Electric Vehicles

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/52623372

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/52646883

Three things are no secret: 1) Elon Musk benefits more than any other individual from Tesla’s success, 2) Elon Musk has gotten extremely involved in political matters (emphasis on “extremely”), and 3) many people won’t buy Tesla products because of those first two facts.

New research from JW Surety Bonds finds that 1 out of 4 Americans “avoid Tesla’s technology due to their opinions on Elon Musk.” That’s a full quarter of the US public that won’t consider great electric vehicles, including the best selling vehicle in the world, because of Musk’s highly abnormal involvement in US politics.

Before we get to more of the research, it should also be noted that Musk has been getting more and more involved, including in highly abnormal and extremely right-wing ways, in European politics — in the UK, Italy, Germany, and other major auto markets. Without a doubt, this is starting to impact consumer behavior in Europe as well.

I can’t think of anything else as significant in consumer product sales. Yes, there are some other highly politically engaged business people, but they aren’t so directly involved or tied to significant mass-market products. (I’m not counting the MyPillow guy, for example.) There are founders and CEOs of major corporations who are known political actors, but not so openly and loudly that they draw widely significant scrutiny or tarnish the brand they represent.

So, the recall is more than the rear camera, there was a software/hardware combo problem that could cause the HW4 computer to short, which took out major functionality on the car without the computer.

The backup camera is part of what is lost, and is a mandatory safety feature, so the recall is technically because of that, even though it's much more than that.

What I find interesting is that this appears to be the 2nd recall where software has physically broken hardware which is a more uncommon type of recall. Lots of hardware problems that can be fixed with software, but not a lot of software problems breaking hardware.

The other one was on earlier Model 3's they were logging too much data, and they actually went through the lifespan of the memory in the vehicle. Once the memory was dead the vehicle had problems. The fix was to log less. They eventually had to address that, but it took a long time to properly acknowledge.

Tesla said a reverse current may occur while powering up the vehicle, which could cause a short circuit on the car's computer board and result in the rear-view camera becoming inoperative, the automaker said.

The automaker said the issue was the result of a sequence of specific software and hardware configurations, coupled with colder temperatures.

Tesla said it has already pushed a software update to vehicles that changes the vehicle power up sequence to prevent the shorting failure. Tesla will identify any vehicles with a circuit board issue and replace the car's computer if necessary.

The automaker launched an investigation after seeing an increase in car computer replacements relating to short circuit issues in November.

Tesla said it has 887 warranty claims and 68 field reports related to the recall but said it is not aware of any collisions, injuries or fatalities related to the condition

Tesla said Model 3, Model S and Model X vehicles in production also received a different car computer variant after Dec. 16 to address the issue.

The issue affects 2024-25 Model 3 and Model S vehicles and 2023-25 Model X and Model Y.