Tesla recalling almost 700,000 vehicles due to tire pressure monitoring system issue
Tesla recalling almost 700,000 vehicles due to tire pressure monitoring system issue

Tesla recalling almost 700,000 vehicles due to tire pressure monitoring system issue

I know it has to be called a recall, but they really should find another name for these things now that OTA SW updates for issues are a thing, not only for Tesla but also other manufacturers.
Nah I like the term recall. Just because the fix is "easy" doesn't mean the product wasn't broken. Automakers should take the software in their cars seriously especially the ones that market their cars like a cell phone.
Broken software shouldn’t be accepted as much as it is. Especially in safety critical systems like cars, especially when they remove manual controls for things like steering, brakes, hand brakes and door handles. Fly/drive by wire is more dangerous when the software is unreliable. Mechanical linkages fail immediately or take a long time. Bad software fails in uncertain and potentially chaotic ways.
I just think it's useful to have different words for things that can be easily fixed without having to go get the car to a mechanic and having no immediate safety impact, and things that may require you to take the vehicle to a mechanic ASAP because there is immediate serious danger. They should not be in the same category, and people should be aware that they require different levels of attention and urgency. When it's all just referred to as a "recall", people will start to not take them seriously when they more often than not are minor things like this.
But recall meaning you call the products back, so they can be fixed, or not? This seems not the case here, just a safety relevant bugfix..
As a software engineer, I would think to call this a patch or a hotfix. I agree that recall for this type of situation is a bit too dramatic, but I'd also say that patch or hotfix are too casual sounding
Seems to me just specifying that it's a software recall would be a good balance.
Yes absolutely. The term recall is supposed to be when they literally recall the cars, like bring them back in, in the same context as you recall your dog after he runs around the yard.
No cars are being brought back in. No dealers are involved here. It's just a bug fix for the next software release.
I also don't like how the ability to fix bugs is creating a huge number of 'recalls'. For example, last year Tesla had a 'recall' because NHTSA decided the warning icons on the dashboard screen weren't big enough. Like the icons for parking brake and seat belt. Which is frustrating because the car is operated for years with the original icons and nobody had a complaint.
But if this was an old style car, where those were individual LEDs silkscreened in an instrument cluster, that would never be a recall because it would cost millions to replace every single instrument cluster on every single car. But because it is remotely fixable, it becomes a recall.
They sold a bad product that needs fixed, bad software shouldn’t get an exception. The warning icons were probably not compliant and should never have left the factory.
They applied that font/icon change in Canada as well, and then Canada made them undo the change that NHSTA demanded. Double recall lol.
You would absolutely take your vehicle in for service for a safety recall if the OTA didn't work. Which happens frequently enough that it still warrants being called a recall and the necessary steps once the vehicles are "recalled" in order to notify customers who might not otherwise set themselves up to get an OTA. It's not as simple as the car "just does it overnight" in every case.
Guys, rail against the things that are true. There are enough of them that we don't need to exaggerate or make up new ones.
Regardless of what you think of Tesla, "recall" here doesn't mean what people expect it to mean.
The fix is simple correct informative headlining from media "Tesla issues over the air update to resolve X thing related safety recall affecting X amount of customer vehicles"
It's not NHTSA's fault media does their job badly.