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00:00Hey, what's up guys, MPBHD here, and this is my Tesla Model S, I named it Phantom.
00:12This is not Apollo, which was the car I had before this one.
00:15And Apollo was great, but the lease was up, so I got into a newer Tesla Model S after
00:19it, and as soon as I got into this car, I immediately noticed there's all these little
00:23things that are different about it, which got me thinking about how Tesla's change
00:28over time, and how that's the best and worst thing about them.
00:33So if you were to look at the window sticker or the registration on Phantom, it would
00:38say that it's a 2020 Tesla Model S performance.
00:42But the thing is, Tesla doesn't really do model year updates like pretty much every
00:46other car manufacturer, instead what they do is a steady series of slowly ongoing, constant
00:54minor changes that over time add up to a bigger difference.
00:58And when I say minor changes, I mean like, really minor.
01:02So the first couple days in Phantom, I noticed a couple little things, all of which I liked
01:05by the way.
01:06First of all, the trim around the main screen is now matte dark grey, like space grey instead
01:12of the previous chrome.
01:14And the trim in the air vents is also now matte black, instead of lighter.
01:18And then this whole front dashboard, this whole top here, is now all leather, instead
01:22of before it was half leather, half Alcantara.
01:25The cover of the storage between the seats, this used to be just black plastic, now it's
01:29a carbon fiber matching the trim of the car.
01:32And then there's the seats of the car, and they change the seats all the time in Teslas
01:35if you follow this, but the new ones here, these have this motorized telescoping memory
01:40headrest that goes up or down for taller or shorter passengers.
01:43The list goes on and on, and I noticed all these and they're all pretty small, minor,
01:48inconsequential, who would even notice or care.
01:51But there's also been a couple medium-sized changes.
01:55So at some point between 2016 and 2019, they upgraded the computers behind that touchscreen,
02:00making the UI noticeably faster and smoother and more responsive, and supporting more features
02:06like arcade games and YouTube and Netflix that older cars like Apollo don't support.
02:13They also moved from a two-camera setup to a six-camera setup for the autopilot system
02:18that now supports more advanced navigate on autopilot and a dash cam feature built into
02:23the car that, again, older cars just straight up don't have.
02:27And then there are the huge changes.
02:29The major ones, these are the ones that get named.
02:32These are the ones that would probably be worthy of an actual model update like with
02:37other car manufacturers.
02:38So the newest one is the latest air suspension and drivetrain update called Raven, which
02:43literally added miles to the range of the car and changed the feel of the drive.
02:48And there's also the great front nose cone refresh in 2016, where they went from the
02:52black plastic nose cone to the new front end here, which to me looks a lot better.
02:56And also just a few weeks from that in 2016, there was the announcement of the P100D, the
03:02first time they offered a 100 kilowatt-hour battery in their lineup.
03:06And it was at that point that I decided, okay, that's a major update, this is a good time
03:10to buy.
03:11You see, these constant rolling changes, whether you're a customer or the company itself, are
03:16both a good thing and a bad thing.
03:18For Tesla, it's a good strategic manufacturing decision to simplify manufacturing as much
03:23as possible, to streamline it.
03:25And often that just means removing options, simplifying everything, getting rid of skews
03:30that you don't ship as much.
03:31So all you really can choose as options when you custom build a Tesla Model S is performance
03:36or long range, wheel type, paint color, and then just one of three interior trims, then
03:43autopilot.
03:44And actually the performance versus long range, by the way, are not even a different battery
03:48size, they're just a motor and inverter difference.
03:50So they've completely eliminated all of the smaller battery sizes from their lineup.
03:55Every Tesla Model S that ships has the same battery.
03:58That is a really small number of options for a premium luxury car.
04:03But that also means the day you decide to get a Tesla, that version of the car you're
04:09getting will be the best version of the car there's ever been, probably even better than
04:13if you had bought it a month or two ago.
04:16Like a piece of tech.
04:17It's the best version ever, usually.
04:19But that also means that the Tesla you'd be considering getting, you're never really
04:24sure if it's about to be updated by a new medium sized or plaid sized update.
04:30That's just again the nature of buying tech.
04:32But easily the biggest, most variable thing in all of this is the software updates.
04:37These cars get a lot of software updates.
04:40In fact, since I've gotten that car, it's gotten more software updates than my phone
04:45has.
04:46And in that time, it's gotten faster.
04:48It's gotten new features, new launch control.
04:51The autopilot now recognizes and reacts to new things and shows animations differently.
04:56It's a lot.
04:57So if rule number one of tech is never buy a product for the promise of future updates,
05:02is Tesla breaking this rule?
05:04Well, they're trying to, because it helps them a lot for people to trust that and remember
05:09that their cars get better with software updates.
05:12I think the best example of this would be the summon feature.
05:15So in the Tesla app, there's been a summon feature and it's been there for years.
05:20And way back at the very beginning, it was dead simple.
05:22It was just forward or backward.
05:24So basically you could just summon the car in a straight line forward or backward out
05:27of tight spaces.
05:28You know, I guess kind of clutch if someone parks really close to you and you can't get
05:33in the door so you can summon it out.
05:35Neat, but honestly, it's not much more than a party trick at the beginning.
05:39Then they start adding features.
05:40It can kind of turn a little bit.
05:42It does the mirror folding.
05:43It gets home link support.
05:45So now it can sort of maneuver out of a tight driveway space every day and open and close
05:49the garage door if you want it to.
05:51But now in 2020, many updates later, there's a full on smart summon, which will just have
05:57the car find you anywhere.
05:59Open up the app, summon the car to you, it'll find you.
06:40Okay, so technically speaking, that was a success, but in every other way, that was
06:54kind of a nightmare.
06:55I mean, the feature, the idea, the idea is there and it makes perfect sense in an ideal
07:00world.
07:01You're at a mall, it's raining, you walk outside with all your bags, you don't want to walk
07:05through the rain.
07:06So you summon the car, it comes from the parking lot right up to the door and finds you.
07:10You never get wet.
07:11You get right into your car.
07:14But in reality, it's still kind of a work in progress.
07:18First of all, there's a limit to how far away it can smart summon.
07:20It feels like about 100, 150 yards before you're outside the circle and it won't let
07:25you summon at all.
07:26But once you press summon, the car wakes up and as long as you hold that button down in
07:30the app, the car will continue along this path it's drawn using GPS and imagery that
07:35it figures out that it can get to you and it'll keep you updated on what's happening
07:39as it's following that path in the app.
07:42Now I'm doing this in an empty parking lot to minimize risk, but even from all the times
07:46I've tried this in a half full parking lot, in a full parking lot, smart summon just does
07:52not drive like a regular human driver.
07:54It drives maybe like a human, but like a five-year-old human that can barely see above the steering
08:00wheel.
08:01So it does see signs and intersections.
08:05Usually it slows down for them and it'll say when it is, but sometimes it doesn't.
08:10It does see pedestrians and moving objects.
08:12Again, sometimes it slows down for them, which you would hope every time it would slow down
08:17for pedestrians, but sometimes it just didn't.
08:21And that's a really weird look when this car with no driver almost runs someone over and
08:26then proceeds to drive over to you while you're standing there holding the button on your
08:29phone.
08:30Like, sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm just summoning my car to me.
08:33I didn't know it wasn't going to stop.
08:35I could have let go of the button, but it just completely, completely ignores all the
08:39lines on the road, which I guess isn't actually that much of a problem by itself, but it just,
08:45it makes it hard for other drivers to deal with it when it's not behaving predictably
08:49like a normal driver would.
08:50Again, I've tried this in other active parking lots and it has not gone well.
08:54So that all sounds pretty rough, but the upside, the upside is people are willing to test this
09:01for Tesla.
09:02We have thousands, millions of drivers and fans and enthusiastic users all over the
09:06world who are willing to test this over and over and over and over again and just keep
09:12using it anyway.
09:13And Tesla will use all of that data from all the successful and all the failed attempts
09:18to turn around and work on new software to make it better.
09:21It's an underrated competitive advantage.
09:24Tesla is a tech and software company really as much as it is a car company.
09:29And it's the reason their cars feel more high tech than the rest.
09:32And as you know, it's very, very rare that a car improves over time.
09:37We know about car collectors trying to find cars that we'll appreciate and value.
09:41But usually when you get a car, you know, you drive it off a lot and just over time,
09:45it slowly gets worse and worse until it's too old and it's time to replace it.
09:50When you get a Tesla, the way they want you to think about it is you get the car and it
09:56does get older, but it gets software update.
09:58Maybe you get the new cheetah launch mode stance and then it's getting older and older,
10:02but then new autopilot update and it's getting older and older, but then a new software update
10:06and it gets faster and it just doesn't, it's supposed to feel like you end up with a better
10:11car later after you bought it.
10:13No wonder Elon keeps tweeting about the price of self-driving going up over time and how
10:18much its value is to the actual car and that it's underpriced.
10:22It's one of the most variable options in any car in the world.
10:25It's software.
10:26This stance, I'm sure if you ask them, would be please buy autopilot, even if you don't
10:30think you need it, just buy it and eventually maybe try it once or twice.
10:35Use it, fall in love with it and then start putting hundreds and thousands of miles in
10:40so that the entire fleet can be learned from and all this data can go back to Tesla and
10:45they can learn from it and they can push a software update and make it even better.
10:49And you know what?
10:51Maybe that's not such a bad thing for the car world.
10:54Self-driving cars should be like pieces of tech and attempt to get better over time.
11:00Just a thought.
11:01Maybe in the comment section, let me know what you think.
11:03That's been it.
11:04Thanks for watching.
11:05Catch you guys in the next one.
11:06Peace!