Elon Musk Teases Steam Game Support for Tesla Infotainment System

[Octavean]

Can it run Crysis though?

 

[mechtech]

Will it work at -40?

 

[AusWolf]

Just because you have people in one area working on infotainment and people in the other area working on building better cars, those two ressources are in different fields. (If not i could be making cars instead of software!) And just because a developer have gotten a task for 10x7 hours to figure out how this could work; does mean that the engine designteam stop working

Well, if you take the infotainment system and the hype out of any Tesla model, you get a soap dispenser on wheels. Bland, boring and lacking any sort of character whatsoever.

Actually one of the reasons they are ruling the industry is having invested in usable infotainment systems as opposed to bottom of the barrel hw with 0 support we've seen so far. It's an odd move to put a full on gaming system on a car, but it's also something new on a premium car that will be exciting for new generations and for a future where we'll have to wait a bit more to refuel cars.

It makes as much sense as DVD players and similar accessories in minivans for example.

Usable? When you have to take your eyes off of the road to find the radio controls on a touchscreen? Dangerous would be a better word.

As for gaming (and DVD players as well), it has no practical use in a car. In a bus, maybe, but cars are meant for driving, not gaming. If I want Steam, I've got my PC with a keyboard, a mouse and a usable size monitor.

 

[lemkeant]

Well, if you take the infotainment system and the hype out of any Tesla model, you get a soap dispenser on wheels. Bland, boring and lacking any sort of character whatsoever.


Usable? When you have to take your eyes off of the road to find the radio controls on a touchscreen? Dangerous would be a better word.

As for gaming (and DVD players as well), it has no practical use in a car. In a bus, maybe, but cars are meant for driving, not gaming. If I want Steam, I've got my PC with a keyboard, a mouse and a usable size monitor.

An electric vehicle that goes 0-60 mph in 2 seconds. Yep, bland and boring!

And please, show me a vehicle that does all music and radio changes and navigation on a HUD, all displayed on a windshield? It also has voice activation where you just speak what you want to do, just like many other vehicles. Problem solved. There's also steering wheel controls.

You're entitled to your opinion, but your opinions are quite non factual. You really should have a semi open mind when you've obviously never ridden in one nor driven one

 

[AusWolf]

An electric vehicle that goes 0-60 mph in 2 seconds. Yep, bland and boring!

Acceleration isn't everything about a car. Tesla's exterior is basic as hell, and the interior lives up to the definition of "kitchen counter with a tablet stuck in the middle". If I wanted a 2 second 0-60 car, I'd much rather buy a Porsche.

And please, show me a vehicle that does all music and radio changes and navigation on a HUD, all displayed on a windshield? It also has voice activation where you just speak what you want to do, just like many other vehicles. Problem solved.

Those are gimmicks, not features - designed to work around a problem that didn't exist before someone though that replacing ALL buttons with a touchscreen was a good idea. Talking to a machine is fine in Star Trek, but kind of cringey in real life. I'm not a fan of Alexa, Cortana and the rest of the person-emulating programs, either.

There's also steering wheel controls.

That's a good point, but my £12k Fiesta has those too.

You're entitled to your opinion, but your opinions are quite non factual. You really should have a semi open mind when you've obviously never ridden in one nor driven one

Of course it's an opinion. I might enjoy driving a high-performance electric car one day (it might as well be a Tesla), but it won't change the fact that Tesla's design and "features" (gimmicks) are the exact opposite of what I'm looking for in a car.

 

[Vayra86]

Elon Musk elevating clickbait to idiot realities.

Now that's a guy you trust in flying your ass to Mars isn't he.

 

[Aquinus]

Elon Musk elevating clickbait to idiot realities.

It's called marketing and taxes. I can't imagine that they're serious about this, but it's just to make some "good" headlines. It adds justification for valuing the company higher because they're being "innovative." Did you know that businesses can get a tax deduction for net new engineering work? This probably is saving Tesla some money on their taxes.

 

[Vayra86]

It's called marketing and taxes. I can't imagine that they're serious about this, but it's just to make some "good" headlines. It adds justification for valuing the company higher because they're being "innovative." Did you know that businesses can get a tax deduction for net new engineering work? This probably is saving Tesla some money on their taxes.

Pretty retarded

 

[Valantar]

Pretty retarded

That's what happens when corporations are allowed to lobby pretty much without limits - this kind of tax code is built on a lot of pretty fragile assumptions (all innovation=progress/improvement of the world somehow; non-innovation=less useful or beneficial, etc.) and the type of highly selective technooptimism that Silicon Valley thrives on. And, of course, that's what Musk is good at - selling "innovations" as "good" despite these "benefits" being dubious at best (and whether the "innovations" in question are innovative at all is another thing - as in this case), and effectively tying together technofetishism, sci-fi utopianism, Silicon Valley libertarianism and billionaire tech bro "coolness" (yes, that needs air quotes). Musk is as such quite paradigmatic for this whole scene: he is incredibly good at pitching and selling his stuff within a specific population, and thanks to immense resources manages to succeed more broadly with some ventures, but for most people outside of that ideological bubble he comes off as a vaguely deluded huckster with a severe lack of perspective.

 

[Jhart1228]

Take my money Muskie! I'm ready to die the way I lived!!

 

[Valantar]

Take my money Muskie! I'm ready to die the way I lived!!

Broke? In the process of being scammed? Both?

 

[Jhart1228]

Broke? In the process of being scammed? Both?

Yes, yes, and yes! But at least I have muh vidya games.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Guess he's worked out the autopilot features so drivers can relax and game a bit before a nap.

 

[Valantar]

Guess he's worked out the autopilot features

For reference, this was the latest beta update as of february 8th:

Edit: apparently the media embed doesn't keep the time code link; crash is at ~3:20.

Nothing dramatic, but definitely not ready to relieve human drivers yet. Not by a long shot, when it fails something that basic.

 

[deu]

Well, if you take the infotainment system and the hype out of any Tesla model, you get a soap dispenser on wheels. Bland, boring and lacking any sort of character whatsoever.

Well thats why the infotainment system is important right? You could argue that if you take out all details of a AUDI its just... a car? Alot of people JUST want a car. Im tired of people whining about tesla for no reason. If you one and it failed: sure whine, but the rest is just "finesmeckers" trying to good for tesla. People can buy another brand and still appreciate tesla pushing the market of EVs forward. Tesla kickstarted ev's and is a disruptive business (and thats good.) =

Thanks, I sure will. I'll stop doing it when he stops being the human equivalent of a dried up turd at the side of the road.

Thanks for making it obvious that you are not a smart man!

 

[Valantar]

Thanks for making it obvious that you are not a smart man!

What, for spotting that Musk is a deeply, deeply flawed human that is somehow deified by a bunch of tech groupies? He's a paragon of the absence of self-awareness, and sadly that extends to his projects - a utopian idea of useful Mars travel, imagining himelf as the saviour of public transport through making it incredibly expensive, complicated, and (as of now) non-functional, etc. He did hit a gold mine with Tesla, but that's one of few successes. He's mainly successful through being massively rich, which allows you to waste tons and tons of money on passion projects, no matter how poorly thought out - and lets you pay people to fix them or make them work, of course. It also bears mentioning that his major success, Tesla, is reportedly a pretty terrible workplace, with rampant sexism, poor working conditions for factory workers, union busting, etc.

Does this mean Musk is any worse than your average CEO? Not really, no. He's more visible and a bit more adventurous, and of course he cultivates his "I have zero social intelligence and at times like to do insider trading" public persona, which does add to the appeal for his fans and the derision for his detractors. Aside from this, he's just your run-of-the-mill billionaire - self-centered, corrupt, riding on the backs of workers and government support, all the while patting himself on the back for getting to where he has. Nothing new about that.

 

[AusWolf]

Well thats why the infotainment system is important right?

I'm not saying that it's not important. I'm saying that 1. it's not as important as Musk makes it to be and 2. that it's not the only part of a car. It should be accompanying the driver, not binding them of the fact that the vehicle they're driving has nothing else to offer than a $200 tablet glued to the dashboard. All smoke and no fire if you ask me. All gimmicks, no substance.

People can buy another brand and still appreciate tesla pushing the market of EVs forward. Tesla kickstarted ev's and is a disruptive business (and thats good.) =

1. I see that Tesla is pushing the EV business forward, but I fail to see how. By letting the driver play Doom: Eternal on a freaking tablet? C'mon...
2. Why should I appreciate it? Like I said, I consider Tesla models bland, boring electric soap dispensers that have nothing to offer other than a pointless (and pointlessly complicated) infotainment system, and mad acceleration (if you pay the extra).

I have no interest in any company "disrupting the business", certainly not a deluded one like Tesla that only focuses on charging customers for stuff that no one has ever asked for, and pushing their "let's save the planet with unrecyclable lithium batteries" agenda assisted by equally deluded government propaganda.

 

[trsttte]

What, for spotting that Musk is a deeply, deeply flawed human that is somehow deified by a bunch of tech groupies? He's a paragon of the absence of self-awareness, and sadly that extends to his projects - a utopian idea of useful Mars travel, imagining himelf as the saviour of public transport through making it incredibly expensive, complicated, and (as of now) non-functional, etc. He did hit a gold mine with Tesla, but that's one of few successes. He's mainly successful through being massively rich, which allows you to waste tons and tons of money on passion projects, no matter how poorly thought out - and lets you pay people to fix them or make them work, of course. It also bears mentioning that his major success, Tesla, is reportedly a pretty terrible workplace, with rampant sexism, poor working conditions for factory workers, union busting, etc.

Does this mean Musk is any worse than your average CEO? Not really, no. He's more visible and a bit more adventurous, and of course he cultivates his "I have zero social intelligence and at times like to do insider trading" public persona, which does add to the appeal for his fans and the derision for his detractors. Aside from this, he's just your run-of-the-mill billionaire - self-centered, corrupt, riding on the backs of workers and government support, all the while patting himself on the back for getting to where he has. Nothing new about that.

I generally agree but there's more "gold mines" other than Tesla. For example PayPal (which is going through a very rough patch as of late but was revolutionary when it started), Starlink who's shacking US telecoms out of complacency (it's baffling that's it's easier to set up a sat. constelation than to wire fiber everywhere in the US :facepalm and Space X which made space exciting (Mars might be a pipe dream, but it's cool af)

I'm not saying that it's not important. I'm saying that 1. it's not as important as Musk makes it to be and 2. that it's not the only part of a car. It should be accompanying the driver, not binding them of the fact that the vehicle they're driving has nothing else to offer than a $200 tablet glued to the dashboard. All smoke and no fire if you ask me. All gimmicks, no substance.


1. I see that Tesla is pushing the EV business forward, but I fail to see how. By letting the driver play Doom: Eternal on a freaking tablet? C'mon...
2. Why should I appreciate it? Like I said, I consider Tesla models bland, boring electric soap dispensers that have nothing to offer other than a pointless (and pointlessly complicated) infotainment system, and mad acceleration (if you pay the extra).

I have no interest in any company "disrupting the business", certainly not a deluded one like Tesla that only focuses on charging customers for stuff that no one has ever asked for, and pushing their "let's save the planet with unrecyclable lithium batteries" agenda assisted by equally deluded government propaganda.

I don't get all the blind hate towards Tesla that it becomes so easy to ignore all the things they're doing way better than everyone else.

A 200$ tablet glued to the dashboard a gimick? Well, pretty much every new car has one and the trend started before Tesla, they just did it bigger and better and actually to a usable standard with a fluid UI and constantly updated. To this day, still miles ahead of the competiton.

Also superchargers, they're installing more capacity alone in a year than most brands have planned for the next couple years through several joint ventures. They're now also opening up to any vehicle so no more playing the card "but only tesla's can use them".

No more dealerships and stupid discount of the month or credit offering or any other common bullshit. There's a price that may or may not change more often, but that price is set. It's not whatever the scammer at the dealership tries to push. If you look at all the credit incentives and discounts and whatever Tesla's price is actually a lot more stable than everyone else.

Bateries are also very much recyclable, the lithium is not even the bigger part of it, and are infinitely better than petrol. Mining lithium, nickel, cobalt etc. is not great, but it sure is a lot better than oil which it plans to replace - that is now, when the industry around it matures it will be even more of a no brainer than it already is.

There's of course the poop - like lack of support, anti right to repair, etc etc etc. Lot's of it due to infancy of the company, others malice, but overall I think they still brought a lot of positives and are pushing stuff in the right direction, the bad stuff can still change in due time or competition will due what it does best and displace their asses.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
The point I believe is drivers need fewer distractions not more
Turning something that isn't really even a good place for gps navigation into a gaming screen is inherently moronic to do
Gaming/ tv/ movie is best way out of drivers view best restricted to back seated kids.

Drivers can't even barely mess with a radio/ cell phone without killing others lol

 

[Valantar]

Hi,
The point I believe is drivers need fewer distractions not more
Turning something that isn't really even a good place for gps navigation into a gaming screen is inherently moronic to do
Gaming/ tv/ movie is best way out of drivers view best restricted to back seated kids.

Drivers can't even barely mess with a radio/ cell phone without killing others lol

Couldn't agree more. What cars need? Better HUDs, better on-wheel interfaces (that aren't overcomplicated!), easy-to-reach and (crucial!) no-eyes tactile interfaces for things that don't fit there or need quick dedicated access. What cars don't need? More distractions, more stuff you need to look at while driving that isn't the road. Heck, imagine if you needed to use a touchscreen to change gears, use your wipers or indicator lights? That would be a nightmare.