Having just spent a long weekend in a new P75D... Holzhausen and I need to talk.
The Model S, which I previously shot down in a test drive and then again a three-day weekend, is just not a great car.
What is good about the Model S? About 2 years ago, the range and superchargers. Now, like a US citizen insisting they're "free," I hate to inform you, everybody's got it these days.
What is terrible about the Model S you ask? The styling is just typical American car, a typical lack of refinement (doors sound and feel cheap when closed), the ACC/Autopilot freaks out with every bit of wet, snow, dirt, and tunnel it comes across, operating the ACC is painful with a ridiculous short stem off the steering column, stop-and-go traffic behaviour is rough/sickening and requires manual management of speed, the god awful overly busy-ridiculous-central screen and its meh navigational system, backing camera is useless in winter (within an hour of cleaning the car), the windshield wipers are absolute rubbish, the windshield wiper fluid sprayer is absolutely terrible and tends to deactivate ACC, the sound system was not great and taking a call in the car was consistently difficult to hear and of course it lacks CarPlay support. It is a big car, which is fine if you don't live in a proper urban center, but for me the size and turning radius are major drawbacks given the unreliable backing camera.
Autosteer/pilot or whatever they're calling it now has absolutely zero chance of working in an all-camera based system (Tesla Vision) as it is today. I predict this feature will ultimately be central to a class-action lawsuit. Maybe, you could fool yourself into thinking cameras would get the job done if you lived in arid conditions with little precipitation and big putting green like roads, maybe Southern California to west Texas, but I assure you this will not work if it snows and rains in more seasonal climes. This car MUST have a forward facing radar to even function with reliable (Adaptive Cruise Control) ACC. In the case of winter snow conditions you need to clean some of the cameras within an hour of even mild highway conditions for ACC to not be a constant on-again-off-again affair. The wipers are particularly poor around the area of the forward facing cameras and will also cause the ACC to fail. Low sun conditions and wet ground are also challenging for it. In summary, it took me three days with the car to realise this will never be fully autonomous. It won't ever be close to fully autonomous. It isn't a software problem, it is a fundamental design problem. (Just in case anyone at Tesla reads this - our VW eGolf has rock-sold ACC. You can manage speed reliably with your thumb in stop and go traffic, highway driving and inclement weather. But of course it has radar that doesn't care if it is snowing, raining, or the sun is so blinding that it is impossible to see.)
It is hard to be positive about Tesla on any other front, beyond range and supercharging, which is as I wrote above are no longer the only game in town. Certainly, not at this price point.
Frankly, the iD.3/4/5, while I'm not a fan of the haptic controls on the wheel, are all around better cars. I have an iD.3 for the next few weeks and it is just nice. The eTron from Audi is what I would get if I was in the Model X market. Personally, I'm leaning towards the BMW i.4 to replace our e-Golf. The MachE from Ford also seems to be a solid contender and several neighbours have purchased them.
Given the above, I'm just not sure why Holzhausen and company think they can provide any real criticism to Apple. I tend to think that Tesla and its zealots actually have seriously overvalued this company not realising what business they're in. When they realise the automobile business is a manufacturing at scale business, not a tech gadget one, we should see a more realistic market valuation and maybe more humility.
