Why is a car capable of playing games in the first place. I understand it’s not going to allow people to play while they drive but still. That just seems like an odd/bad idea.
The cars already have decent GPUs to process the camera data for driving assistance features, so someone at the company probably just thought it would be neat to do something with that computing power when it's not being used for driving.
Yes, I know the scale is vastly different between driving charge and game lmaying charge, but it still sounds like revving your engine wile filling with gas.
Playing a game uses such a ridiculously small amount of electricity compared to the amount that is pumped in through a supercharger, I would honestly be shocked if the difference between playing a game while charging versus not playing while charging was in the minutes.
Well, depending on state of charge, supercharging goes up to 250kW. A state of the art PC (4090, Ryzen 9 etc) draws about 850-900 watts on full load. That means such a computer would use 0.004% of available power thus extremely negligible. And the APU (Ryzen-based media system) inside Tesla’s probably uses more around 200-400 watts under full load.
Electric cars have a very legit use case for this… extended charge times. The video games and streaming apps are so you can kill time.
Telsa’s have pretty fast charge times, but even those are slower than a gasoline fill up. Moreover, if you get cursed with charging at a non-Telsa station, you could be there for quite a bit.
Honestly I actually had not thought about people sitting around waiting to charge. In my area there are tons of chargers, grocery store, Costco, the mall, movie theaters. My experience had been that people would charge while doing other things. Thanks for the insight into a good use for it.
Yeah, sometimes you’re in BFE and there isn’t much around. Other times you just want to eat fast food in your car like an animal and watch a TV show that is too embarrassing to watch on the couch with your significant other.
Probably similar to why you can make the turn indicator make fart noises or have the car "dance" by flashing lights and opening doors and such. The hardware is there so why not. Utterly pointless features but atleast it's something the competition isn't doing I guess.
Tho I must admit that it was quite funny when I once heard a guy lock the doors on his Tesla and instead of the generick "click click" it said "quack" instead.
People are so used to megacorporations controlling what specific software they can run on their general-purpose computers that they are now... in favor of it? Every day it seems more and more the case that Apple's anti-sideloading propaganda is successful.
I don't want a general-purpose computer in my car. I want a screen to do the federally-mandated backup camera and physical buttons for everything else.
I'm in the same boat. I fucking hate modern cars. There are no acceptable options so I just walk and use public transit... the data collection is so extensive I feel uncomfortable even catching a ride in a friends car.
Why a bad idea? Why an odd idea? It's a powerful computer with a decent size monitor in a place where sometimes people have to sit and wait.
What am I missing because seems like a logical / good idea to me?
I’m not trying to compare them on a chemical or scientific level.
I’m just saying that I was able to quit cigarettes and I have had some friends who are not able to quit video games, so it is at least a little addictive for some people, and those people would not be better served by one more place to play.
Yes, games can be addictive for some people but it's comparably very rare. "Punishing" the huge majority of non gaming addicts based on that seems extreme. And I don't think it would matter for addicts anyway.
Addicts would find a computer to play on anyway because they are addicted. In some ways it could be argued that it might even help addicts because using this thing they could get away from their homes and so stuff outside while still having easy access to something they like.
Another difference between smoking and gaming is that smoking harms and annoys everyone around you, while gaming doesn't actually harm anyone. Except if you refuse to eat or something but that would be even more rare.
Well, you didn't explain why they're bad, that's probably why
As others pointed out it's incredibly nice for the times when you're not doing anything but are in your car, anyway. If the ability to play games is disabled while driving then is there actually an issue?
Seems like a great way to kill time while plugged into a charger to me, I already do it with my steam deck when I charge my car
Honestly I actually had not thought about people sitting around waiting to charge. In my area there are tons of chargers, grocery store, Costco, the mall, movie theaters. My experience had been that people would charge while doing other things. Thanks for the insight into a good use for it.
Not even just waiting to charge. Picking someone up, but your schedule gets you there 15 minutes before they're available? Why not put that computer to use?
I never wait around while the car is charging (generally only charge at home), but this has been useful for waiting to board a ferry, actually being in the car on a ferry, and waiting for road closures to clear.
I also do have a steam deck, and this is basically the same thing but with a bigger screen.
Tesla’s message alerts the customer that the company is “updating the gaming computer” in the Model X and says it’s “no longer capable of playing Steam games.” The message ends with a button for the customer to confirm they will proceed with the delivery.
And we’re not seeing any signs that the automaker plans to remove Steam from current owners’ vehicles through a software update.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk had hyped Steam as a selling point, advertising the new GPU as powerful with the ability to play top-tier games like Cyberpunk 2077.
Initial 2021 models were not installed with sufficient RAM to support the advertised games, so Steam was not included.
There’s speculation that Tesla might be backtracking on powerful gaming hardware in new Model S and X vehicles.
Musk has been busy squeezing the company through hot-headed layoffs in an effort to make the company “absolutely hard core.” Tesla scaled back on what a new low-cost vehicle will look like and is going all in on building a robotaxi, which means games like The Witcher are no longer a priority.
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