Tesla, electric car company of my dreams, released a software update this week. Teslas are more like mobile phones than typical cars in that they run as much on software as on motors. Tesla controls are on a giant touchscreen in the console instead of dedicated buttons and switches installed at the factory. Tesla can radically update the car long after it has left the factory. They can also make nearly infinitesimal changes as was the case this week.

The software update changed how the cabin fan operates. When the car senses there is no passenger, it shuts off the passenger-side fan, saving a tiny amount of battery power.

The issue people think they have with electric cars is battery range. The big gasoline-car makers push range anxiety as a big deal, but the Tesla Model 3, even in its Standard package has a range of 250 miles. The Long Range version gets 322 miles to a charge. I can't recall the last day I drove more than 300 miles.

Tesla is fanatical about extending battery range. Rather than wait for new models or only making tweaks at the factory, they extend the range of the car through software updates such as the one this week about which one person said, "I'm sorry, but the amount of energy you're saving is so low, I'm surprised either of them bother. You [sic] looking at maybe 10 watts on average, probably less. It'll increase the range by feet, not miles" (emphasis mine).

Feet not miles. Why does Tesla bother?

It's because this is a matter of craft and a statement of purpose. This is one change of thousands made throughout the design of Teslas. Each adds up but each also promotes a culture of craft that values efficiencies earning every extra foot of range. Devotion to craft stresses a cumulative way of thinking. One small software patch is not the end of consideration but a part of a much larger picture in which the smallest changes matter.

Before anyone gets to thinking I'm a blind fanboy, I understand Tesla is a flawed company led by a deeply flawed man, but I'm still want a Tesla and am devoted to the idea that small details matter even as I know that Tesla misses many details. Seeking perfection is someone else's job. I'm interested in developing craft.

I wrote the first draft of this on pages I print on the backs of used paper, pages I designed over the course of six years, making tiny changes. I tweak that design still and expect to keep changing it. The page design makes my thinking more efficient. I'm not saying it makes writing the pages more efficient. I'm in no hurry to move to the next thing. I'm interested instead in extending the thought I have through the thoughts writing can create.

The second draft I typed in Writer: The Internet Typewriter rather than Word. While Word allows for seemingly infinite formatting, Writer allows for none, not even bold or italics. Eliminating Word's distractions is big change, extending my thinking by miles. A much smaller change is taking Writer full screen, an increase of feet not miles that I'll take knowing something much greater goes on under the hood of my writing machine because of such small changes.

Under the hood, huh?

Under the hood of a Tesla, there's no engine, just space for storage. That kind of radical change results from a thousand infinitesimal changes and a craft mindset focused on continuous improvement. It comes from the idea that small change matters not just to extend the range of one vehicle but the range of an entire car company and the process by which creative things come to life.