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Good thing this has never happened to any other carmaker, right? Surely it would also have been HN front page news, especially if it affected thousands of cars!

Good thing this has never happened to any other carmaker, right? Surely it would also have been HN front page news, especially if it affected thousands of cars! > Ford is recalling 1.4 million vehicles because the steering wheels can become loose and even come off while driving. > The automaker says it is aware of two accidents and one injury that may have been caused by the problem. https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/14/news/companies/ford-steering-wheel-recall/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/14/news/companies/ford-steerin... > Rivian recalls all of its vehicles for steering wheel troubles https://www.pocnetwork.net/technology-news/rivian-recalls-all-of-its-vehicles-for-steering-wheel-troubles/ https://www.pocnetwork.net/technology-news/rivian-recalls-al... etc... Of course steering wheels shouldn't fall off. But the comments here are already full of people under the impression that this incident proves Tesla is uniquely bad, and it's just silly. A few seconds Googling will tell you that most carmakers have had either isolated incidents or even widespread recalls of steering wheels that can fall off, or very similar problems such as the wheel disconnecting from the steering mechanism. Just on the front page of Google results I also see Mercedes and GM and Toyota. Turns out perfection in manufacturing hasn't been achieved yet, by anyone.

extesy 4y ago
To be fair, this isn't the first time this happens to Tesla either: https://twitter.com/JasonTuatara/status/1254498497170149382 https://twitter.com/JasonTuatara/status/1254498497170149382
smt88 4y ago
Whataboutism is lazy. This is notable on its own or in relation to other companies, otherwise it wouldn't hit the front page. The major differences are that: - Tesla has a well-documented history of sacrificing safety for factory throughput, including taping parts together and shipping parts that are out of tolerance - Tesla's customer service in this (and, nowadays, all other) error is abysmal - Elon Musk controls the outlet where this was first reported, and he has now shadow-banned the post (it's impossible to search for it)
- colordrops 4y ago
  Unless you have data to show that Tesla is uniquely bad here, your post comes off as nothing other than a smear, especially with the "whataboutism" epithet.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    Ford recalls vehicles _on the chance_ that its steering wheel falls off. In contrast, Tesla steering wheels fall off, _but no recall has been announced_ yet. This is a very different problem. Ford is proactively trying to prevent steering wheels from becoming a problem publicly. In contrast, Tesla waits for it to be a problem before issuing a recall. Case in point: instead of showing a news article about Ford steering wheels falling off, they listed an article discussing a hypothetical "might fall off" recall. Do you see why these two stories are completely different? EDIT: Case in point: how long do you think it will be before Tesla issues a recall over this? Can Tesla even track its manufacturing errors and which batch of vehicles are affected by this problem?
    - rascul 4y ago
      > Ford recalls vehicles _on the chance_ that its steering wheel falls off. In contrast, Tesla steering wheels fall off, _but no recall has been announced_ yet. Seems like steering wheels had already fallen off before they issued the recall. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/03/14/ford-steering-wheel-recall/423535002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/03/14/ford-st...
    - colordrops 4y ago
      You are basing this off of this single event? Once again, do you have data that steering wheels are falling off Teslas in numbers?
      - dragontamer 4y ago
        I'm basing this off of Tesla's awful history. Multiple people have burned to death as those silly electronic locks fail and when the car catches on fire. Has there been any recall to fix this issue? No. Multiple people have died as 'Full Self Driving' has collided into walls and trucks. Has there been a recall? No . Multiple safety critical issues have hit this company over and over again, and they do nothing about it. I can say that Tesla will ignore this problem too.
gouggoug 4y ago
Meanwhile Tesla is not recalling any vehicle. The difference between a regular car manufacturer and Tesla is that they take responsibility and recall vehicles. Now, who knows, maybe Tesla will recall their model Y, in which case I will stand corrected.
- throw_a_grenade 4y ago
  I bet they will not. In the meantime, apparently you'll stand downvoted.
- runsonrum 4y ago
  Although I do not have any articles to show, I know that from my personal experiences that "other" manufaturers will also not perform recalls when there are "generally known" issues. It is my belief that they all have bean counters constantly looking at the stats and have some sort of recall threshold before anything is recalled. I'm sure some companies are better than others though which also probably depends on the country.
bogomipz 4y ago
I think given that Tesla is dominating the current automative news cycle with its announcement of a global price discount, interest in a story on a potential quality control issue is understandable: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-cuts-prices-electric-vehicles-us-market-2023-01-13/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
sliken 4y ago
Indeed, some 200,000 cars catch fire every year in the USA. Approximately zero of those make the news, unless it's a Tesla. So despite being 11 times less likely to catch fire, if you watch the news you might well conclude that only Teslas catch fire.
- infamia 4y ago
  Those aren't the same things though. You can extinguish a fire on a normal vehicle in many cases. However, it's pretty much impossible to extinguish once a serious fire in a Tesla gets going. https://nypost.com/2023/01/30/firefighters-use-6k-gallons-of-water-to-extinguish-burning-tesla/ https://nypost.com/2023/01/30/firefighters-use-6k-gallons-of...
- dragontamer 4y ago
  The fire problem with Tesla is two fold. 1. Tesla has electronic only locks in the rear seats of Model 3 and Model Y. Furthermore, the door handles to the front seats are electronic only, the mechanical override is hidden behind the speaker IIRC or under the floor. 2. Once the fire starts, the electronics fail to function, locking you inside of the car. #1 combined with #2 means that Tesla vehicles are uniquely positioned to lock in and kill their victims. Even when there are people who are in the front seats, most people are ignorant to the location of the manual override, and thus get locked in for the fire. Bonus points: it requires 10,000+ gallons of water to extinguish a Tesla Fire. Once that fire starts, they can't actually extinguish the flames. ------------ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/19/tesla-texas-driverless-crash/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/19/tesla-texas... > “Our investigation has determined that one of the victims was in the front passenger seat; one was in the back seat,” Mark Herman, a constable for Harris County Precinct 4, told KHOU, adding police were “100 percent certain that no one was in the driver’s seat.” > Officials in Houston said the battery inside Tesla ignited after the collision, causing a fire that burned for four hours and required more than 30,000 gallons of water to put out. Current theory is that the driver tried the front door, which failed to work. (Electronics failed). Driver was likely ignorant to the manual-override process. Driver moves to rear seats to try back seats, which has no manual override. At that point, the two die to the fire. (There's a pretty bad theory floating around the media that it was "driverless". A later story found some Ring doorbell footage showing the driver in the driver's seat, so I don't buy the "driverless" theory that Wash. Po pushes in that story) The "try the front door / try the back door" thing has happened so many times it should be the default assumption when we see these burn-to-death situations with Tesla vehicles. ---------- https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2019/10/florida-man-died-in-a-burning-tesla-because-its-futuristic-doors-wouldnt-open-lawsuit-alleges.html https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2019/10/florida-man-died-i... Another case.
seydor 4y ago
but those carmakers dont also own twitter
csours 4y ago
I used to work on error proofing software at an automotive assembly plant, and it turns out that error proofing steering wheel torque is hard. Error proofing means at least two things in this context: 1. Making the operation hard to fail at, aka poka yoke (mistake proofing), sometimes called idiot proofing. 2. Work specification validation. Both of these are difficult because the steering column has to be immobilized and then it has to be re-mobilized. This is not hard, per se, but it is just slightly more complicated than other assembly steps. How does this happen? The validation mechanism and operator both have a type 2 error (false negative, failure to detect a fault) - they are not aware that some part of the tooling is not working or sensing correctly. Other things that can cause this: manual intervention to release a vehicle from the work cell due to excessive type 1 errors (false positive errors); repair work after the vehicle leaves the assembly line; off by one errors in vehicle tracking.
zacharyvoase 4y ago
Other carmakers aren't trading at a P/E ratio of over 50 years.
pandaman 4y ago
It would have been if Ford fanatics had been everywhere preaching the superior technologies found in their Fords. IME even Ford owners are not very excited about the brand, there are some models (Raptor and Mustang mainly) enthusiasts but not to the degree when they buy $F stock and follow Ford's CEO Twitter.
theshrike79 4y ago
Also Toyota's new flagship EV had a risk of the WHEELS falling off, so they recalled every unit.
almostkorean 4y ago
Is there a database or something to lookup stats of car manufacturing failures? A family member of mine recently got a Model X and the back wheel came off while she was driving it on the highway. Never occurred to me that it might be an issue that happens with other manufacturers but would love to see the numbers.

extesy 4y ago

To be fair, this isn't the first time this happens to Tesla either: https://twitter.com/JasonTuatara/status/1254498497170149382 https://twitter.com/JasonTuatara/status/1254498497170149382

smt88 4y ago

Whataboutism is lazy. This is notable on its own or in relation to other companies, otherwise it wouldn't hit the front page. The major differences are that: - Tesla has a well-documented history of sacrificing safety for factory throughput, including taping parts together and shipping parts that are out of tolerance - Tesla's customer service in this (and, nowadays, all other) error is abysmal - Elon Musk controls the outlet where this was first reported, and he has now shadow-banned the post (it's impossible to search for it)

colordrops 4y ago
Unless you have data to show that Tesla is uniquely bad here, your post comes off as nothing other than a smear, especially with the "whataboutism" epithet.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  Ford recalls vehicles _on the chance_ that its steering wheel falls off. In contrast, Tesla steering wheels fall off, _but no recall has been announced_ yet. This is a very different problem. Ford is proactively trying to prevent steering wheels from becoming a problem publicly. In contrast, Tesla waits for it to be a problem before issuing a recall. Case in point: instead of showing a news article about Ford steering wheels falling off, they listed an article discussing a hypothetical "might fall off" recall. Do you see why these two stories are completely different? EDIT: Case in point: how long do you think it will be before Tesla issues a recall over this? Can Tesla even track its manufacturing errors and which batch of vehicles are affected by this problem?
  - rascul 4y ago
    > Ford recalls vehicles _on the chance_ that its steering wheel falls off. In contrast, Tesla steering wheels fall off, _but no recall has been announced_ yet. Seems like steering wheels had already fallen off before they issued the recall. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/03/14/ford-steering-wheel-recall/423535002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/03/14/ford-st...
  - colordrops 4y ago
    You are basing this off of this single event? Once again, do you have data that steering wheels are falling off Teslas in numbers?
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      I'm basing this off of Tesla's awful history. Multiple people have burned to death as those silly electronic locks fail and when the car catches on fire. Has there been any recall to fix this issue? No. Multiple people have died as 'Full Self Driving' has collided into walls and trucks. Has there been a recall? No . Multiple safety critical issues have hit this company over and over again, and they do nothing about it. I can say that Tesla will ignore this problem too.

gouggoug 4y ago

Meanwhile Tesla is not recalling any vehicle. The difference between a regular car manufacturer and Tesla is that they take responsibility and recall vehicles. Now, who knows, maybe Tesla will recall their model Y, in which case I will stand corrected.

throw_a_grenade 4y ago
I bet they will not. In the meantime, apparently you'll stand downvoted.
runsonrum 4y ago
Although I do not have any articles to show, I know that from my personal experiences that "other" manufaturers will also not perform recalls when there are "generally known" issues. It is my belief that they all have bean counters constantly looking at the stats and have some sort of recall threshold before anything is recalled. I'm sure some companies are better than others though which also probably depends on the country.

bogomipz 4y ago

I think given that Tesla is dominating the current automative news cycle with its announcement of a global price discount, interest in a story on a potential quality control issue is understandable: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-cuts-prices-electric-vehicles-us-market-2023-01-13/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...

sliken 4y ago

Indeed, some 200,000 cars catch fire every year in the USA. Approximately zero of those make the news, unless it's a Tesla. So despite being 11 times less likely to catch fire, if you watch the news you might well conclude that only Teslas catch fire.

infamia 4y ago
Those aren't the same things though. You can extinguish a fire on a normal vehicle in many cases. However, it's pretty much impossible to extinguish once a serious fire in a Tesla gets going. https://nypost.com/2023/01/30/firefighters-use-6k-gallons-of-water-to-extinguish-burning-tesla/ https://nypost.com/2023/01/30/firefighters-use-6k-gallons-of...
dragontamer 4y ago
The fire problem with Tesla is two fold. 1. Tesla has electronic only locks in the rear seats of Model 3 and Model Y. Furthermore, the door handles to the front seats are electronic only, the mechanical override is hidden behind the speaker IIRC or under the floor. 2. Once the fire starts, the electronics fail to function, locking you inside of the car. #1 combined with #2 means that Tesla vehicles are uniquely positioned to lock in and kill their victims. Even when there are people who are in the front seats, most people are ignorant to the location of the manual override, and thus get locked in for the fire. Bonus points: it requires 10,000+ gallons of water to extinguish a Tesla Fire. Once that fire starts, they can't actually extinguish the flames. ------------ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/19/tesla-texas-driverless-crash/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/19/tesla-texas... > “Our investigation has determined that one of the victims was in the front passenger seat; one was in the back seat,” Mark Herman, a constable for Harris County Precinct 4, told KHOU, adding police were “100 percent certain that no one was in the driver’s seat.” > Officials in Houston said the battery inside Tesla ignited after the collision, causing a fire that burned for four hours and required more than 30,000 gallons of water to put out. Current theory is that the driver tried the front door, which failed to work. (Electronics failed). Driver was likely ignorant to the manual-override process. Driver moves to rear seats to try back seats, which has no manual override. At that point, the two die to the fire. (There's a pretty bad theory floating around the media that it was "driverless". A later story found some Ring doorbell footage showing the driver in the driver's seat, so I don't buy the "driverless" theory that Wash. Po pushes in that story) The "try the front door / try the back door" thing has happened so many times it should be the default assumption when we see these burn-to-death situations with Tesla vehicles. ---------- https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2019/10/florida-man-died-in-a-burning-tesla-because-its-futuristic-doors-wouldnt-open-lawsuit-alleges.html https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2019/10/florida-man-died-i... Another case.

seydor 4y ago

but those carmakers dont also own twitter

csours 4y ago

I used to work on error proofing software at an automotive assembly plant, and it turns out that error proofing steering wheel torque is hard. Error proofing means at least two things in this context: 1. Making the operation hard to fail at, aka poka yoke (mistake proofing), sometimes called idiot proofing. 2. Work specification validation. Both of these are difficult because the steering column has to be immobilized and then it has to be re-mobilized. This is not hard, per se, but it is just slightly more complicated than other assembly steps. How does this happen? The validation mechanism and operator both have a type 2 error (false negative, failure to detect a fault) - they are not aware that some part of the tooling is not working or sensing correctly. Other things that can cause this: manual intervention to release a vehicle from the work cell due to excessive type 1 errors (false positive errors); repair work after the vehicle leaves the assembly line; off by one errors in vehicle tracking.

zacharyvoase 4y ago

Other carmakers aren't trading at a P/E ratio of over 50 years.

pandaman 4y ago

It would have been if Ford fanatics had been everywhere preaching the superior technologies found in their Fords. IME even Ford owners are not very excited about the brand, there are some models (Raptor and Mustang mainly) enthusiasts but not to the degree when they buy $F stock and follow Ford's CEO Twitter.

theshrike79 4y ago

Also Toyota's new flagship EV had a risk of the WHEELS falling off, so they recalled every unit.

almostkorean 4y ago

Is there a database or something to lookup stats of car manufacturing failures? A family member of mine recently got a Model X and the back wheel came off while she was driving it on the highway. Never occurred to me that it might be an issue that happens with other manufacturers but would love to see the numbers.