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I really dislike how this issue is being presented in the headline and in quotes like this, because it is fundamentally no different than a critical part going

by slg 7y ago

I really dislike how this issue is being presented in the headline and in quotes like this, because it is fundamentally no different than a critical part going bad in an ICE vehicle. The Tesla isn't "bricked" when this flash memory goes bad anymore than a Toyota is "bricked" when its transmission dies. You fix the faulty part and get the car back on the road. That said, if there is a systemic problem with this part failing faster than it should, which certainly seems to be the case, Tesla should be pushed to either recall the affected vehicles or waive the service costs for those owners who are impacted. But that isn't any different than if there was a design flaw in a critical part of an ICE cars manufacturing.

vorpalhex 7y ago
In an ICE vehicle, something like a transmission is very expensive and takes up amazing amounts of space, and so any kind of redundancy is very difficult. But we're well aware that flash memory degrades, corrupts and gets a bit screwy. Flash memory chips are also dirt cheap and quite small - couldn't Tesla of baked in a bit more redundancy in this case? In our transmission example, any fault in the transmission is not catastrophic, but with electronics, a single bad joint or bridged trace can take the whole thing down.
- slg 7y ago
  I already implied that this is a design flaw and stated clearly that Tesla should be responsible for fixing this (and it appears they did things to mitigate if not eliminate this flaw when they redesigned the MCU). I am not defending Tesla here. I am simply pointing out that this is being covered in a fundamentally different way than other cars. My last car was recalled twice for electrical wiring issues. One of the problems could have resulted in a fire and the other one would have resulted in the exact same "bricking" that you see here. Neither of those issues would be covered or dissected like this Tesla issue.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
umvi 7y ago
And why should "the flash memory in a Tesla’s infotainment unit" be a "critical part"? This seems like the opposite of a critical part. That would be like if the CD player in my ICE car broke, suddenly I can't drive my car. Absurd.
- dkonofalski 7y ago
  >That would be like if the CD player in my ICE car broke This is not an apt analogy at all. In a Tesla, there is no separate dashboard or control so it's not an optional part like a CD player. It would be more like saying that your transmission failed. It just happens that, because it doesn't need all the other mechanical parts, an EV's "transmission" is the same box that runs the radio, AC, etc.
  - umvi 7y ago
    Well that is a massive engineering fail to decide to make the "infotainment" system tightly coupled with critical car functionality. A good engineering team would have decoupled them. In an ICE car half of your dashboard could be non functional (climate control completely broken, etc) and the car will still drive because the two systems are decoupled.
    - dkonofalski 7y ago
      >a massive engineering fail It's not the infotainment part that causes the failure, though. It's the firmware flash chip which happens to be in the same board as the infotainment array. It's not like the radio breaking would cause the car to stop working. Again, this is more akin to the transmission going out. It's just easy to make this sound like an engineering failure because of that. It's similar to saying that the new Google Pixel has a "massive engineering failure" because the "Ok, Google" voice assistant breaks. It's disingenuous to say that because all that happens on the security module. You wouldn't want someone to have access to your phone if the security module breaks but, if that breaks, it also breaks the voice assistant functionality. This phrasing makes it sound like a fault in the voice assistant can block access to the entire phone which is intentionally misleading.
justapassenger 7y ago
> The Tesla isn't "bricked" when this flash memory goes bad anymore than a Toyota is "bricked" when its transmission dies. That's why Toyota isn't releasing updates to transmissions every few weeks, that are changing it's behavior and using off the shelf parts without proper attestation and testing in all possible configurations. Tesla moves fast, which is great for progress. But extremely risky for long term reliability of complex machines.
dmitrygr 7y ago
No, because Toyota does not use consumer-grade parts in cars. This eMMC (H26M42002GMR) is not even rated for automotive temp range! (flash wears out faster and retains data worse at higher temps)
Unklejoe 7y ago
> it is fundamentally no different than a critical part going bad in an ICE vehicle The main difference is that the probability of a typical ICE ECU or TCU failing is much lower than a Linux-based infotainment system running on non automotive grade flash.

by slg 7y ago

vorpalhex 7y ago

In an ICE vehicle, something like a transmission is very expensive and takes up amazing amounts of space, and so any kind of redundancy is very difficult. But we're well aware that flash memory degrades, corrupts and gets a bit screwy. Flash memory chips are also dirt cheap and quite small - couldn't Tesla of baked in a bit more redundancy in this case? In our transmission example, any fault in the transmission is not catastrophic, but with electronics, a single bad joint or bridged trace can take the whole thing down.

slg 7y ago
I already implied that this is a design flaw and stated clearly that Tesla should be responsible for fixing this (and it appears they did things to mitigate if not eliminate this flaw when they redesigned the MCU). I am not defending Tesla here. I am simply pointing out that this is being covered in a fundamentally different way than other cars. My last car was recalled twice for electrical wiring issues. One of the problems could have resulted in a fire and the other one would have resulted in the exact same "bricking" that you see here. Neither of those issues would be covered or dissected like this Tesla issue.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

umvi 7y ago

And why should "the flash memory in a Tesla’s infotainment unit" be a "critical part"? This seems like the opposite of a critical part. That would be like if the CD player in my ICE car broke, suddenly I can't drive my car. Absurd.

dkonofalski 7y ago
>That would be like if the CD player in my ICE car broke This is not an apt analogy at all. In a Tesla, there is no separate dashboard or control so it's not an optional part like a CD player. It would be more like saying that your transmission failed. It just happens that, because it doesn't need all the other mechanical parts, an EV's "transmission" is the same box that runs the radio, AC, etc.
- umvi 7y ago
  Well that is a massive engineering fail to decide to make the "infotainment" system tightly coupled with critical car functionality. A good engineering team would have decoupled them. In an ICE car half of your dashboard could be non functional (climate control completely broken, etc) and the car will still drive because the two systems are decoupled.
  - dkonofalski 7y ago
    >a massive engineering fail It's not the infotainment part that causes the failure, though. It's the firmware flash chip which happens to be in the same board as the infotainment array. It's not like the radio breaking would cause the car to stop working. Again, this is more akin to the transmission going out. It's just easy to make this sound like an engineering failure because of that. It's similar to saying that the new Google Pixel has a "massive engineering failure" because the "Ok, Google" voice assistant breaks. It's disingenuous to say that because all that happens on the security module. You wouldn't want someone to have access to your phone if the security module breaks but, if that breaks, it also breaks the voice assistant functionality. This phrasing makes it sound like a fault in the voice assistant can block access to the entire phone which is intentionally misleading.

justapassenger 7y ago

> The Tesla isn't "bricked" when this flash memory goes bad anymore than a Toyota is "bricked" when its transmission dies. That's why Toyota isn't releasing updates to transmissions every few weeks, that are changing it's behavior and using off the shelf parts without proper attestation and testing in all possible configurations. Tesla moves fast, which is great for progress. But extremely risky for long term reliability of complex machines.

dmitrygr 7y ago

No, because Toyota does not use consumer-grade parts in cars. This eMMC (H26M42002GMR) is not even rated for automotive temp range! (flash wears out faster and retains data worse at higher temps)

Unklejoe 7y ago

> it is fundamentally no different than a critical part going bad in an ICE vehicle The main difference is that the probability of a typical ICE ECU or TCU failing is much lower than a Linux-based infotainment system running on non automotive grade flash.