Tesla under fire from Feds after failing to recall almost 160,000 cars
The cult of Electric Jesus - once again in the news for pretending to be a proper carmaker - and failing...
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has taken the view that those absurdly gianormous and distracting central touchscreens on almost 160,000 shitbox Teslas are defective - mainly because they randomly just go blank one day…
Tesla is once again - therefore, seemingly - failing in its due diligence obligations apropos of product safety, after the US Feds took what appear to be the first steps towards a very public flogging - metaphorically - after Tesla sidestepped its obligation to perform a safety recall on about 159,000 cars.
That’s a number equivalent to well over a quarter of last year’s total Tesla production. So, well done, dudes.
Yet another example of Genius Elon’s amazingly cutting-edge technology. The defect this time causes the reversing camera not to work and the windscreen defrosters likewise to fail.
Chimes and other alerts that form part of Tesla’s ‘not really an autopilot’ system also fail to work when this happens. Well done there, systems engineering dudes.
I think you’d agree - it’s all somewhat inconvenient if that happens when you’re asleep on the Interstate at 75mph because you put your faith in Electric Hey-Zeus, and (for whatever reason) you actually thought the term ‘AutoPilot’ was loosely related to what those two words actually mean. You pelican.
The Feds have taken the inconvenient (for Tesla) view that this is a safety issue - because they say - using what we in the real world might call ‘facts’ and ‘reasoning’ - that the failure of the screen increases the risk of death and/or carnage - and therefore it is deserving of a recall. Go figure.
Diplomacy failed here, apparently, after Tesla invited the regulator to insert its head into its own digestive tract, following initial advances. (I don’t think that’s exactly what they said; I’m just paraphrasing.) So the Feds are taking steps now, consistent with dragging a two-year-old having a tantrum into a suitably high court to sort this all out like the grown-ups they purport to be.
Which will be entertaining indeed.
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That’s the informed view of a dude named Frank Borris, a former bigwig in NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation, who now runs an independent safety consultancy.
Left: Frank Borris, ex-NHTSA. Right: Yours truly. Obviously.
He’s the dude who’s seen this process before, up close and personal, from the inside, and is now free to speak publicly about it. Because he’s no longer a Fed.
This kind of behaviour, and the problem itself, is why I have to laugh when the faithful tell me how advanced Electric Hey-Zeus has made his planet-saving cars.
(Pro tip for you fan-boy commenters. And I know you want to rip into me in the comments. Like, knock yourself out, dude. But not before commenting.)
On Tesla’s allegedly unique tech: Tesla has no unique battery tech. That concept is absurd. Tesla uses lithium-ion tech, like everyone else. Genie’s out of the bottle there, dudes. There’s been 30 years of research.
Meaning: Electrochemistry is fully understood in the public domain. Lithium is already the most reactive metal in existence. There’s no better option for batteries. Everything else in the battery is an electrochemistry fudge to prevent it from blowing up, from burning, from dying prematurely, or from being too heavy or not grunty enough, or too expensive - aspects of which, Tesla has done fairly badly from time to time. Especially in regards to longevity and catching fire.
The Tesla Supercharger network is not unique tech: it’s a bunch of fairly conventional boxes connected to the grid. Autopilot is not unique tech - it’s roughly as advanced as Daimler’s autonomous driving tech, only Daimler has at least the good sense not to inflict that tech on the public until the bugs are sorted out. Tesla beta-tests its autonomous tech on the public - which is disgraceful. No other company would get away with that.
Over the air updates; not unique tech. It’s exactly the tech Apple and Google do with operating systems on phones and computers - only, like outrageously audacious arseholes, Tesla does not give you the option of declining a so-called ‘upgrade’ - which, let’s not forget, is, in some cases, actually a performance downgrade.
Nor does Tesla give you the option to revert to a previous version of the OS if you don’t like what they just did. Which, to a rational person, would seem as if you don’t actually own the car. Just saying.
Where were we? Ahhh, yes. The non-recall:
That’s part of a long letter from the Feds, who found more than 12,000 Tesla owners complaining about this, affecting 2012-2018 Model S shitboxes, and 2016 to 2018 Model Xs.
The Feds say the defect occurs because the processors driving the fat screens are designed for early obsolescence. Apparently they have a finite number of program-and-erase cycles, after which they simply decline to function any more - a process which takes about five years of ordinary driving. The Feds say this is insufficient for safety-critical features.
I say it’s an arsehole move that seems to serve no purpose other than to sell a shitload of expensive replacement screens to the faithful, a few years down the track.
And apparently I’m not alone.
That’s an informed assessment from Jason Levine, the executive director of the US Centre for Auto Safety - a not for profit organisation. He’s probably not getting a Cult Christmas card this year, either, I’m tipping.
This Fed-type investigation has been going on for about six or seven months. Tesla did try over-the-air Band-Aid repairs to affected shitboxes, several times, which all failed, thanks once again to Rocket Man’s brilliant Tony Stark-style tech.
The stern letter from the Traffic Safety Feds is the first step in a multi-faceted journey, which hopefully ends with the US Department of Justice handing Tesla a lithium flavoured enema, in the public square, and an over-the-air certificate entitled: ‘Should’ve just done a recall, dudes, like a responsible carmaker’.
I doubt this will all make much difference to the faithful, who will doubtless see this as little more than big government getting in the way of the free market and hindering the great man’s important saviour-ing of the planet.
Pro tip, for you, you Tesla fan boy in the comments: Batteries are neither sustainable nor renewable. Let’s not forget that.
That’s all I’ve got for you today, sadly. Just remember: Hey-Zeus’s message is not nearly as compelling without the bad guy, downstairs. We’re all here serving a purpose. This is Tailpipe Satan, down here in the Fat Cave, signing off.
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