ICE Vehicles: General topics

theSeb said:
To be fair there are some supercharger locations that allow for car with trailer recharging without decoupling. The rest of your anecdotes are pretty much my feelings on Tesla hence why I ordered something else.
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The alternative is an extension cable for the charger. Yet again, this generally sounds like a mismatch between engineering and management (Musk).

I’ll say that the abundance of chargers for Tesla may still give these cars an edge. With small kids, having to stop every 2-3H is even desirable. My experience with DC fast pricing and availability has been dismal. Anything short of DC fast is nonviable. Tesla calculating the most optimal charge time and prepriming the battery is not something available to other makes. Yet Again, Tesla is a great engineering company whose main limitation is leadership
 
You can blame people installing defeat devices for the increase sensitivity and other changes to how autopilot requires you to let it know you are still paying attention. Definitely takes a bit of torque on the wheel to register you're still awake. Another way is adjusting volume with the scroll wheel.
 
quagmire said:
You can blame people installing defeat devices for the increase sensitivity and other changes to how autopilot requires you to let it know you are still paying attention. Definitely takes a bit of torque on the wheel to register you're still awake. Another way is adjusting volume with the scroll wheel.
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Good to know.
 
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After about 16H of driving the M3, my conclusions are really ambivalent.

The Great:
- The charging and battery tech phenomenal. It's so good this has been the closest "real car" experience I've had with an EV. Zero range anxiety.
- The AC/heating had little perceived impact on range.*
- The car was pretty nimble even between 70 and 90MPH
- Autopilot chimes when it's green light for you

The Mediocre:
- Never tried lane-keep assist before, but Autopilot seemed like a glorified LKA system. It's decent, it's convenient but lacks the common sense of a human. For example, I always make sure to keep out of blind zones of other cars. AP does not. We almost got into an accident because of this car in front slowly approached the line towards us, then w/o signaling started cutting us off. We would have gotten in an accident if I didn't take over.
- The quality of ride was Meh. Even though nominally the decibels are probably the same, the sonic signature of wind and road noise is significantly better in my I3 and the is mainly restricted to higher pitched sounds, which makes it easier to hold a conversation.
- The front seating was decent, I didn't develop butt or back pain during this trip, but once we hopped back in the I3, my wife an I exhaled because the I3's seating is so much better.
- The sound system. It might be the road noise, it might be the bluetooth vs. USB, but it's just superior on the I3.
- Space for child seats
- Speedometer. Turns out, you can get used to it's position, key is to have your seat is pushed well behind.

The bad:
- The GUI:
The GPS sucked. It is where google maps was maybe 5 years ago, which is baffling to me. I've missed multiple turns because the lane change directions were off. Lane information was actually wrong in about 1 out of 3 times, if they were available at all. In major cities, I3 has 3D navigation which really makes the process intuitive. Apple Maps had gotten really good over the past 3 years. I couldn't even change the voice for the text-to-speech prompts?!
- I can turn on the AC at a press of a virtual button but to turn it off requires menu diving. There's also zero feedback as to where the air is going...unless you menu dive.
- Doors handles. On my I3 I pull on the door handle and it's open, which is (literally) handy when your hands are full. On the M3 it's thumb in grab handle, pull door.

The insane:
- Mirror setup in a submenu.

Final thoughts
Renting this car made me really appreciate my I3. At 50K the M3 is a way way way superior car. At the 15-20K price tag used, the I3 is just a way better city car as long as you don't want to take it on roadtrips. I think the M3's drawbacks are much less frustrating if you don't have kids and if you're shorter than 6' or aren't having backseat passengers. What bugs me is that the design language would not be disturbed if they hid a few push buttons on the back of the screen on the bottom. BMW has 8 shortcut buttons and it's just so sweet to be able to assign nearly any function to them. THe M3 would have only needed 2-4 of those.


*WInter range drops greatly because of increased air resistance due to increased air density PLUS significant energy use of heating. While you need extra energy for AC when it's hot outside, the decreased air density will help make up for this (to some extent). So I suspect the translucent roof was a brilliant engineering decision: even if it's cold out, if the sun is up it will significantly contribute to the heating of the car saving energy. The extra AC need in the summer will just balance the range out.
 
P_X said:
The Mediocre:
- Never tried lane-keep assist before, but Autopilot seemed like a glorified LKA system. It's decent, it's convenient but lacks the common sense of a human. For example, I always make sure to keep out of blind zones of other cars. AP does not. We almost got into an accident because of this car in front slowly approached the line towards us, then w/o signaling started cutting us off. We would have gotten in an accident if I didn't take over.
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This would seem to be more Bad than Mediocre.

My daughter didn't have her license too long and was taking my mom to the mall and they were driving my mom's E550 with the Adaptive Cruise Control. She had the Cruise set when all of a sudden a car puledl over in front of her and the E550 slammed on the brakes because it sensed the car in front. The downside was the car behind them also had to slam on it brakes. Scared her to death. To the point she looked for her GLA WITHOUT the Adaptive Cruise Control.
 
Herdfan said:
This would seem to be more Bad than Mediocre.

My daughter didn't have her license too long and was taking my mom to the mall and they were driving my mom's E550 with the Adaptive Cruise Control. She had the Cruise set when all of a sudden a car puledl over in front of her and the E550 slammed on the brakes because it sensed the car in front. The downside was the car behind them also had to slam on it brakes. Scared her to death. To the point she looked for her GLA WITHOUT the Adaptive Cruise Control.
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I can only speak for the BMW 5 series but the ACC is pretty spot on but I always take it with a grain of salt to be safe, I always have my break foot ready to go in case someone cuts me off or if a situation looks precarious in heavy traffic at higher speeds. I've caught myself hitting the breaks in situations where I thought it didn't see something coming.

The other side of that is the Traffic Jam Assist feature, when speeds drop below something like 37 MPH the car allows you more time with your hands off the wheel, maybe up to a minute (somewhere in there) and basically handles everything, that has always worked flawlessly. It's a feature I've really gotten used to, almost makes traffic jams into downtime where you can check emails and such.
 
Eric said:
I can only speak for the BMW 5 series but the ACC is pretty spot on but I always take it with a grain of salt to be safe, I always have my break foot ready to go in case someone cuts me off or if a situation looks precarious in heavy traffic at higher speeds. I've caught myself hitting the breaks in situations where I thought it didn't see something coming.

The other side of that is the Traffic Jam Assist feature, when speeds drop below something like 37 MPH the car allows you more time with your hands off the wheel, maybe up to a minute (somewhere in there) and basically handles everything, that has always worked flawlessly. It's a feature I've really gotten used to, almost makes traffic jams into downtime where you can check emails and such.
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It was a 2011 and that was a lifetime ago in terms of the tech.
 
Interesting article on speeding and enforcement.

slate.com

How America Broke the Speed Limit

The lifesaving law that nobody wants.
slate.com slate.com

Now I will admit I routinely set my cruise at 9-10 over on the highway. You can blame our state legislators for that. Back in 1995 when the 55 was repealed, WV almost immediately raised their limit to the new limit of 65. But Maryland didn't and those legislators who lived in the eastern panhandle had to drive through Maryland to get to Charleston. So they came up with a law that only assesses points for 11 and above on highways. So they still had to pay any ticket, but were not at risk of points or insurance hikes.

But I think the bigger safety issue is a lack of lane discipline. Europeans, especially Germans, would be stunned at how many drivers over here camp out in the left lane even though it is against the law in most states. It forces faster traffic to change lanes and possibly speed up to get in front of the before the hole closes. That is how wrecks happen.

I maintain I am safer doing 85 on an open highway with little traffic than doing the speed limit buy trying to get past the left lane hog doing 5 under the limit. Some states are starting to pass laws and use media to get the word out, but until they start issuing tickets the behavior won't change.
 
Herdfan said:
Interesting article on speeding and enforcement.

slate.com

How America Broke the Speed Limit

The lifesaving law that nobody wants.
slate.com slate.com

Now I will admit I routinely set my cruise at 9-10 over on the highway. You can blame our state legislators for that. Back in 1995 when the 55 was repealed, WV almost immediately raised their limit to the new limit of 65. But Maryland didn't and those legislators who lived in the eastern panhandle had to drive through Maryland to get to Charleston. So they came up with a law that only assesses points for 11 and above on highways. So they still had to pay any ticket, but were not at risk of points or insurance hikes.

But I think the bigger safety issue is a lack of lane discipline. Europeans, especially Germans, would be stunned at how many drivers over here camp out in the left lane even though it is against the law in most states. It forces faster traffic to change lanes and possibly speed up to get in front of the before the hole closes. That is how wrecks happen.

I maintain I am safer doing 85 on an open highway with little traffic than doing the speed limit buy trying to get past the left lane hog doing 5 under the limit. Some states are starting to pass laws and use media to get the word out, but until they start issuing tickets the behavior won't change.
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Amen to your assessment on lane discipline (from a German, of course). If you want to experience driving hell though, come to Toronto. Just mental over here.
 
ericwn said:
If you want to experience driving hell though, come to Toronto. Just mental over here.
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We used to go to a campground just outside of Picton every summer for a month. When I was 16 my dad made me drive our camper pulling a boat through Toronto. It was probably a Saturday, but traffic was still crazy, and that was almost 40 years ago. So yeah, I bet it is much worse now. After all they call the 401 North America's busiest highway.
 
Herdfan said:
We used to go to a campground just outside of Picton every summer for a month. When I was 16 my dad made me drive our camper pulling a boat through Toronto. It was probably a Saturday, but traffic was still crazy, and that was almost 40 years ago. So yeah, I bet it is much worse now. After all they call the 401 North America's busiest highway.
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I didn’t know that but yes, the 401 is a disgrace and gets one depressed if you have to use it for commuting. Luckily I work from home exclusively and am not forced to go anywhere close to Toronto anymore.
 
It's amazing how many people are love sick over Carplay and crap over Tesla for not having it.

Carplay just provides manufactures an excuse to not actually develop an interface that actually works. It was useful in my Camaro, but I don't miss it in my Model 3. I would love an Apple Music App, but zero wishes for Carplay. Tesla's interface( opinions about V11 none withstanding) is actually functional and going to Carplay would be a step back.
 
quagmire said:
It's amazing how many people are love sick over Carplay and crap over Tesla for not having it.

Carplay just provides manufactures an excuse to not actually develop an interface that actually works. It was useful in my Camaro, but I don't miss it in my Model 3. I would love an Apple Music App, but zero wishes for Carplay. Tesla's interface( opinions about V11 none withstanding) is actually functional and going to Carplay would be a step back.
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I miss Carplay, it was far more convenient when it came to communications and integration with all your iPhone apps. For me, this was a huge step backwards and it's also disappointing that they don't include Sirius XM. None of them are a deal breaker but it feels like they're deliberately bucking them just to buck them rather than simply increasing their reach.
 
I use CarPlay only for navigation. But it is very important to me.
My nav software maps are refreshed every month. And it is a simple process (1 click). If I tried to do it on my SYNC3 with Nav, oh my... The net is full of SYNC3 update problems.
 
When I got access to CarPlay for the first time in my 2015 GT convertible (by way of a snagged/tweaked firmware :D) I was thrilled as the at-the-time Sync version was mediocre at best. I also enjoyed it through my '19 GT convertible (came with it OOTB) I owned, the Sync had improved, but so had CarPlay and it was still better - and a seamless experience with the other ride we owned with the GT, a DD/RT. Both of those vehicles had an ~8" display, and CP works well to optimize the space of those (by today's standards) smaller displays (DD/RT implementation was better, it retained basic vehicle controls at the bottom). CarPlay I've seen on large displays is so-so, it was really a great solution for smaller-ish systems with poor tech.

Now though, it just doesn't do anything better than the native Tesla display, and I wonder how good it would be on a 15" display? I've imagine the implementation would need to be in a constrained window[?] With maybe a full/larger space toggle[?] The native navigation is terrific, and adds the SuC/pre-conditioning, the messaging is the same, voice activated, all contacts, a text transcription. That's it for me, I want messaging,nav, music.

Funny enough our Wrangler 4xe that replaced the DD/RT, has the same 8" uConnect setup as the latter, but I've pretty much stopped using CP in it, we have an XM/Sirus sub, I rarely use the nav, messaging is just as convenient through a BT connection to the native uConnect.

The only thing I'd like, isn't even CarPlay:

It's simply Apple Music/iTunes (Podcasts too, but that's a little less of a priority). Just a service that connects to your Apple account and let's you directly access your music, playlists, etc., vs. having to use Bluetooth (not unlike Spotify or Tidal). It's not like the service side on Apple's end isn't available, as there are already versions of this for various smart devices.
 
Ulenspiegel said:
I use CarPlay only for navigation. But it is very important to me.
My nav software maps are refreshed every month. And it is a simple process (1 click). If I tried to do it on my SYNC3 with Nav, oh my... The net is full of SYNC3 update problems.
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Tesla's nav maps are updated and are free.

That was a perk of Carplay when I used it in my Camaro since the Camaro's annual nav updates from GM was a $200 charge. So naturally I went to use my iPhone/Carplay for navigation. But now that Tesla updates the map data for free, that motivation for using my phone navigation went away.
 

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