There already are games in the vehicle. They’re just all pretty lightweight. The newer GPUs have a lot more power for the newer Autopilot and FSD processing.
They can only be used while parked, and help kill time when waiting for people or while charging if you are on a slower charger or have a longer charge time between segments.
can only be used while parked.
This clears things up. I imagined gaming occurring while driving which is a problem for obvious crazy and ethical reasons. Silly me.
What throws me off now is the apparent waiting that occurs. I’m interested in EVs, but I didn’t imagine the amount waiting. I presumed this was only for road trips. But… based on the comments I’ve seen… people just seem to spend a lot of time waiting in their cars for all sorts of reasons? The kind of waiting where gaming apparently makes sense? 🤷🏽♂️
Waiting when picking someone up, waiting when charging, waiting because you couldn’t go inside with them (at least during Covid), waiting because they had to use the bathroom and tou don’t know how long it’s gonna take, waiting for an employee to bring you stuff (“curbside” pickup), waiting because you had to show up early in order to get a parking spot but the place isn’t open, lots of things
I have a modern car (2022) but not a Tesla, and I can only use the Google voice assistant while I’m driving, I’m not allowed to type
Yeah, my vehicle has a small screen with GPS that works the same way. Locking it down while driving is the way to go in preventing accidents and deaths. Tesla though… they seem to be pioneers when it comes enabling distracted drivers. For a moment, I thought they were allowing gaming while auto drive functions were enabled.
You probably wait in your car a lot more than you realize. I pick up friends to go various places as I’m usually the designated driver, I’m often waiting out in the parking lot for people to come out. It may only be a few minutes, but a lot of the regular built in games (not steam) will load up in just a minute or so and occupy that time.
Or waiting at the cell phone lot to pick people up from the airport.
Charging waiting is likely the most common, but unlike what most non-EV drivers seem to think most of those stops are only about 15 minutes on a road trip. You aren’t charging up fully each time, you just charge up for the next leg, and a buffer, and the car calculates it all for you. Otherwise you really should have a home charging solution, it’s cheaper and you always have a full charge you don’t need to think about. If for some reason you need to fully charge at a supercharger, that can take longer. Just like your phone can charge to 50-70% super quickly and the rest is slow, the car battery is similar, just much larger capacity. So that can take a while longer. The longest I’ve ever had to charge though for a nearly full battery from about 20% was 40 minutes. And that was because I was going to a very remote area, away from major highways with no charging infrastructure, so I made sure I had enough to make it back.
Most people probably would just play on their phones, but the in car games just provide an alternative. Just like Netflix and the other streaming services in the car. They’re there for those waiting times, however infrequent they may be.
When you add it all up, it makes more sense. I honestly think i spend little time in vehicles compared to most people though–a side effect of working remotely most of the time. And even when I do wait, I typically read a book, check out Lemmy, Duolingo, etc. I can see why some folks might want to play a game on the screen. Provided that it only ever works while parked, it makes sense.