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this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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Put your hate for Tesla aside for a moment. If a car company can fix an issue with a simple OTA software update, it’s way more convenient for both the customer and the manufacturer. Quality control of an update is a separate issue but I don’t imagine there’s a difference whether your car updates itself or gets taken in for the update- the same patch gets applied in either case.
It’s not Tesla that I hate. It’s shipping products too quickly.
The inconvenience is the point. I want people to be inconvenienced, myself included. That means people complain to one another. I’ll know which models suck simply by talking to people around me. I do not want quiet stealthy patches for things like an accelerator pedal. Either do it right or pay the price. We used to make cars without hot fixes, we don’t need to start. It will allow auto manufacturers to further cut corners and push for faster releases with less testing, and we pay the price with our lives.
I can't wait to live in a world where my own damn car wont start because someone forgot to renew a cert.
Is that borne out in the data though? It seems modern vehicles are way safer and more reliable compared to older vehicles.
Yes, actually, it is.
Source.
Motor vehicle fatalities had their nadir in 2014, which coincides with the time when we had all major safety innovations sorted out: Advanced air bags, stability and traction control, ABS, RADAR/LIDAR/etc. collision avoidance on fancier models, reverse cameras, mandatory TMPS, etc.
Cars today are basically exactly the same mechanically and insofar as physical safety features existed in 2014. But the line goes back up into the 2020's as idiots started packing cars with touchscreens, everything-by-wire control systems, hiding critical controls into the infotainment screen, removing physical tactile controls, and loading everything with mountains of electronic distractions. Many of these whizz-bang electronic features nobody actually wants are also released in a sorry state. New cars are objectively worse than cars from 10-15 years ago, with the possible exception of EV range.
Calling it a recall or an update won't change that. Enshittification is happening everywhere all the time anyway.
Think of the inverse though- it used to be that in every case when your car had an issue you needed to either take it in yourself or have the technical knowhow to fix it yourself.
I do agree that it’s a slippery slope for automakers to get lazy and cut corners, but I think stricter regulation is the better solution than forcing an unnecessary inconvenience onto the customers.
That knowledge is mostly trivial. 7/10 repairs a regular Joe could do. Or worse comes to worse you can take it to a mechanic of your choosing.
I'll take that level of service.
With the Tesla model, you very like end up with a 100k brick that no one can work on except very expensive very specialized very limited service centers.
A Tesla battery is expensive...now look at install costs. And if you're not using an authorized installer, you're locked out of the supercharger network.
I'm amazed how many people here drive Teslas. I think there's only one Tesla dealership in the entire state. It would take a good 2 hours to get there from here. I guess they're okay with having to pay for a tow all that way if something seriously goes wrong since there's no local mechanic who will be able to fix it.
They are dirt cheap around me, which is why I see so many of them. I saw a 2016 Model S with the Ludacris update go for 13k. I kind of wanted it just to drive one, then I looked up the repair prices.
Sure... I'd get a maybe 200 mile range out of it in the summer...but once winter hit I was looking at like 25k-50k to replace the battery and the motors.
I can swap the motor and transmission in my car for less than 10k and have a mostly new car.
That’s also what I meant when I said “taking it in.” In either case you’re taking your car somewhere to get it repaired for X hours instead of applying an update at your home.
We aren’t talking about batteries.
I just think there’s more nuance to the situation and saying that cars should be as inconvenient as possible to fix isn’t a good solution to lazy auto software that requires future patching. Rigorous safety testing and regulation around car software sounds like a better plan to me- automakers will be held to really high standards and the consumers will still benefit from simple OTA patches to fix their vehicles when necessary.
I guess my position is if a car needs an OTA update, it's a critical failure by the manufacturer. They should be 99.999%.
That's not true anymore. Modern cars have really complex problems that even mechanics struggle to fix. Especially when it's a software problem... usually those problems just never get fixed.
As a software developer (not an automotive one) my take is the fix is to have everyone be running the same software, so that fifty thousand dollars diagnosing and fixing a problem for one car will result in it being fixed for all cars. Spread the cost out like that and it's affordable. Otherwise it just won't get fixed at all.
Should we go back to basic cars? I think so yes... but then I ride a motorcycle that doesn't even have water cooling or a battery. But most people aren't like me. They want lane keeping cruise control/etc.
"When it's a software problem..."
Correct...now we are back to talking about vendor lock in and very specialized techs to install the updates.
I don't want ANY manufacturer to be able to silently fix huge problems. This is not a Tesla issue. But they're the ones currently doing it. Now to bring it back to Tesla... Do you want Elon to be able to cover his ass after a dozen people die to some manufacturing defect... Just for Tesla to silently fix some software thing and never get found out/thrown in jail for negligence?
Absolutely - because Elon is dumb enough to do that.
Um - when people die, it gets investigated and retroactive ass covering is a darwin award waiting to happen.