Sounds like hell on wheels is going to become common.
For most of its short life, my Tesla Model 3 has aged beautifully. Since I bought the car, in 2019, it has received a number of new features simply by updating its software. My navigation system no longer just directs me to EV chargers along my route—it also shows me, in real time, how many plugs are free. With the push of a button, I can activate “Car Wash Mode,” and the Tesla will put itself in neutral and disable the windshield wipers. Some updates are more helpful than others: Thanks to Elon Musk and his middle-school humor, I can now play an updated array of fart sounds when an unsuspecting passenger sits down.
But Musk is already starting to leave my car behind. In July, Tesla rolled out a version of Musk’s AI assistant, Grok, to its vehicles. Even as a chatbot skeptic, I could see the usefulness of asking my car for information without having to fumble with my phone. Alas, at present Grok runs only on Teslas made in the past few years, which have a more advanced processor to power their infotainment system. My sedan is simply too old.
Cars used to be entirely mechanical objects. With hard work and expertise, basically any old vehicle could be restored and operated: On YouTube, you can watch a man drive a 1931 Alvis to McDonald’s. But the car itself was stuck in time. If the automaker added a feature to the following year’s model, you just didn’t get it. Things have changed. My Model 3 has few dials or buttons; nearly every feature is routed through the giant central touch screen. It’s not just Tesla: Many new cars—and especially electric cars—are now stuffed with software, receiving over-the-air updates to fix bugs, tweak performance, or add new functionality.
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There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding by the author here, or a conflation of “no more software updates” with “continuing to get updates that your processor isn’t powerful enough for”. You may miss out on some new features, but barring equipment failure, the original software will continue to do what it did when you bought the car.
“But once software-dependent cars stop receiving updates, they will start to get worse. Maybe the navigation system starts to crash, or the Netflix app in your Tesla becomes so buggy”
No, when you stop getting updates, the car will continue to perform in the same way, again barring equipment failure. The software itself will not degrade and suddenly start to become buggy.
The reason your iPhone seems to do that is because it continues to get software updates that are made for a newer, more powerful phone. Your old iPhone 6 doesn’t play the latest graphics-intensive and high resolution games, but it performs the way it always did. And perhaps Apple pushes iOS updates that don’t perform as well on your old phone, making it seem slow. If you were to load the original iOS and the original apps of the time period, it would perform as well as it did the day you got it.
The bigger concern for me is being able to control what software is applied to my car (right to repair) so that I can keep bloated software updates out if I prefer the way it was working previously. Currently that’s not possible with Tesla.
Now, if Tesla were to start pushing updates to older cars that made them artificially degraded or less responsive than the newer cars (as Apple is accused of doing), then that would be a worthy outrage story.
I’ve seen EV’s characterized as phones on wheels before, and as an owner that seems apt. I envision a hobbyist community for old EV’s developing much in the same way there are groups that tinker with TRS-80s and Apple 2’s. Once support for a platform ends, someone will find a way to root it and then install such mods as seem cool or fun.
Wouldn’t it be easier to upgrade the hardware so it can keep up with updates? The article mentioned a law that requires manufacturers to offer repairs and recalls for 15 years after sale. That could be expanded to include computer hardware.
I think/hope this will change in the future. There’s been a lot of backlash against touch screens, touch buttons, subscriptions for basic functionality, etc. The car industry is struggling right now. At some point I think they will have to make simpler EVs, because normies don’t want ipads on wheels. They want something reliable and familiar that won’t break the bank.
reliable and familiar that won’t break the bank.
This is why car companies are not going to offer EVs that people actually want without government intervention. I remember GM leasing EVs back in the '90s to some acclaim. But they didn’t let anyone buy out their leases and they discontinued production by the end of the decade because most of their money came from service. And a bare-bones electric car has very few service requirements.
Manufacturers need the bullshit features because they need something important and breakable for consumers to come back with. Even if it’s just planned obsolescence driving another purchase, like it sounds like the article’s author is heading towards.
