dream | act | succeed

As promised last time, today is all about the problems I had so far with the car. [Director:”Play dramatic music in the background”]

Chapter 1: THE APP

We better do not talk about the app. I mean, sure, the idea is good. You can check your battery status while charging, you can see your statistic about the fuel consumption and so on, you can see where the car is parked, you can see if the car is locked, you can see if the windows are shut, you can unlock your car and so many more things. The only problem? If the app doesn’t work properly, the customers will not be satisfied with the car, even if it is just the app. When cold outside, the app showed me wrong information. The windows were open, the car unlocked, sure, not a big deal if you have a look outside and see that the car is perfectly locked and the windows shut. But what do you do if you have parked the car somewhere else? You run back in panic, because you think someone is stealing your car? I am ending up not using the app. Why? Because it is just not reliable. Today it works, tomorrow it doesn’t. It is just a mess. Next time, better test the app yourself, before sending it out to customers and make them unhappy.

Chapter 2: THE FIRST PROBLEM

I was charging my car after work, just for a while, because I had an appointment at the doctor. I walked to my car, removed the charging cable, went into the car and it greeted me with a long list of warning signs. The car did not allow me to drive, I blocked the garage where the other car was parked, great situation. After a couple of times locking and unlocking the doors, at least I could park the car somewhere else. But driving with it to the appointment, not knowing if I will be able to drive back again? No! I took the other car and tried to solve the issue later. The solution, after driving a bit nearly all warnings disappeared. The thing that stayed were the safety systems. I needed to schedule an appointment, Audi checked the car, deleted the fault memory, talked with the Audi AG and got the answer, that they know about the problem but do not have a solution. I should try to unplug the car very quickly. Well, the problem did not show up since then, but that’s not really good engineering practice, isn’t it?

Chapter 3: DRIVING ELECTRIC ONLY

What is really annoying is one thing. There is not such a thing as a button that lets me decide to switch off the petrol engine. Sure, I can ask the car to drive electric, but if the car doesn’t want to, it just doesn’t change anything. Sure, the car can not drive electric all the time and sure, there might be situations where the battery is empty, or whatever. But even if I have a full battery and the conditions are perfect for electric driving, the car is just not shutting off the petrol engine. Is that even a problem? For me it is. I want to regulate the fuel/ electric consumption of the car by my own. If I get free electric energy, I don’t want the car to use patrol, of course!

Conclusion

The car is not bad after all and I really like it. It’s fascinating to see that a car manufacturer can build a good car, but the customers will not be happy about it, once the app on their phone is not working.

In PART III: The actual fuel consumption.

See you next time!