, of course there will be individual exceptions). Status means access to scarce resources, status means choice of mates, status is everything. People will optimize for status ahead of nearly everything else and in a way this is rational because with status can come anything else they may want or need.
With the tiny nitpick that there is a distinction between signalling status and having status itself. And the relationship between the two is not always straight forward.
A further observation here is that selling status symbols is what Apple does. They have transitioned from being a computer manufacturer for the DTP and creative industry to being a luxury brand. But that itself is not enough. In the pre-iPhone days, Vertu was the luxury cellphone brand. Similarly, there are plenty of car brands that are more exclusivist than Tesla. Yet they do not have the same outsized influence on the market.
Therefore the issue probably is a status symbol that scales to the mass market.
Do you feel like you’re happy with your model s given the issues/compromises of the yoke you mentioned above?
The industry wide reduction of real buttons/switches and gauges is something that gives me pause on my next car purchase. I was initially thinking of getting a golf r but the infotainment and steering wheel capacitive buttons are almost universally criticized as really bad and there not being any real way to fix it.
When I saw the yoke I thought it was a concept car and they would come to their senses and use a wheel for production.
My wish list for an electric car:
1) be a dumb car. Minimal screens/animations/annoyances
2) if you do OTA updates I want to be able to reject a version and or revert to any version from any other version of the system software
3) don’t track me or show me ads
4) no feature on the car should require additional or recurring payments to use with very limited exceptions (thinking navigation updates etc) specifically don’t disable something on my car because I don’t pay future moneys for its use.
5) I’m fine with fast but I would rather have a reasonably quick car that pushes 400miles of range without needing a 200kwh battery. I get that big motors also help make big regenerative power but I would like a car that has similar performance to say an Audi s4 or bmw 340m but electric.
6) simple is fine but the model 3 is oversimplified. they really can’t put simple gauges in front of the driver? I feel like every feature of most teslas is built for this looming full self driving where some of these features make more sense. I think the odds today are pretty good that someone who takes delivery today of a new Tesla will send it to the junkyard before fsd really fully self drives.
7) don’t try to drive for me and allow tweaking of things like brake /steering feel, suspension settings.
Worse, they'll make them into the touch-screen where you have to do a specific gesture to turn right, a different one to turn left, and one needing both hands to apply the brakes.
Yeah but the Model 3 is a 58 lakh car before the import duty. If you have to pay 1 crore for a car, you're going to make your driver suffer through the horn.
IMHO India will have indigenous EVs far before Tesla.
Once a pickup truck decided to back out of a failed left turn when the light turned red. Stupid and illegal.
I'd remained well behind the stop line, lots of space between us, so I figured he was just using up a little of it to get his nose out of the middle of the intersection and I hesitated.
He had no idea my sedan was there and backed right over my hood.
I'd never used the horn in that car. It took a firmer press than I expected, a slightly different angle... the milliseconds involved in figuring that out contributed to the accident.
It's worth practicing your horn in any car you're driving and it's worth honking at someone backing up if you're not absolutely sure they see you.
I used it with some degree of frequency, because I had to drive past that one specific curve. Sharp corner with a big elevation change, narrow road, narrow pavement. It was a visibility nightmare and honking the horn was the only way you could signal your presence to people coming in the other direction.
About as many times, but the key thing is that the horn is only useful if I'm static since otherwise it's faster for me to evade than honk. I estimate ~0.5 s to 1 s net delay to action if I were to honk, with 0.5 s to 1 s delay in action from other person if they're fast. At a 2 s delay, unless I'm not moving, evasion + braking seems superior. And evasion is made harder while honking. I've had many times where people run red lights in front of me (I live in SF) but I've never honked. It's frequently too late to do anything so I just brake.
The point I was making was that something doesn’t need to be used often for it to be important and for you to want it to be reliable.
Also, the horn is a signal. It allows you to evade and alert other users that something needs their attention. Maybe they need to avoid you while you avoid something else.
I took a long look at the Taycan as the used ones are "almost" sensibly priced but the first 2 generations are simply not great cars. The new 2025 (3rd Gen) is much nicer but the pricing is doesn't make sense.
Hopefully 2-3 years from now brings a much bigger diversity of performance electric cars. The BYD sports cars look very interesting.