Ford is telling dealers to stop selling the Mustang Mach-E over safety concerns
theverge.com
theverge.com
> “Ford has not issued instructions to stop driving vehicles under this safety recall”
> Ford says the problem can be fixed with an over-the-air software update, which will be issued “next month.”
> The headline of this story has been updated to emphasize the recall over the dealer notice.
* limit max current (dumbest) * limit max current based on moving average of current over last N seconds * limit max current based on experimentally validated thermal model of contactors (cleverest)
This might even be possible without a significant/noticeable performance hit, if the overheating is only experienced in extreme conditions.
They simply do not understand that it's more involved than that, and that money can buy many things but it cannot ensure success in this sector.
It's not a good look, but it also underscores just how many things can and in fact do go wrong in the mass production of EVs, and its easy to play arm chair expert, but unless you've ever done this you seriously have no idea how difficult it really is.
Incumbents that are nimble enough to innovate their product when prodded by competition from tech will prosper more than the tech firms trying to disrupt, in the long term.
Every region, country and often state/local have different rules that must be followed. There is little in the way of automation synergy here. You need a certain amount of staff to keep up and be compliant. Every new market you enter requires more rules to comply with..
However their approach is to try to deny/deflect/weasel out/muscle through in a way that legacy automakers have largely stopped doing, at least when it comes to safety issues.
This is where I think its going to come to a head, possibly within the current administration that clearly has shown no love for Musk.
Agreed, having worked in fintech I can say with absolute confidence that the regulatory nightmare of entering new Markets is often harder than solving the actual payment processing. Luckily, I got to operate in a gray zone wherein I couldn't take funding since I couldn't incorporate but I could operate on a shoes string budget and work in the Auto Industry as a day job. There was no moat to create, for us, though.
> And I will add to this - as a Tesla driver for 4 years, I think sooner or later Musk’s strategy of playing chicken and just weaseling around / muscling through various investigations, and general attitude around compliance with regulations.. is going to blow up in their face.
It's expected, his brand of over promising has made him the darling of the VC and retail investor class which to be honest matter more than the issues thye've had tn encounter thus far. But, just as yourself, I feel that this is starting to come to an end: his problem with the SEC, FAA, and now with who ever is trying to pin him to that twitter deal will likely land him in extremely difficult positions.
FSD and the yoke steering wheel each had their own hurdles, but it's not clear that this can go on much longer; it's not just bad PR, it's putting an even bigger target on his back with seemingly more risk than reward.
It's been a pretty insane thing to see how Tesla's market cap was higher than all car makes combined last year, it still seems entirely insane to say that.
Move fast and break things is a good strategy when your product isn't a few tons of steel, moving fast, capable of breaking people and things.
For things like the infotainment screen, or panel gaps, an annoyance.
For driver input controls and the ADAS software - very very serious.
Ford found the issue, filed a voluntary recall, and ask their dealers not to sell the vehicle until the fix was published.
Meanwhile, another famous car manufacturer pretends there is nothing wrong with their vehicles, fights every recall tooth and nail, and continuously makes false claims about their vehicles' safety and capabilities...
Because these are very large and important durable goods there is a robust post-sale monitoring infrastructure to fix problems if they arise afterwards. That’s a good sign, not a bad one. It is moreover a system which does not exist for all products.
Separately, there is no quality control process in the world which would guarantee that this kind of product is totally free of any defect which might reduce safety.