NHTSA probes 280k new Teslas over loss of steering control

I think getting out and leaving the car is the only way to fully reboot the car. There have been other issues where restarting the MCU (main screen) is insufficient. But I would think there would be a button in the UI to do a full reboot. But maybe they don’t want you in the car while that happens.

One thing that is fun is how the car is still drivable (and Autopilot/FSD still functions) when the main screen is force rebooted while driving. The Autopilot and car computer are separate from the actual UI computer. So you can be mid reboot while the car is autonomously changing lanes, but the turn signal sound effect isn’t playing because it goes through the audio system which is rebooting. Good for safety that it works this way and doesn’t just stop driving, but can be quite an adventure.

> Also having to get out of the car is a weird way to reset things. On old cars with broken power steering, shutting off and starting up will reinitialize things and maybe get them working. Does tesla not have a "reboot car computers" function?

I mean, for 'old cars with broken power steering', I'm thinking hydraulic power steering, probably low fluid from a leak, turn it off and on again isn't going to do anything. But that said, computerized cars often don't turn the computers off until you get out and lock the doors (or at least open and close the driver's door and maybe lock from the outside), if you need to cold boot something, that's the best way; just turn off and on usually doesn't turn the computers off enough.

I've always thought this was silly limitation. Can't use the steering without functional software. I think there's work being done to maintain some amount of assist through most faults.

I think this would be more software redundancy though, not a fundamental change in the mechanics / hardware to make base steering easier.

Funny you say that, my Cruze from 2012 to "reset" the computer I need to remove the negative terminal from the battery. Resets all of the radio stations and settings plus a few error codes which can falsely appear.

They have service centers and have dealt with many recalls to date

The manual steering thing is a huge safety issue, that manufacturers have recently started taking seriously.

There should be more redundancy now to ensure you don't lose assist. Not that it can't happen, but there's fault toleration.