Accelerating electric vehicle (EV) adoption with home charging reimbursement | Co-Founder & Head of Marketing at MoveEV | Member of Chief
Once again I am both frustrated and disappointed with the headlining here by apnews.com - THIS IS ANTI-EV FEAR MONGERING. What is happening here is not a "recall." It is a software update being done remotely. An Over the Air (OTA) Firmware update. This process is one of the BEST things about owning a Tesla. But on to the news itself - I think it makes sense for Tesla to pull back functionality that is being mis-used by end users and putting pedestrians in danger. Should they change the name of "auto pilot" to something less all inclusive? Sure. Are they allow to have a "naughty list" and pull functionality from drivers who are not using it safely? More debatable but at first blush seems reasonable. Certainly understandable. Either way - let's not make the public think there is something wrong with these vehicles. The tech evolves. These cars evolve - even after you buy them. It's amazing and exciting and should be celebrated. #evadoption #teslamotors #evs #greenliving #electricvehiclesarethefuture https://lnkd.in/e7ZfV3BR
Kevin Kostiner
10mo
I see this as more classic media attention grabbing than fear mongering. When most people see a headline like that, EV focused or not, they are programmed by this negative news centric society we exist in today, to look. It’s no different than the massively overused BREAKING NEWS that is everywhere. Add to this the fact that auto recalls in the past were huge deals involving hundreds of thousands or millions of vehicles having to be brought into dealers for fixing. In the Tesla world a recall like this is nothing more than an over the air update that takes seconds. Most drivers won’t even know it happened. The NTSB needs to adjust terminology to reflect modern auto tech. Therefore the correct headline should have been: Tesla required to update all vehicles sold in the US with new auto pilot software update. If that was the headline though, all those eyeballs would ignore it due to the non inflammatory tone. Boring headlines don’t attract. Our society needs to change that!
Shoeb Ambawala
10mo
Kate most articles conveniently leave out the OTA update detail. It’s definately frustrating, but it does seem like the fear mongering and misinformation is becoming evident now. As more people transition to EV’s, it’s gets obvious. This just hurts the journalists and IFE industry more at this point
Also, Tesla is only doing this because NHTSA investigated and required the fix. Thus, it is a recall. If Tesla had done this prior to the NHTSA investigation, then it would just be a normal update, but Tesla chose not to take that path and did not act until forced by the government. On the other hand, it is very convenient for the customer and effectively free for Tesla to provide this fix through the OTA update process. Something other manufacturers should adopt rather than requiring an in person visit to a service center.
Kevin Vegas
10mo
When is a recall not a recall?“Manufacturers frequently initiate many of these recalls” If there is an investigation or complaint and a fix is implemented it can be a recall if it’s universal or a service bulletin it is applies to certain vehicles. They manufacturer has 60 days to notify customers and in many cases not all vehicles are addressed. In this case with an OTA no cars are “recalled” to service and 100% of affected vehicles can be repaired instantaneously. No time is wasted and no one harmed with the fixed. And in this case it was a feature of the software that was functioning as designed but changed to create a safer operating environment. Not a Recall in my book. https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/14218-mvsdefectsandrecalls_041619-v2-tag.pdf
David Ricketts
10mo
This is not anti-EV fear mongering, this is a safety recall off a beta-version software system that should have been properly vetted BEFORE its release to the public. Clearly, if an OTA update fixes the issue then the vehicle was capable of having this in place at launch. If it is not resolved then the system should either not have been installed or been limited to specific environments where it capable of operating safely.
Mark Stubbs
10mo
Could call it ‘Distronic Plus’ I guess, as that’s what it essentially is and where it originally came from when Mercedes owned a share in Tesla. Like a lot of the car really, we owe a lot to DAG 🙏
Jose Castañeda
10mo
Respectfully disagree Kate L. Harrison, NHTSA has very clear guidelines on what necessitates a recall and it appears that Telsa has met those. This has nothing (or very little) to do with media or anti-EV. The good news is that OEM's have recalls all the time and consumers also have short memories.
Barry Houldsworth
10mo
It is disappointing though. I generally see apnews.com as a reliable source. This might all be factually correct, but it definitely does not tell the true story and therefore hurts thier brand.
Autopilot is garbage now. It worked far better in 2014-2016 and the constant nags make it absolutely useless. Tesla is falling apart with autopilot and FSD which is essentially the difference between the other ev’s. Sad day and adding more restrictions is just making less people use it.
Technical Director | CEng MIMechE
10moIt's materially different and the headline is correct. A recall is mandated by legal authority The fact that it was done OTA isn't the salient fact here, it's the fact that the recall was imposed by the NHTSA. Tesla win in that they can very quickly meet the terms of the requirement with an OTA update rather than having to inspect every car. This is actually a good news story.