Tag: psychology

The Music Mentality

Music connects you with others, lifts your spirits, and inspires. Recently, listening to music inspired me to try making music. There is still so much to learn, but I’ve been able to make decent progress despite a quarantine and the obstacles it has presented, by seeking knowledge passed along by musicians online. To continue connecting, I figured I should pass along all I’ve learned so far.

Finding inspiration

When you listen to music, you’re never alone

The title of this article keeps popping into my head during all the quarantining and social distancing brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. I forgot what the article was even about, but the words are a reminder for me whenever I’m not having a great day, that music can bring people together, even when we’re apart.

You put the headphones on, you’re listening to music, but the music’s still part of the larger social world
Jay Schulkin

Another idea that sticks with me comes from Oak Felder. If you haven’t heard of Oak (I hadn’t before this deep dive into music production), he’s a producer for many popular artists including Nicki Minaj, Alessia Cara, Kelly Clarkson, and John Legend but in this case, the line comes from a video of him talking about the production of the song Sorry, Not Sorry, by Demi Lovato.

Oak says,

A song is a conduit of emotion from one person to another, but in order to accurately depict this emotion, it has to be a snapshot of a moment.
Oak Felder

More succinctly, “A song is a snapshot of a moment.”

And Covid-times are providing quite the moment to snapshot.

Early on we got songs like Level of Concern from Twenty One Pilots talking about an initial uncertainty of the situation, and Quarantine Casanova from Chromeo making light of it. Glass Animals made Quarantine Covers and later, AJR released Bummerland.

But a general theme was musicians wanting to play music.

Martin Garrix played on an assortment of roofs and boats around Amsterdam, Machine Gun Kelly played virtually with Travis Barker and later for aliens, Post Malone played Nirvana, David Guetta played to Miami, Steve Aoki played in a foam pit, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band played Keep Your Head Up.

It’s easy to see that music isn’t quite the same this year. No shows to play, but plenty of thoughts and emotions to share about trying to figure things out.

I used go to a ton of concerts back when they still happened. I love the energy of the music, the atmosphere of the venue, and the creativity of musicians.

Quick aside. You should be proud of what you like and the things you do. It’s the creativity and uniqueness that makes you, you. Don’t be ashamed of being out of the ordinary or mainstream. Be both. You can contain multitudes.

I love music because I love to see what people create. And this applied to people in all creative professions. I am always amazed by the songs, movies, shows, and books people make. But you don’t have to be a Grammy winning record producer to pursue your interests.

Learning to play

I realized a couple years ago that after countless hours of listening to music and going to concerts, it would be fun to try to make music of my own.

And the good news, I learned, is some of the award winners will walk you through their process for creating their industry recognized art. So yeah, you don’t have a to be a pro, but you can still learn from them.

When you listen to music, you’re never alone. When you make music, you find out if you have schizophrenia.

If music is part of the larger social world, I wanted to be part of the conversation (but had to figure out what I wanted to say).

I have some musical background. I played piano briefly as a child, but didn’t stick with it. I tried guitar but never could progress beyond basic chords. I did play trombone in jazz and concert band throughout high school and middle school. I think picking up bass would have translated better instead of guitar.

I began my musical restart in Winter 2018. I couldn’t read treble and had all but forgotten bass clef. And I couldn’t play piano, but I wanted to be able to.

Since then, I’ve said playing piano is my winter activity because Seattle summers are so amazing. Through quarantine and social distancing I have played more than usual and uploaded 15 songs to Soundcloud, but it’s still tough to sit inside when the weather is so nice. With recent weather making the city look like a scene from Mad Max, staying in has me reflecting on making and listening to music again.

Today is a day pic.twitter.com/74qzyXPGyK
— Alex Garland (@AGarlandPhoto) September 11, 2020

Here’s how I started learning piano and music production.

To set some expectations, my goal is to learn piano, but also understand musical concepts in order to produce songs. I’m also no where near experienced enough to teach people how to do either, so I’ll just pass along the ways I’ve learned how to do things. There are tons of resources out there! These are just a few.

The first book I worked through was the Alfred Adult Course. I made it through the first and part of the second. The Alfred books were great for piano basics, but did not get enough into the theory. I also found I wasn’t very interested in the songs so I wound up going online for music I wanted to play.

I later picked up the Compete Piano Player which I would recommend over the Alfred books.

There are tons of digital resources for piano music, but I found that for piano scores both Musescore and Music Notes to be the most reliable and easiest to just open on a tablet and play from the piano music stand. And generally, if you search for “(song I want to play) piano score”, these two sites will be top results.

With sheet music on stand, I immediately realized I needed to get better at reading the notes. The Music Tutor app is free with ads, and provides a game-ified way to learn notes from the bass and treble clefs tailored to your level of experience. I like it so much that I purchased the option to remove ads. Support those developers!

Beyond just the notes, to better understand key signatures and chords, the Piano Keyboard Guide website is invaluable. Again, it will probably be the first result if you search for “key of (key I’m playing) piano”, but you can always go there directly. This site has diagrams to show the notes in each key and lists chord progressions which is really helpful when coming up with the background for new songs.

With the basics covered I was itching to start moving into music production, but I recognized I had a lot to learn about theory. I also realized, in retrospect, that I was not playing my solos in high school jazz band correctly at all. I should have looked up the notes in key signatures back then. Whoops!

It was about this time that I came across Bill Hilton’s YouTube channel. I learn well by watching people, and watching Bill play while he talked through his lessons jump started my progress. Not only is he inspirational to watch (he’s quite talented), but he is also a great teacher. Bill has a wide range of videos from basics to more advanced topics and he explains each concept in ways any level of piano player could grasp.

Bill also has a book called How to Really Play Piano which has the same detailed information in a well explained format. Plus it’s nice to have something tangible to read.

Bill’s book is the one I was looking for from the beginning, it only took a while to find. The lessons satisfied my desire to take the basics of playing piano and translate that understanding into learning the structure of writing music.

Granted, I am still terrible at playing piano, reading notes, and writing music, but one of my favorite things to do now is pick a random key, figure out a chord progression, then improvise on top of the chords. It’s this type of informal playing that often leads me to making new songs.

Learning to produce

I did say you can learn from Grammy winners, right?

Turns out, if you go to the list of 2020 Grammy winners and scroll down to the “Best Arrangement” winners, you’ll find Jacob Collier, who has kindly recorded a nearly two hour breakdown of his Logic session for his, Grammy winning, All Night Long arrangement. And wow, is he talented. Collier says he put together the initial track in one night after procrastinating for weeks.

Logic, (Logic Pro X) by the way, is Apple’s music production software that allows music producers to input sounds, midi, instruments, and vocals, edit all the inputs together, and create a song. Ableton Live is another popular production software.

I was initially using a trial of Ableton, but I decided to switch to Logic after seeing it’s what Grammy winners use 😜.

Non-Grammy winners (but maybe future Grammy winners?) use Logic too, and there are tons of people on YouTube uploading tutorials and making songs using the software. Although, it really doesn’t matter what software people are using in YouTube videos, you can still learn the concepts of music production from someone using Ableton.

One of my favorite music producers on YouTube is Ocean. He uploads multiple times a week, and shows how to create a simple melody then turn it into a full song.

This brings us back to Oak Felder and his breakdown of the production for Sorry, Not Sorry. Similar to Collier’s breakdown video, Oak pulls up the Logic track for the song and talks through each part of the arrangement, step by step. From the main loop to Demi Lovato’s vocals, Oak shows how each component is edited together into the final song.

These behinds the scenes videos show that musicians put a tremendous amount of thought and effort into getting their songs just right.

Putting in effort and a drive for perfection is best exemplified by Billie Eilish and Finneas talking about making their song, Bad Guy. (Finneas also has another video talking about producing additional songs). The duo makes music in their cramped childhood home, and take great pride in the meticulous details of their music production.

It’s interesting to see how people use different techniques. If you watch the Sorry, Not Sorry and Bad Guy videos, they both touch on the concept of doubling vocals (creating multiple versions of the same vocal track). Oak says he takes Demi’s original vocal track and auto-pitches it up/down to layer harmonies in exact alignment, while Billie and Finneas say they have a rule against pitch shifting, instead opting to painstakingly record each vocal layer separately. But no one knows about it.

Learning to listen

Going into this music creation experiment, I thought that pop songs sounded so easy to make. I learned that coming up with a beat or melody in music is like coming up with a great start-up idea. They’re pretty easy to think of, but execution requires a lot of dedication, learning, and refinement.

I also discovered you don’t need to be able to play like a concert pianist to be able to make songs. You don’t even need to have a piano. Production software like Ableton and Logic Pro X let you “write” the music without any instruments. All you need is a little inspiration and desire to create something new.

A quote that comes to mind from back in my overly philosophical days goes like this:

The more you try emulate others and fail, the more you define yourself.
Me?

Another interpretation I found looking back in my journals is,

Find a someone you admire. Use what you like about them to bring out more of that in you. Use what you don’t like to stay away from those qualities.
A pop psychologist

There is so much to learn from music. The genre and lyrics can impact your emotions, and the production is an artform.

In a similar way that listening to good music can be transportive, playing and creating music, is engrossing and addicting. You can make what you think sounds good. There is a compounding effect. You don’t want to stop.

Outro

Through Covid-times, getting outside to go biking was my daily dose of serotonin. With the Seattle smoke, I’ve nearly lost my mind being inside for days in a row. So to change things up, I’ve now spent an entire afternoon and evening listening to all the music in this post while writing it. The process really has lifted my spirits. And to me, it proves the points: a song is a snapshot of the moment and when listening to music, you are never alone.

Since this has all been about creating, listening, reflecting, and how music affects your mental state, I’ll leave you with the latest Demi Lovato song (she took my Emojion design for the album cover) and a playlist for solo dance parties (and writing blogs).

Coda

Guess this is a good time to plug my Soundcloud 😉

Keep listening 🎧

Tags covid, learning, Logic Pro x, music, nautilus, piano, psychology, quotes

News Feed

How Criminals Steal $37 Billion a Year

Post author By ryan.cropp
Post date December 7, 2018
No Comments on How Criminals Steal $37 Billion a Year

It is increasingly difficult to trust someone calling from a phone call you don’t recognize. Not only are scammers calling from numbers that seem to be in your area, but they are also impersonating family members in distress.

The dirty little secret about elder exploitation is that almost 60 percent of cases involve a perpetrator who is a family member, according to a 2014 study by Lachs and others, an especially fraught situation where victims are often unwilling, or unable, to seek justice. Such manipulation sometimes involves force or the threat of force
via Bloomberg

This trick has been around for a while, but there are new defenses available to guard against the scam.

On Feb. 5, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an industry body, put into effect “the first uniform, national standards to protect senior investors.” It now requires members to try to obtain a trusted contact’s information so they can discuss account activity. It also permits firms to place temporary holds on disbursements if exploitation is suspected.
Bloomberg

Interesting idea; a two person authentication for account transactions, but it still may be easy to beat the system.

Loewy, who left her job as a prosecutor in 2014 to join EverSafe, a startup that makes software to monitor suspicious account activity, is underwhelmed by the industry projects.
“They may say they’re focused on it, but they aren’t really doing much more than training employees,” she says. “Exploiters know what they’re doing. They take amounts under $10,000 that they know won’t get picked up by fraud and risk folks at banks. And they steal across institutions over time.”
Bloomberg

And remember, if you get a text from a short-code number with 5 or 6 digits, you can verify the identity of the sender with the Short Code Directory.

Tags psychology, security

News Feed

Nobody is immune to ads

In his post Nobody is immune to ads, Georges Abi-Heila explores the psychology of how humans react to the barrage of brands and ads we see every day.

There’s no scientific consensus on the number of ads we’re exposed to daily, as estimates vary from a few hundreds to thousands. Why is it so hard to get a reasonable figure? Because it depends on a variety of factors that greatly affect the final result (sorted by level of importance):
What is considered an ad?
Including brand labels and logos can increase 10x the final result.
Think about every time you pass by a brand name in a supermarket, the label on everything you wear, the condiments in your fridge, the cars on the highway…
Where does the subject live?
The denser your living environment, the more ads you’re exposed to as companies fiercely compete for your attention (and, ultimately, your wallet). Visual pollution is one of the drawbacks of living in big city…
What is the subject’s job?
During work hours, a hotel receptionist sees a lot less ads than a truck driver which is less exposed than a social media manager.

Want to see an interesting example? Have an iPhone? Ignore for a moment all the brands you see from the icons on your home screen, this one is more subtle. What does it say in the top left corner?

The Verge iPhone 8 Review

So every time you pick up your phone you are served an ad for your cell carrier. Why does it exist? Do you frequently forget you are on the AT&T network?

It is worth noting, the notched iPhones no longer show the carrier name, so his redditor has the right idea.

The Verge iPhone X Review

Is it a big change? No. But one less ad in the thousands you see in a day.

As a bonus, check out the streets of Sao Paulo. The city has a law that prohibits outdoor advertising. The story is covered in a post by 99% Invisible.

Tags advertising, iphone, psychology

News Feed Technology

Sunday Reading: Thoughts on The Tech Industry’s War on Kids

Post author By ryan.cropp
Post date September 16, 2018
No Comments on Sunday Reading: Thoughts on The Tech Industry’s War on Kids

Reflecting on The Tech Industry’s War on Kids: How psychology is being used as a weapon against children

Richard Freed is a child psychologist who focuses on helping families work through “extreme overuse of phones, video games, and social media.”

Preteen and teen girls refuse to get off their phones, even though it’s remarkably clear that the devices are making them miserable. I also see far too many boys whose gaming obsessions lead them to forgo interest in school, extracurricular activities, and anything else productive. Some of these boys, as they reach their later teens, use their large bodies to terrorize parents who attempt to set gaming limits. A common thread running through many of these cases is parent guilt, as so many are certain they did something to put their kids on a destructive path.

Kids might be struggling with technology, but adults may also act like children if older folks had to go a day without technology. Maybe we should all take a digital detox.

Captology

BJ Fogg directs the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. There is tons of research and design practices used by today’s most popular apps, websites, and games, but we can still use this newfound power for good. Although, whether good or bad, the techniques are still shaping human behavior without consent.

Fogg’s website also has lately undergone a substantial makeover, as he now seems to go out of his way to suggest his work has benevolent aims, commenting, “I teach good people how behavior works so they can create products & services that benefit everyday people around the world.” Likewise, the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab website optimistically claims, “Persuasive technologies can bring about positive changes in many domains, including health, business, safety, and education. We also believe that new advances in technology can help promote world peace in 30 years.”

Why don’t we make it easy for kids and adults to spend their time doing the things society deems productive. Part of the challenge is exposing kids to new opportunities and experiences to help them understand their real world potential, even at their age.

While persuasion techniques work well on adults, they are particularly effective at influencing the still-maturing child and teen brain. “Video games, better than anything else in our culture, deliver rewards to people, especially teenage boys,” says Fogg. “Teenage boys are wired to seek competency. To master our world and get better at stuff. Video games, in dishing out rewards, can convey to people that their competency is growing, you can get better at something second by second.” And it’s persuasive design that’s helped convince this generation of boys they are gaining “competency” by spending countless hours on game sites, when the sad reality is they are locked away in their rooms gaming, ignoring school, and not developing the real-world competencies that colleges and employers demand.

Motivation/inspiration, Ability/capability, Trigger/feedback

According to B.J. Fogg, the “Fogg Behavior Model” is a well-tested method to change behavior and, in its simplified form, involves three primary factors: motivation, ability, and triggers. Describing how his formula is effective at getting people to use a social network, the psychologist says in an academic paper that a key motivator is users’ desire for “social acceptance,” although he says an even more powerful motivator is the desire “to avoid being socially rejected.” Regarding ability, Fogg suggests that digital products should be made so that users don’t have to “think hard.” Hence, social networks are designed for ease of use. Finally, Fogg says that potential users need to be triggered to use a site. This is accomplished by a myriad of digital tricks, including the sending of incessant notifications urging users to view friends’ pictures, telling them they are missing out while not on the social network, or suggesting that they check — yet again — to see if anyone liked their post or photo.

It seems we should be able to reframe the three motivation, ability, and triggers behavioral factors into a more productive framing of inspiration, capability, and reinforcement. For example, a kid who enjoys watching YouTube creators may be inspired to make a channel of their own. YouTube, influencers, or another service, can help kids build their movie making capabilities. Feedback on work can help reinforce learning and growth. In the end, kids are still spending time where they want to, but the behavioral model focuses on a healthy balance of creation and consumption leading to development in modern day, “real world capabilities”.

Mostly terrifying

the startup Dopamine Labs boasts about its use of persuasive techniques to increase profits: “Connect your app to our Persuasive AI [Artificial Intelligence] and lift your engagement and revenue up to 30% by giving your users our perfect bursts of dopamine,” and “A burst of Dopamine doesn’t just feel good: it’s proven to re-wire user behavior and habits.”

Ramsay Brown, the founder of Dopamine Labs, says in a KQED Science article, “We have now developed a rigorous technology of the human mind, and that is both exciting and terrifying. We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behavior in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design.”

Facebook Messenger Kids

How has the consumer tech industry responded to these calls for change? By going even lower. Facebook recently launched Messenger Kids, a social media app that will reach kids as young as five years old. Suggestive that harmful persuasive design is now honing in on very young children is the declaration of Messenger Kids Art Director, Shiu Pei Luu, “We want to help foster communication [on Facebook] and make that the most exciting thing you want to be doing.”

Facebook’s narrow-minded vision of childhood is reflective of how out of touch the social network and other consumer tech companies are with the needs of an increasingly troubled generation. The most “exciting thing” for young children should be spending time with family, playing outside, engaging in creative play, and other vital developmental experiences — not being drawn into the social media vortex on phones or tablets. Moreover, Facebook Messenger Kids is giving an early start to the wired life on social media that we know poses risks of depression and suicide-related behavior for older children.

In response to the release of Facebook’s Messenger Kids, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) sent Facebook a letter signed by numerous health advocates calling on the company to pull the plug on the app. Facebook has yet to respond to the letter and instead continues to aggressively market Messenger Kids for young children.

Conscious workflows vs impulsive habits

President John F. Kennedy’s prescient guidance: He said that technology “has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man.”

From Cal Newport:

Workflows are arguably more important than your high-level habits when it comes to impacting how effectively you produce valuable things (my preferred definition of “productivity”), but they’re a topic that’s often ignored.

Indeed, for most people, the workflows that drive their professional life are processes that haphazardly arose without much intention or consideration.

This fall, in other words, consider spending some serious time evaluating your workflows before turning your attention to the habits that help you deal with the obligations these flows generate.

Technology gives us the tools to do more. It’s up to us to decide how we leverage our new powers.

The best analogy I’ve ever heard is Scientific American, I think it was, did a study in the early 70s on the efficiency of locomotion, and what they did was for all different species of things in the planet, birds and cats and dogs and fish and goats and stuff, they measured how much energy does it take for a goat to get from here to there. Kilocalories per kilometer or something, I don’t know what they measured. And they ranked them, they published the list, and the Condor won. The Condor took the least amount of energy to get from here to there. Man was didn’t do so well, came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list.

But fortunately someone at Scientific American was insightful enough to test a man with a bicycle, and man with a bicycle won. Twice as good as the Condor, all the way off the list. And what it showed was that man is a toolmaker, has the ability to make a tool to amplify an inherent ability that he has. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here.

Additional reading

BJ Fogg commented on the article and provided a list of his works to raise awareness about the ethics of persuasive tech.

A recent Atlantic article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?,” by Dr. Jean Twenge

Stratechery article on Tech’s Two Philosophies: Some problems are best solved by human ingenuity; others by collective action

Tags apple, design, health, Productivity, psychology, web

Thoughts

Economics of driving the Tesla Model 3

Post author By ryan.cropp
Post date September 3, 2018
No Comments on Economics of driving the Tesla Model 3

So I test drove a Model 3, and I have some thoughts.

Backstory

I feel like everyone has a story about when they got interested in Tesla. For me it was summer of 2012 just before the official release of the Model S. I was at Coit Tower in San Francisco and on the way back to the parking lot when I noticed a black Model S. I don’t remember how I’d heard about Tesla, but when I saw the car that day I remember doing a double take after realizing it was a Model S. Seeing it was so unexpected, but the thing was the coolest gadget: an all electric car with a giant touch screen. From that moment on, I wanted one. The only problem, the price tag was prohibitively expensive. (I settled for buying a few shares of stock in the company, yet not enough to afford a car now)

So six years later, the Model 3 is rolling out to the general public with the allure of a $35,000 Tesla. Still all electric with a giant touch screen, plus crazy features like autopilot no one would have imagined to be possible back in 2012.

Before the test drive, I had never been in a Tesla on the road let alone driven one. I was purposely avoiding the car knowing I would want one even more after I went for a test drive. But TL;DR, surprisingly that wasn’t the case. I’ve spent so many years thinking about the economics of owning a Tesla while listening to others talk about what the cars are like to drive and own. When I got to actually drive the Model 3, I already had my expectations and mind set on not buying one. I tend to be pretty frugal, and try to be rational about buying things that I really need instead of overspending on cool things that are just for fun (looking at you DJI Mavic…), so I knew going in that the car would be a blast, but an unnecessary purchase for me at this time. Maybe a few years down the road, when my current car starts to show its age and EV costs have been subsidized further by increased production, I’ll finally be ready to get a Tesla. For now, driving a Model 3 was just a fun thing do on one hazy Sunday morning.

Test Drive Experience

I signed up to test drive the $55,000 model with long range battery and dual motor. I specifically did not want to try the upgraded performance model because it was out of my price range (even more so than the mid tier model), and I didn’t want my first impression to be with the highest end model. The test drive started out with a warning that someone had backed the mid tier model into a wall, so we’d be driving the high end performance model. (Um, how does that happen? Aren’t all the cameras and sensors supposed to be able to prevent such a thing from happening? My question went unanswered and we hopped into the car.)

I immediately realized there would be a steep learning curve to understanding the controls. The first thing I usually do when setting out to drive a new car is adjust the mirrors (as I try to be a good driver), but there is no dial on the driver door panel. It turns out you have to tap the “car” button in the bottom left of the screen to bring up the controls menu, but without the sales associate to point me to the menu, this would have been a complicated task of searching through menu options.

Settings & controls

I could see myself sitting in the car for 30 minutes to an hour just figuring out what it can do and customizing it all to my liking. A Tesla feels like a gadget and tries to bring the simplicity of a smartphone design to a car. It works to an extent, and definitely would take time to get used to. When I found myself wondering if there was a setting to adjust the rearview mirror, or if I could just reach up and do it manually, I knew I was a bit overwhelmed by all the changes to the controls. Luckily, the controls for seat position adjustment are still on the side of the seat, so some of your muscle memory may still transfer over. It’s just hard to tell when that’s the case.

Steering

I drove the 3 out of the parking lot, the first thing I noticed was how heavy the car felt and the weight of the steering. The car feels strong, big, and solid. Turning the wheel takes effort, but not an absurd amount, just enough to give you firm sense of control. I wonder now if this is another setting Tesla programs into the car. Could there be a “light” steering mode that reduces the tension in the wheel? I don’t know why they would do such a thing, but it seems possible.

Turn signals are confusing.

Because the controls are reduced to a wheel, two stalks, and a screen, many of the controls act differently than a normal car. The turn signal for example always returns to the center, which is confusing because for all the car’s I’ve ever drive, a turn signal in the center position means its off. Pushing to the up or down position will turn right or left. I learned there is a short and a long press to the turn signal stalk, but I didn’t figure out exactly how it worked. All I know is that as long as you ignore the fact the stalk always returns to the middle position, you can signal for starting and completing turns by pushing up or down the same way you would on any other car. The 3 is even smart enough to recognize when you’ve completed a turn, but in some cases when I put the signal on too early, the car decided to turn the signal off before I even made it to the turn.

Blast off

The Model 3 goes 0 to 40 goes by in a flash and you don’t realize how fast you’re going because it happened so quickly. Just to reiterate, I was trying the Performance upgrade, so the pick up probably won’t be as powerful on lower models, but the immediate feedback and roller coaster feel, should be transferrable. There was a car ahead as I merged onto the highway, so instead rocketing by at the last minute, leaving the car in of in a cloud of dust, I decided to play it safe and drive like a normal person.

Enhanced Autopilot, lane keeping, and distance control

The vision system gives the Model 3 a super cruise control mode. In addition to maintaining speed, the car will help you stay in your lane if you start to drift, and keep the same distance between the car in front of you whether the car speeds up or slams on its brakes. Tesla notes, “Enhanced Autopilot includes additional driver assistance features. Every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time.”

Full Self-Driving Capability with hands nearby and automatic lane changing

This was just nutty. Pull down twice on the right stalk to engage full self driving mode, and you can take your hands off the wheel as the car drives itself. The same lane keeping and distance controls apply to the full self-driving mode as they do with auto pilot, but now they are the sole means of maneuvering the car down the freeway. I (eerily) quickly grew accustomed to the car driving me as we stayed in the same lane, but the craziest part is changing lanes. Simply pull down or push up the left stalk to let the car know you want to turn left or right. The car determines the lane is clear and moves on over. It’s wild. We’re not quite at the point of removing the steering wheel, but this still feels like the future. Again, Tesla includes a disclaimer, “This functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval. It is not possible to know exactly when it will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction.”

Other Tesla and EV specific things

Hold mode puts keeps the car in place when you push in the break all the way at a stop. Creep had to be programmed in because EVs do not inch forward in the same way a gas engine does while idling. Unlike a cell phone or laptop which has charge limiters for batteries, you have to set the max charge for a Tesla (~90% while city driving, and 100% for long road trips). Avoiding a full charge helps keeps the battery in good condition for longer.

Features & Pricing

The whole point of the test drive is to make a decision about buying the car, right? So what configuration do you want to get? Most of us bought into the allure of a $35,000 Tesla when the Model 3 was announced two years ago, but we still aren’t quite there yet.

This is all brilliant marketing by Tesla to lure you in with the $35,000 option, anchoring your first impression of the car to a lower price, while only selling configurations that can cost upwards of double the base price for the next 5 to 8 months (as of late August 2018).

So the $35,000 (or $27,500 when considering the $7500 credit) you were expecting to pay immediately goes up by $14,000 for the Long Range model with rear wheel drive. Want Long range and Dual motor? That’s another $5000 or $19,000 over the price of the base model. You could buy one Model 3 or three cars for $54,000, and that doesn’t even include the “cool” Tesla features like Autopilot or Full Self-Driving mode add-ons (for an additional $8000). At the high end, the Performance model can cost up to $80,500. How is that affordable?

A formative view for my understanding of the value of the Model 3 came from Mr. Money Mustache. He thinks about buying a Model 3 while considering cost-per-use in relation to the base $35,000 model and upgrade options.

“I’m thinking of springing for the $9000 long-range battery in my upcoming Tesla Model 3 order” – this one strikes straight at my own heart, because I crave a long range Model 3 myself. But even for a serious roadtripper, this works out to $125 per hour of charging time that you manage to avoid. Aren’t you willing to take a few minutes occasionally to walk around and admire your beautiful car if you get paid $125 per hour after tax for it? If you are, standard range will do.

Calculations:

Tesla Battery Upgrade: The only time you use the longer range is on roadtrips over 230 miles. If you do a 600-mile trip once every month, you have to make two extra 30-minute charging stops per month. Figure the $9000 battery costs you about $1500 in extra capital cost and depreciation per year, or $125 per month. However, if you are a Tesla fan like me and you want the company to make more profit to continue their mission, you may still opt for the extra options since you have nothing better to do with that money anyway.

All wheel drive car: if the car costs $5000 more up-front plus an extra $200 per year in fuel and maintenance, you could estimate it as about $500 per year more expensive to own. Then, how many times do you truly get stuck in a front-wheel drive car with really good dedicated snow tires on winter rims? (because snow tires always come before buying AWD!)

via MMM The Twenty Dollar Swim

If you are trying to decide to buy now or wait, a commenter brings up a valid point: “Getting the larger battery gets you the full $7500 tax credit, getting the smaller battery likely doesn’t.” This is because Tesla’s US federal tax credit will expire at the end of 2018. The lucrative $7500 will only apply to vehicles delivered (not ordered) before December 31, 2018. Afterwards the credit will decrease by half and expire at the end of 2019.

Let’s consider how this pricing scheme came to be because it all seems a bit out of proportion.

Upgrade Perception

Before we get into Model 3 pricing, first think about what you get by upgrading from public transit to a car (of any kind), then move to what you get for the base line Model 3 and above.

Owning a car is a luxury allowing you to move around on your own time and optimize the routes you drive. You don’t have to adhere to bus schedules, try to find rides with people, or spend time going out of your way. A car takes a psychological load off your mind that gives you the freedom to engross yourself in your work without ever worrying about rushing to make a bus that leaves in the next 5 minutes. In many places a car is not a necessity, but it can be a quality of life improvement.

On the other hand, not owning a car has its upsides. For one, there is a significant cost savings when factoring paying for a car, insurance, gas, tolls, parking, and maintenance. It’s not unreasonable for owning a car to cost upwards of $10,000 a year (with a rough estimate of $400 a month for loan, $250 for parking and tolls, $150 for insurance, $150 for gas). Plus, you can get a lot done on the bus/train/taxi when you aren’t the one who must be engaged behind the wheel.

Ok, so for any car you decide to go with (or not) you’ll have to weigh these pros and cons. Driving a Tesla does not magically change the dynamics of owning a car any more than driving a Subaru does (yet. We’ll have to wait for advancements in autopilot and changes to regulations). If owning a car is a luxury, owning a Tesla is an opulence.

Let’s say you’ve decided against the advice of the Millionaire Next Door and are in the market for a new car under $50,000. What would persuade you to upgrade from a $35,000 Model 3 to a more premium package?

The Model 3 is a curious case of behavioral economics. It is more common for car brands to price multiple models across a $35,000 to $80,500 price range with visibly distinct prestige of owning a higher end car. Just look at the BMW line-up, they (logically) use a numbering scheme that increases with perceived prestige. For the Model 3, the body looks the same for all price configurations of the car, the only distinguishing factor is the tires (and this little badge on the back). Is it any wonder why the upgraded wheels cost an arm and a leg? It’s how you show you got the nicer car. Tesla is not the only company to do this. Apple is a constant offender, tweaking iPhone design to show make newer models easily recognizable, and adding a big red dot to their latest and greatest watch.

This makes business sense. For a company to make the most from its high end customers in order to subsidize lower end products is nothing new either. Apple also does this with the iPhone and Mac in regard to spec upgrades. The build quality, apps, OS, customer support, and general Apple ecosystem are all the same no matter of the type of iPhone or Mac you decide to purchase.

The majority of Apple’s margins come from upgrades that cost them a tens of dollars that they sell to you for hundreds (or thousands).

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. It’s how Apple continues growing even with a trillion dollar valuation.

when you raise prices and a segment of your customer base will only buy the best, you can achieve higher average selling prices — over $100 higher year-over-year ($796 versus $694) — which means higher revenue.

Charging its best customers more for iPhones wasn’t the only reason Apple’s revenue was higher, though: remember that Apple is making more off of every customer over time via Services. And there is one more piece: Apple is selling its best customers more and more devices.

Apple’s Middle Age via Stratechery

And Tesla is doing the same thing. The baseline $35,000 Model 3 gets you the same build quality, software upgrades, autopilot hardware, customer service, brand prestige, and roller coaster acceleration. Higher margin cars will subsidize the more affordable models at larger scale, they even called it out as their master plan ten years ago:

Build sports car

Use that money to build an affordable car

Use that money to build an even more affordable car

While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options

Tesla’s Master Plan

However, making business sense does not absolve companies of the psychological manipulation they employ with these pricing strategies. By singling out the one feature you get for a disproportionately large amount of money over the cost of the base product, companies frame upgrades to make you forget about all you get when you initially decide to opt for their product without the extra bells and whistles. Just look at the similarities across the iPad lineup. If Apple only pointed out the commonalities, people would question upgrading, so Apple makes the differentiators big, bold, and right at the top.

Whether you just have money to spend and only settle for the top of line, or have been saving for years only to wait a few months longer, consider the return on investment when spec’ing out a Model 3 (and anything else you buy). Maybe you ski every day and need all wheel drive, or live so far away from charging station that the larger battery is a must, but if that’s not the case for you, is the baseline good enough? After all, you’re still getting a Tesla.

So buy now or wait?

This totally depends on your budget. For me, I’ve had my current car for three years, and plan to keep it for at least 10. If you need a new car right now, and are looking at a Tesla, maybe this helps to think more rationally about the purchase. A used Chevy Volt is a decent alternative that checks many of the same boxes as a Tesla.

And if you’re set on a Tesla, just consider if driving down the highway knowing you’re safe with your hands off the wheel is worth $8,000, It is fun to be an early adopter, but why not let others subsidize your cost a bit? Are you going to buy one of these?

Tags business, psychology, tesla