1) choosing that particular eMMC, likely not something specced for very high write endurance, or not speccing a larger amount of flash to spread the write endurance out over a period of up to 20, 25 years.
2) linux/operating system/software engineering implementation, for a certain volume of MB of writes per day, that would be known to wear out the flash write endurance over a short number of years. possibly a result of the software team not communicating properly with the hardware team. the software team very well may have been operating in a vacuum of assuming that they could do whatever they wanted within the CPU, I/O, RAM, and disk space limits of the architecture, and weren't even thinking at all of the consequences of their logging setup.
3) not making that a socketed/removable part.
4) asking the owners to pay for the replacement due to tesla's own screwup.
Always thought of this as a fascinating race to watch. What will happen first: (1) Tesla figuring out how to really build & manufacture cars or (2) the legacy automotive companies really figuring out build & deploy software?
(It's not that black and white, all automotive companies have varying degrees of expertise in both software engineering and mechanical engineering. But it's certainly interesting to watch the industries learn from each other.)
I can offer a somewhat unusual perspective on Tesla and SpaceX, from the manufacturing POV, because I never did sign their production NDAs, although I have made parts for them.
Producing for Musk companies is a fucking shit show. Specifications change mid-production on a constant basis, to a ridiculously comical extent. I honestly can’t imagine what the hell is wrong with these people that they change hole locations and part geometry for every single order, knowing full well that 1000 of 1000 units have already been produced and boxed and loaded onto pallets.
As an Elon Musk fan, it was rude surprise that their shit is so fucked.
I tried holding off on production until the last possible nanosecond, but no. No good. Changes happened the day orders are due.
The only Musk work I do at this point is emergency corrections for other local outfits who made parts with rapidly evolving and mutating requirements.
I thought that the designers would settle down as Tesla and SpaceX get through production hell, but they seem committed to mass production of no-two-things-ever-the-same.
I drive a Model S and I figure probably most things people make and do are objectively retarded, I just happen to know more than I want about this particular retardation.
Software/design issues requiring hardware recalls are routine in the industry, though. There's really nothing notable about this particular issue at all, except that it involves "consumer-like" devices that posters here understand and feel expert on. We all think that "we'd never have done something this dumb", so therefore it's an easy shot to take where esoterica about engine control PCBs isn't something we have the confidence to second guess.
(Needless to say, we totally would have made the same kind of mistake, and probably do so every day.)
The only meaningful ding on Tesla here is #4 above: clearly this was a design flaw and should have been a recall from the start, not a customer-financed repair.
>There's really nothing notable about this particular issue at all, except that it involves "consumer-like" devices that posters here understand and feel expert on
I think you're off base here; it's the very fact of Tesla using "consumer grade" hardware that is the (notable) problem. The people who "would have made the same mistake" are qualified to pass judgment if they know they are not qualified to develop automotive grade systems.
I don't think that holds. In fact while longer-wear flash devices do exist in the market, the design mistake here would have driven any feasible part to failure. While you can argue that choosing consumer parts was "a" mistake, it wasn't the one that caused this failure, which was a software/integration thing.
I think the biggest mistake here is the drivetrain depending on a device which is known to fail (eMMC) even without the logging problem (why not using a separate device for the logging?) it would eventually fail, other manufacturers have similar problems, (Mazda, Ford, Mercedes) but you just lose the audio system.
> drivetrain depending on a device which is known to fail
Uh... the drive train itself is "known to fail". Everything wears out. Everything breaks. You just aren't surprised when your transmission needs rebuilding or your brakes or shocks need replacement because those are "car things" you've been conditioned are normal. Well, electromigration is just another kind of normal wear and tear to be designed into the device.
And it's the design here that was at fault, having incorrectly planned for the replacement rate. But there's absolutely nothing weird about building cars out of parts that fail over time!
I certainly have shipped dodgy stuff knowingly for lack of time to do better. "This is a prototype, we'll apply the Chinese warranty, if it's broken we'll replace the unit". I would ship non-UV cables to outdoors stuff, because I had no time to select and order a better one, I shipped an outdoor temperature sensor cover that was not open to the air enough and was just tracking the sun. The only red lines were thunder and fire. I don't want to start a fire, and I don't want to conduct the thunder.
But I did that way earlier than Tesla in the process.
Yeah, but it's not a single person or single decision. They went with consumer eMMC, and probably had a justification showing that they'd never need replacement for 30 years of use or whatever. But then someone else overfilled the partition, leaving not enough space for the hardware wear leveling to work in, which over-wears the available space. (No idea what the filesystem choice was, some are more susceptible to this than others). And then a third party decided to ship with the logging settings set to dump all sorts of junk to storage that wasn't needed on a production device.
None of those are particularly boneheaded in isolation. It's just a bug. Bugs just happen.
(But again: design bugs should be recalls and not repairs)
> Chinese warranty, if it's broken we'll replace the unit"
That's the mass production warranty for integrated objects.
Calling it "Chinese" is just weird unless you are calling attention to a claim that only china does mass production anymore.
For cars, we have the "extended warranty" which is just a bet that the car won't fail to much on average.
> Always thought of this as a fascinating race to watch. What will happen first: (1) Tesla figuring out how to really build & manufacture cars or (2) the legacy automotive companies really figuring out build & deploy software?
Yes! And (3) is potentially: A company who's even better at building and deploying software and hardware enters the market.
The Chevy Spark EV was supposedly nearly as cheap after rebates, I think. But I believe it was discontinued, and I assume that means it probably was being produced at a loss, so it doesn't really count.
I believe that is before subsidies and including VAT, so it will be more like € 11 000 after subsidies. The point still stands: there are many other manufacturers with long experience in making cheap cars.
I see a lot of speculation that apple will produce a car.
But apple at the moment just designs hardware, doesn't really make it (as in they don't have their own factories), so presumably they would either need to build factory for their cars or hire some other factory(or factories) to build cars for them ?
As far as I understand most cars sold in USA are build in USA (I am not sure if that's only because of shipping costs or if there are any import taxes or something).
Even if most parts were from China finally assembly would probably have to be done in USA, and factory quite big and expensive, and have lots of trained people (to have apple standards).
Given that its apple that we are talking about car would almost certainly be an instant hit, so they would need to produce a lot of them, which again means big factory with lots of people.
How likely is it that everybody missed such factory ? Especially with press so obsessed with apple. Even if some other company like Toyota were building it for them, they would likely need a lot more additional capacity than they have now ?
And we have seen with Tesla, that scaling out is really the big problem here.
I genuinely interested how likely is it that apple cars will be on streets anytime soon.
There was speculation that they were partnering with Kia/Hyundai to do the manufacturing. This was big news a week ago, but Kia/Hyundai have backpedaled since.
Every established company I've worked for seems to have as many processes that get in the way as those that help.
also - nobody mentioned the amount of data collected. Is it good diagnostics or is it hoarding?
I remember the story of the guy who tried to return his tesla under the lemon law thing because of some weird failure. Tesla diagnosed it and found he would pop the trunk before every failure happened, and they used that to prove he was doing it. After that, I can see an engineering push to log more, not less.
Gm has this covered I believe. I think they have a less totalizijg view of over the air undates than Tesla. Tesla uses it as a marketing tool to attract “tech savvy” consumers. Gm has good tech look at Onstar.
In Model3 you can move front passenger seat forward and up (to clean up in the back) all the way to the point when it pushes on sun visor and cracks the mirror in it. Just by using handles intended to move the seat, no manual pressure or anything, there are no limitation on how far it goes and it's strong enough..
Tesla service centers blame owners for that and charge full replacement cost for the visor :\
One thing people don't understand about cost saving is that it almost always looks good in the short term. You save a lot of money by using commercial grade parts (like eMMC, the dashboard screen, etc.), or by hiring SW and HW engineers who have never worked in the automotive or embedded environment. It's sacrificing quality for quantity and price. But it's usually the customers who pay for it all, one way or another.
From Tesla's perspective the bet might have payed off, by the time this becomes an actual problem for them, they're already over the hump and weathered the worst of times, and can afford to spec them better (one would hope they learned something from this although I have my doubts). In reality probably the real reason this worked for Tesla is Musk's ability to build a fanatical fanbase that can drown out any other voice.
Funny thing is while I was okay with buying Tesla, it was Musk's personality attached to it that really bugged me.. So while there is a (quite loud) fanbase, there is also a group of potential Tesla owners who may go other route just due to desire to not be associated with "meme king"
The idea was that there is a critical mass of people which are vocal enough to help Musk push Tesla's public image past any blunder. No other car manufacturer has this kind of clout.
Could be but the clout I'm talking about is how easily they're let off the hook after repeated blunders. I personally doubt Toyota could get away with Tesla's QA for a few years. Hard to judge in practice though.
Tesla learned from Toyota's playbook! At least they were settling their "unintended acceleration" issue as Tesla were getting started: Deny and minimise systemic faults, recall quietly if ever, and blame it on the user wherever possible. I think they paid billion dollar fine in the US?
I had a 2002 Celica that tried to kill me (gas pedal that got stuck under the floor mat at 90... 95... 100... on the M62) but I loved it too much to hold a grudge.
I had a Honda years ago that had a gas pedal that hinged at the floor. And when the Toyota gas pedal thing was in the news, I was like "ha, they cheaped out" and was glad I had a Honda. Recently, I believe Honda has switched to the pedal hinging from above though.
But I have a hard time taking many complaints seriously. If you have a 600 hp sports car, sure, a stuck gas pedal could kill you before you know what happened. But a 2002 Celica at 90 (mph or kph) - you expect me to believe that the brakes can't overcome the engine, and you can't shift to neutral before it goes into orbit?
What is "the issue"? Back when Toyota was in the news, there were multiple alleged issues.
I commented on the issue of loose floor mats, on an underpowered car, on a high speed road. Even if it is potentially fatal, I don't see what's specific to Toyota.
Toyota has fixed the frame on the Tacoma and pinky promised the new ones won't rust out every year since 1990ish and recalled something every year since 2000ish. People find all sorts of ways to hand-wave it away.
And then there was that decade where they made trucks and SUVs with ball joints that would pop out with levels of wear that would be inconsequential had they designed them conventionally.
I guess the above are engineering examples. Their QA is definitely spot on.
Don't leave out the scale. Toyota sells almost 10 million vehicles per year across some dozens of models. Tacoma makes about 2% of that. Any manufacturer might have a few problematic models in their lineup even if mostly specific model years. But when it's across the board you have a problem. It's not just one factory, one model, one year, one batch. It's not an exception, it's the rule. You can twist and turn it until the situation looks the same between the 2 brands but if we're being honest, it's not.
If anything your readiness to excuse Toyota's faults is proving my point.
They've had 40yr to fix the problem. Still not fixed. We'll have to wait a few years to see if they fixed it this year.
Yes the Tacoma is small compared to their global presence.
The Focus is small compared to Ford's global presence and they still got a ton of crap for that transmission. Nissan gets crap for their CVTs that aren't really that bad anymore. Subaru gets crap about head gasket and transmission issues they mostly cleaned up a decade ago.
My point is that Tesla is at say a 5 and the fanboys pump up their reputation so that they look like a 6. Toyota is at say a 7 and the blind fanboys pump it up to an 8. It's not about who's better. My point is that this blind fanboyism that guards a reputation in the face of mis-steps isn't something unique to Tesla or the cult of Musk.
If anything the common factor is upper middle class allure. Nothing rounds out a driveway in a nice school district like a Model 3 paired with a Toyota pickup or SUV. Though I have no idea whether it's the cause or the effect or maybe a feedback loop.
> If anything your readiness to excuse Toyota's faults is proving my point.
I'm not defending Toyota, I'm only attacking your argument, which I hope is fair game. The problem with it is that it fails to clear the bar for basically any major manufacturer out there. Put Renault or Volkswagen in there and the situation stays the same. Everyone has a few problematic models or years that get some (un)warranted criticism but you really have to question a manufacturer's QA when the problems are across the board, as evidenced by Tesla using low grade parts across the board. That's one thing what sets Tesla apart from the competition: they cut costs and corners anywhere they can to ship more units, because that's what drives share prices up.
And you'll never see Renault's CEO claim that their cars will cure cancer starting next year and a cult following of people hyping and believing it, or vitriolically pouncing on any unsuspecting commenter or article criticizing Renault. That's the second thing that sets Tesla apart from their competition: they can afford to consistently ship compromised products because their image can absorb anything.
On any of the rash of EV sites that popped up over the past few years just linking to an NHTSA or IIHS report contradicting the article's premise could get you an instant ban. So the articles stay there with the misleading claims because that's what comes up in an internet search.
I think it's kind of like the "risk homeostasis" thing people talk about. If you have really good engineers, then you don't just let them design the greatest vehicle possible, you ask them to cut costs from that design. And because they're really good, they can make things work that others couldn't, and so they get pushed harder, until something goes wrong on a large scale, because there were tradeoffs that couldn't be eliminated.
The blind trust in apples ability to build a car is not well reasoned as it appears.
If the story from Apple was true, I.e., they actually designed almost all parts of the phone, and give out instructions to implement, then they'll need to be able to design a car as if they were build them, to match iPhone's legendary quality.
Can apple do that? With enough time, sure. But can they catch up Tesla in a meaningful time frame, say 5 years? I doubt it.
The other factor to consider is Tesla is always on the ropes, so they will do whatever to survive. I wouldn’t be surprised if the eMMC was selected based on what oem would give them credit.
It’s a shady company that skirts or ignores the law, that has to live in the edge to survive.
I've owned a Model S since before the Model 3 arrived and have always fretted that the level of service I received wasn't sustainable at scale.
They AGGRESSIVELY attacked any problems and replaced parts, even when that's not what I asked for.
It's kinda nuts. Just the things I can remember:
- All 4 door handles were replaced with newer versions
- I complained about a corner of stitching on the driver's seat and got an entirely new driver's seat
- Glovebox cover replaced (to address latch)
- Steering wheel controls replaced
- Driver display unit replaced entirely
- Sunroof replaced
Granted, that's A LOT of parts to address, but their attitude was we'll do anything to make it right. Never once pushed back or questioned. Usually told me that they wanted to replace the part (rather than fix) because Tesla had engineered an improved version. And, to their credit, the new parts they put in seemed to have meaningful improvements and have worked really well.
As a 2013 Model S owner and now a 2018 and 2021 Model 3 owner (Tesla only family), I agree 100%. I assumed there were a few reasons for the Model S service I received:
1. Small scale
2. Desire to keep early adopters happy
3. 2x the cost of the Model 3
However, my Model 3 service has been really poor.
In my new 2021 the charge port bolt was loose and wouldn't charge. Known issue that took several days and many phone calls to get fixed while traveling. Eventually a service manager got involved and the fix took 5 minutes.
Then they installed Homelink and forgot to plug the front sensors back in. Full self-driving was unavailable for 3 weeks until they returned to plug in the sensors.
Also ordered snow tires from Tesla and the TPMS sensors don't work in my car (2021 uses BLE sensors). They're ordering new sensors and I will need to take my wheels to a tire store to have them installed.
It's been less than 2 months since I took delivery.
Love the car, love the company, an enthusiastic shareholder, but service needs to be fixed.
Of course if they made a Tesla with fewer issues and better service, I'd buy it. My 2018 Model 3 has had almost no issues. No other car company is making anything close so I'll put up with the service for now.
I considered a Ford plug-in hybrid and read on the internet how people had fires start because of a flaw with the charging cord, which was probably due to an extremely small cost-cutting choice.
Actually it wasn't too expensive - something like half of that (I don't remember exact number, but mid-100s).
It was more of a feeling that I shouldn't be paying for it at all that displeased me :( (and reddit is full of stories when it happened with others (with the same service centers' experience))
One more thing that has no solution now but I'm sure Tesla will not fix it at all or will charge a lot for it:
White interior and black seatbelts. Despite Musks's promises how durable white interior is, seatbelts they use are dyed with I don't know what and they mar the seats. It's permanently baked in and cannot be removed.. Tesla responded long time ago that they are looking for solution, but whatever they will change will definitely not apply to any existing (screwed-up) white interior owners.
This is exactly my experience with the jeep my family had. However, there's a big caveat: the jeep engine itself was perfect. Over the 15 or so years we had it, that engine was solid. Everything else in the jeep failed at some point or another, and had nothing to do with driving. I have a few examples off the top of my head: The heated seats died after a few months. The insides of the car doors became detached because the glue wasn't strong enough. One by one the dashboard knobs all split apart at one point or another. We were a normal family, there were no crazy kids or pets in it that went nuts on the inside. Our jeep just kind of disintegrated around us, and none of the problems had to do with actually driving the jeep. So yes, we didn't even need to drive it for it to fall apart.
My Jeep Wrangler does not have any physical interference issues regarding seats breaking mirrors and the only issue I have had is the rear main seal started leaking and they happily replaced under warranty at 4 years and 6 months no questions asked.
> 4) asking the owners to pay for the replacement due to tesla's own screwup.
I had an email from Tesla yesterday about this recall and as far as I can see I will not be expected to pay anything. It even says that if someone had the part replaced at their own cost that they might be able to get a refund. I live in Norway and have a 2015 S 70D.
The email says:
"Tesla har besluttet å frivillig og proaktivt tilbakekalle enkelte Model S og Model X som er bygget før mars 2018 og som er utstyrt med et 8 GB innebygd MultiMediaCard (eMMC) i MCU som kan oppleve en funksjonsfeil på grunn av akkumulert slitasje. ... Hvis du allerede har betalt for reparasjoner som er tilknyttet til denne tilbakekallingen, kan du være kvalifisert for en refusjon."
Google Translate does a good job on it:
"Tesla has decided to voluntarily and proactively recall some Model S and Model X that were built before March 2018 and that are equipped with an 8 GB built-in MultiMediaCard (eMMC) in the MCU that may experience a malfunction due to accumulated wear. ... If you have already paid for repairs associated with this recall, you may be eligible for a refund."
Hackaday's 'article' seems to be conflating what Tesla wanted to happen (and what they actually did before) with what is happening now.
Or is Tesla in the US expecting owners to pay now as well as before?
I mean, on your first point, it's an automotive grade part. I think any eMMC put under these conditions (75% full and the other 25% written heavily to with log files) is going to have a relatively short life expectancy.
What baffles me is that who is reading these logs? Can't they just turn then off (pipe to /dev/null) and then have cars that need troubleshooting put into a debug mode at some point?
I think even stock Ubuntu it's not that hard (famous last words) to disable/redirect logs to /dev/null. It would take a competent engineer probably 1 day to configure it, even if they need to read Stack Overflow. They either didn't have the time, or they didn't even know it would be a problem.
> (75% full and the other 25% written heavily to with log files)
Does an eMMC even know how full it is? If it were designed for write once it could certainly track that, but I doubt they are designed for such little usage. After having every block written once they would need TRIM to know what is in use, but to my knowledge eMMCs don't support that. (Not an expert in the area, just a random software developer.)
So what, automotive developers never make silly bugs?
Case in point: Audi Concert/Chorus radios used in early 2000s. Turning volume knob worked like that: after every knob turn save updated value to EEPROM, then immediately read EEPROM and send that value to audio chip.
Inevitably, after many years EEPROM cells storing volume died, causing that turning volume knob just set volume to totally random value. It was impossible to repair, as EEPROM wasn't separate chip but was integrated in MCU. And you couldn't easily replace MCU because it contained mask ROM code. The hack that was sometimes done was: add custom microcontroller, connect it to the knob, splice I²C wires to audio chip, and patching volume set command on the fly...
The sad truth is you might be right. At a former company we had wear leveling in the firmware of IoT devices that would cost under 20$/piece so the fact that a car lacks such a basic feature, is shocking and tells me all I need to know about the development practices at Tesla.
As a firmware engineer with automotive background, having now seen how the "sausage" is made there makes me stay away from them for the safety of my own life.
I know the rest of he car manufacturers aren't as innovative or as desirable but at least some I worked for have their firmware development quality processes down to a religion, and, as boring as that may be, it's the kind of mentality you want from something you put your family into every day.
It did have wear leveling. They were just writing such an ungodly amount to it (more than the 8GB capacity) per day it defeated the purpose of wear leveling.
> choosing that particular eMMC, likely not something specced for very high write endurance, or not speccing a larger amount of flash to spread the write endurance out over a period of up to 20, 25 years.
The problem is that there isn't any wear leveling happening at all, so if you have an event that happens at every boot up and is logged, it wears the same block every time.
> not making that a socketed/removable part.
It's a very integrated module, I don't think socketed ICs have been a thing in automtive for a long time.
edit: I'm wrong, daughter post has a nice run down
If you're curious the very long forum thread is a lovely read.[1] You can see the chip levels itself, because just soldering in a bigger chip with the same code on it makes a big difference to many customers.
> The problem is that there isn't any wear leveling happening at all, so if you have an event that happens at every boot up and is logged, it wears the same block every time.
This isn't true. Very nearly all eMMC devices have hardware wear leveling. They aren't like MTD (raw flash) devices or very cheap USB/SD where you have to rely on a block remapping layer or special filesystem because there is no hardware wear leveling. But like any flash device, when they are completely full there are fewer free blocks for the wear leveling to operate. Tesla also may have had them grossly misconfigured, but I haven't seen any evidence that it was anything other than good-old-fashioned log churn on a very full filesystem. I also understand Google kind of had them over a barrel with policies related to the caching of map data and aerial imagery too: since they could not retain this for very long, caches were constantly invalidated and the same data was being redownloaded over and over. At this point, I don't even think they cache map imagery to storage anymore.
Regardless of the technical details, it's clear that Tesla gave little consideration to this problem during design and did even further damage by wasting their small remaining space by filling it up with Elon's glorious vision of fart sounds, fireplace videos, and games -- Which are great fun, not gonna lie, but in hindsight a terrible decision that greatly exacerbated this problem.
I'm not a professional embedded systems person by any stretch, but I was watching out for this problem even in my hobby projects back in the 90's which used early flash memory products like DiskOnChip modules. To this day, I still buy SSD's that are a minimum of twice as large as I think I will need for every application? For things like all-flash SAN I double it yet again. Anyone who would like to understand why can look at my fat stacks of dead Intel SSDs that all died basically because they filled up. My point is that this sort of thing is really well known and there must have been hundreds of times people within Tesla had questioned this internally.
I didn't mean literally socketed, but in 2012 things like msata interface cards (a predecessor of m.2) absolutely were a thing. Or implemented soldered on a custom small pcb to edge pin interface not very different in size and slot from a laptop sodimm.
I have a Model 3 that is less than 2 years old. The build quality is terrible.
The side of my Model 3 trim on the inside just fell off for no goddamn reason. I don't even know how to fix it, it looks like the glue wasn't applied properly? This is on top of countless other problems that I've faced over the last 2 years.
It's impossible that Tesla is 3X the market cap of Toyota Why they didn't stop buying of Tesla the same way they stopped GME is criminal.
And they keep failing external quality tests and no one seems to care:
Frankly people give Tesla a pass for things that would be unacceptable from any other automaker. The reality is that I don't see Tesla coming anywhere close to the build quality of established high end brands anytime soon.
You compare eg; a Mercedes or Porsche interior with a comparably priced Model S and it's no contest.
A) Traditional automakers becoming good at making great EVs
or
B) Tesla matching the quality standards of traditional automakers.
The traditional automakers are quickly learning how to make great EVs. Tesla may get away with substandard quality for now, but they won't get away with it a decade from now when ever automaker is producing decent EVs. I hope Tesla improves fast.
Cars are becoming like phones so the model that dominates phones might be the best for cars. Tesla probably knows tbis but putting engineering excellence first can sometimes compress margins.
I posted this the other day. I think most people agree the Germans make better interiors. But nobody can deny Tesla has a superior charging network, and for the vast majority of people their battery technology is superior (longer ranger, but more prone to overheating from aggressive driving).
I think Tesla is just riding the underdog wave extremely well - they're new, they're different, they're trendy, and they're eco-friendly. And honestly, if you're not a car person, their cars are fun and different (if you are an enthusiast you will likely have very mixed opinions of Tesla). Combine that with a CEO that can bend the laws of reality while he talks, promises for full self-driving which will absolutely never ever materialize, the fact that the competition is really quite slow to show up...and you get a ridiculous stock price.
I don't think Tesla is going away, but I think in 10 years they're going to be just another car company, especially if they shift their focus towards energy which is where the real money is for them.
Tesla reminds me of Saturn, a car company that rode a wave of an enthusiastic buyers until people started to notice their quality declining after significant cost-cutting.
Unlike Saturn, GM isn't meddling in Tesla's management, but it seems like similar mistakes are being made.
How are Teslas eco-friendly? I had to get a lower panel near the bottom of the door replaced, and they literally had to take apart the entire car. Literally my backseats and front seat were taken out just to get to this piece.
Teslas are about as eco friendly to repair as iPhones, which is not friendly at all.
> Going for a long range makes their cars unnecessarily heavy. That makes them require more power and increases tire and road wear.
To be honest I don't think they are unnecessarily heavy for evs. Base model 3 is a bit over 1600 kg, while a base audi a4 weighs a bit over 1500 kg. Performance model 3 weighs about 1850 kg while and an audi rs4 weighs 1790 kg. Meanwhile the polestar 2, an ev comparable to a mid spec model 3, weighs almost 2200 kg.
Their energy efficiency numbers are similarly good and almost across the board better than competition evs.
Edit: I might just add that the weight argument has a bit more strength re the model s and x. Even if they're comparable to other evs, they are a decent bit heavier than comparable ICE cars. I think that's a result of the older platform -- I suspect a lot of work must have gone into model 3 to reduce weight.
I have a recollection that people used to say similar things about Ferrari, especially among people who were not Ferrari fans or were former Ferrari fans. Hand built, often in need of some rework.
I wonder if there's any way to tell if the build quality is going up with their increased volume, down, or remaining even.
For what it's worth, my Model 3 from December 2018 with 35K miles on it has only had one issue (with squeaking upper control arms) and they replaced it under warranty, coordinated through the mobile app. I haven't had any other issues that would indicate build quality is terrible.
Same here - I have a 2018 model 3 and its gone in once to get a warning for the seat belt fixed. Its got 45k miles and had no other issues. Best car I've owned.
The best car I ever owned is my current car, a 16 year old Audi that had many prior owners and has nearly 300.000km on the teller. Its never given me trouble and anything you run into you can fix yourself with volkswagen parts. The build quality comes into play sooner than later.
Ah that's good to hear. I have heard some model years of Audi were notorious for reliability, maybe coinciding with the dips in VWAG quality in general, but they are one of the few makers of station wagons selling them in the US anymore and I might seriously consider an A4 or A6 wagon...
I think maybe a lot of their bad rep came from the all road "Air suspension" era...although the simple fix was to install regular shocks/springs.
Agree, Mine is a Model 3 from May 2018 with 22k. I've only had a couple of small issues, (Infotainment computer would fail to wake back up often and a bad switch on break pedal meant to register a foot but no press) both fixed with no issues. Judging by the serial number on my included diecast mine was close to one of the first 12k produced.
I just recently got a Chevy Bolt. 240 mile range for 1/2 of the cheapest Model 3 (used, paid in cash). It has the typical GM fit-and-finish, nowhere near what I'd demand out of a car with an MSRP at ~$43k with the trim level I have. GM took so many shortcuts with materials and design choices in what I assume was an attempt to not take a loss on each Bolt sold. Aside from a pretty nice big infotainment screen, it lacks the features, fit, and finish that I'd demand from a $20k car. I still love it, very peppy electric motor, drives well, plenty of space for a baby seat and passengers, decent cargo room.
It's still a bargain GM car at luxury prices, you'd be nuts to pay full MSRP for this vehicle. I got a great deal on a used one; tons of great deals were to be had on cars coming off of the first batch of 3-year leases until the battery recall put a stop-sale on everything at GM dealerships.
I know they don't stack up good against other brands comparing MSRP to MSRP, but I have to wonder how bad Tesla's "initial quality" really compares against all of the electric options out now.
I think the Bolt is one of the better car choices we've made in a while. But we didn't buy it, we leased one last year. $6K for 3 years at 18K miles/year, residual is in the mid-20s, which is what I could have bought one for brand new with all the discounts they had running. For the first 5K miles it's been really great, better than I expected, really. If it's still this good in a few years, maybe I'll buy it when the lease ends. But only if I can pay something close to the auction value and not the stated residual value :)
Right now with the cold, the car is telling me ~150 miles. But this is during below-freezing temperatures in the midwest, and I've only had it for a few weeks. My commute is ~3.5 miles, around town trips of no more than 10 miles round-trip, and I don't typically precondition before my drives.
From what I've read, the 240 mile estimate is pretty accurate - some more spirited driving will obviously have you fall short of that number, and some users have reported getting more than 240 miles.
I have a 2020 Bolt, and a 2019 Model 3 Performance. In my experience the Bolt's range prediction is dead on. The Tesla overestimates by a lot. So much, in fact, that I just switched the range display to battery percentage.
That test is 60% city. On the highway at 75 mph, the Bolt would likely drop to 200 or a little below. The Model Y LR AWD does ~240 under similar conditions.
Yep - Augusta to Atlanta (Lithonia Supercharger) is also brutal going 75mph and up 400ft in elevation, and there's no supercharger in between the two cities. A 3 SR+ RWD will average maybe 150 miles of range along that route.
Yeah, that'd be cutting it pretty close. I'd be tempted to bring a CHAdeMO in case it looked risky mid-route. I bet there's at least one CHAdeMO along the route.
There was also a fatal flaw. They did not perform the testing under the same conditions. They tested the Teslas with temps being 10F (~60F) colder and using the cabin heat.
While other being tested under ~70+F with no heater used. Any EV owner knows that will significantly affect range. I guess they don't really care about being an authoritative source.
Its not just Edmunds who are reporting lower range than expected. Also autocar (of UK) reports lower Tesla range.
> In our tests, the Model 3 Performance achieved 239 miles of real-world driving.
> Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus, 181 miles
> (The Model S) is now available in a choice of different battery capacities, with the current entry-level 75kWh model managing 204 miles of real-world range
--------
All tests have their flaws. But real-world testing by 3rd parties is far more reliable than the government-mandated tests.
Its like they say: any official benchmark will be cheated, gamed, etc. etc. You really only figure out who can beat the test, as opposed to figuring out reality. A series of trusted 3rd party tests (by magazines and smaller communities) is small and unique enough that no major automaker can really "gamify" the tests, leading to more realistic results in the aggregate.
Your Autocar link did not even give any data on their testing methodology. It's even more vague than Edmunds. What were the conditions? These things matter to an informed consumer who value objectivity. I hope you're not implying that one should just blindly trust that article.
Speaking of 3rd party tests. A realtime one conducted on the same day, like this one has more merit.
> Car and Driver only got 200 highway miles on their Model 3
That's only highway miles... EPA, WLTP and NEDC efficiency tests are highway and city driving. They are standardized to control as much variables as possible. Which is fundamentally essential to anyone who understands the scientific method.
> Percentage of claimed range achieved: 78% for the Tesla Model 3
Same with the other cars on the lineup. The only one that was a clear winner was the Hyundai Kona, at the expense of lackluster performance and driving dynamics.
Actually 76%~ and below. So mid, not low-end. The Volkswagen e-Up and Renault Zoe were not tested on the same day. So temps will vary. Standardized testing is very important. Which is why it's the methodology used by government agencies. It's not perfect, but it's the most scientific.
It's interesting how some are lambasting the EPA but would cite 3rd party tests that don't even try to minimize the effects of variables. Therefore completely skewing the reliability of the results.
They are completely non-controlled with non-standardized conditions. With Edmunds being the biggest offender. Even at one point charged the Taycan to 100%, but the Model Y to only 90% on a "range" test. How can someone defend that?
The Chevy bolt is a much better car than a Tesla don’t start propagandizing against it here. Mine has never required any service of any kind and there are absolutely zero fit and finish issues. It is nit a luxury car but there is a lot of virtue in just being and excellent car without luxury
> It's impossible that Tesla is 3X the market cap of Toyota Why they didn't stop buying of Tesla the same way they stopped GME is criminal.
...what?
- GME trading wasn't halted. some high profile platforms like robinhood went literally insolvent and had to put a stop to some volatile stock trades and borrow billions in cash to stay legal. other well-capitalized platforms never restricted GME.
- related to above, GME wasn't halted on some platforms because of some market-cap vs actual value mismatch. this is not a thing.
- as for the market cap, well... prevailing wisdom is we're in some kind of bubble. something bad will happen eventually.
>It's impossible that Tesla is 3X the market cap of Toyota Why they didn't stop buying of Tesla the same way they stopped GME is criminal.
GME wasn't stopped because it was too overpriced. A few brokerages stopped accepting new GME positions because they couldn't afford the deposit requirements. That's it. If you went with another broker (eg. fidelity), you could buy all the GME you want.
Shareholders only care about increasing the volume of cars rolling off the assembly line.
Tesla was on my short list of next car purchases... but now that the old guard are getting fully into the game it's very unlikely (unless Tesla is able to pull a Jaguar like quality rebound or they actually deliver on "full" self driving).
I don't have a Tesla, but I had upholstery on the backs of the rear seats (the part that becomes the floor of the hatchback when you fold them down) all off on my Ford C-Max. It looks like an adhesive failure there.
Not making excuses for the big T, just saying that there's a lot places for things to work out poorly in automotive.
> I had upholstery on the backs of the rear seats (the part that
> becomes the floor of the hatchback when you fold them down) all
> off on my Ford C-Max. It looks like an adhesive failure there.
I'm not wealthy, but, got enough to be happy... I really wanted to treat myself to a Tesla and went to the local shop a while ago and I went out thinking - I'm not buying this.
The glovebox required such force to close.
I put my arm on the armrest and the rear drinks holder opened
The centre console was VERY loose.
and so many other problems.
Compare this to a family member's ~£13k Hyundai i10 where the gear selector was SOLID, I just didn't feel like the Tesla (Model S) was good value for money in the slightest.
I don't think anyone can touch them technically (yet), but, they have A LOT to learn about building cars.
I kind of wonder - how much of the valuation is actually in cars/car sales vs. the charger/battery infrastructure and expertise that they are building?
I mean, they got your money... and people are still falling all over themselves to give Tesla their money... their stock price has gone extremely high... so I guess I wonder how much of a problem this really is for them. Doesn't seem to affect their brand, even if one thinks it should.
"Now they are claiming that the eMMC chip, ball-grid soldered to the motherboard, inaccessible without disassembling the dash, and not specifically mentioned in the owner’s manual, should be considered a “wear item”, and thus should not be subject to such scrutiny."
I didn't expect other from a company that is immediately blaming the victim when their self-driving car once again drives somebody into a stationary object or lane divider instead of showing compassion first and launching an investigation later.
As a parent/child the first thing that comes from Tesla is a blog post and public statement on how your loved one allegedly was too stupid to use the car while Tesla goes into technical telemetry to grant themselves absolution.
...Also, while we are not-forgetting... TSLA CEO defended trump calling the country to reopen in the middle of the pandemic, just like other CEOs that sell pillows or something. Funny how we only keep one of them accountable.
I mean, we should have opened up back then. All the curves in all the regions around the globe have basically the exact same shape regardless of restrictions in place. They all peaked right around the same time, and are all falling dramatically at the same time. Sure the numbers might be slightly different, but they are all in the same ballpark per capita. Those with heavy handed restrictions didn’t score 10x or 100x better.. they only did marginally better or often even worse!
It’s almost as if you cannot stop a respiratory virus using extremely barbaric non pharmaceutical interventions.
very few countries had effective social isolation, most like the US were having both the economic and health negative side effects of closing and not closing because leadership was disagreeing on everything. For example, some cities had curfews and closed restaurants, but open airports and counted every business that was not a restaurant as "essential".
But the few countries that did things correctly, like NZ, did have a much better outcome with close to ZERO deaths.
Tesla at no point anywhere advertises they have a full self driving car ready to go. FSD optioned onto the car when you purchase is for "future delivery."
You can buy a car with a full self driving package but they don’t imply they sell full self driving. That’s some mental gymnastics, even if they say it’s for future delivery. After all cars have a limited life span, what good is the package if it isn’t delivered within the life of the car?
Yup. Per Tesla it's unfair to consider eMMC something that should last the lifetime of the car, and entirely fair to sell you FSD that may never work in the lifetime in the car, may never be regulatorily approved, or both.
> The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.
It's in the fine print but it's brought up every time you talk about Autopilot and enabling it in the car (it's disabled by default) requires you accept a disclaimer saying that you need to be paying attention at all times.
I understand that they provide a disclaimer, I’m saying they shouldn’t sell it as FSD until they can guarantee FSD will exist within the life of the vehicle.
It seems highly unlikely that Tesla is close to fully autonomous driving. The “Paint it Black” demo was over 4 years ago and we haven’t seen anything better since then. We were supposed to get an autonomous road trip from LA to NY by 2017. The videos that have come out of the FSD beta release make it clear that you couldn’t leave the car without intervention for 30 minutes without a major crash occurring.
Tesla doesn’t even have any autonomous miles to log in California, unlike dozens of other companies including GM and Waymo.
They have gotten better about it, but for a long time they absolutely advertised FSD as mostly complete, and capable of actual unsupervised self-driving. Even after people started pointing out how much of an overt lie the marketing material was, it took a year or so for them to walk it back to something that at least seems to match what you are actually going to get.
Tesla lost the right to call their drive assistance "Autopilot" in Germany because Tesla couldn't stop implying that their cars were already very close to FSD and more capable than they actually are.
Tesla's response is of course self serving. It should be expected from their legal department as a cost control measure. You cannot expect corporations to act benevolently or morally, hence the need for legislation (right to repair, warranty periods set by statute as is done in the EU) and regulation (NHTSA forced Tesla's hand to issue a recall, which they were strongly attempting to avoid).
This disagreement happens often, and I think that's partly because there are two meanings of 'expect': to regard something as likely, or to regard it as the rightful or obligatory standard of behaviour.
If you expect (in the first sense) benevolent corporate behaviour, in the absence of incentives that align benevolence with self-interest, you're generally being naive. But if you expect (in the second sense) benevolent corporate behaviour, and act accordingly, you may be helping to create that alignment -- because corporations and the people who control them usually care about their public image (certainly when it directly affects consumer behaviour), and legislators are usually at least somewhat responsive to public pressure.
So having the first kind of expectation leads to unhelpful complacency; but lacking the second kind of expectation leads to unhelpful cynicism, cashing out as acquiescence to the status quo.
You can't change the people owning or running a corporation, but you can change the rules they operate under.
In this case, though, I don't think the rules should be changed. I'm fairly certain that Tesla is not the first automaker to have come up with this kind of money-saving idea. This has to be well-trodden ground in consumer rights.
In this case, people should vote with their wallets, and the occasional class-action lawsuit, or, if things get too far out of line, expect the same kind of regulator intervention that would happen against any other car company. If regulators would not intervene against any other automaker trying this sort of thing, then I don't think they should intervene against Tesla.
I expect both. We have regulations because oftentimes corporations need a little inspiration to stay honest. And I expect a good corporation to stand behind their product, and not overtly attack their customers at every opportunity. Tesla's culture strongly reflects Elon's personal ethics, and it shows.
why shouldn't they cover their butts when people will look to extort? I'd much prefer a situation where companies take responsibility and customers show grace and courtesy, but that's not the world I live in...
Tesla will actively throw you under the bus to defend themselves.
"His vehicle had warned him about having hands on the steering wheel" (... fourteen minutes prior to the accident).
Leave aside the fact that if you have an accident in your Tesla you will need to go to court to subpoena telemetry data. But they'll happily publish your telemetry data without your (explicit, I know, I know, TOS) agreement if they think they're being painted in a bad light.
And if you disclose information about the vehicle, they'll happily force push neutered/old firmware to your vehicle to hide or prevent such activities, lock you from future upgrades, and disable ethernet and OBD ports in your vehicle.
Or a Douglas Adamsesque approach to right-to-repair, where there's a website with parts you can "order" (except everything down to the most commodity bolt says "Call Tesla" and they will tell you its unavailable to order via the website), that's if you know what parts you need, a process which required making an appointment with Tesla to look at the service manual, several months out, which required a fee, had a time limit, and put you in a room where you were not allowed a computer, phone or camera, just a notepad and pencil), all the while touting their "corporate commitment to transparency" as they pulled out of NHTSB testing.
I wasn't speaking specifically to this situation. The previous comment was about knee jerk legal reactions, which is what I was referring. On that note, flash memory isn't a durable good though.
Can you provide a citation to another automobile with an infotainment system that is only spec'd to last 6 years (due to flash wear)? The one in our 14 year old Toyota SUV is still working without issue.
nope. But I can cite expectations for vehicles' parts that should last longer, but don't. It only takes a viewing of Consumer Reports to see that.
Note that many electronics are designed to last 10 years (i.e. electromigration). Obviously, use cases matter (24 hour use, high temp or lots of heat cycles).
As an owner there are times when you just shake your head at some of their decisions. I like my TM3, I won the quality raffle and have no issues, but I do worry when Tesla takes a stance about a part like they did here.
Plus combined with the fact Musk was forced to acknowledge that Tesla did not offer anything for FSD on trade ins and "will look into it" makes me wonder just how much they expect customers to put up with.
Still it beats out my previous Ford and even my Infiniti in both reliability and oddly interior quality. Paint wise the Infiniti was far better and paint on my Ford was far worse. Both my Ford and Infiniti also had more than one real recall and a few visits to fix stupid things.
Tesla: “People keep buying our cars, must not be an issue”
Fan People: “Tesla is the future”
Silent Majority: “Yeah, I’m just gonna keep waiting for a normal car maker to release an electric car”
Nissan, a normal car maker, released a huge number of Leafs with improperly implemented battery cooling and battery charge/storage voltage management systems, which resulted in terrible cycle life and drops in range capacity in the 1st and 2nd generation Leafs.
They warranted those, though, right? Meanwhile, I'm still driving our first-gen Leaf here in the mild weather of the Pacific Northwest (granted, ten years later that battery isn't at its best anymore). EMMC doesn't care about what the weather is like in your neighborhood.
Yeah, you're right. Which only makes it worse. My original point was that those in Anchorage suffer just like those in Phoenix. But perhaps those in Phoenix have comfy, air-conditioned batteries but persistent storage that fries in the heat.
Toyota every year since 1980: "Don't worry guys the new truck frames won't rust out, also sorry last year's truck frames rusted out it was out supplier's fault"
People on the internet: "Warlords in Africa like the Hilux, the only truck they have a supply chain for, therefore every Toyota truck and SUV must be great"
80% of Toyotas ever made are still on the road[0]. I know plenty of people who drive Toyotas older than they are. I have high doubts most Teslas won't be bricked by poor software within the decade.
80% of Toyotas ever made are still on the road[0].
...the rest made it home. But in seriousness, that's exactly what I've been thinking in general, and especially reading this article: Teslas aren't going to age well. I hope I'm wrong, because I don't wish mechanical failure on anyone's car, but even Toyotas get a little loose with one or two hundred thousand miles. What's going to happen to those one-off production line mods to get the car out the door ten years from now? Now we're seeing eMMC failures for which Tesla is trying to charge the customer (seems those that can afford a Model S could easily afford a lawyer, too; but I digress). I don't have a smoking gun to point to, but much like code smell these just don't smell like devices that you'll pass on to your kid when she gets her license ten years down the road.
It takes something beyond hubris to trust a dealer's claim on an issue like that.
The OEMs are always creating crafted studies to underlying claims like that for their advertising campaigns. Dodge was running a similiar claim in their ads awhile back.
I've often wondered if 80% of everything isn't still on the road. Depending on one's source, 70% of Harley-Davidson motorcycles are still on the road. Not only does Harley go back over 100 years, they made some real shit over the years (hello, 70s AMC Harleys). But if 70% of those are still running, I have no problem believing 80% of just about any make of vehicle are still going.
The silly thing about all this is eMMC is a wear part.
Tesla made a really serious mistake and didn't take that into account and now the user is "holding it wrong". That needs to be in a place where the user or a technician can service it easily.
They were just trying to save a penny or a second of engineering time and now pretending they knew all along.
It is. But its wear is almost exclusively for Tesla's benefit, not the customers. That's what's galling to me. Capturing extensive logging data so Tesla can do product improvement is NOT something I should be hammered hundreds of dollars for service on because it impacts the ability of me to use my vehicle.
They should eat the cost on these cars, and re-engineer the part to be easily replaced on future vehicles so that it actually is a user-serviceable replaceable part.
I always think this type of bad first step is a "test the waters" move.
If no one complains, sweet. If someone complains backpedal with one of those "We hear you! And while we haven't done anything wrong, we will do right by the customer just like we have always done" PR stunts.
Most everyone forgets, and the people that do remember, well they remember you "making things right." Exploding batteries on your s21? Anyone?
The semi-annual Toyota frame recall is a great example. They start small and then begrudgingly widen it to some larger range of years and maybe add in the 4Runners if it looks like people are switching brands.
I have seen this repeated in this thread several times - had to look it up, turns out it's BS. There has been one frame recall - in 2008, for cars made between 1994 and 2004 - including the Tacoma and the 4Runners and Toyota extended the warranty for rust perforation and bought back the damaged trucks. [0] In 2012 there has been a recall for Tacomas in a smaller set - produced between 2001 and 2004 - for rusting tire carrier.
The last recall for rust in Toyotas includes cars made up to 2010 [1]. So - if by "semi-annual" - you mean nothing in the last ten years, then you are correct, else it's BS.
Tesla isn't blaming the user or pretending it knew all along, it's trying to avoid a mandatory recall. The letter here [0] is a response to a letter from the National Highway Transport Safety Administration, which has the power to force a mandatory recall of all affected Tesla vehicles. Tesla argues that a mandatory recall is unnecessary because the eMMC wearout is not a safety concern and is not the type of defect that should trigger a mandatory recall. Part of that argument is that eMMC is an expected wear item, that even without the over-the-air firmware updates already deployed the eMMC is expected to last 5-6 years, and that a failing eMMC does not cause dangerous conditions. Tesla has also promised to voluntarily recall and replace any affected hardware for free. Tesla argues that what it is doing makes a mandatory recall unnecessary.
What percentage of writes are coming from the consumer's normal use of the vehicle and what percentage comes from Tesla's telemetry collection?
It amazes me that people are OK with paying $60k+ only to be constantly tracked everywhere they go by a process that destroys the product they purchased. I don't even like being tracked in a free web browser.
It's unfortunate that they went in that direction as opposed to something like a tire tax. Just have the regular smog tests also include a tire wear check to catch the folks trying to run their tires bald.
It's definitely possible that this happens, but I doubt that a lot of people would go out of their way to have that kind of setup. If you have the tools, the willingness to change tires, and the space to hold on to 4 spare ones, I feel like you're probably also not the type to run tires bald and risk an accident just for ~$450 a year.
(amount is from the rough average annual mileage of 13,500mi/year, assuming 30mpg, and the 82c/gallon tax).
Sounds like you'd pay for the tires (which then last forever, since you aren't driving on them) in just one year. Maybe two if you drive a truck. Lots of people have wrenches and spare garage space. And plenty more are already dumb enough to drive on bald tires. Let's not make this worse.
Incentivizing the failure to replace wear items is bad policy.
Tires have a born on date stamped on them and they also crack and wear with age even if they're not used unless you seal them up. I think you're overestimating how many people would be willing to do the swap and consciously ride on bald tires, but I can concede that I might be wrong on this. CA could run their own investigation if they so choose to.
> Incentivizing the failure to replace wear items is bad policy.
I see it as the least bad option out of the ones that we can field. Every kind of taxation policy will have pros and cons, and IMO the tire tax is potentially the one with the least amount of friction to implement and enforce.
Fair, but there are other existing avenues for enforcement. CHP can already write fix-it tickets for bald tires if they wanted to. We could also require shops to report it as part of a vehicle's history if someone brings a vehicle in with and it doesn't have enough tread depth.
That's been proposed in Oregon too from time to time. The usual explanation is that EVs don't pay gas tax and they need location data rather than just odometer readings so they can tax people only for the miles driven in-state.
I'd rather they just charged a higher registration fee or something. Maybe pay for road maintenance out of the general fund? (Tire taxes as suggested by a sibling comment is an interesting option.) For the moment it seems like it's mostly a non-issue, until we start having EVs be a much larger proportion of vehicles on the road.
I've wondered if maybe the tracking device is a sort of straw-man proposal so they can propose something less Orwellian and have it be accepted because it's better than the alternative. But on the other hand, the people proposing it may just not care about the privacy implications.
edit to add: per-mile road taxes are also regressive. Paying per mile makes a certain amount of sense, but it's a burden that falls disproportionately on the poor and middle class (unless the policy explicitly has different rates depending on income). That's a good reason to just pay for road maintenance out of the general fund. I'm okay with keeping gas taxes because they reflect some of the environmental cost of burning fossil fuels and they're comically low anyways.
Because the people slogging out commutes from places they can actually afford don't have it bad enough?
What is the logic behind this? I get that "cars bad" but do they seriously believe they're so bad that tradesmen who lives way out there so they can afford homes should pay more? They're already paying with their time.
The logic behind it is that someone should pay for road construction and wear and tear, and it should probably be heavy road users, as opposed to, you know, light road users.
The beauty of the free market is that increases in cost of shipping and transportation trickle down to prices paid by consumers, who can then vote with their wallet. If the cost of road usage is factored into the price of a good, I can choose to buy a good that results in less road usage, because it's cheaper.
Gas taxes (as opposed to mileage taxes) are decent enough driver of environmental policy, but they don't accurately capture road usage, especially in a world that's moving towards electric cars.
>The logic behind it is that someone should pay for road construction and wear and tear, and it should probably be heavy road users, as opposed to, you know, light road users.
But it still seems wildly incompatible with the "equity over equality" theme that most other new and upcoming CA government policy is based off of. Especially so considering that road wear is mostly from heavy trucks.
>Gas taxes (as opposed to mileage taxes) are decent enough driver of environmental policy, but they don't accurately capture road usage, especially in a world that's moving towards electric cars.
But the people who are moving to electric cars are already the ones who will benefit most from a mileage based tax since they tend to be wealthier and already have shorter commutes. It's not like CA is going to stop taxing gas.
Road wear is mostly from heavy trucks, but road construction isn't driven by heavy trucks. It's driven by the needs of normal people driving sedans and SUVs and pickups.
Wealthier people buy more goods and services, which get delivered to their local store/home on roads. While they personally won't pay more mileage taxes, they will end up paying more of them through their purchases.
I get it, this isn't the most progressive form of taxation, but neither are gas taxes (if they don't come with a dividend, like they do in BC.) If anything, poor people pay disproportionately more in gas taxes, than they would in road use taxes, because they tend to drive longer distances in less fuel efficient vehicles. That's a double-whammy.
Because governments collect road tax from gasoline as an approximate usage fee. As EVs become a measurable part of traffic, they require a replacement.
Great another tax for the poor who already have to commute 2+ hours for a wage that mostly goes to the landlord. Brought to you by The Most Progressive State™.
This would replace, not be in addition to, the gas tax.
Cheaper, less fuel efficient vehicles (like an old work truck) would effectively taxed less than a Prius, although I think weight per axle is also intended to factor into this.
Look, most people are probably smacking that "Accept all cookies" button on websites faster than the speed of light, so let's be real that the average consumer doesn't really understand how a Tesla really works.
I don't know how this ever went into production. At least someone should have known that writing logs files to eMMC is a disaster. Anyone who has worked with any flash for a bit knows about this issue.
How many other items like that made it into the car and how many of those are a safety risk?
It's at least plausible that there was some good engineering analysis up front to decide whether the flash endurance was good enough for what they were doing and it was, and then some time later after the hardware designs were in production the software was changed by some other engineer who wasn't aware of the earlier analysis or the fundamental limitations of the hardware.
Abstraction is one of those things that makes software development tolerable; we can (usually) treat anything Turing complete as "just another computer". But once in awhile that isn't true, and you have to deal with low-level details.
In retrospect we can say this ought to have been a foreseeable problem, but people are fallible and make mistakes. If not this, then something else. What I find more worrying about Telsa is their level of secrecy around car repair information in general, and their occasional reluctance to own their mistakes and fix them for free.
Tesla strikes me solidly as a "software company" that happens to make cars. And having worked in software for software companies, and in software for car companies, I would definitely never get a car made by a software company.
This is certainly not a "wear item" but incompetence.
I had on two separate occasions designed an embedded POS application that worked on a dumb flash (dumb == no wear leveling).
There is nothing special about it. You just need to control where your writes go. You don't resize files (because this updates inodes and directories). You don't create files for stupid things like locks. If you have a database, you create a file and treat is as circular buffer or append only log. If you need OTA, you can split the memory in two and have boot loader boot alternately. And so on.
With wear leveling this is much, much simpler. You run the OS for some time and you capture all your writes at low level to see how much many blocks are being updated. Then you can predict how long the memory is going to last and you just size it accordingly.
The vehicle Should still be able
To operate without this at some level.
I once hit a curb and the whole computer unit fell out of the socket in my 96 ford. There were flames and smoke coming out of the exhaust but it still started up and I was able to drive it to the shop.
I didn’t know any better at the time but there are quite a few cases where a car defaulting to not working isn’t the ideal choice even if the car is further damaged.
Ie places you don’t want to be stranded. Extreme cold or extreme heat. Incoming extreme weather. Bad neighborhoods. Highways, bridges, or around bends where you’re at risk of being hit if you stop.
Why would he worry about concrete things, like customer service, when he can add three billion dollars to his on-paper wealth by sending two tweets about bitcoin?
Responding to this sort of thing would mean acknowledging that TSLA's future is defined by something rooted in reality, as opposed to purely sentiment. As long as it doesn't actually have to stop and deal with these kinds of problems, its valuation is like that of dot-com startup - unbounded.
Secondly, all the Edgecore top o' rack switches we have are backed by eMMC and will all eventually go read-only. This is an especially fun surprise while working remotely.
Shit's junk and should never store anything that gets written to regularly (i.e. a log file).
I've had a couple eMMC go bad on single board computers. I initially only noticed the off-by-1 read errors when the radio data that was being recorded by the computers (8kB/s for 2+ years) as comma separated values started sometimes getting commas turned into the next character up in ascii which broke my visualization python script.
It's definitely something you learn the first time you use eMMC (or any low end storage tech).
what volume of writes per day, in MB, should you be expecting on a top of rack switch, though?
does it have some logging features you can't turn off? using as an example a cisco nexus 3064 I have sitting around here, all of the logging is done to an off-system destination over the network.
I can think of very few legitimate or sound network engineering practices that would require 1U, mostly layer-2 feature set switches to be writing anything more than a few dozen KB per day to their internal storage.
I can't say that I'm surprised to hear of something failing in a new and unique way in an edgecore switch, since the company (Accton) has also released a real dumpster fire of a series of outdoor radios in their Ignitenet brand, which have a spectacular failure rate.
Tesla will get away with terrible manufacturing practices and quality until the established or new car makers come up with an equally viable electric car and charging network solution, not just the compliance cars they produce at negative margins(almost makes you think it's a reverse marketing thing to make people buy petrol cars).
Also, how can anyone think Tesla or Elon are good people with those self serving contracts and terms and conditions is unexplainable to me.
> Also, how can anyone think Tesla or Elon are good people with those self serving contracts and terms and conditions is unexplainable to me.
Replace Tesla and Elon with any company and their CEO. Every single company that collects data needs a TOS to be able to manage their service without legal trouble.
When you use Ford's SYNC 3 you agree to these terms:
I'm a big believer in "everything is a wear item on a long enough timeline". You won't catch me hurring and durring and getting my panties in a bunch because somsone's gonna wear out the ball joints on their lifted truck in 80k instead of 100k. But spending 50k to have the display on your Tesla or the frame on your Toyota crap out in under a decade is unreasonable.
They replace just enough of them on a rolling basis to keep their brand reputation where they want it. 4Runner owners tend to get more shafted (shorter if any recall) than Tacoma owners.
If they wanted to fix the problem they've had 30-something years to just copy what a different OEM is doing. But why would they fix it if they're still selling trucks and SUVs hand over fist?
Stories like this regarding almost all of automotive manufacturing history makes me wonder if the only reason Tesla is being highlighted on all these issues is just because they have significantly more publicity.
For well over 12 months, the Model S Owners Manual (p. 40) and the Model X owners Manual recite, "When you finish speaking the command, tap the voice button again or simply wait."
Neither of my Teslas operate in the manner described in the manual since late 2019. If Tesla's manual writers can't communicate with the software developers -- is there anything in the manual you can trust? Can we always count on Tesla to arbitrarily loose functionality without anyone telling their manual authors?
I wound up paying ~$1600 to replace the entire MCU1 in my 2015 S last year. I’m waiting for the refund of that amount in March and will likely just apply the proceeds to upgrade to MCU2. No way I want an ancient Tegra3 computer that isn’t made anymore in my car.
> "This leads to widespread failures in the car, typically putting it into limp mode and disabling many features controlled via the touchscreen."
eMMC failure does not put the car in "limp mode". It does disable the touchscreen, making things like the air conditioning controls and backup camera unavailable (in older software versions).
"Limp mode" is when you have severe power restrictions due to very low battery charge, or some other major powertrain fault in an EV. Sometimes called "turtle mode" because a turtle icon will appear on the instrument cluster.
Elon's latest appearance on Joe Rogan was really interesting - and he specifically says that the manufacture and production is the hardest part - and that they are still learning.
They are building the CyberTruck factory in Austin TX next to the Airport.
He also says that the X is the best model - however, the S is his personal car and his favorite.
But in automotive terms a 'wear item' is something that a reasonable person could expect to replace or maintain, and is accessible through normal tools in a repair shop that works on multiple makes of vehicles. Such as tires, brake pads, brake rotors, belts, hoses.
Where it currently is assembled into the vehicle requires either:
1) much longer expected service life, make it a non issue
, or
2) greater ease of replacement, and or more graceful, utilitarian failure mode performance.
1) Is tolerable, and still shitty,
2) is, or could be, reasonable, and an annoyance tops.
As things are now, the whole affair is a big dodge. I would be very unhappy.
Fail fast, and all that rapid innovation culture has implications the mature auto manufacturers know well. I have friends with these cars and they are having a lot of fun. When the fun started, I talked about real costs and risks yet to play out.
Well, now they are.
Some of those people can afford the adventure. Ok fine, they got what they paid for. And they have options.
Many secondary adopters may feel the pinch of these things far more. Sad day for them. Hope Tesla recognizes who they are selling to now and ups their game.
I am a fan. The cars are fun, but there is no way I would own one personally. Maybe someday.
Transportation to me needs to be cheap ass dollars per mile and either highly reliable, or easy for me to fix and maintain.
I'm interested in seeing how this plays out. I've seen such a volume of smartphones die in give or take five-year-old waves from "sudden death syndrome" EMMC failure. Right now the Note 4/S7 series are really peaking. New industry standard for planned obsolescence, or just a few bad caps?
I don't think it is fair to consider this unit to have been designed by a "major car company" as, at the time the design decision was made, Tesla was still a startup.
That said, the response is fairly puzzling.
It seems to me to be quite reasonable to consider the EMMC a wear item if they have determined that they don't want to make it survive the expected lifetime of the car. However, if they are going to make that call, then they absolutely should be replacing these boards with ones where the EMMC component is on a field replaceable module that a dealer can swap out and a "hours of operation" metric for swapping it out.
I used to joke that GM would put specific wear items in their vehicles, not because they couldn't design something that lasted, but instead so they could sell you the $500 GM specific tool you had to use to replace it periodically. A way of keeping "amateurs" from fixing the cars and pushing service calls to the dealers. That is what a "major car company" does in situations like this :-)
On the plus side, many people didn't think Tesla would make it this far to have vehicles that had been on the road long enough to wear out. So there is that.
> at the time the design decision was made, Tesla was still a startup.
If you're going to sell a product, the Model S, at the same price range as a BMW M5, 7-series, or the equivalent Mercedes S class, it had better be a premium quality product. Start-up or no.
Wow, I guess I touched a nerve :-) Have you ridden in an early model S? Tried to repair a Roadster? I am a big fan of Tesla and impressed at what they pulled off, but I don't forget that when they started they cut all the corners.
It is common, perhaps even expected, in startups when an engineer says, "Well this won't last more than 5 or 6 years" to be told by upper management, "Well if we're still around in 5 or 6 years, we'll do something about it."
Given that Tesla is not a startup these days, and is on the other side of that chasm, I was surprised that their response here was "oh we'll replace the board with another board with the same issue."
Perhaps there is not a good understanding about the differences in the legal ramifications of a vehicle failing and resulting in property damage or loss of life from the failure of something considered a 'wear' item versus something that is not classified as a wear item.
I am not a lawyer, one of my friends who does consumer product safety litigation and is a Tesla owner, immediately responded to this news that this was just Tesla trying to avoid criminal liability when a failing EMMC chip kills someone. Sure, they see everything in terms of liability :-)
> Perhaps there is not a good understanding about the differences in the legal ramifications of a vehicle failing and resulting in property damage or loss of life from the failure of something considered a 'wear' item versus something that is not classified as a wear item.
This was my first thought as well. It feels like they were trying to avoid some implication beyond mere replacement of storage modules. Perhaps they are aware of some other component that will also fail at a high rate before the useful life of the vehicle?
That seems logical, but expensive niche cars tend to be worse in many ways than the mass market equivalents. BMW’s more expensive cars for example are simply less reliable. At the extreme Bugatti Chiron skips a lot of modern car tech.
It’s always a trade off. New tech may mean better acceleration or whatnot, but you don’t have 30+ years of reliability data to work from to refine things. The early years of automatic transmissions for example are words apart from what’s available today.
> but you don’t have 30+ years of reliability data to work from to refine things
... Hold on, are you suggesting that when this car came out, under a decade ago, no-one knew about Flash wear? If anything, people would have been more conscious of it then than now.
the sort of persons who can be entrusted with designing a totally bespoke motherboard like that, and it is totally a custom job, absolutely should be aware of flash wear out.
totally free from bugs is a much higher and impossible standard to meet than the bare basics of "don't solder a SSD onto a motherboard that you know will wear out in a few years".
It's more fundamental, to continue the software analogy, it's more "how did they possibly miss that" error like shipping a device that's supposed to have mariadb listening only on localhost, but it actually listens with no authentication on all live network interfaces.
You’re picking a single mistake as somehow unusual. It’s easy for the original spec to have been fine, some change happens that nobody considers in that context and boom you get an issue. Depending on usage pattern a SSD can be expected to last a 20 years, but changing the usage pattern by say storing more data isn’t going to raise a red flag saying you now have an issue.
Someone turned on excessive Linux logging and boom an issue shows up early on some a Tesla Models. Chances are it wasn’t even intended to enter production that way.
Steel has been in mass production for well over 100 years and people still make the same mistakes today with new mechanical systems. Flaws often seem obvious after the fact, but that’s when your looking at actual failures. If it never occurs to you that something could fail, well good luck.
An embedded engineer which is unaware of flash wear is incompetent. It's the number one failure mode of flash and more often than not drives the design decisions around it.
If the metal structure holding the instrument cluster and infotainment unit fell apart after 6 years and the manufacturer charged the customer to fix it?
This got me wondering. Is there much storage space in other vehicles with intelligent driving systems like my Forester for its Eyesight system? Does it have a black box with Linux or something? Or is it going to be some hardened RTOS that does all the optical work in memory with no history?
not being well versed in the embedded/industrial field, I wonder if there is any group of automotive specific engineers/suppliers looking at how electronics are made for these things. I assume there is expertise over the decades electronics esp infotainment systems being a "thing" in cars, not to mention aerospace, etc.
I do recall the Nav/infotainment unit on a 1st gen prius going out, and the problem was traced to the solder between some daughterboard deteriorating after ~4-5 years. Replacement units were hard to come by and expensive on the secondhand/junkyard market...
Yes, automotive manufacturing is a tiered system with the OEMs (Tesla, GM, Toyota, Volkswagen etc) at Tier 0.
Tier 1 suppliers deliver high level, ready to install components like radios, seats, electronic control modules, etc
Tier 2 suppliers deliver subcomponents like boards
Tier 3 deliver chips etc
OEMs generally come up with a list of component requirements like temp ranges and wearability/durability. The supplier community then bids based on that spec. Of course once one OEM asks for something, it becomes to other OEMs after a period of time; so there are a LOT of common components and subcomponents.
Engineering for those specs and testing and proving that you conform to those specs both costs a lot of money and is worth a lot to OEMs who have to provide warranties to their customers.
Edit: The supplier contract also makes the supplier responsible for warrantee on that component; the OEM bears final responsibility, but they will try to make the supplier pay for component failures when they can. (This is not precisely correct, I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer)
Disclaimer/source: I work for GM, not on vehicle engineering. Everything in this comment is solely my own opinion
Does anyone know what % of Tesla parts come from Tier 1 suppliers? It appears that Tesla has the most vertical integration among all OEMs, leading to problems like this due to lack of experience or engineering depth.
I don't have a percent, but it is believed to be very low.
It cuts both ways though. Tesla does have the potential to improve in house processes quicker than going through suppliers, especially since they have access to extremely cheap capital.
> reasonable average daily use of 1.4 cycles, the expected life would be 5-6 years. NHTSA has not presented any evidence to suggest that this expected life is outside industry norms or that the eMMC flash memory device itself does not comport with that average lifetime estimate.
Instead, NHTSA has asserted that the component should last at least the useful life of the vehicle, essentially double its expected lifespan. Tesla has significant concerns with the impact tentative conclusion.
Despite popular belief, corporations are in fact not faceless entities.
Let's place the blame and embarrassment squarely where it belongs:
Elon Musk thinks 6 years is the useful life of these Tesla vehicles.
I kind of want to unpack this statement a bit more. The number of cycles of a flash chip is the number of times each bit is erased/written to. If you're wear-levelling the device this means that each time you write the capacity of the device to the chip that's one cycle. The affected flash chip is 8GB. This means that Tesla thinks it's reasonable for their software to write just over 11GB of data a day to this device. What the hell are they writing? The endurance of their flash chip may be industry standard but their use of it certainly is not.
To be clear - the component controls the entire media console which has climate controls, the backup camera, defrost settings, all the media, etc. etc. etc. You can't replace the component without disassembling a huge portion of the interior of the car. So either "the component should not need to last the full vehicle life cycle" and people are expected to drive their $100k Teslas without the giant center console working, or it's not actually a "wear" component and they should be responsible for fixing it.
How is it any different than a tire? You pay to get a tire replaced when it’s worn out, and it is therefore considered a wear item. eMMC is the same, just on a longer timeline (and honestly, shouldn’t be expensive to replace. It really shouldn’t be more than $50, and if it is, the car should be able to use some kind of external storage for writing all the telemetry to that’s separate from the computer needed for the car to work)
Tyres are the only part of the vehicle intended to contact another surface, the road, while the vehicle is in use.
Any idiot can see, and has a reasonable expectation, that tyres will need replacing at regular interval.
It's less obvious to the average driver that, say, the cabin air filter will need replacing from time to time. A mechanic or vehicle enthusiast should be expected to know this and replace it.
It's a whole lot less obvious your car's "computer memory" will wear out.
They're not even in the same ball park.
The average driver probably doesn't know about flash memory wear-levelling, and shouldn't have to.
sounds like something that inexpensive they could add redundant ones to the board to exceed the expected lifetime of the vehicle, plus to have a backup failover since it causes some serious issues. Or just have a location where they can be swapped out like on a camera.
1) choosing that particular eMMC, likely not something specced for very high write endurance, or not speccing a larger amount of flash to spread the write endurance out over a period of up to 20, 25 years.
2) linux/operating system/software engineering implementation, for a certain volume of MB of writes per day, that would be known to wear out the flash write endurance over a short number of years. possibly a result of the software team not communicating properly with the hardware team. the software team very well may have been operating in a vacuum of assuming that they could do whatever they wanted within the CPU, I/O, RAM, and disk space limits of the architecture, and weren't even thinking at all of the consequences of their logging setup.
3) not making that a socketed/removable part.
4) asking the owners to pay for the replacement due to tesla's own screwup.