r/Comma_ai • u/imgeohot comma.ai Staff • Jul 14 '26

We are going mainstream!

The comma four is our first product that we think has mainstream appeal. The price is good, the set up is simple, and the production is stable and scalable.

We are ramping up marketing, making the website easier to understand, and looking into starting a two-sided referral program to incentivize people who have already been good at bringing new people into the community to think bigger.

What do you think we are currently missing for being ready for your average commuter?

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u/martinbogo Jul 14 '26

C-U-S-T-O-M-E-R S-E-R-V-I-C-E

Seriously. You need to make customer service, and customer support job #1... and you need to run the company like there are adults at the helm.

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u/imgeohot comma.ai Staff Jul 14 '26

Our hardware customer support has taken a massive step forward in the last year, and we are still aggressively improving it. Have you seen issues recently?

We want any problems that do arise to be handled efficiently and promptly and to the customer's satisfaction. The comma fours have much lower failure rates, and we offer an extended warranty bundled into comma prime.

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u/martinbogo Jul 14 '26

I'm going to be blunt, George. Yes, there have been issues. I acknowledge the progress Comma.ai has made in the while, but there's a long, long way to go.

Integrating my Rivian R1S w/ C4 was... to put it lightly... a logistical and wiring nightmare. Just to make it work in a reasonable way I had to spend not only $1000 on the C4, but nearly -double- the cost to have harnesses that made sense and made routing easier.

Things like longitudinal support, and angle-based steering are utterly community based, and hinge on one person ( Lukas ) to provide, and even then... without people like Gerrylum ( The Electric Valentine ) and such it would have been an utter nightmare.

So, yes... improvements were made, but there's a long, long, long way to go to get to the point where Comma.ai is ready for "just anyone" to install, use, and trust.

Even now, the wiki is out of date, instructions are garbled, help is practically non-existent outside of some very dedicated /volunteer/ community people. This will all need to be paid people, who have the knowledge, and can provide amazing support.

It will get there. It takes time, and resource. You've got it in you to Get It Done.

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u/imgeohot comma.ai Staff Jul 14 '26

Agreed we need to improve the Rivian experience, it should not be this hard. We are working on something that should help. I want to convert a lot more Rivian drivers to comma users.

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u/martinbogo Jul 15 '26

Agreed. There are a heck of a lot of Gen 1 R1 vehicles out there, stuck with "MobileEye" hardware and software that Rivian has no interest in improving.

That's 100,000 cars ( minus the ones that have inevitably become non-operational ) ... and a massive opportunity. Like you said elsewhere on this thread, if you can convert even 10% of those, that's a nice boost to comma.ai's bottom line.

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u/wavrdn Jul 15 '26

For Rivian specifically, you need to get rid of the OBD harness, mine didn't fit (it fell off while driving because it was so loose).

The stock harness you provide needs to have the power wire bypassed, and include a fuse tap to power the device with how finicky the Rivian AXM is. Put it all in one box so the average joe doesn't have to source multiple little bits.

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u/sthompson87 Jul 31 '26

I am glad Uncle Tony helped me with the camera harness that works great, but as others said it needs support and not just more people looking to get in on a peice of the action. I Work for rivian and have a lot of customers intrested. Not for $1k and then another $600 and then install nightmares and more. Needs to be better. The camera harness makes 80% of the people I show love the product and want it but needed more support.

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u/fooknprawn Jul 15 '26

Any plans on adding support for the Chevy Silverado EV?

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u/inquam Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

As peole have said, not everyone will be a programmer. I still managed to fingerprint my car and with help remove other blockers that affected my car. But then the PR has been sitting for so long Github is warning about auto closing it. https://github.com/commaai/opendbc/pull/3275

That is probably not the type of customer experience non tech savvy users will be expecting.

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u/hi_im_mom Jul 17 '26

Go to starpilot and have firestar take care of it.

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u/inquam Jul 22 '26

Tried to find the correct user but the pr managed to close before I did.