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Cars are a tough environment for electronics. Asides from the other examples mentioned in the article, my Ford's monochrome non-touch LCD turns into an illegibl

Cars are a tough environment for electronics. Asides from the other examples mentioned in the article, my Ford's monochrome non-touch LCD turns into an illegibly garbled mess in the cold (below -20°C) until the car warms up.

taneq 7y ago
I've seen this same effect a lot when talking about Teslas. Any failure on their part is instantly chalked up to alleged poor practices, laziness, and general lack of care or professionalism, whereas an identical failure on the part of an established manufacturer is shrugged off as "oh well, sometimes parts fail." (Take the issue with fires, for instance - Teslas catch fire far less frequently than conventional cars, but every time it happens it's global front-page news.)
- netsharc 7y ago
  > Any failure on their part is instantly chalked up to alleged poor practices If this article is accurate (let's assume it is, those quotes from Musk will get the lawyers coming so fast if they were false), then it just proved that this actually is the case! Their arrogance that "pah, who needs automotive grade?" has now come back to bite them in the ass...
- GeorgeTirebiter 7y ago
  True. But another Tesla burst into flames in Hong Kong: https://qz.com/1618627/a-parked-tesla-model-s-burst-into-flames-in-hong-kong/ https://qz.com/1618627/a-parked-tesla-model-s-burst-into-fla... Parked gas cars don't usually burst into flames.
  - kwhitefoot 7y ago
    Google returns 2.4M results for: Parked car burst into flames "mercedes" -tesla -bmw 1M for Parked car burst into flames "tesla" -mercedes -bmw 0.5M for Parked car burst into flames "bmw" -mercedes -tesla Unscientific I know but surely an indication that at least some parked cars do burst into flames. Not usually I'll grant you, but a bit more frequently than one might think.
  - LeonM 7y ago
    > Parked gas cars don't usually burst into flames. Usually not, no. But every now and then, they do, just like electric cars. It's hard to say which type of vehicle burns down more often, the sample size is small and there are so many more petrol powered cars than electric powered cars. Electric and petrol powertrains have different failure modes. An electric car can fail while being parked, which is less likely to happen on petrol cars (and if so, it's usually caused by an electrical failure in the car). However, petrol powered cars have a higher chance of bursting into flames while in operation due to the compination of high temperature components and pressurised fuel being close to each other. A car (being petrol or electric) has a high density energy storage. Whenever that enegry can no longer be contained, bad things happen. Personally, I'd prefer my car burning down while being parked over bursting into flames when I'm driving it.
- izacus 7y ago
  Except that Tesla in this case didn't even attempt to get parts rated for adverse conditions to cut costs so it's really not the same thing.
  - taneq 7y ago
    And what's their resulting failure rate compared to what it would have been if they'd used existing auto-rated parts? I see a lot of "they should have done X and they didn't so they're wrong" but not a lot of "they should have done X but they did Y and Y worked worse than X by these measures".
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
aitchnyu 7y ago
I'm suspicious of touchscreens ever since my phone deleted an icon from Android home screen (a drag and drop IIRC!). Charging the phone from a plug in an Indian train causes continous spurious touches all over.
The_Double 7y ago
Toyota Avensis (around 2013 model) infotainment screens have a temperature dependent offset on all touches on the resistive touch screen. When its <10 C, the offset is larger than the screen size making it completely impossible to change audio sources or use navigation.

taneq 7y ago

I've seen this same effect a lot when talking about Teslas. Any failure on their part is instantly chalked up to alleged poor practices, laziness, and general lack of care or professionalism, whereas an identical failure on the part of an established manufacturer is shrugged off as "oh well, sometimes parts fail." (Take the issue with fires, for instance - Teslas catch fire far less frequently than conventional cars, but every time it happens it's global front-page news.)

netsharc 7y ago
> Any failure on their part is instantly chalked up to alleged poor practices If this article is accurate (let's assume it is, those quotes from Musk will get the lawyers coming so fast if they were false), then it just proved that this actually is the case! Their arrogance that "pah, who needs automotive grade?" has now come back to bite them in the ass...
GeorgeTirebiter 7y ago
True. But another Tesla burst into flames in Hong Kong: https://qz.com/1618627/a-parked-tesla-model-s-burst-into-flames-in-hong-kong/ https://qz.com/1618627/a-parked-tesla-model-s-burst-into-fla... Parked gas cars don't usually burst into flames.
- kwhitefoot 7y ago
  Google returns 2.4M results for: Parked car burst into flames "mercedes" -tesla -bmw 1M for Parked car burst into flames "tesla" -mercedes -bmw 0.5M for Parked car burst into flames "bmw" -mercedes -tesla Unscientific I know but surely an indication that at least some parked cars do burst into flames. Not usually I'll grant you, but a bit more frequently than one might think.
- LeonM 7y ago
  > Parked gas cars don't usually burst into flames. Usually not, no. But every now and then, they do, just like electric cars. It's hard to say which type of vehicle burns down more often, the sample size is small and there are so many more petrol powered cars than electric powered cars. Electric and petrol powertrains have different failure modes. An electric car can fail while being parked, which is less likely to happen on petrol cars (and if so, it's usually caused by an electrical failure in the car). However, petrol powered cars have a higher chance of bursting into flames while in operation due to the compination of high temperature components and pressurised fuel being close to each other. A car (being petrol or electric) has a high density energy storage. Whenever that enegry can no longer be contained, bad things happen. Personally, I'd prefer my car burning down while being parked over bursting into flames when I'm driving it.
izacus 7y ago
Except that Tesla in this case didn't even attempt to get parts rated for adverse conditions to cut costs so it's really not the same thing.
- taneq 7y ago
  And what's their resulting failure rate compared to what it would have been if they'd used existing auto-rated parts? I see a lot of "they should have done X and they didn't so they're wrong" but not a lot of "they should have done X but they did Y and Y worked worse than X by these measures".

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

aitchnyu 7y ago

I'm suspicious of touchscreens ever since my phone deleted an icon from Android home screen (a drag and drop IIRC!). Charging the phone from a plug in an Indian train causes continous spurious touches all over.

The_Double 7y ago

Toyota Avensis (around 2013 model) infotainment screens have a temperature dependent offset on all touches on the resistive touch screen. When its <10 C, the offset is larger than the screen size making it completely impossible to change audio sources or use navigation.