Tesla recalls 380k vehicles in US over power steering assist issue

The term recall has specific legal meaning that differentiates it from other notices like TSBs. A recall must be issued when an issue brings a vehicle out of compliance with FMVSS (the regulations determining what's road legal). Manufacturers and dealerships are not allowed to sell vehicles with outstanding recalls, and they're usually required to fix recalls regardless of warranty status for affected consumers. It doesn't say anything about the actual solution (which might be as trivial as a new manual), only the legal responsibilities that come with the notice.

You are missing:

4. Then cars started receiving OTA software updates, but a significant percentage of the cars already suffer irreparable damage to their computers before they installed the update, and therefore still have to be taken to the Tesla service center for repairs.

It's a "recall" because frankly there is still a good chance you are going to have to go into a service center, even if the OTA update works.

> it may get more meaningful for whatever subset of autos that didn't/can't receive the OTA update

I know that for my old ICE car, they keep track of what recalls I apply. I'm usually notified multiple times, when there's recalls.

I suspect that lawyers are why they do it. If your brakes don't work, and you run over a kid, whether or not it was a known recall, and, whether or not you applied it, will likely have a lot to do with how the legal process works out.

Or it's just a misleading headline

So just to be clear:

- they knew the assist was dangerously broken - while people drove around with this dangerous code running they worked on improving the code so they could say it is now "fixed" - released the update

I see how this is the most... efficient... way to handle the situation, from a monetary perspective. But this is not how I, or anyone I know, would handle life-critical code. Not to bring politics into yet another thread, but this is not a smart or human way to handle things.

First, you disable the damn road assist. It's an optional feature, FFS!

Sounds efficient.

"Have you ever seen a bricked Tesla driving down the road?..."

I'm having trouble making any sense whatsoever out of this paragraph. It does not appear to bear any relationship whatsoever to Tesla OTAs. They don't apply while you're driving. The vehicle must be in park and is inaccessible until the OTA has successfully completed. If for whatever reason the update can't complete successfully, the vehicle rolls back to its previous software version.

Driving a "bricked" Tesla isn't a thing. Worrying about not being in cell range isn't a thing. Installing an OTA does not involve any kind of act of "turning the car on and off again".

(Owner of multiple Teslas for 6+ years).

> Have you ever seen a bricked Tesla driving down the road? It's terrifying.

How often has this happened?

It's completely relevant.

The term shouldn't be overloaded.

When you see a recall you shouldn't have to wonder if it's a download or if you need to take the car in.

Because the media is doing its job and using the correct term.

It's not going to be an OTA software update for everyone.

Is it time for a new term? It may be correct but it also seems to be profoundly misunderstood by many.

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This gives no insight of being "bad" or "good" at software.

There is no such thing as zero bugs. You will have to rollback sometimes.

But I'm sure you're perfect.

Not if the Mossad has anything to say about it.

This has nothing to do with his point, which is that its a software update, not a typical 'recall'

> My iphone can't kill someone else moving 70 mph down the highway during the normal course of its operation.

How do you know if you haven't tried?

An iPhone hitting someone in the head at 70mph could indeed kill them.

Welllll it can if you're looking at it instead of the road. But I get your point

Sure it can, if the overcharge protection built into the battery malfunctions for some reason. There is speculation that a battery overcharge bug was fixed in a recent update issued to old Pixels.

You'd be surprised how many phones are involved with car accidents though.

The issue here is with the word recall, which is slightly alarmist This is a bit of a non-event for owners and they'll get a completely routine over the air firmware upgrade soonish with some mandated changes. No dealers are involved. Just a simple update.

Somehow a lot of these recalls are limited to the US only. Which raises a few questions of course about the rest of the world and what Tesla is doing there. I think it's just the language and the processes of the NHTSA that result in this clickbaity reporting. Also a lot of cars ship without over the air update capabilities. What happens with recalls for those?

For example, when the wheels may come off in a Toyota (NHTSA 23V432000), it's somehow less news worthy than when it is about a Tesla. That one got a "do not drive" advice along with the recall BTW, as you'd hope. It only affected a few hundred cars fortunately. But I bet more care owners and mechanics did work to double check they weren't affected. That happened 2 years ago. Not all recalls are similarly scary, of course. Most are quite boring actually. Especially Tesla ones.

There's a helpful tool (https://datahub.transportation.gov/stories/s/NHTSA-Recalls-b...) that allows you to slice and dice recall data by manufacturer. There are a lot of recalls. The vast majority are real recalls involving component replacements from car manufacturers that are mostly not Tesla. Tesla seems to be able to address their issues via software mostly. By the numbers, maybe be careful with Ford, GM, or Toyota. Lots of recalls for those. Parts falling of causing crashes. Electrical failures resulting in drive train failure mid drive. You know, minor issues like that. Totally not worth reporting on hacker news because it doesn't involve Tesla or Elon Musk.

This also raises a few interesting questions about the software quality of other manufacturers. Apparently they ship bug free software (try explaining that to VW owners) or their software is just not getting a lot of scrutiny. Is Ford really that good at software or updating it? Or maybe the NHTSA is a bit selective with their scrutiny here? On a positive note, really nice of them to do free QA for Tesla.

While we're swapping anecdotes, I own several Teslas, starting over six years ago, and have never experienced this. I've also never met a person in my life who has experienced this.

In contrast, I've had recalls from other manufacturers take so long (several years), that my vehicle died before I was able to get them applied. I've had a recall where the OEM is refusing to make it available to me, because it only occurs in "cold" weather.

Tesla's recalls are better than the rest of the entire industry.

I often hear Tesla supporters say that Tesla builds a car around a computer while other manufacturers are just stuffing a computer in their car.

From experience, to me the problem with Tesla cars is that the computer isn't that great in the first place, and build quality and ergonomics of the actual car are clearly an afterthought.

I'd much rather have a mid-tier computer in a Toyota-level car than the most expensive Acer laptop in a Kia.

Sounds like their software team applies the "move fast and break things" motto even to cars.

“Recall” is and has always meant that a version of the product has a public critical safety defect, not the remedy.

“Initiated safety recalls require a manufacturer's action to announce and remedy the defects.

A recall is issued when a manufacturer or NHTSA determines that a vehicle, equipment, car seat, or tire creates an unreasonable safety risk or fails to meet minimum safety standards. Most decisions to conduct a recall and remedy a safety defect are made voluntarily by manufacturers prior to any involvement by NHTSA.”[1]

Note how it only talks about the presence of a critical problem, not how it is solved. A “recall” is stating that the defective version of the product in the field must be “removed” and replaced/updated with a non-defective version at the manufacturer’s expense.

The only reason this is confusing is because Tesla has been actively and intentionally misusing the term and sowing confusion to downplay the number of critical safety defects in their cars.

But I agree, at this point Tesla has sufficiently poisoned the term that they and everybody else can convince customers that they do not have critical safety defects because they can fix them remotely.

As such, the term should be replaced with “public critical safety defect notice” which is clear, precise, accurate, and can not be misused.

[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls

With many (most?) car companies, a software update is a call-back.

My Ford, with a cell connection, receives OTA updates for stuff like the entertainment system, but I've had to bring it in a couple of times for updates to safety systems.

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Note in particular there is no statue of limitations on some issues. All that protects Ford from having to recall (as in government forced recall) every model T to install seat belts, airbags, crumple zones, TPMS, backup cameras and the like is the courts generally will agree that those things were now known back then and so we shouldn't hold old systems to new standards.

Note that buffer overflow attacks have been known since the 1980s. If there is a problem with internet connected windows 3.1 courts should ignore it since microsoft didn't intend for that to be connected to the internet. But windows 95 was intended to connect to the internet and Microsoft probably should recall and patch all buffer overflow vulnerabilities in it. (but they can continue to not support modern AES encryption because that was not know in 1995)

In my experience, hardware defects are usually ignored. If you're lucky, an "errata" will be published somewhere and you won't get a fix unless you buy a new one.

It’s not misuse. It’s misunderstanding.

Google "term of art".

Who said I am ignoring all the great things software does? What is this comment even.

A recall is a recall. Every time Tesla has one these recalls apologist come out and try to change what the word means. It is a RECALL. It isn't a big deal.

This needs a broader context. On some fronts, software is amazing from a reliability perspective. It doesn’t wear out and can be updated easier. On the other hand, it creates new failure modes and interaction effects that are much harder to define, test, and mitigate thoroughly. Anyone who pretends software is wholly good or bad is probably wrong.

Shouldn't a recall imply that this software update is so critical that a real danger was possible?

I don't think they are ignoring anything. One of those amazing things is cars. This is what it's called when the gov't mandates a software update for cars because of a safety issue...

I'm not sure why that's controversial

And as a person who trusts mass market automobiles with my own safety and that of my family I could not care less if Tesla owners experience some kind of weird insecurity (?) when their OTA updates are described using a term of art with a specific contextual meaning, whose existence arguably makes us all safer. Software issues with automobiles are just as capable of injuring or killing people as mechanical issues, so regardless of the remedy, they should be treated with equal severity from a regulatory perspective. We do not need a new word for OTA recalls just to safeguard the feelings of Tesla owners and others who benefit from their convenience.

The recall will clearly state what the remedy is?

It is there because whatever the issue is it can potentially affect safety. In this case a power steering issue is A SAFETY issue. Therefore, a RECALL is issued.

Why is this so hard to comprehend?

>It's not cognitive dissonance.

Then what is it? I'm no fan of Musk and friends and what they're up to but Tesla making the same cars of about the same quality since before Musk became the bad guy and everything associated with him became tainted. The way Tesla turned on a dime from being lauded by every idiot with an internet connection like Toyota to being derided like the Stellantis brands despite no substantive change in their products and offerings really lays bare the degree to which people lack principals and let their assessment of what is good and bad, right and wrong, or serious and trivial, blow in the wind based on the parties involved.