Ars Technica reviews the P85D

[brianman]

Which of course leads to thinking you missed the button, pressing again, then waiting to respond, and seeing it quickly flash on and the back off because the UI has caught up. This occurs daily.

Incorrect. I press the button once and patiently wait.

My Sig didn't do this in 2012 or 2013, IIRC. It did it in 2014, and now both cars have this issue in 2015.

 

[schonelucht]

There's a lot more that I could get into here but trust me when I tell you the Tegra3 is underpowered.

Possibly, but 10 seconds freeze ups are not due to an underpowered chip but due to badly designed software. Plain and simple.

 

[Shawn Snider]

"..There are also still no map pockets or flaps anywhere to be found—" the map pocket is behind the 17" display, opens like a Safe!

 

[breser]

I've had some really bad interface lag from time to time. Rebooting the 17" display resolves it. I'm not noticing the constant lag that others have complained about in this thread.

 

[thegruf]

I've had some really bad interface lag from time to time. Rebooting the 17" display resolves it. I'm not noticing the constant lag that others have complained about in this thread.

Well at least that's a more interesting observation than going on about severely under powered processors.

That would potentially indicate a memory leak in which one app, or part of, is not freeing up memory causing the rest of the software to swap in/out of cache.
Should be fairly easy for other to reproduce this.

 

[vvanders]

I dunno, that sounds more like something getting in a bad state or process fighting for cycles. These SoCs don't have virtual memory so you don't get things paging in/out.

I have seen the dash get incredibly laggy after supercharging occasionally. If I remove the graph and readd it goes away.

 

[LetsGoFast]

I reboot all the time (because the interface on TuneIn for podcasts is crap) and still see the lag issue frequently.

 

[supratachophobia]

I reboot all the time (because the interface on TuneIn for podcasts is crap) and still see the lag issue frequently.

Try these simple tests. Start a navigated route, maybe 60+miles or so. Then watch the framrates drop when the kw energy usage on the main cluster takes a hit when going up and down. And that is just the tegra2. Try doing a navigated route spanning multiple States on the main display and watch it take a really long time to calculate. Or queue up a playlist of 1000 songs and try to scroll the list and watch it stutter and choke. Certainly not buttery smooth 60fps.

 

[aneusomy]

I would agree with you about feeling that there is a great deal of optimization hopefully that could be done to smoothen out the interface. As another user pointed out, the gold standard is essentially a current iPhone or iPad and the scrolling on the screen maps is silky smooth compared to the Tesla. If it were simply the 3G connectivity that was the bottleneck for Tesla's interface, then it should fix once tethered and using the LTE from my iPhone in the car-- but it does not (it is a bit faster, but still choppy). Regardless, the perception exists that the interface is outdated or unpolished, and that is the bottom line that Tesla shouldn't ignore (IMHO).

Sorry, but how can you state definitievely that the Tegra3 is "severely underpowered" when you have no data to support that statement other than what you see on screen.
I would contend that the majority of lagginess is either due in part to 3G connectivity and/or a some dependencies/multithreading in the software that remain to be ironed out.

Lets say you put a processor in that is twice as powerful, your one second delay becomes 0.5sec and is obviously still laggy albeit slightly less so.

As an example, some versions of Android are noticeably more laggy than others in some parts of the software, yet my N5 processor remains unchanged.

 

[CSFTN]

As a potentially related side note, anyone find out what they changed when they added the 'impossible' directional lines to the rear camera? Anyone taken apart a recent screen, or see any recent documents which definitely show they're still using the Tegra3?

 

[breser]

As a potentially related side note, anyone find out what they changed when they added the 'impossible' directional lines to the rear camera? Anyone taken apart a recent screen, or see any recent documents which definitely show they're still using the Tegra3?

It's all software, since all the cars got the feature even the signatures.

 

[Joules Verne]

All speculation

Gotta love it when a bunch on engineers speculate what the problem is without any data. It's the chip, it's the swapping, it's the priority, it's a memory leak, it's the lack of realtime OS. It could be any or all of that stuff, and a bunch of other things, but only Tesla can debug the problem, as they are the only ones with the tools and system expertise to do so.

Its pretty concerning they're not all over this. UI problems to this extent, for a device designed to transport humans, should never have made it out the door. Calls their QA into question, big time!

When I test drove a p85d, one of the first things I noticed was the UI lag. Things like scrolling the pano roof, or sound system balance fader didn't track my fingers well. I shrugged it off, as I wanted to focus more on the drive. I guess it's a bigger issue than I thought.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Gotta love it when a bunch on engineers speculate what the problem is without any data. It's the chip, it's the swapping, it's the priority, it's a memory leak, it's the lack of realtime OS. It could be any or all of that stuff, and a bunch of other things, but only Tesla can debug the problem, as they are the only ones with the tools and system expertise to do so.

But this is an internet forum! Speculating on imperfect data is what we do, man.

 

[thegruf]

... Its pretty concerning they're not all over this. UI problems to this extent, for a device designed to transport humans, should never have made it out the door. Calls their QA into question, big time!

You are totally overstating these issues imho.

It's a few responsiveness issues not a car fail.
All software manufacturers have them whether Apple, Android or whomever.

And to suggest they (Tesla) are not all over this when you have complained about other making unsupportable statements, is even more outlandish.
You have no more idea than the rest of us what the root casue of the issues are and what Tesla are doing about them.

One thing we are aware of is V7 release in due course, and maybe they have done a pretty fundamental restructuring of the software as part of this seemingly significant update.
Time will tell, but to say the current software "should not have made it out the door" is plain wrong.

 

[wayner]

To get us back on topic, the review is fair and makes some good points. The fit and polish of the Tesla is not quite up to snuff for what it should be in a $130k car.

I totally love my P85D, but my complaints are of the nitpicking variety and are mainly related to the physical build of the car, like the poor placement of armrests/cupholders, awkwardness of entry, too few USB outlets, fixed rear seat headrest that are useless 99% of the time (at least for me) but that block a large portion of the rear view, no consideration for snow buildup in placement of sensors, etc.