5 ms·

From the article: > Tesla began issuing an “over-the-air software remedy” to certain vehicles on Tuesday, safety officials said. The remaining vehicles will re

by Oras 3y ago

From the article: > Tesla began issuing an “over-the-air software remedy” to certain vehicles on Tuesday, safety officials said. The remaining vehicles will receive software updates later, and all updates will be free for the cars’ owners. I was confused as to why Tesla needs to "recall" when they can do OTA update. The title is misleading surprise

solardev 3y ago
It's because the NHTSA forced them into a safety related "recall". It's not just a regular OTA update. Tesla has a long history of being dishonest about Autopilot capabilities and dangers, and it's killed several people so far. The NHTSA is forcing them to make some tweaks. (Not arguing that autopilot is on the whole any more or less safe than human drivers. Just that Tesla has a history of misrepresentation.)
- Oras 3y ago
  > It's because the NHTSA forced them into a safety related "recall". It's not just a regular OTA update. And how does this "recall" work? Is it physically taking the car to a branch to apply the update? I'm curious to know.
  - acdha 3y ago
    It can be over the air but calling it a recall also brings notification requirements and means that if you bring it in to the service department they’ll do it for you, too.
  - solardev 3y ago
    It's an OTA update, as you know. It's great that they can do this. It's just a semantic thing. I think the actual mechanism (that there is a regulatory body that can force auto makers to improve safety, whether OTA or in the shop) is cool, but I agree that the word "recall" is confusing. It's just a holdover from old processes. Maybe the terminology will change in time. Probably not.
  - hiddencost 3y ago
    No. Recall is a legal term, and just means Tesla is required by law to fix a defect. And that certain penalties and duties apply to them. The recall can be totally remote.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    You know some "recalls" have a required fix of "throw the thing away" right? Recall just means the government is making you do something to a giant subset of your product fleet, usually for safety reasons.
  - filoleg 3y ago
    The only difference between a regular OTA update and this one is that you will also get a letter in your mailbox notifying you of this. If you miss that letter in the mail or don’t read patchnotes, this recall OTA update will get autoinstalled just like any other regular OTA update without you even noticing anything special about it.
- judge2020 3y ago
  > Tesla has a long history of being dishonest about Autopilot capabilities and dangers, and it's killed several people so far. The NHTSA is forcing them to make some tweaks. From the article: > > The update will add new, more prominent visual alerts and checks for the Autosteer function, which is part of Autopilot. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said there may be “increased risk of a crash” when Autosteer is engaged and drivers do not “maintain responsibility for vehicle operation.” I don't buy this. Tesla's driver monitoring during autosteer is among the most annoying in the industry, and it has even more protections than other systems (like how BlueCruise used to [maybe still does] allow you to take off your seatbelt without deactivating).
  - solardev 3y ago
    It's probably a negotiation they had, and that was the compromise they reached. We all want 100% safe auto driving. We're not there yet. Tesla wants to pretend we are, the NHTSA doesn't, we end up with occasional situations like this where things get marginally safer and more annoying. Just growing pains for a young industry, I hope.
- brandonagr2 3y ago
  It is a regular OTA update. Negligent drivers have killed people, not autopilot capabilities. Take the example in the recent Washington Post article where a driver ran through a stop sign at a T intersection, left the road, and killed a bystander. What the article didn't say is that the system reduced cruise set point to 45 mph due to the road type, but the driver was _holding down the accelerator pedal_ to maintain 60 mph as it flew through the stop sign. The driver admitted they knew they were responsible for the controlling the car. What is your evidence that drivers not knowing Autopilot capabilities, and not intentional misuse by negligent drivers, killed several people?
  - solardev 3y ago
    It was an update forced by the NHTSA after an investigation and negotiation.
  - electrondood 3y ago
    1. Every time one of these articles comes out, the investigation concludes 10 months later that the driver was at fault. 2. The hero metric is what is the rate of crashes _compared to the general population not using Autopilot_. Tesla make it abundantly clear that the driver is still responsible for monitoring. This is analogous to a dev just deploying copy-pasted code from ChatGPT without checking it. You still supervise/monitor the result.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      That's because legally, they are. However, it hasn't stopped Tesla from doing things like hold press conferences (in the case of a fatal collision with a Semi) to talk about how the car had warned the driver to hold the steering wheel, and neglect the trifling detail that it had done that once, and it was eighteen minutes prior to the accident. Tesla will happily throw you under the bus to try to protect the reputation of FSD/AP. > Tesla make it abundantly clear that the driver is still responsible for monitoring. Tesla had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing this. When AP first launched, the steering wheel checks were every fifteen minutes, then reduced to five. It has only been through repeated cajoling that it is down to where it is now. Let's not forget that "The driver is only in the seat for legal purposes. The car is driving itself." is still on Tesla's website to this day. (And in a sense, it is accurate - the legal purposes just include trying to shield Tesla from as much liability as possible). Oh, and Smart Summon. "Bring your car to you while you deal with a fussy child" (and still maintain complete awareness of your car...)
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I thought Tesla was known for being dishonest about its FSD feature, not AutoPilot, which is a less ambitious lane keeping/auto cruise control feature?
  - solardev 3y ago
    Sorry, you're probably right. I have a hard time keeping track of their confusing names.
- thepasswordis 3y ago
  How many people have been killed by cruise control do you think?
- filoleg 3y ago
  > It's not just a regular OTA update Thematically and semantically, sure, I agree, it isn’t. Functionally, it is, as it installs just like any regular OTA update and doesn’t require the driver to do anything differently compared to a non-recall OTA update.
asylteltine 3y ago
Because it’s a legally mandated thing. You know, because Tesla lies about bugs, features, and safety issues all the time.
- judge2020 3y ago
  > Tesla decided this month to voluntarily administer a recall.
  - hiddencost 3y ago
    Which means they chose not to contest the NHTSA.
  - dharmab 3y ago
    NHtSA can force them to recall the cars, the "voluntary" part is to save face.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MBCook 3y ago
It’s not misleading. This is a NHTSA forced recall. That means something legally. The automaker is required by law to correct it. That does not mean the car must physically go in, it’s just that until recently that’s how everyone did it because they didn’t have OTA updates. A recall is still a recall.
- jfoster 3y ago
  "Legally mandated OTA update" would not be misleading.

by Oras 3y ago

solardev 3y ago

It's because the NHTSA forced them into a safety related "recall". It's not just a regular OTA update. Tesla has a long history of being dishonest about Autopilot capabilities and dangers, and it's killed several people so far. The NHTSA is forcing them to make some tweaks. (Not arguing that autopilot is on the whole any more or less safe than human drivers. Just that Tesla has a history of misrepresentation.)

Oras 3y ago
> It's because the NHTSA forced them into a safety related "recall". It's not just a regular OTA update. And how does this "recall" work? Is it physically taking the car to a branch to apply the update? I'm curious to know.
- acdha 3y ago
  It can be over the air but calling it a recall also brings notification requirements and means that if you bring it in to the service department they’ll do it for you, too.
- solardev 3y ago
  It's an OTA update, as you know. It's great that they can do this. It's just a semantic thing. I think the actual mechanism (that there is a regulatory body that can force auto makers to improve safety, whether OTA or in the shop) is cool, but I agree that the word "recall" is confusing. It's just a holdover from old processes. Maybe the terminology will change in time. Probably not.
- hiddencost 3y ago
  No. Recall is a legal term, and just means Tesla is required by law to fix a defect. And that certain penalties and duties apply to them. The recall can be totally remote.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  You know some "recalls" have a required fix of "throw the thing away" right? Recall just means the government is making you do something to a giant subset of your product fleet, usually for safety reasons.
- filoleg 3y ago
  The only difference between a regular OTA update and this one is that you will also get a letter in your mailbox notifying you of this. If you miss that letter in the mail or don’t read patchnotes, this recall OTA update will get autoinstalled just like any other regular OTA update without you even noticing anything special about it.
judge2020 3y ago
> Tesla has a long history of being dishonest about Autopilot capabilities and dangers, and it's killed several people so far. The NHTSA is forcing them to make some tweaks. From the article: > > The update will add new, more prominent visual alerts and checks for the Autosteer function, which is part of Autopilot. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said there may be “increased risk of a crash” when Autosteer is engaged and drivers do not “maintain responsibility for vehicle operation.” I don't buy this. Tesla's driver monitoring during autosteer is among the most annoying in the industry, and it has even more protections than other systems (like how BlueCruise used to [maybe still does] allow you to take off your seatbelt without deactivating).
- solardev 3y ago
  It's probably a negotiation they had, and that was the compromise they reached. We all want 100% safe auto driving. We're not there yet. Tesla wants to pretend we are, the NHTSA doesn't, we end up with occasional situations like this where things get marginally safer and more annoying. Just growing pains for a young industry, I hope.
brandonagr2 3y ago
It is a regular OTA update. Negligent drivers have killed people, not autopilot capabilities. Take the example in the recent Washington Post article where a driver ran through a stop sign at a T intersection, left the road, and killed a bystander. What the article didn't say is that the system reduced cruise set point to 45 mph due to the road type, but the driver was _holding down the accelerator pedal_ to maintain 60 mph as it flew through the stop sign. The driver admitted they knew they were responsible for the controlling the car. What is your evidence that drivers not knowing Autopilot capabilities, and not intentional misuse by negligent drivers, killed several people?
- solardev 3y ago
  It was an update forced by the NHTSA after an investigation and negotiation.
- electrondood 3y ago
  1. Every time one of these articles comes out, the investigation concludes 10 months later that the driver was at fault. 2. The hero metric is what is the rate of crashes _compared to the general population not using Autopilot_. Tesla make it abundantly clear that the driver is still responsible for monitoring. This is analogous to a dev just deploying copy-pasted code from ChatGPT without checking it. You still supervise/monitor the result.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    That's because legally, they are. However, it hasn't stopped Tesla from doing things like hold press conferences (in the case of a fatal collision with a Semi) to talk about how the car had warned the driver to hold the steering wheel, and neglect the trifling detail that it had done that once, and it was eighteen minutes prior to the accident. Tesla will happily throw you under the bus to try to protect the reputation of FSD/AP. > Tesla make it abundantly clear that the driver is still responsible for monitoring. Tesla had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing this. When AP first launched, the steering wheel checks were every fifteen minutes, then reduced to five. It has only been through repeated cajoling that it is down to where it is now. Let's not forget that "The driver is only in the seat for legal purposes. The car is driving itself." is still on Tesla's website to this day. (And in a sense, it is accurate - the legal purposes just include trying to shield Tesla from as much liability as possible). Oh, and Smart Summon. "Bring your car to you while you deal with a fussy child" (and still maintain complete awareness of your car...)
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
I thought Tesla was known for being dishonest about its FSD feature, not AutoPilot, which is a less ambitious lane keeping/auto cruise control feature?
- solardev 3y ago
  Sorry, you're probably right. I have a hard time keeping track of their confusing names.
thepasswordis 3y ago
How many people have been killed by cruise control do you think?
filoleg 3y ago
> It's not just a regular OTA update Thematically and semantically, sure, I agree, it isn’t. Functionally, it is, as it installs just like any regular OTA update and doesn’t require the driver to do anything differently compared to a non-recall OTA update.

asylteltine 3y ago

Because it’s a legally mandated thing. You know, because Tesla lies about bugs, features, and safety issues all the time.

judge2020 3y ago
> Tesla decided this month to voluntarily administer a recall.
- hiddencost 3y ago
  Which means they chose not to contest the NHTSA.
- dharmab 3y ago
  NHtSA can force them to recall the cars, the "voluntary" part is to save face.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

MBCook 3y ago

It’s not misleading. This is a NHTSA forced recall. That means something legally. The automaker is required by law to correct it. That does not mean the car must physically go in, it’s just that until recently that’s how everyone did it because they didn’t have OTA updates. A recall is still a recall.

jfoster 3y ago
"Legally mandated OTA update" would not be misleading.