My brother got a Model S 6 years ago and my son had an early Model 3. From my experience driving both, neither had software as bad as my DE.
Just my observation so no need to jump on me.
I think the software experience varies widely. Our first Tesla was a 2015 Model S P90D, produced three years after Model S production began. The software's performance was sporadic throughout the six years we owned it. While it performed as expected more often than our Lucid has so far, it was never flawless despite continuing OTA updates throughout the time we had it.
The USB music stick seldom worked correctly. Even though we left it plugged in all the time, every time we called up a song after starting the car we waited several minutes while the entire library had to reload. Then it would play a few songs and freeze.
We often had to reboot the software during a drive, especially the first couple of years. Every week or two throughout our ownership we would get a message that none of the driver assistance features were available. The voice recognition program was iffy at the outset and actually worsened with later updates to the point that we quit using it for everything except putting addresses into navigation (which mysteriously worked much better than other voice-activated commands).
The situation did improve with our 2021 Model S Plaid. However, as with Lucid, the car launched with certain advertised features not enabled until well after delivery, such as active noise cancellation, turn signal cancelling on lane changes,
etc. We've had the car for almost 11 months now, and the doors still do not respond reliably to the key fob. Occasionally, the door handles will not extend upon approach with either or both the key fob or our mobile keys with us. At those times, we can only open the car with the key card which, for this reason, we keep with us at all times. Sometimes the doors will open with the key fob, but then the car won't start, at which times we have to rub the key card on the wireless charger pad. And the old recurrent gremlin in our earlier Tesla of excessively long wake-up times still occurs on rare occasions.
We've been grappling with software issues for the seven years we've been driving EVs. Over that time, all manufacturers -- and especially EV manufacturers -- seem to be making more and more features available only through software menus and getting further and further ahead of what software can reliably do. I recently watched Ben Sullins' report on one month of Rivian R1T ownership, and it was the same old song: a voice recognition system that is unusable, a suspension that mysteriously raises and lowers while sitting at a traffic light, having to go into a software menu for almost every operating feature of the vehicle when a manual switch would make far more sense for both convenience and safety.
I am absolutely addicted to electric powertrains, but I still pine for metal car keys, tactile switches for audio controls and wipers, glovebox latches, backup CD players, and old-fashioned mechanical door handles. I'm just tired of walking up to my EV and wondering what will and won't be working this time.
