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The problem is that those issues shouldn't happen on a public road vehicle to begin with. Tesla's approach is shipping beta software to customers, and using the

by imiric 2y ago

The problem is that those issues shouldn't happen on a public road vehicle to begin with. Tesla's approach is shipping beta software to customers, and using them as testers. This is an insidious practice in modern software development, but is criminal when that software is running a 3-ton vehicle, regardless if it can be fixed with an OTA update or not. There are reasons why strict car safety regulations exist. You can't just sell early access cars and fix issues as customers experience them.

Aeolun 2y ago
I completely agree, but saying it's a 'recall' when your car sits in your driveway still feels entirely wrong.
- jmb99 2y ago
  Recall is the industry-standard (and populace-understood) term for “this vehicle has a safety or reliability issue that must be resolved by the manufacturer.” It is all encompassing; anything from possibly loose lugnuts to faulty airbags to engine failures to yes, the reverse camera failing to appear. It doesn’t matter if the manufacturer ships an OTA update, shows up at your house with a loaner and a flatbed to take your car, or requires you to go into the dealership for service, it’s a recall.
  - aikinai 2y ago
    It might be industry-standard term, but it’s certainly not understood that way by layman, including car customers. To the public, “recall” will always carry the implication that the vehicle needs to go back to the manufacturer for a fix.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      I don't think that's true. Most people are accustomed to there being many "recalls" for trifling matters which can be simply ignored until maybe the next time they bring the car into the shop. A typical conversation about recalls: > "I changed your oil, and I also replaced one of your door seals because there was a recall for the rubber cracking in cold weather" > "Oh, okay." It doesn't colloquially imply that the manufacturer is going to come take your car due to some major issue.
      - Kinrany 2y ago
        This was the argument that convinced me.
      - Aeolun 2y ago
        Maybe for you? All the recall notices I’ve ever seen are of the “Device may electrocute you if used improperly” variety. Those were definitely very strong suggestions to immediately discontinue use and get a replacement. Maybe this is one of those situations where the US uses this term differently from the rest of the world? In a way that waters the term down so much that it might as well be meaningless?
  - justinclift 2y ago
    > and populace-understood Nah, doesn't really seem like it.
  - nobody9999 2y ago
    >Recall is the industry-standard (and populace-understood) term for “this vehicle has a safety or reliability issue that must be resolved by the manufacturer.” Exactly. But not just for vehicles or other durable goods. We see recalls of all sorts of food products[0] pretty regularly, and no one has to bring their carrots or ground beef back to the store/manufacturer to "remediate" the issue. Rather, you just throw it away. And such activities are unfailingly called recalls. [0] https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety...
- karlgkk 2y ago
  Sure it's wrong, but it's actually to Tesla's benefit IMO Which of these would you, a Tesla stakeholder, prefer the news to report: - Tesla Cybertruck has recall - Tesla Cybertruck receives software update that resolves issue that put public safety at risk
  - justinclift 2y ago
    That's really not clear? And for equivalence, the first would need to be: - Tesla Cybertruck has recall that resolves issue that put public safety at risk
    - karlgkk 2y ago
      No, I agree it's not really clear. > And for equivalence But that's the whole point of my post. Because the term "recall" often technically means "issue that put public safety at risk". But would you want that spelled out every time if you were a marketer?
- daghamm 2y ago
  "recall" is a legal term, it means the vehicle is not road-legal and requires immediate action. Doesn't really matter if it hw, sw or maybe even the owners manual that needs to be changed ASAP.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    If I have a flat tyre it's not a recall. Not everything about not being road-legal and requiring immediate action is a recall. That's a bad definition.
    - atwrk 2y ago
      The proper definition will clearly mean the model, not the model instance.
    - fenomas 2y ago
      GP said "recall → not street legal"; you've replied to disagree with "recall ↔ not street legal".
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        Nothing about the definition implies the existence of the former construction.
        macintux 2y ago
        HN discourages this type of bad faith misinterpretation in the name of pedantry.
        robertlagrant 2y ago
        That is itself a misinterpretation, but I'll assume good faith. I'm not misinterpreting; I'm saying the definition is too broad. A useful reply seems simple enough: - yes it is too broad, and here's the additional criterion to narrow it correctly - no it is not too broad, and here's why a flat tyre is a recall
- saghm 2y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. From the perspective of a customer, not being able to drive the car due to it being unsafe is the part that matters, not where and how the manufacturer has to fix it. If you're opposed to it based on the assumption that it wouldn't take as long, I agree that might be true, but by that logic we should be categorizing _all_ recalls based on length (regardless of whether it's a software update or otherwise), since I'm not convinced that the average length of time until a problem is fixed will always be perfectly split with the software ones being super quick and the ones that would need to happen in person being super slow. What if the mechanics are already aware of how to fix the issue and can do it the same day, or if the software issue turns out to take a long time due to the developers needing a lot of time to fix the bug? If you're opposed to it purely from the perspective of linguistics and "recall" sounds like "return to the manufacturer", I think I'd disagree due to the word "recall" not being super commonly used for that in other circumstances. If anything, the other usage of the word that springs to mind most readily to me is recalling someone or something "from service", which I think fits perfectly here.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    It still doesn't sound right to me. Sure we can get adapted to the new meaning of the term as time goes on, but to me the term has strong implications to physically bring it back, and it is weird that people are claiming that it doesn't. Surely this causes a lot of confusion at the very least people thinking those vehicles actually have to be brought back.
    - Topfi 2y ago
      But it isn’t a new meaning. Rather, those arguing that recall should now exclude OTA want to change a long established definition.
      - mewpmewp2 2y ago
        Google "definition of product recall" First 2 answers in asq.org and wikipedia Recall is the act of officially summoning someone or something back to its place of origin. A product recall is defined as a request to return, exchange, or replace a product after a manufacturer or consumer watch group discovers defects that could hinder performance, harm consumers, or produce legal issues for the producers. and A product recall is a request from a manufacturer to return a product after the discovery of safety issues or product defects that might endanger the consumer or put the maker or seller at risk of legal action. Product recalls are one of a number of corrective actions that can be taken for products that are deemed to be unsafe. It specifically says "request to return." It's very important because the word "recall" to me is rather about the cost to the business and consumer rather than severity of an issue or it being specifically safety issue. Recall could be something that is done as a response to a safety issue, but recall could be done for some other reasons as well. E.g. the product could not just be performing as well, but not be a safety issue. There's a defect that means product lifetime will be limited, etc.
- croes 2y ago
  The recall doesn’t know how the fix is applied it’s just the fix is mandatory for manufacturer and he to inform the customers
graemep 2y ago
I wonder whether OTA updates being possible encourages manufacturers to be sloppy with software quality. They know they can fix problems cheaply. If they had to physically update vehicles they would have a lot more incentive to make updates unnecessary.
- _puk 2y ago
  Of course it does. Think about how, even in software, knowing that a physical shipping of a product (CD / Blu-ray) can be updated from "day 1" has led to poor quality releases with last minute patches. The cost of having to physically recall / resend CDs back in the day meant that what went out had to work. The cost of sloppy software has now been externalised.
  - imiric 2y ago
    Exactly. Back in the day it was a major milestone for video game projects to "go gold". It meant that the rigorous QA process was passed, and that retail copies were ready to be manufactured. Since that involved significant costs and physical logistics, companies certainly didn't want major bugs shipped at this stage. There were some exceptions, but ultimately this led to much higher customer satisfaction. Removing this "inconvenience" for companies and allowing them to ship updates and fixes at any point is a major reason why most modern game releases are a clusterfuck at day one. They treat it as public betas, and day one customers (or, worse, preorder suckers) are testers and a replacement for a QA process they don't have. It's essentially crowdsourced development. This also allows them to hype the game up to boost initial sales, and then go "oops, sorry" while they finish implementing it. This scam has been pulled numerous times over the past decade+, yet these companies keep doing it because it's profitable and there's no legal accountability for it. The fact these practices are now seeping into software on which human lives depend is criminal, and should be prosecuted and strictly regulated.
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      I get it's wrong in cars. But who the hell cares about games? So your game updates after a month with a fix. So what? It's not like you pay for the update.
bilekas 2y ago
> You can't just sell early access cars and fix issues as customers experience them. But then how will you know what you HAVE to fix. /s To be frank I find the whole Tesla cult to be mind blowing. Seems to be the realization of believing in something that seems so good to be true alwith a company who promises to do so many great things, delivers non road worthy vehicles and people still dedicate their time and money defending them. Is it sunk cost fallocy? Or just people who just wish Tesla was what they promised they would be?
- rightbyte 2y ago
  If you remember how some kids in school argued over which gaming consoles were best or whichever Transformer would win over another. I think it is the same concept 'fanboyism' among those Tesla apologists. Of which sunk cost were a huge thing. Your parents bought you only one...
jart 2y ago
It's not just Tesla. All the online services you depend on are run this way, and none of it's regulated. Governments don't know how to regulate software companies like Tesla. They know how to regulate people constructing homes, cooking food, and building bridges but most attempts at regulating software development have petered out. This is a good thing. Thanks to Tesla's modern approach to car manufacturing it is now possible for anyone in the middle class to purchase a self-driving bulletproof truck that's faster than a Lamborghini. You can't make this stuff up. I swear.
- krige 2y ago
  I need to ask - is this a joke? No, Tesla is not particularly bulletproof compared to other cars. Its doors may stop a 9mm sure enough, but the windows won't manage even that, and anything above 9mm will go through the doors as well. And 9mm is not even that common among criminal shooters, they usually go for bigger calibers / higher penetration naturally already. And which Lamborghini specifically?
  - fnord123 2y ago
    > And which Lamborghini specifically? It's faster than a Lamboghini Spire.
    - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
      But not as robust off-road.
- aiono 2y ago
  Most of the online services I use can't kill me if they have a bug.
- b112 2y ago
  It's a pretty simple fix. In the old days, governments had departments which would inspect cars, verify they complied with legislation, and even examine build quality. Quite easy, when everything was basically physical. Now the ECU and modules are a black box, unknowable to such entities. Things can be caught (see VW scamming fuel/emissions tests), but it's by luck. So solution? We pass laws that all code, every bit of it, all chip schematics too, all firmwares are open source. Note I said open source, which in the old days just meant "readable". We're not talking GPL, all copyright would remain. On top of that, all build scripts and methods to flash modules / etc would be provided to governement test environments. Now we can test. Now, we can look for crappy code, hacky junk, fake emission cheats, bugs and more. Don't like it? You don't sell cars. Tough. The entire supply chain would be required to fall inline. It's really not that hard. In terms of security, that's what signing updates is for. And (for example) you can already take hobby tools, such as forscan (for fords) amd flash updates to modules. As long as it is signed.
soco 2y ago
This is a point which comes up regularly when discussing right to privacy laws (hello EU). Startup culture wants to move fast and break things - including my bones in this case - while evil regulations only come in the way of progress.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > Startup culture wants to move fast and break things - including my bones in this case - while evil regulations only come in the way of progress. All car companies comply with thousands of regulations, and it's fine. If you have a simple view of the world, I don't think inverting it and claiming the people you think are the baddies hold that inverted view is going to get anyone closer to understanding anything.
bastloing 2y ago
All of my Tesla updates have been production updates. All software has bugs, and Tesla is one of the most innovative and responsible software companies. Compare that to Microsoft, for example. Or Oracle. Lots of their software runs medical systems that are mission critical. How about the latest Palo Alto networks vulnerability? Lots of critical infrastructure behind their firewalls. All in all, I'd say Tesla is among the top on software and hardware engineering, and I'd hire any of their engineers in a heartbeat.
avar 2y ago
> There are reasons why strict car safety regulations exist. They exist? Then why isn't Tesla getting fined in amounts that make this practice unprofitable?
- imiric 2y ago
  Because car industry regulations haven't caught up with cars being software on wheels yet. Most regulations in general haven't caught up with software eating the world and the "move fast and break things" mentality. This is not just an arguably bad mentality, but when human lives are at stake, it's a very dangerous one as well. Besides, companies the size and influence of Tesla can lobby their way out of regulations. With Musk now becoming more politically involved, it's doubtful we'll see any of this change in the next 4 years at least.
stackghost 2y ago
I agree, and this is why I do not own a Tesla. Unfortunately my kids can still get killed by one.

by imiric 2y ago

Aeolun 2y ago

I completely agree, but saying it's a 'recall' when your car sits in your driveway still feels entirely wrong.

jmb99 2y ago
Recall is the industry-standard (and populace-understood) term for “this vehicle has a safety or reliability issue that must be resolved by the manufacturer.” It is all encompassing; anything from possibly loose lugnuts to faulty airbags to engine failures to yes, the reverse camera failing to appear. It doesn’t matter if the manufacturer ships an OTA update, shows up at your house with a loaner and a flatbed to take your car, or requires you to go into the dealership for service, it’s a recall.
- aikinai 2y ago
  It might be industry-standard term, but it’s certainly not understood that way by layman, including car customers. To the public, “recall” will always carry the implication that the vehicle needs to go back to the manufacturer for a fix.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    I don't think that's true. Most people are accustomed to there being many "recalls" for trifling matters which can be simply ignored until maybe the next time they bring the car into the shop. A typical conversation about recalls: > "I changed your oil, and I also replaced one of your door seals because there was a recall for the rubber cracking in cold weather" > "Oh, okay." It doesn't colloquially imply that the manufacturer is going to come take your car due to some major issue.
    - Kinrany 2y ago
      This was the argument that convinced me.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      Maybe for you? All the recall notices I’ve ever seen are of the “Device may electrocute you if used improperly” variety. Those were definitely very strong suggestions to immediately discontinue use and get a replacement. Maybe this is one of those situations where the US uses this term differently from the rest of the world? In a way that waters the term down so much that it might as well be meaningless?
- justinclift 2y ago
  > and populace-understood Nah, doesn't really seem like it.
- nobody9999 2y ago
  >Recall is the industry-standard (and populace-understood) term for “this vehicle has a safety or reliability issue that must be resolved by the manufacturer.” Exactly. But not just for vehicles or other durable goods. We see recalls of all sorts of food products[0] pretty regularly, and no one has to bring their carrots or ground beef back to the store/manufacturer to "remediate" the issue. Rather, you just throw it away. And such activities are unfailingly called recalls. [0] https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety...
karlgkk 2y ago
Sure it's wrong, but it's actually to Tesla's benefit IMO Which of these would you, a Tesla stakeholder, prefer the news to report: - Tesla Cybertruck has recall - Tesla Cybertruck receives software update that resolves issue that put public safety at risk
- justinclift 2y ago
  That's really not clear? And for equivalence, the first would need to be: - Tesla Cybertruck has recall that resolves issue that put public safety at risk
  - karlgkk 2y ago
    No, I agree it's not really clear. > And for equivalence But that's the whole point of my post. Because the term "recall" often technically means "issue that put public safety at risk". But would you want that spelled out every time if you were a marketer?
daghamm 2y ago
"recall" is a legal term, it means the vehicle is not road-legal and requires immediate action. Doesn't really matter if it hw, sw or maybe even the owners manual that needs to be changed ASAP.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  If I have a flat tyre it's not a recall. Not everything about not being road-legal and requiring immediate action is a recall. That's a bad definition.
  - atwrk 2y ago
    The proper definition will clearly mean the model, not the model instance.
  - fenomas 2y ago
    GP said "recall → not street legal"; you've replied to disagree with "recall ↔ not street legal".
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      Nothing about the definition implies the existence of the former construction.
      - macintux 2y ago
        HN discourages this type of bad faith misinterpretation in the name of pedantry.
        robertlagrant 2y ago
        That is itself a misinterpretation, but I'll assume good faith. I'm not misinterpreting; I'm saying the definition is too broad. A useful reply seems simple enough: - yes it is too broad, and here's the additional criterion to narrow it correctly - no it is not too broad, and here's why a flat tyre is a recall
saghm 2y ago
I'm not sure I agree. From the perspective of a customer, not being able to drive the car due to it being unsafe is the part that matters, not where and how the manufacturer has to fix it. If you're opposed to it based on the assumption that it wouldn't take as long, I agree that might be true, but by that logic we should be categorizing _all_ recalls based on length (regardless of whether it's a software update or otherwise), since I'm not convinced that the average length of time until a problem is fixed will always be perfectly split with the software ones being super quick and the ones that would need to happen in person being super slow. What if the mechanics are already aware of how to fix the issue and can do it the same day, or if the software issue turns out to take a long time due to the developers needing a lot of time to fix the bug? If you're opposed to it purely from the perspective of linguistics and "recall" sounds like "return to the manufacturer", I think I'd disagree due to the word "recall" not being super commonly used for that in other circumstances. If anything, the other usage of the word that springs to mind most readily to me is recalling someone or something "from service", which I think fits perfectly here.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  It still doesn't sound right to me. Sure we can get adapted to the new meaning of the term as time goes on, but to me the term has strong implications to physically bring it back, and it is weird that people are claiming that it doesn't. Surely this causes a lot of confusion at the very least people thinking those vehicles actually have to be brought back.
  - Topfi 2y ago
    But it isn’t a new meaning. Rather, those arguing that recall should now exclude OTA want to change a long established definition.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      Google "definition of product recall" First 2 answers in asq.org and wikipedia Recall is the act of officially summoning someone or something back to its place of origin. A product recall is defined as a request to return, exchange, or replace a product after a manufacturer or consumer watch group discovers defects that could hinder performance, harm consumers, or produce legal issues for the producers. and A product recall is a request from a manufacturer to return a product after the discovery of safety issues or product defects that might endanger the consumer or put the maker or seller at risk of legal action. Product recalls are one of a number of corrective actions that can be taken for products that are deemed to be unsafe. It specifically says "request to return." It's very important because the word "recall" to me is rather about the cost to the business and consumer rather than severity of an issue or it being specifically safety issue. Recall could be something that is done as a response to a safety issue, but recall could be done for some other reasons as well. E.g. the product could not just be performing as well, but not be a safety issue. There's a defect that means product lifetime will be limited, etc.
croes 2y ago
The recall doesn’t know how the fix is applied it’s just the fix is mandatory for manufacturer and he to inform the customers

graemep 2y ago

I wonder whether OTA updates being possible encourages manufacturers to be sloppy with software quality. They know they can fix problems cheaply. If they had to physically update vehicles they would have a lot more incentive to make updates unnecessary.

_puk 2y ago
Of course it does. Think about how, even in software, knowing that a physical shipping of a product (CD / Blu-ray) can be updated from "day 1" has led to poor quality releases with last minute patches. The cost of having to physically recall / resend CDs back in the day meant that what went out had to work. The cost of sloppy software has now been externalised.
- imiric 2y ago
  Exactly. Back in the day it was a major milestone for video game projects to "go gold". It meant that the rigorous QA process was passed, and that retail copies were ready to be manufactured. Since that involved significant costs and physical logistics, companies certainly didn't want major bugs shipped at this stage. There were some exceptions, but ultimately this led to much higher customer satisfaction. Removing this "inconvenience" for companies and allowing them to ship updates and fixes at any point is a major reason why most modern game releases are a clusterfuck at day one. They treat it as public betas, and day one customers (or, worse, preorder suckers) are testers and a replacement for a QA process they don't have. It's essentially crowdsourced development. This also allows them to hype the game up to boost initial sales, and then go "oops, sorry" while they finish implementing it. This scam has been pulled numerous times over the past decade+, yet these companies keep doing it because it's profitable and there's no legal accountability for it. The fact these practices are now seeping into software on which human lives depend is criminal, and should be prosecuted and strictly regulated.
  - thrw42A8N 2y ago
    I get it's wrong in cars. But who the hell cares about games? So your game updates after a month with a fix. So what? It's not like you pay for the update.

bilekas 2y ago

> You can't just sell early access cars and fix issues as customers experience them. But then how will you know what you HAVE to fix. /s To be frank I find the whole Tesla cult to be mind blowing. Seems to be the realization of believing in something that seems so good to be true alwith a company who promises to do so many great things, delivers non road worthy vehicles and people still dedicate their time and money defending them. Is it sunk cost fallocy? Or just people who just wish Tesla was what they promised they would be?

rightbyte 2y ago
If you remember how some kids in school argued over which gaming consoles were best or whichever Transformer would win over another. I think it is the same concept 'fanboyism' among those Tesla apologists. Of which sunk cost were a huge thing. Your parents bought you only one...

jart 2y ago

It's not just Tesla. All the online services you depend on are run this way, and none of it's regulated. Governments don't know how to regulate software companies like Tesla. They know how to regulate people constructing homes, cooking food, and building bridges but most attempts at regulating software development have petered out. This is a good thing. Thanks to Tesla's modern approach to car manufacturing it is now possible for anyone in the middle class to purchase a self-driving bulletproof truck that's faster than a Lamborghini. You can't make this stuff up. I swear.

krige 2y ago
I need to ask - is this a joke? No, Tesla is not particularly bulletproof compared to other cars. Its doors may stop a 9mm sure enough, but the windows won't manage even that, and anything above 9mm will go through the doors as well. And 9mm is not even that common among criminal shooters, they usually go for bigger calibers / higher penetration naturally already. And which Lamborghini specifically?
- fnord123 2y ago
  > And which Lamborghini specifically? It's faster than a Lamboghini Spire.
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    But not as robust off-road.
aiono 2y ago
Most of the online services I use can't kill me if they have a bug.
b112 2y ago
It's a pretty simple fix. In the old days, governments had departments which would inspect cars, verify they complied with legislation, and even examine build quality. Quite easy, when everything was basically physical. Now the ECU and modules are a black box, unknowable to such entities. Things can be caught (see VW scamming fuel/emissions tests), but it's by luck. So solution? We pass laws that all code, every bit of it, all chip schematics too, all firmwares are open source. Note I said open source, which in the old days just meant "readable". We're not talking GPL, all copyright would remain. On top of that, all build scripts and methods to flash modules / etc would be provided to governement test environments. Now we can test. Now, we can look for crappy code, hacky junk, fake emission cheats, bugs and more. Don't like it? You don't sell cars. Tough. The entire supply chain would be required to fall inline. It's really not that hard. In terms of security, that's what signing updates is for. And (for example) you can already take hobby tools, such as forscan (for fords) amd flash updates to modules. As long as it is signed.

soco 2y ago

This is a point which comes up regularly when discussing right to privacy laws (hello EU). Startup culture wants to move fast and break things - including my bones in this case - while evil regulations only come in the way of progress.

robertlagrant 2y ago
> Startup culture wants to move fast and break things - including my bones in this case - while evil regulations only come in the way of progress. All car companies comply with thousands of regulations, and it's fine. If you have a simple view of the world, I don't think inverting it and claiming the people you think are the baddies hold that inverted view is going to get anyone closer to understanding anything.

bastloing 2y ago

All of my Tesla updates have been production updates. All software has bugs, and Tesla is one of the most innovative and responsible software companies. Compare that to Microsoft, for example. Or Oracle. Lots of their software runs medical systems that are mission critical. How about the latest Palo Alto networks vulnerability? Lots of critical infrastructure behind their firewalls. All in all, I'd say Tesla is among the top on software and hardware engineering, and I'd hire any of their engineers in a heartbeat.

avar 2y ago

> There are reasons why strict car safety regulations exist. They exist? Then why isn't Tesla getting fined in amounts that make this practice unprofitable?

imiric 2y ago
Because car industry regulations haven't caught up with cars being software on wheels yet. Most regulations in general haven't caught up with software eating the world and the "move fast and break things" mentality. This is not just an arguably bad mentality, but when human lives are at stake, it's a very dangerous one as well. Besides, companies the size and influence of Tesla can lobby their way out of regulations. With Musk now becoming more politically involved, it's doubtful we'll see any of this change in the next 4 years at least.

stackghost 2y ago

I agree, and this is why I do not own a Tesla. Unfortunately my kids can still get killed by one.