Tag: tesla

VW ID.4, 6 Months Later

Posted on

Back in February I wrote about my growing frustration with Tesla ownership. The Model 3 gave me super fun acceleration but also things like squeaks, cheap materials, a cramped trunk, and the constant feeling that I was driving a rolling advertisement for Elon Musk. Every time I saw the news, I thought about selling what some were already calling a “swasticar.” Eventually, I did. I traded it in for a Volkswagen ID.4, hoping for a more practical car that still happened to be electric.

Six months later, I can say the change has been worth it. The ID.4 feels better made in almost every way. The doors close with a satisfying thud, the seats are comfortable, and the cabin materials feel solid. It is not luxury, but it does not need to be. Most importantly, it is roomy. I can pack up camping gear for Cub and Boy Scout trips with my kids without the frustrating trunk shuffle I had to do with the Tesla. Day-to-day errands are easier too, and that counts for a lot.

The range estimates have also been a pleasant surprise. Tesla’s trip computer always started too high and then walked itself back to reality, which made it hard to trust. The VW learns your driving style and gives you a number that feels accurate from the start. That little bit of honesty makes the car easier to live with.

I also appreciate that the VW feels like a car first and an EV second. Tesla always leaned into its identity as a tech product on wheels, for better and worse. The ID.4 has a driver display with speed, range, and navigation right where you expect it, and a second screen that handles CarPlay and maps. I do not miss the giant tablet-only approach.

That said, the VW is not perfect. The inside door handles sometimes need two pulls to actually open, which gets old quickly – this is something that happened due to a recall handle replacement, and I’m considering going back to the dealer to get worked out. CarPlay can take a minute or two to connect if the car has been sitting for a while, which is a long silence at the start of a drive. And the software that controls scheduled charging almost never works the way it should. I like to charge during off-peak hours, especially in the summer, but the car often ignores the schedule. If I forget to reset it when I get home, I end up paying much higher rates. It feels like I am fighting the software instead of trusting it.

Then there are the smaller annoyances: the car shuts off the moment you stand up from the driver’s seat unless you press a button to keep things running, the range tops out around 240 miles compared to the 350 I used to get, regen braking has to be toggled on every time, and the cameras are lower quality with no side-view support for lane changes. None of these ruin the car, but they remind you this is still an early-generation EV.

Even with the quirks, I am glad I switched. The ID.4 is comfortable, practical, and much less stressful to drive than my Tesla ever was. More importantly, I no longer feel like my car says something about me that I do not want it to say. My plan is to hang onto this one for a few years, then see what the next wave of EVs looks like. I still have my eye on what Rivian and Honda are up to. But for now, sanity restored.

VW ID.4: First Impressions

Posted on

After a week with the VW ID.4, I’m still confident I made the right decision. Switching from a Tesla Model 3 was a big move, but the reasons were clear: I wanted more cargo space, a nicer interior, and to avoid the plummeting resale value of my Tesla. On top of that, I was tired of associating my car with Elon Musk. Every time I saw the news, I thought about selling my car. So, I finally did. Sanity restored. I think early on, the biggest takeaway for me is that I like having a car that happens to be electric, which is a bit of shift from the approach Tesla takes. There are a ton of features but everything tries to be too clever.

The Pros

Overall, I’m very happy with the way that the car feels in the interior. It’s not a luxury car by any stretch, but it just feels “nice”. It’s the little things that make a big difference. The normal door handles are a refreshing change—imagine, a door handle that works like a door handle! Revolutionary. The ride is whisper-quiet, and the added trunk space means I can actually fit things in my car without playing Tetris. Closing doors doesn’t feel cheap, things don’t squeak when you move, I haven’t heard rattles. I love the fully retractable sun shade, which is a godsend in the hot summer months in Georgia. The CarPlay integration is excellent, offering an infotainment system that doesn’t look like a webpage that the CSS failed to load. Having choice in mapping, music and more is so, so wonderful.

The screen layout in the VW ID.4 is actually practical, unlike Tesla’s, which devoted a third of its real estate to desperately convincing me I needed Full Self-Driving. I’ve got a smaller screen directly in front of me with range, speed, mapping and other relevant info so you don’t need to glance toward the middle of the car to get that info. As far as the ride goes, the ID.4 drives like an actual car instead of a rolling iPad, and switching between single-pedal and regular driving is a breeze—great for me, and a win for my wife, who would rather not be thrown into the windshield every time she takes her foot off the accelerator. Acceleration is fine, but not as good as the M3. Despite the spacious interior, parking isn’t bad, either. It takes a little getting used to between being higher up and such, but so far no real issues there.

Oh, and physical buttons! Well, sort of. More on that later.

The Cons

I expected some trade-offs with an early-gen EV, but some of these quirks are just plain unnecessary. Charging is noticeably slower, taking about 12 hours to go from 20-80% on a Level 2 charger, compared to about seven hours with my Tesla. I haven’t fine-tuned the settings yet, so maybe there’s hope. The range is also lower—around 220 miles per charge versus the Model 3’s 320—but let’s be honest, how often am I really driving across the country? Most of my driving is either under 5 miles or day trips with the family. Plotting a ~90 mile radius from our house (to account for round trip and arriving home with a little extra juice) makes any day trip in the north part of the state easy. I used a supercharger exactly 9 times in the 3 years I owned a Tesla, so this isn’t really an issue but the range is significantly less than my previous car. Time will tell if this gives me more range anxiety but I don’t anticipate it.

CarPlay is great, but the downside is that I don’t get that super-integrated charging network experience when using Apple or Google Maps. Not a huge deal given the fact that I only used it about a dozen times in 3 years, but it was definitely a strength of my previous car. Also, welcome back, key fob! It’s been a while. Single-pedal driving exists, but it’s not as smooth as Tesla’s. The app? It’s fine. It will graciously let me know if I left the car unlocked, but will it won’t let me do anything about it from the app. Better than nothing, but only barely.

And let’s talk about the buttons. VW had the right idea: let’s use physical buttons for a lot of the typical functions like climate control, play/pause, volume, TACC, etc. But then they decided to make them capacitive instead of, you know, actual buttons. There’s also no walk-away auto lock yet, though apparently, it’s coming in a software update.

A Note About Adapters, Tesla Wall Chargers, and Permissions

One unexpected snag was the charging compatibility. The ID.4 uses a CCS charging port, but I own a Tesla Wall Charger. Instead of replacing it (as almost any new EV will use the NACS charging standard), I opted for a TeslaTap – 50 AMP Tesla to J-1772 Adapter. When I first plugged it in, the car gave me the silent treatment—just a flashing white light, followed by a solid red one, which is car-speak for “figure it out yourself.”

After some frustrating troubleshooting, I realized my Tesla Wall Charger had a security setting restricting charging to specific Teslas. Once I reset the charger and changed the Access Control setting to “Any Electric Vehicle,” the ID.4 finally decided to cooperate. Problem solved, but not before a minor freak out of what the root cause might be.

Final Thoughts

Despite a few minor drawbacks (and a couple of head-scratchers), I’m really happy with the switch. I knew I’d be trading off some EV advancements, but given my actual driving habits, it’s not an issue. At the end of the day, I’ve got a car that feels like an actual car, not a tech experiment, and I’m not constantly reminded of a certain billionaire every time I get behind the wheel. That alone makes it worth it. I feel like as I learn more about how to get the most out the VW I’ll be even happier I made the move.

Adios, Tesla

Posted on

About a week ago, I posted about my desire to wash my hands of Tesla ownership. I’ve had a Model 3 Long Range for about 3 years now, and generally speaking it’s been a very good car.

My criteria for an EV were mostly centered around a few fairly straightforward areas. One, I wanted something that reduced “range anxiety” as much as possible. An option that had access to a robust charging network and got good range on its own was very important to me. Secondly, I wanted a nice car but didn’t want to pay 100k for some of the options out there. At the time, Tesla was by far the best choice.

However, as I got to using the car daily, there was a lot that I didn’t like. I covered a lot of this in a previous post, but at a high level:

  • I despised the closed ecosystem. It doesn’t scale and makes it harder to use basic functionality. The software team at Tesla builds a 3rd party implementation of something like Apple Music, says “good enough”, and moves on to something else. All of the media apps are pretty awful. A basic CarPlay implementation is all I really want or need.
  • The car has general fit and finish issues – panel gaps, weird noises, etc. I notice every little bit of wind or road noise. In general, the car felt very cheap. Things rattle or squeak, and at the price one pays for a new M3, it’s unacceptable.
  • I don’t use superchargers as much as I thought I would. This means the “Tesla advantage” is smaller than I thought it’d be.
  • The “premium” connectivity package is anything but. It’s pretty spotty, coverage-wise and while I think I can hotspot my phone and connect the car to that, I still would have to pay the $10/month for a stripped-down Apple Music implementation as they only allow paying customers to use streaming services.
  • The trunk space was too little for my needs. Honestly, if I had a Model Y I’d be a bit happier with the car. Having a hatchback like the Honda Prolouge, IONIQ 5, ID.4 or the soon-to-be-released Rivian R3 is the sweet spot for me, space wise.
  • I want nothing to do with Elon Musk.

So, I decided to sell my car and buy a comparably priced used EV to hold me over for a few years, at which time I’ll evaluate the Rivian R3 vs the Honda Prologue and whatever else is out there at the time. I found a low mileage VW ID.4 that checks most of the boxes for me. Will I have some issues with it? Yeah, probably. But I’m happy to have a car that has the space, CarPlay and build quality that I want, with 100% less Elon.

Musk, Tesla, and Virtue Signaling

Posted on

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, we’re witnessing an Elon Musk-led psuedo-coup. I’m not exaggerating here, the new administration and Elon Musk are creating a number of constitutional crises and it’s very, very serious. Every single time I drive, I think about Musk and what he’s doing. Every time I read about Musk and what he’s doing, I think about selling my car to rid myself of my “swasticar” as I’ve heard it called.

So here’s the thing: I’ve been thinking about selling my car for a while for a few reasons. First, I want something with a bit more cargo space. Second, the paper cuts of Tesla ownership (cheap quality, no CarPlay) have worn on me over the last 3 years and I just am not super happy with it overall. Finally, Elon Musk appears to be a fascist. As you’d imagine, I don’t want to support that or be associated with him at all.

But, it’s complicated! My car is paid off & I do 95% of my charging at home. Trading a 3 year old car in for another used vehicle is a headache, and I’d only be doing it to “stick it” to Musk. My plan when I bought the car was to drive it for about 5 years and then upgrade to something newer, as EV tech is still moving quite fast. Selling it sooner means I absorbed the largest part of the valuation drop without amortizing it across a few additional years. It also complicates the environmental story – buying a new car that has a high environmental cost means I’ve undone some of the good of buying an EV and my old car will still be out there.

Musk already has my money and nothing can change that.

However, the counter argument is that a sizable chunk of folks who are looking at EVs will no longer consider Tesla, and a lot of people who were already thinking about getting rid of their car now will do so. Ditto for folks whose leases are running out. That glut of cars will depress the resale value of my car when I decide to get something new, and it makes me worry that it’ll tank faster than cars typically do in the 5 or so year range.

As it currently stands, I’m weighing 3 options:

  • Hang on to my car for a few years. Maybe I’ll get one of those bumper stickers to do my virtue signaling
  • Sell my car for whatever I can get for it, lease a car that checks a lot of boxes for me like the 2024 Honda Prologue and figure out what to do in a few years.
  • Sell my car for whatever I can get for it, and buy a similarly priced ~3 year old EV like an IONIQ 5 or ID.4 that has the space I’d like and without the Musk I don’t.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion!

Tesla reduces range estimations for Model Y, S, and X by up to 37 miles

Posted on

From Jess Weatherbed at The Verge:

Several popular models are now showing lower range estimates in the US. The move comes after the DOJ opened a probe into inflated claims, but Tesla doesn’t give a reason.

I own the Tesla Model 3 Long Range and I can confirm that while the range on my car is great, it rarely lives up to the estimated range even if I am driving fairly conservatively. Glad to see the estimates being advertised is a bit closer to reality now.

The Electric Vehicle Boom Is Bad News For Tesla

Posted on

From Jesus Diaz, Fast Company:

After a decade of being the only game in town, Tesla is entering a new era of the EV wars, which started in earnest in 2022 but will only intensify in 2023. Tesla still dominates the EV market in the U.S. today, but its lead has consistently dropped—and is expected to quickly dwindle—as legacy automakers roll out their own electric models.

Tesla’s rise to fame has been nothing short of impressive, but in a competitive market like the automotive industry their regression to the mean was inevitable. As a Tesla Model 3 LR owner, I can say that while I am happy with my car, I wouldn’t buy a Tesla for my next vehicle.

The early decision to start from the top and working your way down the price ladder was something that set them apart and helped drive the “cool” factor despite the car not being premium in ways folks paying $60–100k for a car would normally expect. They used the early dominance to build a charging network that is still unrivaled, and the battery life for their long range models is still better than most of the competition. The ongoing software update model aligned with consumer expectations in the iPhone era and was fairly unique in the indsutry. Combine that with Musk’s larger that life personality (and expectations about self driving that he’s been promising since 2014), the company earned a lot of fans (myself included!) for accelerating the move away from ICE vehicles by making something cool, approachable and futuristic. But the cracks that have always existed are much more apparent now that the rest of the indsutry is getting into the game.

Teslas are notorious for questionable build quality, which is not at the level of other $50–70k cars that I’ve driven. Personally, I haven’t had many issues on my end but I’ve experienced a few unsatisfying noises from time to time, the feel of closing doors and windows isn’t satisfying, and I wish the road noise was a bit quieter. Additionally, the company’s insistence on cramming everything into one touchscreen is a weak point, and their insistence on building every single app for their touchscreen in-house means they’re always playing catch up when it comes to other infotainment systems. Tesla’s refusal to integrate with Carplay and Android Auto, likely due to their view of those platforms as competitors, is super frustrating. And then, there’s the elephant in the room – Elon Musk. While his outspoken nature and leadership of Tesla and SpaceX was once seen as a competitive advantage, it has now become a distraction.

While Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) technology has been highly anticipated for a decade now, I don’t believe anyone will be able to deliver on it within the next 15–20 years. FSD is at level 2 or 3 out of 5 right now, and haven’t made a ton of progress. The standard “Autopilot” feature, which is basically variable cruise control and lane assistance, is quite good for level 1. Highway driving on long road trips is way better with this tech. But the rest of it? Way too many edge cases for me to be interested in trying out. Like most software, that last 20% is hard to iron out, but in this case we’re dealing with 500k beta testers playing with human life. No thanks.

To keep a market share close to what they have now, Tesla needs to scale up, fix the quality issues they have and convince nearly every current Tesla owner to buy a second vehicle when they’re ready to buy. They also can’t rely on consumers paying premium prices for EVs forever. Delivering on a true mass-market EV in the $30k range will help them maintain a lead. Oh, and crack Level 4–5 autonomy to differentiate themselves from the rest of the market. Hard to see that happening with all of the great options coming out from established automakers.

It’s far easier for traditional automakers to figure out how to transition their fleet from ICE to EV than it is for Tesla to become a big automaker and solve for all of the small but significant headwinds they’re facing. That doesn’t mean Tesla is going out of business or doomed to fail. What it does mean is that capitalizing on the first mover advantage in an industry without strong network effects is hard to do for long. I don’t think many automakers could have maintained Tesla’s lead for long, but it seems like Musk and Tesla are squandering it even more quickly.

Bonus reading: https://www.wired.com/story/teslas-problems-elon-musk-twitter/

Look! Another Post About Twitter!

Posted on

Twitter is a dumpster fire

If you’ve been living under a rock over the past 6 months, you might not be aware of the fact that Twitter is under new ownership. By most measures, it doesn’t seem to be going great. Elon Musk has taken a sledgehammer to the service since he acquired it in October, and my “wait and see” approach has turned to a “can’t look away because the train wreck is so epic” one.  Watching Elon drive Twitter into the ditch with his Free Speech Maximalism™ that’s really just shooting from the hip on every decision about content moderation, product strategy and public relations has gotten really tiresome. In fact, I hate writing about it. As a Tesla owner, I really want him to focus more on that company as shareholders seem to be revolting over his lack of attention to his cash cow. The amount of damage he’s done to his reputation and to that of his companies is pretty historic.

I’ve lurked on Twitter for a while and gotten value out of following journalists and indie developers. I’ve discovered a lot of interesting folks to follow and heard voices I likely wouldn’t have heard otherwise along the way. For me, the biggest value I get from Twitter is following a few topics: Apple/tech news, Liverpool FC, FSU/College football, and Atlanta United. I don’t post a lot, but I have cultivated sets of lists for each of those main topics that I keep up with during sporting events or big Apple news cycles. But when the company is run by a scumbag who emboldens some of the worst folks on the web and he enables policies that encourage disinformation and hate to spread, it’s hard to justify the value I do get out of the site vs supporting the societal ills Twitter magnifies.

A lot of the Apple folks have started to leave or post very infrequently but the rest, not so much. So reducing my use of Twitter does mean that I’ll be missing out on some of that commentary when watching sports or keeping up with the news. However, once you stop counting on it, it’s funny how quickly you realize you’re not getting as much value as you think you are.

What I’m doing now

I’ve deleted all of my tweets, locked my account and logged out everywhere, including deleting apps on my phone, tablet and computer. I have an account on Mastodon and check it every day or so, but I’m not posting a ton over there, either. Using a service that helps you find folks who have linked to their new homes from their Twitter profile, I’ve followed most of the people I did on Twitter but my urges to post a pretty few and far between. When I do post, engagement is higher on Mastodon vs Twitter! It definitely feels like the early days of Twitter in that way.

I’m also doubling down on RSS. I’ve used Reeder for a long time to follow a lot of the sites that I enjoy, but now I’m also following about a half dozen folks from Mastodon on there as well. It’s very easy to simply append .rss to the end of a user’s Mastodon profile and then you have a feed you can follow.

Finally, I’m going to think more about posting here with more frequency. I haven’t really touched the visual layout of the site in a long time and it’s likely I’m missing out on a lot of the visual goodies that WordPress 6.x offers. I might check out some templates and iterate on those. My hunch is that will inspire me to write a little bit more.

What I’m realizing about my professed love for Twitter

Despite the fact that I have fond memories of Early Twitter™ and derive some value out of the lists I mentioned earlier, breaking away from Twitter and spending time on Mastodon has revealed the truth most of us already know….

I don’t really need any of these sites in my life. It’s not worth it.

There are better places to get most of the info I need without wasting as much time (Techmeme, the Athletic, etc). The time I have spent on Mastodon has been fine, and I intend to keep an account over there, but I don’t see myself spending a lot of time or energy on it. Spending more time reading and writing and less time scrolling through pithy comments and performative outrage is a huge win.

Will I delete my account?

About 2 years ago, I deleted my Facebook account and haven’t missed a beat. I also still have a LinkedIn and Instagram account, although I mostly lurk. However, Twitter has always been the social media site that I’ve had the strongest love/hate relationship with. I want it to succeed but I also think most of my positive sentiment is for an era where it felt more like the “early web” and that ain’t coming back no matter who owns the service. I’m not going to delete my account but I also can’t see myself using it again for quite some time.