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4,175 Posts
Trying to find out how folks are doing with their P8s.
I totally agree on AAOS. Automakers can't wait to abandon their halfbaked OS for an alternative. It will be the dominate infotainment system period.I absolutely love my Recharge.
I love the metallic sage. I love the sunroof that actually opens and the sunshade that actually closes. The styling is perfect and the seat height is perfect. It has better ground clearance than the competition; everything else is more car than crossover but this is more small SUV. We test drove the Recharge first, then we test drove the Mach-E a few days later, and we couldn't wait to drive that thing back to the dealership and buy the XC40 Recharge. There isn't anything quite like it on the market yet.
Driving the I-70 corridor through the Rocky Mountains has never been less stressful than with this vehicle using OPD and Adaptive Cruise Control with Pilot Assist. Going uphill doesn't even feel like it's trying, and going downhill I don't have to worry about braking or the cars in front of me braking, it's just so effortless. I know that a lot of YouTube reviewers knock this car for it's efficiency, but it's a lot better than people realize. Tesla never gets it's EPA stated range (remember it's not the EPA doing the testing and reporting that figure, it's the automaker reporting to the EPA) but the XC40 Recharge almost always does. One tester drove the car 100 - 0 and got 244 miles. While I never plan on driving this until it dies, I can drive through the mountains from Denver to Avon and back and only use 85% of my battery, 50 there 35 back. That's 200 miles with lots of elevation.
I love Android Automotive. I know that because this is a new infotainment system there are going to be quirks and difficulties, but I think it's worth the price of admission to be an early adopter. Google Maps is seamless, and I was already a YouTube Music user. It syncs with my PocketCasts, and Google Assistant can actually understand what I'm asking. I wish my assistant voice preference, Issa Rae, carried over from my phone, but that's only because hers is a "special edition" voice assistant whereas my wife's English lady voice carries over. I get that the app ecosystem is not totally there and it should get a lot better, but it already does the basic stuff and I don't have to take out my phone while I'm driving. Most vehicle infotainment systems suck when you buy the car and only get worse. As more automakers adopt AA, it's going to dominate the market. When Volvo says their future is VolvoOS, they are talking about their UI/UX, not a whole different kernel. Like when phone makers call there software OneUI, ColorOS, OxygenOS, et al; they are still talking about Android.
But a car maker will spend all their effort focused on their cars, while Google is trying to be all things to all people. Unfortunately Android is so fractured that Google needs to keep least common denominator in mind. And how much priority does car maker A get over car maker B when asking for fixes and features? And I have yet to have a car with such a half baked OS. So maybe in 2 years when this thing matures I may change my mind.I also would tend to predict that. At the end of the day, no matter how much money a car manufacturer would put into OS development, it will always fall short to how much money Google would put into the same software development (assuming it stays interested in potentially dominating the car OS market ... I would given such a potential size of the playing field). I also would tend to think the caliber of software engineer talent would be higher at a company that prizes such and pays the salaries to back up that desire.
It's not hard for me to imagine that the number of mechanical (and probably increasing electrical) engineers employed in a typical car project will out number the number of software engineers. Certainly that was true in the not too distant past and would be interesting to see the trend now. Google, on the other hand, is "all in" on software engineering ... thousands and thousands of them. And while they won't all work on Car OS's, surely technology from one area helps others (take for instance how well google voice control understands us). While this is just my opinion (which is only worth $.02), I just see a world where the "might" of google software engineering resources will always be able to out feature and out schedule Car manufacturers. I don't think dominance will happen overnight, but slowly as it has more and more to offer consumers will just prefer and insist on it over less solutions.But a car maker will spend all their effort focused on their cars, while Google is trying to be all things to all people. Unfortunately Android is so fractured that Google needs to keep least common denominator in mind. And how much priority does car maker A get over car maker B when asking for fixes and features? And I have yet to have a car with such a half baked OS. So maybe in 2 years when this thing matures I may change my mind.
I like what I have seen of the new 22 Lexus NX OS, seems to support natural language search and functions. ‘
Exactly, as massive as Google is they have so many projects and good talent is limited. I am surprised some of the car makers did not pool resources more, especially the smaller ones. My limited drives in the Mach-E I was impressed with with Sync4.I dunno, Google has half-assed plenty of projects. How many years did it take them to make Wear OS not garbage?
One good thing about that is Ford has already committed to pivoting from Sync to AAOS.I definitely can't argue with anyone having an issue with dealerships. I certainly can't boast about my experience buying the P8. Although one of the things that turned me off from the Mach-E was my issues with my last vehicle and experiences with Ford. Ford Sync is a hot mess and Sync 4 is a pig with lipstick. On our Mach-E test drive, the vehicle downshifted hard despite not having a transmission and the only word I could leave that vehicle thinking was, clunky.
The ID4 was never an option for me because I had to have AWD and wasn't going to wait around for it to be made available when there was already the P8 which I adored. Same goes for the Ioniq 5.
I really do like the idea of how T handles showrooms, purchases and repairs because dealerships are not customer friendly. I think they have a lot of things going that other automakers need to emulate, and fast (like gigapress & 4680) but they have software issues too, like the center screen rebooting while driving causing the vehicle to shutdown and the driver forced to pull over until the unit reboots, not to mention quality control issues.
It breaks my heart that some P8 owners have had such problems, and I can't blame you for having such differing opinions than mine. I can only hope that your experience improves drastically to match mine.