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Comment by tsunamifury | Hacker News Reader

I had a Porsche Taycan almost kill me and my entire family due to the absolutely negligent engineering team at porsche. An update was applied which killed the motor due to a stack overflow error — while driving! Porsche set up the error handling to kill the engine immediately with even the slightest error.

I testified along with fellow owners to the NHTSA and got all Taycans recalled. The arrogance and denial that Porsche put owners through was shocking through the process. They displayed a complete lack of understanding of the basics of control systems and software safety.

Needless to say I sold the Taycan and would never buy a VW electric product. I wrote them a letter and spoke to the safety team saying people will die from this sloppiness and lack of professionalism. Someone will pay. Turned out I was right

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Is this the recall you’re referring to? [0]

Is there a report somewhere / investigative details on the recall? Thanks!

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/porsch...

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EDIT

I found https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2021/RCLRPT-21V486-3851.PDF

“Due to a software issue that has since been corrected, the software designed to continuously monitor end-to-end communication between the safety-related ECUs in the vehicle can, in certain instances, incorrectly and sporadically detect a potentially faulty communication, set an error memory entry, and trigger a shutdown of the power train, resulting in loss of motive power.”

Yes, but what they didn’t say in that statement is they were attempting to correct the issue post-incident to cover their tracks before the owners got together and gave testimony. They kept telling drivers it was a one off issue that no one had experienced, while in reality many had been affected. They even offered significant payoffs to some. It was well past negligence and into active harm.

When advised cars were bricking on the highway, the report states “Porsche did not consider this a safety concern”

Somebody else here in another thread said that the Germans seem to be a gullible people, and that if he was German, he would be running all kinds of scams. Well, this is exactly what seems to be happening in many places that, from the outside, look like German success stories. They scam, manipulate and take shortcuts. That’s the shadow of gullibility. On the one hand, you do what you are told and look up to authority. And on the other hand, when you make a mistake, you cover up. And you tell yourself the story that you are the victim, after all. And that, if you didn’t do it, somebody else would. There is an old book from the 1930s about how to raise a child. It is called “Mommy, tell me about Adolf Hitler“. Parents in Germany today obviously don’t read that anymore. But many of them still raise their kids in the same way they themselves were raised. And with just two or three generations distance, that mindset that made Nazi Germany possible is still very much alive.

VW like to paint electrification as a way to atone for the sins of dieselgate. Seems like nothing really has changed.

(I had an affected diesel engine, in Australia the process to be compensated was an absolute disgrace).

Wow, good for you and thanks for the warning

How did turning off the engine almost cause an accident, were you overtaking?

Single lane No look curve around highway 1 on the cliffside with no turnout area. Coming home from Stinson beach. Steering and braking also blipped. Sent me nearly off the cliff.

My other owner friend was in the fast lane in front of a semi, almost was roadkill.

Thank you for speaking up. That is horrifying. I am glad you and your family are okay.

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