> Having dealt with lots of the "majors'" new car models lately in rentals, I doubt that they have much to bring to the table anymore.
I think it's more a matter of being shortsighted. If the ads from this season of the Startup podcast are any indication, they are so busy focusing on small pieces of the experience (such as having designing wear suits to simulate feeling old, etc) that they are missing the major advances. It's somewhat understandable, the major automakers have been making basically interchangeable cars for a few years, so spending time to enhance the entire experience in many small ways seems to make sense. That is, until some upstart shows up with something radically better.
They're definitely short-sighted, but I think that's just the most optimistic outlook, I think the short-sightedness is hiding much deeper incompetence in management. Their computer systems are universally terrible, they have no clue how to build something like a UI for a car. This is not something that MBA-type management can buy their way out of, because they have no competence, and no way to evaluate the contractors that may be able to build something real, and in fact they are likely to be taken in by poor contractors that are great at sales and terrible at engineering. The management also has no clue how to build/empower an internal team that could do the same, as far as I can tell.
>Their computer systems are universally terrible, they have no clue how to build something like a UI for a car.
Like a lot of legacy systems, right? Tesla has an advantage of starting from scratch, sure.
"This is not something that MBA-type management can buy their way out of, because they have no competence,"
No competence? These are century old companies that have created vast amounts of global wealth and emply hundreds of thousnads of people in what are still well-paying jobs. Yeah, no competence whatsoever.
Of course, I suppose if you knew that Tesla has hired engineers and managers from some of these companies that have "no competence"...
But building a new - and performant - UI for a car shouldn't be that hard, would it? I mean I've seen Tesla's touch screen UI, and TBF I thought even that one was pretty crappy; I can only imagine what other car systems are like.
With that in mind, I doubt it'll happen, but I'd still be curious what Apple could do if they made a car's display/OS (not counting Apple Carplay, of course).
Keep in mind that car UI systems are regulated like crazy. For example, Android Auto doesn't actually allow the independent app developer to make their own UI. You can choose from a few pre-approved templates and bind your own data in, but you can't differentiate because it might cause driver distraction.
Extending an inadequate legacy system rather than starting from scratch is a perfect example of the incompetence in management that I'm talking about.
Not sure why you're talking about engineers when I'm clearly talking about management. Also, today's management is not the management that built the companies or their wealth, so it's specious to suggest that that has any relevance on the evaluation of the current management. And finally, Tesla hiring the few competent managers is not a sign that those that remain at the current car companies are, as a whole, competent. While there are certainly individual managers that are competent in GM or Ford, the structure as a whole does not make good decisions, in my opinion.
I think it's more a matter of being shortsighted. If the ads from this season of the Startup podcast are any indication, they are so busy focusing on small pieces of the experience (such as having designing wear suits to simulate feeling old, etc) that they are missing the major advances. It's somewhat understandable, the major automakers have been making basically interchangeable cars for a few years, so spending time to enhance the entire experience in many small ways seems to make sense. That is, until some upstart shows up with something radically better.