14 ms·
Tesla cut a steering component from some cars, didn’t tell customers
- joenathanone 5y agoThe article is incorrect > "There's still a mechanical component of course. But in today's vehicles, when you 'turn the wheel' you are providing an electronic signal telling your car to go left or right." Tesla’s aren’t drive by wire.
- newaccount74 5y agoI think what the article is trying to say is that almost all the torque turning the wheels is from the electric power steering, while your hands are just providing a small input that the torque sensors pick up. The fact that there is a mechanical connection doesn't really make much of a difference (except when power steering fails).
- T3OU-736 5y agoAnd the "previous generation" of power steering was hydraulic, which had a similar behaviour and setup in that it is an amplification of steering input. Electric power steering allows for configurability of steering difficulty, which tends to engender the feeling of precision at a certain point along the effort curve. (Variable for different people, naturally). Plus, with more powerful electric systems (better alternators, basically), moving hydraulic steering pump from belt-driven frees up the engine a bit, yielding less drag and better fuel efficiency. But fundamentally, I believe that in modern vehicles, due to their weight, direct steering linkages are a bit rare.
- Retric 5y agoDirect steering linkages are a major safety feature that isn’t going away because at high speed you need minimal steering input. My power steering died in a 3,000 lb car and I didn’t get it replaced for a few weeks because it was only noticeable at very low speeds.
- DerekRobot 5y agoPersonally, I prefer electric steering because it takes so little torque input. My Mercedes cabrio was heavy and tiring to steer, but I can steer the Mirage with my fingertips. As a bonus, the steering is tuned to "tighten up" at speed, which effectively makes the car snappier without actually changing the alignment.
- gameswithgo 5y agoYou can steer fine without power assist, it only gets hard in slow speed parking maneuvers. Source: I've done it. Also this situation is no different than normal power steering, which assists you with a different mechanism.
- newaccount74 5y agoAre you talking about a car without power steering, or a car with failed power steering? Because I remember being quite surprised how hard it was to steer a car rolling downhill after I turned off the engine (I thought it would be smart to conserve fuel, did not realise how unsafe that was).
- gameswithgo 5y agoI am talking about a car with failed power steering. It is very hard to steer when moving slow, not so hard when moving. Presumably this could vary depending on vehicle mass and other factors but I do notice that both you and the person who replied to you with an incorrect assumption both made it, despite having to use your muscles.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoModern cars have crap suspensions/steering geometry for unassisted steering. This is a side effect of the geometry that helps keep their wide tires from making them wander all over the road. That said, it's only a marginal increase in effort. Modern cars are just fat. An Altima curbs at about the same weight as a base spec 2wd pickup that would have come with manual steering in the 80s and the Altima has a much higher steering ratio.
- weedfroglozenge 5y agoI think he is talking about the former. I've also had power steering fail on me and it took everything I had to get home. And I was ~2 minutes from home.
- gwbas1c 5y ago
- gilrain 5y agoThat paragraph is a straightforward description of power steering. It doesn’t suggest that Teslas are drive by wire. The article is not incorrect in this instance.
- joenathanone 5y agoThen why even mention it? Power steering isn’t anything new or unique.
- DerekRobot 5y agoI'm alright with the author mentioning it because some of the steering behavior is defined in software in newer cars.
- joenathanone 5y agoElectronic power steering has been in use since the mid 80's, the article is framing it as some new technology. And steering behavior has been software defined since the intro of electronic power steering with electronic stability control(introed in 1983), etc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control
- vletal 5y agoAnyway "considered redundant backup not necessary for level 2 autonomy" breaks the "all Teslas now have the HW required for full autonomy" promise. They should have told customers.
- mwint 5y agoBetting they're keeping the part on cars ordered with FSD, and those ordering FSD later will get a mobile service visit.
- FireBeyond 5y agoBased on what? Their already sterling commitment to after sale service and support?
- londons_explore 5y agoI suspect the internal decisionmaking will have decided that there are already components of the car which are not double-redundant. For example, if the front left wheel falls off, you're gonna crash. It's simply designed to happen rarely enough that it doesn't have a substantial impact on safety. This powersteering unit now has a lot of field data about failures - they have 3M+ power steering units on the road. So they may now have the confidence to put the powersteering into that category of "single redundant, but sufficiently reliable to be acceptable". Whereas before they had that data, it wasn't.
- mannykannot 5y agoApparently not: 'Internally, Tesla employees said that adding “level 3” functionality, which would allow a driver to use their Tesla hands-free without steering in normal driving scenarios, would need the dual electronic control unit system and therefore require a retrofit at a service visit.'
- extropy 5y agoThat was never really a thing. More like a hope. There was V2, v2.5, V3. With both compute and camera improvements. It's pretty much expected that you will need some form of hw upgrade if your car is >2 years old when the FSD becomes a thing. And it's included in the pricing.
- mwint 5y agoSeems like a non issue? I’m guessing Tesla has plenty of data about failures on those components to know whether the redundancy is needed. And there’s a mechanical steering connection anyway. Sounds like the worst that can come of this would be Tesla has to retrofit the part into a bunch of cars for FSD.
- hervature 5y agoThe headline here is that this is yet another instance of the company lying to its customers. Yes, intentionally withholding information is a form of lying. I do not understand how we can live in a time that people are disgusted with Facebook's behavior and VW's scandal in living memory and consciously give Tesla the benefit of the doubt. It is all corporations lying to consumers in the name of the bottom line. You either like it or you don't. The shape of the logo does not matter.
- avianlyric 5y agoHow exactly is the company lying? It’s not like the spec sheet for the car specifically lists redundant power steering systems, it’s a minor implementation detail. Would you expect Tesla to also put out an announcement if they started sourcing their upholstery from a different source, or used different stitching on the steering wheel? None of this thing impact the usability of the car in any meaningful way, and none of them are listed as part of the detailed specs. Teslas also add new things to their cars all the time, such as matrix headlights that they added to the Model 3 last year, and heat pump based heating system.
- hervature 5y agoFrom the article: > Internally, Tesla employees said that adding “level 3” functionality, which would allow a driver to use their Tesla hands-free without steering in normal driving scenarios, would need the dual electronic control unit system and therefore require a retrofit at a service visit. How many of these customers are expecting to simply update their car to FSD over the air? I agree, other manufacturers would not have the responsibility. But one of the main selling points of Tesla has been that, one day, your car will drive itself if you choose to buy $X upgrade with the heavy implication of over the air. Edit: Consider this, in the future, when people go to sell their cars, potential buyers will ask "does this car have the dual ECU?" for the sole reason of inquiring if they need to go to get the car serviced for FSD. If you don't think this makes Tesla bound to inform their customers that their car will obviously be impacted on resale and allow them to back out of the purchase, I don't think we will ever see eye to eye.
- MarkusWandel 5y agoWhoa. My own car already has throttle-by-wire i.e. no mechanical linkage for that. Brakes is debatable; I assume if the ABS unit fails they revert to "dumb" hydraulic brakes with the usual rendundancy (pairs of wheels fail independently plus you still have some backup from the parking brake). But steering by wire? That's what the article implies, though another comment already debunks it. I hope there are exactly no cars on the road today that are steering-by-wire. I.e. they all degrade to non-power, mechanical steering if the electronic or hydraulic gimcrackery fails.
- hvidgaard 5y agoConsidering that some cars can change how much the wheels turn based on the speed you're driving, we know it must have been approved for road use.
- t0mas88 5y agoBMW does this (it's great), and they did not remove the physical linkage to do it. It's done with a planetary gear system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_steering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_steering
- stefan_ 5y agoI guess the cheap variant of this is reduced power steering at higher speeds.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoCreative gear tooth geometry lets manufacturers offer steering that's slow near the center and fast near the ends at far less cost.
- t0mas88 5y agoYes, that's the cheaper version they have on the BMW 3 and 4 series. Purely mechanical, but then also not speed dependent.
- titzer 5y agoQuoth Musk: " So the cars in the fleet essentially becoming self-driving via software update, I think, might end up being the biggest increase in asset value of any asset class in history" This sentence is packed so tightly with irony that I can't believe it was uttered by a self-aware human. Yes, it's a great idea that two ton vehicles capable of 100mph just "update" themselves to be fully self-driving. Because what could go wrong? Forget about terminators, just the strategic risk in the event of a cyberwar. Astonishing lack of awareness. And he complains that AI is "summoning the demon"? And yes, they are just "an asset class" whose value needs to be increased because STONKS. I can't even.
- 3pt14159 5y agoYou're being downvoted, but you're not wrong about the strategic risk. I worked on that for a while and at least got people to take it seriously. When I started there weren't even regulations coming for self-driving cars. At the end of the day, we use nukes to deter against strategic risks and if undeterrable adversaries have strategic capabilities then we're doing it wrong.
- paulpauper 5y agoI don't think critics realize how much testing has gone into this technology
- notfromhere 5y agoIt’s not good enough to market as self driving. It’s a fancy cruise control with lane assist. The whole thing is a stock pump that went too far
- misiti3780 5y agoIf you're in the beta program or have access to youtube, you would know that is not what it is at all.
- devmor 5y ago
- infecto 5y agoSounds kinda like the bigger issue where they were removing features on delivered vehicles. I don't have the link in front of me but there was a reddit thread about I believe Y models where customers were getting delivered vehicles without the passenger lumbar even though it was a listed feature on purchase. I know they have done it on other things as well. Common problem across all modern tech companies, the ability to communicate is not present.
- camjohnson26 5y agoSome cars were delivered with missing USB ports
- falcolas 5y agoSo, did they lower the price? No? Shrinkflation, Tesla edition. Getting less for the same price to save the manufacturer money. Especially since L3 FSD - when and if it comes - requires the second motor.
- tejohnso 5y ago"My personal guess is that we’ll achieve Full Self-Driving this year at a safety level significantly greater than a person." Is this even remotely possible?
- porbelm 5y agoNo, especially not with using only camera vision AI and not going the LIDAR route.
- loa_in_ 5y agoIt's possible but the erratic path we're taking to this goal makes me worry we'll miss it, and the next shot at this will be in few generations
- FireBeyond 5y agoIt's not possible. Not this year. And fearmongering like this - "We have to keep trying, otherwise it'll be regulated out of existence and we'll have to wait generations" is absolutely uncalled for. It's being regulated because people like Musk value their cars, sorry, "asset class" more than they do about the risks that they are taking.
- thaway2839 5y ago[flagged]
- camjohnson26 5y agoIt’s absolutely not possible, and I think he’s crossed the Rubicon into full scale fraud at this point. There’s plenty of videos out there showing just basic failures of the system. Last week a popular Youtuber ran into a pylon on it while making a video. It was a simple right turn with great visibility and no traffic, but the system still couldn’t prevent it. Could have been a person. This Twitter post documents how many times Musk has promised FSD is coming “next year.” https://twitter.com/BS__Exposed/status/1482465346061848583?s=20&t=Lqg0TR2cwgMXP-GmV1a_iw https://twitter.com/BS__Exposed/status/1482465346061848583?s...
- bArray 5y ago> Under pressure to hit fourth-quarter sales goals while coping with widespread semiconductor shortages, Tesla decided to remove one of the two electronic control units that are normally included in the steering racks of some made-in-China Model 3 and Model Y cars, according to two employees and internal correspondence seen by CNBC. A complete non-story, as long as it still passes safety checks. The automotive industry is always looking to save a few cents here and there - the only requirement is that it does not compromise safety. > "So the cars in the fleet essentially becoming self-driving via software update, I think, might end up being the biggest increase in asset value of any asset class in history. We shall see." Elon Musk, the billion dollar man with a billion promises. I'll make a few bets on this: 1. It won't happen this year. He has been incorrectly guessing it at when it will be ready for many years now. 2. If it does happen this year, it will be blocked legally until proper regulation is ready. If a self-driving car crashes, who is responsible? This needs to be answered, because if it turns out to be Tesla, things will get expensive real quick. 3. If it's not blocked legally, it will be disabled for everybody except those on a subscription service: > Drivers can also buy a more advanced version, called Full Self-Driving, or FSD, for $12,000 or $199 a month (in the U.S.). It won't end up being quite the value-add it's claimed to be. Whatever happened to the Tesla car that would pay for itself? So far it seems to just require even more money, for features already suggested to be free when the idea of the car was first sold. > "If something like a chip or an ECU is not providing additional functionality, if it is truly redundant, you may be able to turn it off or leave it out. With chips and software, there's a little bit of wiggle room. I can reassign stuff here and there," he said. Not entirely true. Whilst the infotainment system may have enough processing power to run all the safety critical tasks, you don't want it to. Crashing your infotainment is inconvenient, but a 5 second reboot is not the end of the world. Crashing your ABS, throttle control, steering control, etc, is not an option. A lot of safety critical stuff is usually also proven with tonnes of testing (rather than formal validation) - but that testing is highly coupled to the hardware its running on. You know for example that system X will reliably poll some pin at 1k times a second, because it is the only thing running on the chip. It cannot be interrupted or delayed. The more tasks you add, the great the risk of not hitting timing targets, the larger the testing surface, the greater number of possible states it can be in, etc.
- ajross 5y agoI don't understand why this kind of coverage gets so much purchase. Cars don't come with bills of materials for the consumer and never have. Substitutions and configuration changes like this are the rule in the industry, not the exception. Yet... when Tesla does it it's worth clicks? FWIW: It's a backup for the power steering system, which is in fact not a safety device even in modern vehicles. Tesla's steering is mechanical, like almost all cars (obviously a true drive-by-wire vehicle would need a ton more redundancy, of course).
- bayindirh 5y agoSo, Tesla is adding another point of failure to their car subsystems instead of removing it, and still pushing self-driving technology as aggressive if ever. So, what happens if that electric steering subsystem breaks without a redundant backup? "Customer took the risk, we don't care?" You even didn't notify the customer about it in the first place.
- optimiz3 5y agoTesla isn't selling self driving on these cares without a retrofit per the article.
- bayindirh 5y agoI'm not sure. From the article: "Tesla vehicles can still use the current “level 2” versions of its driver assistance systems, Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (or FSD), without the dual-control steering system. But employees told CNBC if Tesla launches a more sophisticated FSD update, owners with the affected cars who use that premium system will need to get a steering rack retrofit from a Tesla service center." (Emphasis mine)
- roflchoppa 5y agoIf the electronic power assist steering controller fails during use, the rack falls back to manual mode where the steering is heavy. I wonder if they were collecting data on how many units fell back to the backup unit, and decided it was enough to either not use it, or pay the warranty costs for fixing them. There's really nothing in the EPAS system that can wear out, maybe the motor itself... FSD is trash, all these Teslas on the road braking to a stop for no reason, driving slow in the fast lane >:( Cut them off the computer wont care.
- bayindirh 5y agoI know, but I'm considering a situation where the electric steering gives up at a very inconvenient moment (accident aversion, overtake, etc.) and the driver cannot provide the required force to correct the car, even with a 100% concentration. > There's really nothing in the EPAS system that can wear out, maybe the motor itself... After the whole logging and wearing down flash memory saga, I'm not sure about that. In theory you're right, but in practice "It's a Tesla".
- cam0 5y agoPersonal anecdote after being a Tesla model 3 owner for a little over a year now: The car feels like a toy. The manufacturing quality is honestly quite poor. The electric motor is truly fantastic - that's the awesome part, and I'm a total convert to electric cars for the rest of my life. However, I'm selling my Tesla at the 3yr mark and going back to a German (albeit electric) car. I imagine my Tesla falling apart every time I hit a large pothole.
- dsr_ 5y ago"Move fast and break things" taken to the logical extreme?
- dm319 5y agoI still can't get any of my devices to reliably send a text message, and here's someone saying, again, that we'll have FSD by the end of the year. They aren't worried that some cars won't have the hardware capability because they know they won't have the software capability.
- ksaj 5y agoTo be fair, they probably didn't tell people that there was a backup system in the first place. Removing something that people generally didn't know about isn't a sin. Especially since it was a duplicate device.
- silent_cal 5y agoStarting to wonder if Tesla is the biggest pump and dump of all time.