[HN Gopher] Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Mode...
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Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars
Author : turtlegrids
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-12-30 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739029
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| It doesn't seem like the rear view camera problem is that much of
| a safety issue, thoughts?
|
| The front trunk flying open while driving seems highly
| undesirable though.
| antattack wrote:
| Tesla's have limited rear-view visibility due to aerodynamic
| shape. Not a big problem, but once you get used to backing out
| while looking at HD screen, lack of it is quite a hindrance.
| bfung wrote:
| Yep - that's the first thing I noticed/get used to w/my Tesla
| Y: rear view mirror looking out back windshield is basically
| useless and camera is basically necessary while backing up.
| twblalock wrote:
| The Model Y would be pretty much undrivable without a
| camera. The Model 3 is also pretty bad about rear
| visibility, but the lack of visibility out the back of the
| Model Y is shocking.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Mandatory safety feature not working not a safety issue? How do
| you work that one out?
| dmonitor wrote:
| federal regulation requires backup cameras on new vehicles, so
| that breaking likely to break would be probably be considered a
| decent sized problem
| m-ee wrote:
| Rear view cameras are a required safety feature in the US now.
| As SUVs proliferated and pillars got thicker for crash safety
| cases of parents running over their toddlers increased.
| walrus01 wrote:
| as predicted in the early 1990s
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA
| coryrc wrote:
| karatinversion wrote:
| Those generally aren't the places where the SUVs are being
| reversed.
| ralph84 wrote:
| Those spaces exist but in general people with kids don't
| want to live there.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| You're right, but it can still be fixed after the problem
| happens
| kube-system wrote:
| The rearview camera is a big issue because it is a requirement
| under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yes. It's a safety issue. But there are also at least tens of
| millions of cars on the road without backup cameras.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Lack of rear visibility without a camera is a much more of
| an issue on newer cars; older cars, which make up the bulk
| of those "tens of millions", don't have such a serious
| problem.
| kube-system wrote:
| I'm not (directly) saying it's a safety issue, I'm saying
| it's a compliance issue. It is clear that it needs fixed
| because it's clear that this function is required by law.
| ghaff wrote:
| Of course it needs to be fixed.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I had a hood come open on a car I was driving once. It was
| definitely some scary shit. Luckily, I was on a long, straight
| road, and was able to decelerate in a controlled way and pull
| off the side of the road.
| walrus01 wrote:
| see also: Tesla ranks almost dead last on Consumer Reports
| reliability list
|
| https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-...
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/tesla-model-s-no-longer-reco...
|
| I hope this doesn't come across as excessively smug but I think
| my life, level of stress and personal finances are measurably
| improved by owning something that is closer to a $9000 Toyota
| Corolla and spending money on regular, basic maintenance for it.
| noah_buddy wrote:
| Presuming you can afford a Tesla, the virtues of thriftiness
| and limiting the scope of your consumption will get you much
| further than "FSD".
| tragictrash wrote:
| LanceJones wrote:
| They also ranks first in customer satisfaction survey -- 4
| years running:
|
| https://thedriven.io/2021/11/15/tesla-dominate-top-10-most-s...
| woodruffw wrote:
| Consumers tend to rate higher satisfactions with "luxury"
| goods (i.e., goods at premium prices, regardless of material
| quality or value) than they do with non-luxury goods. It
| occurs to me that that bias affects Tesla's reception as
| well.
| bumby wrote:
| I vaguely remember (or perhaps misremember) Mercedes doing
| a study that consumers respond less favorably to their cars
| when they are pierced below some threshold compared to the
| same cars when prices higher. There's definitely some
| consumer cognitive bias effects around pricing
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Presumably the survey includes other luxury cars.
| tragictrash wrote:
| From that article: "Consumer Reports explained that despite
| "historic reliability concerns", Tesla had an intensely loyal
| following and took the top spot."
|
| Do you happen to be one of those fiercly loyal followers?
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| kube-system wrote:
| This pattern is more of the norm than not for expensive high-
| tech cars. Rich people like nice stuff and are willing to pay
| maintenance and repair bills.
| walrus01 wrote:
| and then later in their life they become impossible to fix
| at a reasonable price.
|
| somebody might sell you a mostly okay running older BMW 7
| series for $4500, fully loaded with all the options but
| take a look at the parts and labor cost to fix something on
| it.... you might as well throw away the whole car.
| ghaff wrote:
| While I've driven them (on a track) and appreciate the
| attraction of the German sports luxury brands, what I've
| always heard is that if you want to keep them past their
| warranty period you need a trusted independent foreign
| car mechanic--and it can still get pricey. Just has never
| been a sufficient priority for me.
| LanceJones wrote:
| Since you're making broad, sweeping generalizations, I can
| play. There are 7 people in my social circle who are Tesla
| owners but not fiercely loyal. They are not rich. And none
| of them have experienced more than minor issues in their
| ownership.
| matsemann wrote:
| If you own a Tesla you're almost by definition rich. If
| everyone in your social circle is driving expensive/new
| cars, you're all rich. Not to go all "check your
| privileges", but seriously..
| bumby wrote:
| The real comparison is whether they would've experienced
| complaints with _any_ similar class of new(ish) car.
| What's left out of TSLA reliability talk is that they are
| often compared to the average car, which is much older,
| has less safety features etc. That's why consumer reports
| compares similar class and year
| kube-system wrote:
| They are "not rich" in only the most privileged of
| perspectives. Even if we limit that perspective to the
| US, which is a pretty wealthy country by most measures:
| the average vehicle on the road in the US was built
| before Tesla even opened their first assembly plant. The
| used car market in the US is 2.8x the size of the new car
| market. Median income buyers struggle to afford new cars
| of any fuel type or brand.
| ericmay wrote:
| I see this all the time but then if you want to buy a new Tesla
| you have to wait a year. And that _is_ due to demand.
|
| The consumer reports reliability thing just seems like a meme
| at this point that doesn't ring true for most people either in
| importance or reality. I can't quite put my finger on why this
| meme is wrong but my intuition says it is.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| > I see this all the time but then if you want to buy a new
| Tesla you have to wait a year. And that is due to demand.
|
| High demand doesn't mean the product is quality. Fyre
| festival sold thousands of tickets, even though it was
| fundamentally fraudulent. Video games are another perfect
| example: fans pre-order AAA titles that studios fail to
| deliver over and over and over again. Demand just means that
| people like the idea of it, not that the product actually
| delivers on its stated promises.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > Video games are another perfect example: fans pre-order
| AAA titles that studios fail to deliver over and over and
| over again
|
| I literally pre-ordered Anthem, and then apparently having
| not learned my lesson, did the same with Cyberpunk 2077.
| Enough said...
| oogali wrote:
| There's nothing to put a finger on and no meme rebuttal
| needed, because both statements can be true.
|
| Tesla can score poorly in 3rd party consumer testing and that
| might be a valuable data point to those who care or value
| their testing.
|
| And a number of people who really want a Tesla can also be
| people who have never heard of Consumer Reports nor value its
| testing.
|
| At current domestic capacity levels, you need 500K people in
| category number two ahead of your order to produce the
| observed lead times.
| bumby wrote:
| > _The consumer reports reliability thing just seems like a
| meme at this point that doesn't ring true for most people
| either in importance or reality._
|
| It's based on, well...consumer reports of reliability issues
| so it seems like it's quite literally based on (perceived)
| reality.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Have bought several Teslas over the last 3 years (S->X->Y).
| Quality improves each time I've bought one. Lots to complain
| about, still wouldn't buy from another manufacturer.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| If there is a lot to complain about, why wouldn't you want
| to buy something else?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Because the alternatives are worse. Bolt EV LG Chem
| battery recall, Taycan is woefully inadequate for the
| price point, Ford dealers are adding $10k-$30k "market
| adjustments" to Mach Es and $5k-$10k for F150 Lightning
| reservations (which is _obnoxious_ ), Teslas have the
| Supercharger network, frequent over the air updates, a
| robust battery warranty, strong resale market, etc.
|
| My Model S frunk recall appointment with a mobile tech
| coming to the home to perform took less than three
| minutes in app to schedule.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Tesla has bumped the price of their vehicles _at least_
| three times this year, in some cases well over $10K in
| total, so it's not all that much different to "market
| adjustments".
|
| Not sure how a $5K refundable deposit is "obnoxious".
| Sure, it's less convenient than the Tesla deposit, but it
| wasn't like that money wasn't earmarked anyway. (And if
| you're in the market for a $50-75K vehicle and the
| difference between a couple of hundred and couple of
| thousand down is a deal breaker for you, you could argue
| affordability).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The manufacturer bumping the price due to demand and
| supply chain issues is one thing, dealers gouging is
| entirely different. Musk was entirely right that dealers
| would be an impediment to EV adoption.
|
| https://jalopnik.com/dealers-say-salespeople-still-arent-
| rea...
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15346108/some-
| dealerships...
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/90294305/car-companies-put-
| in-a-...
|
| Edit: @FireBeyond I don't believe I'll be able to help
| with the confusion
| FireBeyond wrote:
| And yet, somehow, all the other manufacturers are not
| bumping the price at wholesale.
|
| I'm confused.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| That's funny. I'd buy a Taycan but never a Model S.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| And some of us buy cars and keep them for over 10 years.
| Which isn't rare behavior.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I haven't had a single problem with my Tesla so this seems
| odd to me. I know that is a sample size of one but I would
| expect some issue.
| donarb wrote:
| Instead of Consumer Reports, how about JD Power? Every car
| company that brags about ratings quotes their JD Power rating
| first and foremost. Tesla is 30 out of 33 on JD Power.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| How much will the stock rise as a consequence of this?
| onphonenow wrote:
| The rear camera MAY fail issue seems pretty benign.
|
| When it fails go get it fixed?
|
| Or is that no longer a permitted approach.
|
| These recalls used to be for things major. Now we are getting a
| recall over what would be a warranty claim? Can they not just
| extend warranty coverage in this year to something like 10 years?
| deviantbit wrote:
| In the small community I live, we have at least one Tesla catch
| fire a year. There were three last year. I'm not sure what
| quality control issues they're having, but it seems they would
| get the fire issue fixed. Before you down vote this, which I see
| the Tesla fanboys are doing, Google Tesla fire. I never remember
| a gas vehicle igniting spontaneously as electric cars do.
| bagels wrote:
| Battery car fires are much more likely to make it in to the
| news than your every day combustion engine vehicle fire which
| are far more numerous.
| slg wrote:
| Just a reminder that cars are recalled all the time and the only
| reason you are seeing this article is because it is Tesla. Any
| other manufacturer and this would be a non-story especially on
| HN.
|
| Did Ford recalling 185k vehicles a couple days ago make the front
| page of HN?
|
| How about Toyota recalling 200k vehicles also a couple days
| ago?[2]
|
| Maybe Honda recalling 725k vehicles a month ago?[3]
|
| EDIT: Lots of people are taking this a defending of Tesla. That
| isn't my intention here. I am providing context to this issue.
| Someone who isn't familiar with the frequency that cars are
| voluntarily recalled is going to conclude that this is a bigger
| deal than if viewed in the context of the auto industry as a
| whole.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2021/1...
|
| [2] - https://www.justicepays.com/news/toyota-recalls-
| over-200000-...
|
| [3] - https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38425033/honda-
| passport-p...
| serf wrote:
| just a reminder that product recalls (especially vehicles) are
| discussed all the time on HN [0], and Tesla isn't somehow
| special for being mentioned here.
|
| [0]: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=recall
| slg wrote:
| None of the recalls I pointed to were discussed here. Here is
| one example of searching for another manufacturer.[1] Three
| articles including a pair of duplicates. The other article is
| 12 years old. They seemingly combined to receive 2 upvotes
| and 0 comments. Meanwhile this article already has over 50
| upvotes in an hour with 25+ comments. We can't pretend that
| this community treats all of these issues the same regardless
| of manufacturer.
|
| [1] - https://hn.algolia.com/?q=recall+honda
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| There's more to the story. Ford, Toyota and Honda makes
| significantly more cars and models than Tesla.
| slg wrote:
| I am not trying to start a fight about the quality of Tesla's
| vehicles compared to other manufacturers. Maybe you are right
| and Teslas are recalled at a higher frequency. I don't know
| enough about it to have an opinion either way.
|
| I am simply pointing out that a solitary voluntary recall,
| which is what this article is about, is barely newsworthy and
| is only being posted/upvoted because it is Tesla.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| And it is upvoted through the roof because it is Tesla. The
| one car manufacturer valued as high as "all other" (very
| many) car manufacturers together. Tesla is different, why
| treat them like everyone else?
| slg wrote:
| >And it is upvoted through the roof because it is Tesla.
|
| That was my point so we agree.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Well yes, but you seem to think it's unfair treatment
| whereas I think It's perfectly reasonable to treat them
| differently if they are different(Which they are). So we
| disagree as well.
| slg wrote:
| I never said it was unfair. People are projecting a lot
| onto my comments here.
| tyrfing wrote:
| This is unnecessarily defensive. A quick search shows that
| other large recalls have been heavily upvoted on HN:
| Volkswagen, Hyundai, Fiat, Peloton, Amazon, and many others.
|
| Just a reminder that news about the 6th-largest company in the
| world, owned by the richest man in the world, isn't a personal
| attack on you.
| slg wrote:
| Not all recalls have the same level of newsworthiness.
|
| Both the Volkswagen and Hyundai recalls were related to
| internal corruption and potential criminal activity making
| them more noteworthy. That is a failure in the regulatory
| system while Tesla's recall is the system working as
| intended.
|
| The Fiat recall was related to hacking so it will naturally
| get more interest on HN.
|
| I don't have data on this, but voluntary recalls seem to be
| much more common for cars than other retail products.
| bumby wrote:
| What makes this more interesting to me is that is came about
| during a probe into the driver assist technology. This
| particular recall is of less interest than that probe.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
| noah_buddy wrote:
| I disagree that those headlines are even nearly so newsworthy!
| This Tesla recall is only 20k less than all that they sold in
| 2020. Ford recalling 200k cars is only 5% of what they sold in
| that same year.
|
| This is a relatively large proportion of all Tesla's on the
| road.
| mxschumacher wrote:
| it's interesting how Tesla is definitely not a car company
| when somebody mentions their absurd valuation but just like
| all the other car companies when something goes bad. Cannot
| have it both ways.
|
| I have read about Toyota's impressive production systems and
| then hear people claiming that Tesla's manufacturing
| capability is 10x better than anybody else's.
|
| At some point we'll have to decide whether looking like a
| duck, swimming like a duck, and quacking like a duck makes it
| a duck.
| atwebb wrote:
| That was my thinking, a major supplier / manufacturer
| recalling a year of (and 1/4 of all ever made) products is at
| least interesting. To OP's point though, it likely reached
| the front page so fast b/c it has Tesla in the name.
| slg wrote:
| You can check this link[1] which I posted in another reply.
| There is a story there about Honda recalling 1.4m vehicles.
| That is right around a full year of sales in the US and
| exceeds annual sales for the last couple years[2]. That story
| got one upvote and zero comments when it was posted here last
| year.
|
| Once again, I am not trying to excuse Tesla for quality
| issues or say they make as good or a better quality car than
| any other manufacturer. I am simply pointing out that the
| name Tesla drives attention and clicks compared to their
| competitors and that is why you are seeing this story.
|
| [1] - https://hn.algolia.com/?q=recall+honda
|
| [2] - https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/honda-us-sales-figures/
| Retric wrote:
| Ford simply sells a much wider variety of cars which results
| in more frequent recalls. The odds of any one recall
| impacting a ford owner is less, but the odds of any recall
| impacting them are about the same.
|
| For example in the recent 16 million for airbags vehicle
| recall across multiple car manufactures only 3 ford models
| where impacted. https://oharelawfirm.com/blog/massive-car-
| recall-reveals-pot...
| standardUser wrote:
| One key difference is that for Tesla, 500k cars is a _huge_
| amount of the total cars it 's sold in the last 5 years. More
| than a third. Has any automaker ever had a recall on such a
| huge proportion of their cars?
| vardump wrote:
| Tesla has sold about 1.4M cars in just last two years. 500k
| last year and 910k (likely more) this year.
|
| Next year Tesla is going to sell probably at least 1.5M cars.
| Given they have two new factories, and Tesla Shanghai factory
| is expanding again, 2M wouldn't surprise me.
| bestcoder69 wrote:
| I don't get who you're calling out here. The upvoters? The
| press? Other car companies for not being as good at generating
| hype? Who messed up (other than Tesla)?
|
| If you're just raising awareness that HN finds Tesla articles
| interesting... that's fine I guess.
| jeffbee wrote:
| If we have to hear about it every time Tesla is the best-
| selling brand for a single month in Estonia or Chile, but we
| never get to talk about all the other months and places some
| other brand is the top seller, it follows that we also have to
| talk about Tesla recalls, even though we never talk about Honda
| recalls.
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