In my honest opinion, this phone comparison does not apply here.
At the moment Skoda and quite frankly every car manufacturer is struggling with the increasing amount of technology in their hands. These new EVs are basically computers on wheels. For a long time customers have been happy with what they received from the store and did not demand constant updating in their car software. Everything worked as intended, if not, a bug fix was most likely released.
The situation now is, that manufacturers have suddenly pushed unfinished products on the market. Consumers are beta testing. The issue is not that there are problems with the car/sw, but that manufacturers make promises they cant keep. Technology will of course advance and oof course will our expectations, but that does not mean our current vehicle should somehow keep up with the time. No way.
What im trying to say is: if you bought the car and no one promised an upcoming update would make something better, you should be not whining.
Would you buy an iPhone 8 ?
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Walter Eagle
- Posts: 154
- Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:35 pm
I was with you right up to the last word.
Before I ordered my car I specifically asked the salesman and service manager at my dealer about software maintenance - what were Skoda's plans. They had no idea of the concept. They barely understood the question. I tried explaining it in terms of a far more mature software environment, Windows. Even there, Microsoft still issue monthly upgrades, bug fixes, service patches etc. What would be the equivalent for Skoda? Not a clue. I pushed them harder - would there be any updates at all? Oh yes, they immediately jumped to life, Skoda said it would all happen automatically. But they'd no idea what "it" would be.
So far nothing significant has happened to my car. And Skoda themselves continue to publicise and promote the software upgrades I can't get. No-one in Skoda has said I'm not entitled to them. What they've said is they've no method for distributing the upgrade that either allows them to predict when I'll get it, or to manually initiate it.
Of course cars are computers on wheels. Your message almost sounds as though we should have sympathy for a company choosing to implement technology it doesn't fully understand in one of its products. They're struggling? I didn't force them in to this. But let's be quite clear about one thing I've emphasised time after time in this forum. The traditional electromechanical engineering of the Enyaq is excellent, as good as any car I've driven. And so it should be: they're a manufacturer with decades of experience. Unfortunately, the software ecosystem does not live up to the same standards. But if we contrast that with, say, Tesla. There we have a company who grokked the 'computers on wheels' concept from the outset. The ecosystem & charging infrastructure are genius. However I've heard evidence of their traditional build quality - alignment of panels, mechanical fittings etc - being less than perfect.
I really like my Enyaq but I won't stop pushing Skoda to improve it. It's completely impractical to expect hardware mods and enhancements. But they're playing to a different set of rules in the software world. I'd love to be so overwhelmingly delighted with my car ownership that, come the end of lease, I don't even think twice about placing a repeat order. Right now, Skoda have some work to do to get me to that situation and the longer they "struggle", the less automatic that decision will be.
Before I ordered my car I specifically asked the salesman and service manager at my dealer about software maintenance - what were Skoda's plans. They had no idea of the concept. They barely understood the question. I tried explaining it in terms of a far more mature software environment, Windows. Even there, Microsoft still issue monthly upgrades, bug fixes, service patches etc. What would be the equivalent for Skoda? Not a clue. I pushed them harder - would there be any updates at all? Oh yes, they immediately jumped to life, Skoda said it would all happen automatically. But they'd no idea what "it" would be.
So far nothing significant has happened to my car. And Skoda themselves continue to publicise and promote the software upgrades I can't get. No-one in Skoda has said I'm not entitled to them. What they've said is they've no method for distributing the upgrade that either allows them to predict when I'll get it, or to manually initiate it.
Of course cars are computers on wheels. Your message almost sounds as though we should have sympathy for a company choosing to implement technology it doesn't fully understand in one of its products. They're struggling? I didn't force them in to this. But let's be quite clear about one thing I've emphasised time after time in this forum. The traditional electromechanical engineering of the Enyaq is excellent, as good as any car I've driven. And so it should be: they're a manufacturer with decades of experience. Unfortunately, the software ecosystem does not live up to the same standards. But if we contrast that with, say, Tesla. There we have a company who grokked the 'computers on wheels' concept from the outset. The ecosystem & charging infrastructure are genius. However I've heard evidence of their traditional build quality - alignment of panels, mechanical fittings etc - being less than perfect.
I really like my Enyaq but I won't stop pushing Skoda to improve it. It's completely impractical to expect hardware mods and enhancements. But they're playing to a different set of rules in the software world. I'd love to be so overwhelmingly delighted with my car ownership that, come the end of lease, I don't even think twice about placing a repeat order. Right now, Skoda have some work to do to get me to that situation and the longer they "struggle", the less automatic that decision will be.
No, no. I'm not shedding any tears for skoda or any other manufacturer at the moment. I'm as frustrated as the next guy with this issue.
At the moment all manufacturers push out cars and software updates. Some handle the situation better than others, Tesla VS skoda for example. Tesla mostly listens to customer feedback and give prompt updates to both old and new cars. Skoda seems clueless about what to upgrade, who will get it and how will they update. Skoda has so much going on, it looks to the outside, that they don't even know what they are doing. They are handling the PR very badly.
Again I refer back to my previous message. In a perfect world the car should be delivered "as is" and no ground-breaking updates should be expected later. However, the manufacturers keep promising moon and stars from the sky and therefore leaving customers more disgruntled.
I mean, did you expect to get an update for lower MPG with your old diesel van?
At the moment all manufacturers push out cars and software updates. Some handle the situation better than others, Tesla VS skoda for example. Tesla mostly listens to customer feedback and give prompt updates to both old and new cars. Skoda seems clueless about what to upgrade, who will get it and how will they update. Skoda has so much going on, it looks to the outside, that they don't even know what they are doing. They are handling the PR very badly.
Again I refer back to my previous message. In a perfect world the car should be delivered "as is" and no ground-breaking updates should be expected later. However, the manufacturers keep promising moon and stars from the sky and therefore leaving customers more disgruntled.
I mean, did you expect to get an update for lower MPG with your old diesel van?
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