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The very opposite actually. The computer crashes, but all car functions work perfectly, including autopilot (read the article update) and all safety features.

The very opposite actually. The computer crashes, but all car functions work perfectly, including autopilot (read the article update) and all safety features. So you take out the computer here and it's still a perfectly safe and drive-able car.

userbinator 7y ago
a perfectly safe and drive-able car ...with absolutely no instrumentation? Sure, the wheel and pedals still work, but everything else is not controllable. I've done some custom car stuff so I've had short drives without a dashboard, and while you could argue it's drivable, I wouldn't say safe.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  It is certainly safe enough to pull over to the side of the road at a safe spot.
- drcross 7y ago
  Why is there such anti Tesla sentiment on HN? There are numerous problems with other cars and it doesn't receive any coverage
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    I almost wish there had been another car with a digital cockpit that faced the same issue. Because I can imagine the glee that (some) Tesla owners would have. Like they did when there was a Jeep remote vulnerability. "Haha. Way to do OTA totally wrong!".
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    You can always spot the pioneers -- they're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs.
  - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
    The situation is just stupid - when I first posted my comment, I said the car would still be functional and that issue is not that serious, I immediately received a reply that basically criticizes me for being a pro-Tesla apologist (now deleted, apparently an honest misread), and now I have comments saying I'm anti-Tesla. But the fact is, I'm neither, I was simply expressing a specific criticism that it's not a good design that the dashboard is not separated from the rest of the entertainment system, and I said nothing about how good or bad Tesla is, as a car overall, or whether Tesla, Inc. is a good company. > There are numerous problems with other cars and it doesn't receive any coverage It's simply a result of much more attention and scrutiny of Tesla on HN because it's a popular car/company in the Silicon Valley.
  - xedeon 7y ago
    The anti-Tesla vitriol here is insane and unfounded. I would love for these people to actually drive one before passing judgement.
  - jeadfa 7y ago
    Getting Your Travel Information , Travel Guides, Discover, Plan, Destination information if you Love Travel . Inspiration from TheTravelersTalk https://thetravelerstalk.com/ https://thetravelerstalk.com/
- caconym_ 7y ago
  I wouldn't drive it anywhere but off the road at the earliest safe opportunity, but no driver should need any instrumentation to safely manage that.
  - natch 7y ago
    Or you could stay on the road and the reboot will finish in a few seconds. Meantime you have full control of everything as normal through the wheel and pedals, just no screen. It's like driving any other car where those dials are so small you can't read them and they might as well not exist, except that it's back to normal in seconds.
    - capableweb 7y ago
      Or have a car who's physical gauges are not crashing, so you always know what speed you're in. I'm pretty sure cars in Europe always need to be able to show what speed you're going in, otherwise you won't be able to control your speed. "the approximate speed" is not good enough. I challenge you to go on the highway without looking at the speedometer for 30 minutes and guess what speed you're driving in. I don't think a lot of people know what the speed would be, unless they regularly train it.
      - natch 7y ago
        30 minutes? You're off by two orders of magnitude. It's a few seconds, at most maybe 10.
        thenewnewguy 7y ago
        Where are people getting a few seconds from? The video seems to display the crashed MCU for well over a minute. 30 minutes is unreasonable, but it does seem like the safest thing to do is pull over.
        natch 7y ago
        Once the hacker has crashed the MCU of the software (an old version you can't get any more) then it's up to the hacker how long they let it sit there in a crashed state. They could leave it there for hours or days, if they wanted to. I mean the car is in Park. So, it doesn't make any sense that you are talking about the time starting from when the crash was induced by the hacker, to the time when the reboot finished. You must be talking about what all the above comments were talking about, which is the time to do a reboot. Well, it was probably a hard reboot. Which can only be done while stopped and with foot holding the brake down. And which takes longer than a soft reboot. So how long was it, exactly, since you claim it was well over a minute? I checked the video to see what you could possibly be talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsSYyg4-3dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsSYyg4-3dg The reboot starts at 2:09. The UI comes back at 2:24, which is being conservative... we could easily call it 2:23. 15 seconds. For a hard reboot. Again, soft reboots are even faster. So, yeah. Saying it took a minute or more is a wild exaggeration. Fifteen seconds. During these 15 seconds you are missing out on the ability to see your speed, which was shown continuously in the largest font at the closest part of the screen right up until the moment of the reboot. (Except in this case the car was in Park, so it's super odd that anyone would worry about driving safety here). And you miss out on the ability to open the trunk, the frunk, and the charge port. And the ability to look at maps. And possibly voice commands. I don't see any safety issue here. If this bothers people, they can just refrain from rebooting their MCU while driving. And if they really do get hacked, just look at the screen, note the speed, and reboot. Soft reboot should be fine, and can be done while moving or not, it's up to the driver, free choice. Don't like rebooting while driving? Fine, pull over. You don't need to though. Fifteen seconds. Tops. Of not having your screen. Soft reboot probably more like ten seconds. This is how people form mistaken opinions about Teslas. Lack of personal experience, ignorance, presupposition of facts that do not exist, gullible acceptance of anything you read or hear, and exaggeration of perceived problems to a bizarre level.
- natch 7y ago
  Have you ever driven a Tesla and rebooted it while driving? Have you ever even driven a Tesla at all? Or is this just a guess based on your experience with custom ICE cars? In the rebooting state it's probably still safer than any other car. You aren't missing any critical information that you can't see by looking out the window (the approximate speed). There is no gear shifting, no fuel, and you would have been warned well before this if your charge was low enough to cause alarm. I can really think of nothing you need on the screen that you would seriously miss as a matter of safety while it's rebooting for a few seconds, as long as you're being attentive as a driver, which you should be.
- URSpider94 7y ago
  Why not safe? There is absolutely nothing safety-critical on that display. I probably reboot the entertainment system while driving once a month or so. It’s no big deal.
FireBeyond 7y ago
> a perfectly safe Unless, for but one example, it's raining, heavily. Because the wipers freeze.
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  it reboots in under a minute so you can make adjustments then. mean while you keep driving or can pull over or whatever. its not like it happens all the time, once every month or so I push both toggle button and reboot it while I'm driving
  - kartikmohta 7y ago
    Isn't having the wipers freeze for more than 5-10 seconds in heavy rain a big safety issue? Agreed that the chances of the freeze happening while there is heavy rain are rather slim, but nobody should be relying on their luck in this way.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    Yeah, the context was "don't need to pull over, don't need to do anything, it's all perfectly safe".
- _-___________-_ 7y ago
  Do the wipers really freeze, or can you just not change the mode they're set to?
- Klathmon 7y ago
  I was bored so I just went out to my garage and checked this myself. The wipers do not freeze when the MCU crashes or restarts. They continue working on the speed they were running at when the MCU crashes or restarts.

userbinator 7y ago

a perfectly safe and drive-able car ...with absolutely no instrumentation? Sure, the wheel and pedals still work, but everything else is not controllable. I've done some custom car stuff so I've had short drives without a dashboard, and while you could argue it's drivable, I wouldn't say safe.

cortesoft 7y ago
It is certainly safe enough to pull over to the side of the road at a safe spot.
drcross 7y ago
Why is there such anti Tesla sentiment on HN? There are numerous problems with other cars and it doesn't receive any coverage
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  I almost wish there had been another car with a digital cockpit that faced the same issue. Because I can imagine the glee that (some) Tesla owners would have. Like they did when there was a Jeep remote vulnerability. "Haha. Way to do OTA totally wrong!".
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  You can always spot the pioneers -- they're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs.
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  The situation is just stupid - when I first posted my comment, I said the car would still be functional and that issue is not that serious, I immediately received a reply that basically criticizes me for being a pro-Tesla apologist (now deleted, apparently an honest misread), and now I have comments saying I'm anti-Tesla. But the fact is, I'm neither, I was simply expressing a specific criticism that it's not a good design that the dashboard is not separated from the rest of the entertainment system, and I said nothing about how good or bad Tesla is, as a car overall, or whether Tesla, Inc. is a good company. > There are numerous problems with other cars and it doesn't receive any coverage It's simply a result of much more attention and scrutiny of Tesla on HN because it's a popular car/company in the Silicon Valley.
- xedeon 7y ago
  The anti-Tesla vitriol here is insane and unfounded. I would love for these people to actually drive one before passing judgement.
- jeadfa 7y ago
  Getting Your Travel Information , Travel Guides, Discover, Plan, Destination information if you Love Travel . Inspiration from TheTravelersTalk https://thetravelerstalk.com/ https://thetravelerstalk.com/
caconym_ 7y ago
I wouldn't drive it anywhere but off the road at the earliest safe opportunity, but no driver should need any instrumentation to safely manage that.
- natch 7y ago
  Or you could stay on the road and the reboot will finish in a few seconds. Meantime you have full control of everything as normal through the wheel and pedals, just no screen. It's like driving any other car where those dials are so small you can't read them and they might as well not exist, except that it's back to normal in seconds.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    Or have a car who's physical gauges are not crashing, so you always know what speed you're in. I'm pretty sure cars in Europe always need to be able to show what speed you're going in, otherwise you won't be able to control your speed. "the approximate speed" is not good enough. I challenge you to go on the highway without looking at the speedometer for 30 minutes and guess what speed you're driving in. I don't think a lot of people know what the speed would be, unless they regularly train it.
    - natch 7y ago
      30 minutes? You're off by two orders of magnitude. It's a few seconds, at most maybe 10.
      - thenewnewguy 7y ago
        Where are people getting a few seconds from? The video seems to display the crashed MCU for well over a minute. 30 minutes is unreasonable, but it does seem like the safest thing to do is pull over.
        natch 7y ago
        Once the hacker has crashed the MCU of the software (an old version you can't get any more) then it's up to the hacker how long they let it sit there in a crashed state. They could leave it there for hours or days, if they wanted to. I mean the car is in Park. So, it doesn't make any sense that you are talking about the time starting from when the crash was induced by the hacker, to the time when the reboot finished. You must be talking about what all the above comments were talking about, which is the time to do a reboot. Well, it was probably a hard reboot. Which can only be done while stopped and with foot holding the brake down. And which takes longer than a soft reboot. So how long was it, exactly, since you claim it was well over a minute? I checked the video to see what you could possibly be talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsSYyg4-3dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsSYyg4-3dg The reboot starts at 2:09. The UI comes back at 2:24, which is being conservative... we could easily call it 2:23. 15 seconds. For a hard reboot. Again, soft reboots are even faster. So, yeah. Saying it took a minute or more is a wild exaggeration. Fifteen seconds. During these 15 seconds you are missing out on the ability to see your speed, which was shown continuously in the largest font at the closest part of the screen right up until the moment of the reboot. (Except in this case the car was in Park, so it's super odd that anyone would worry about driving safety here). And you miss out on the ability to open the trunk, the frunk, and the charge port. And the ability to look at maps. And possibly voice commands. I don't see any safety issue here. If this bothers people, they can just refrain from rebooting their MCU while driving. And if they really do get hacked, just look at the screen, note the speed, and reboot. Soft reboot should be fine, and can be done while moving or not, it's up to the driver, free choice. Don't like rebooting while driving? Fine, pull over. You don't need to though. Fifteen seconds. Tops. Of not having your screen. Soft reboot probably more like ten seconds. This is how people form mistaken opinions about Teslas. Lack of personal experience, ignorance, presupposition of facts that do not exist, gullible acceptance of anything you read or hear, and exaggeration of perceived problems to a bizarre level.
natch 7y ago
Have you ever driven a Tesla and rebooted it while driving? Have you ever even driven a Tesla at all? Or is this just a guess based on your experience with custom ICE cars? In the rebooting state it's probably still safer than any other car. You aren't missing any critical information that you can't see by looking out the window (the approximate speed). There is no gear shifting, no fuel, and you would have been warned well before this if your charge was low enough to cause alarm. I can really think of nothing you need on the screen that you would seriously miss as a matter of safety while it's rebooting for a few seconds, as long as you're being attentive as a driver, which you should be.
URSpider94 7y ago
Why not safe? There is absolutely nothing safety-critical on that display. I probably reboot the entertainment system while driving once a month or so. It’s no big deal.

FireBeyond 7y ago

> a perfectly safe Unless, for but one example, it's raining, heavily. Because the wipers freeze.

NotSammyHagar 7y ago
it reboots in under a minute so you can make adjustments then. mean while you keep driving or can pull over or whatever. its not like it happens all the time, once every month or so I push both toggle button and reboot it while I'm driving
- kartikmohta 7y ago
  Isn't having the wipers freeze for more than 5-10 seconds in heavy rain a big safety issue? Agreed that the chances of the freeze happening while there is heavy rain are rather slim, but nobody should be relying on their luck in this way.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  Yeah, the context was "don't need to pull over, don't need to do anything, it's all perfectly safe".
_-___________-_ 7y ago
Do the wipers really freeze, or can you just not change the mode they're set to?
Klathmon 7y ago
I was bored so I just went out to my garage and checked this myself. The wipers do not freeze when the MCU crashes or restarts. They continue working on the speed they were running at when the MCU crashes or restarts.