the automaker said it’s providing a free software update to fix the problem.
I know it has to be called a recall, but they really should find another name for these things now that OTA SW updates for issues are a thing, not only for Tesla but also other manufacturers.
Nah I like the term recall. Just because the fix is “easy” doesn’t mean the product wasn’t broken. Automakers should take the software in their cars seriously especially the ones that market their cars like a cell phone.
Broken software shouldn’t be accepted as much as it is. Especially in safety critical systems like cars, especially when they remove manual controls for things like steering, brakes, hand brakes and door handles. Fly/drive by wire is more dangerous when the software is unreliable. Mechanical linkages fail immediately or take a long time. Bad software fails in uncertain and potentially chaotic ways.
I just think it’s useful to have different words for things that can be easily fixed without having to go get the car to a mechanic and having no immediate safety impact, and things that may require you to take the vehicle to a mechanic ASAP because there is immediate serious danger. They should not be in the same category, and people should be aware that they require different levels of attention and urgency. When it’s all just referred to as a “recall”, people will start to not take them seriously when they more often than not are minor things like this.
I think a “recall” has a very specific legal definition, where the manufacturer has strictly defined responsibilities (identifying and notifying owners of affected vehicles would be one of those). It wouldn’t surprise me if there was some external agency that acted as an auditor on that.
On the other hand, manufacturers can put out a “service action” bulletin, where a particular repair is free to the vehicle owner, but none of those recall responsibilities are in place. This means that, for example, vehicle owners are not notified, so you just need to bring your vehicle in with the complaint specified in the service action. In this case, the vehicle owner might need to point out that there’s a service action, because a shady dealer will pretend it doesn’t exist, charge you for the repair, and also submit the repair to the manufacturer for reimbursement. This was a lot easier to do before the internet, since the information about that service action wasn’t readily available to the public.
It’s not useful at all, knowing which brand sells shitty cars that have major issues is a good thing, this whole attitude that you can do OTA fix something therefore it’s fine and we can ship bad product is fucking ridiculous attitude to a multi-ton weapon capable of killing multiple people
The problem is, and of course when it matters I forget the specifics, that there are many times when language is changed to soften how bad something is and it results in people not taking things seriously.
The issue here is cars being shipped in a broken state, that’s it. They recall the vehicles and force people to skip out of work or whatever to get this shit done because their products suck, and if they wanted to not deal with that then maybe they should products that don’t suck. They can also collect a bunch of these issues, seeing as they’re common, and either make a patch of several minor issues or just say that the problem will be addressed at the next service. This is entirely on the companies to save their image, not us to change our language to make them feel better.
Yes absolutely.
The term recall is supposed to be when they literally recall the cars, like bring them back in, in the same context as you recall your dog after he runs around the yard.
No cars are being brought back in. No dealers are involved here. It’s just a bug fix for the next software release.
I also don’t like how the ability to fix bugs is creating a huge number of ‘recalls’. For example, last year Tesla had a ‘recall’ because NHTSA decided the warning icons on the dashboard screen weren’t big enough. Like the icons for parking brake and seat belt. Which is frustrating because the car is operated for years with the original icons and nobody had a complaint.
But if this was an old style car, where those were individual LEDs silkscreened in an instrument cluster, that would never be a recall because it would cost millions to replace every single instrument cluster on every single car. But because it is remotely fixable, it becomes a recall.
They sold a bad product that needs fixed, bad software shouldn’t get an exception. The warning icons were probably not compliant and should never have left the factory.
You would absolutely take your vehicle in for service for a safety recall if the OTA didn’t work. Which happens frequently enough that it still warrants being called a recall and the necessary steps once the vehicles are “recalled” in order to notify customers who might not otherwise set themselves up to get an OTA. It’s not as simple as the car “just does it overnight” in every case.
Frequent software updates are part of having a Tesla. If the vehicle is unable to do a software update, then it is broken and would require service regardless of the recall.
They applied that font/icon change in Canada as well, and then Canada made them undo the change that NHSTA demanded. Double recall lol.
Which IMHO just shows that the recall in the first place was just NHTSA unnecessarily flexing on them
Guys, rail against the things that are true. There are enough of them that we don’t need to exaggerate or make up new ones.
Regardless of what you think of Tesla, “recall” here doesn’t mean what people expect it to mean.
Sorry we don’t think like that anymore. Nuance and multiple truths are a waste of time. Elon supports a Republican that means he is bad and everything he does is bad and everything he has ever done is bad and he has no vision or leadership of his own he is just a rich asshole using Daddy’s money to buy cars and rockets and Twitter. Thus he is unworthy of praise for anything at all that he has done since he was born into a life of luxury and anything he touches is automatically shit worthy of being canceled or outlawed.
