Tesla recalls nearly all 2M of its vehicles on US roads | Hacker News Reader

Tesla recalls nearly all 2M of its vehicles on US roads

cnn.com

37 pointsbigfudge22 comments

Discussed already earlier today. Technically a recall, but for Tesla just an OTA.

Thanks, here's the discussion:

Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38625652 (200 comments)

It was a real frustrating comment section to read. Half the comments being a variation of "it's not a recall, it's an update" while conveniently ignoring that a recall has a legal meaning with obligation to contact vehicle owners by mail and stuff like that.

It really felt like a bunch of Tesla owners felt personally attacked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

It's a legal term that hasn't caught up to modern standards as that word still implies a physical need to return your vehicle for service. When in reality it's the same as a forced security update on your phone or PC.

When a vehicle has a defect that can pose safety issues, a recall is issued. I don't see why we should handle software defects differently from hardware defects.

I understand the point you make, but this is entirely semantics and is not a real world issue. Tesla owners will receive a notice of recall that will clearly state that there will be an OTA update, they will read it and move on.

I hope no one tells these guys about other anachronisms like "horsepower".

[dupe]

I'm a cardiac arrest survivor with an implanted defibrillator and although after a cardiac ablation operation and anti-arrythmic medications, I have been incident free for a few years now and medically cleared to drive, I have a LOT of anxiety around the "what if" I went into sudden cardiac death again while driving. The reality is that if I went into sudden cardiac death, my implant would restart my heart within 20 seconds, so with the advent of the implant, the only real death risk is a car crash, not my heart. With a non-self-driving car, you would almost certainly crash if you let go of all the controls for 20 seconds.

Tesla FSD has almost FULLY gotten rid of my anxiety because in any random 20 seconds out of a million seconds there's a very high, likely 99.99%+ probability it will drive just fine until I'm conscious again.

It would be distressing if they made a software modification that caused it to disable or "give up" if the driver isn't responsive. As of now the car's behavior is to continue self-driving and reducing speed to a full stop and putting on the emergency flashers, which I think is a reasonable way to deal with the situation. Pulling over on the shoulder or at least moving to the right-most lane would be nice, but Teslas don't do that yet.

Teslas also punish you by not allowing you to use autopilot for a while, which I hate because it often punishes me on very long straight roads where there is no necessity to apply force to the steering wheel. There is also that if you have 5 "strikes" on FSD you are punished by being forced to use a crappier, worse driving algorithm for a week. That mind-boggles me because as an engineer you'd think you should give the best self-driving algorithms to the least reliable drivers, but Tesla punishes the supposedly least reliable drivers by handing them less reliable software and forcing them to use it for a week.

A lot of other cars' active lane keep systems will "give up" and crash the car if the driver goes unconscious and stops touching the wheel, which is about the most unsafe thing it can do. I truly hope Tesla isn't pushed by the NSA toward implementing it that way.

This is an interesting edge-case, thanks for sharing it. This brings up the point that there are many common medical events that FSD mitigates or contains that receive very little attention. The only one I can remember reading about is from 2016 when someone needed the Tesla to drive itself to the nearest hospital.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/08/tesla-mod...

Its tough. On one hand I feel for your condition and I can see how in your case the autopilot is a net benefit, but on the other hand this sort of sentiment is just reinforcing the "my car is driving, so it's ok that I switched my brain off" colloquialism.

Just in the past week I've encountered multiple Tesla's being driven by someone with no observable mental capacity: in one case, a Tesla floored its way into a left turn at a 4 way stop intersection while my and my friend were walking directly in its path on the crosswalk. Luckily, the Tesla eventually did slam its breaks in the middle of the intersection (blocking all other traffic), but the weirdest part for me was that when I looked at the driver and gave the universal "what gives" hand motion, which I'd usually expect to be met with the "my b" wave, she had a completely blank expression. It was as if she had no recognition of anything that was happening at that moment, much less the idea that accelerating into pedestrians at a crosswalk is dangerous and illegal.

In another, a Tesla was being driven at an impossibly slow rate on a main road (~10 mph on a 40 limit), and blocking tons of cars behind it. I honked at it for maybe 10 seconds before they finally pulled into the center divider and let people pass, then proceeded to merge back into the lane. I figured maybe they were trying to make it home on a dead battery or something - annoying but whatever. Fast forward like 10 minutes and I'm coming back the other way after dropping my friend off, and I see the same Tesla now going the other direction at ~10 mph, but this time swerving back and forth erratically. My suspicion is the "driver" was plastered drunk (it was ~1am) and tried to get autopilot to take them home, but for whatever reason it wasn't doing it so now the drunkard was (very slowly) careening through the streets.

> Its tough. On one hand I feel for your condition and I can see how in your case the autopilot is a net benefit, but on the other hand this sort of sentiment is just reinforcing the "my car is driving, so it's ok that I switched my brain off" colloquialism.

I definitely don't use it that way. I'm always actively driving the car and very frequently override the FSD (in a fair percentage of cases for safety reasons, in a larger percentage of cases because it's being annoying to other drivers e.g. not leaving enough space for other cars to zipper merge or not leaving space for a car to parallel park).

For me I'm always the driver, FSD is a backup for the "what if", not the other way around.

But I agree, many people may use it the other way around. The other way around is really the way it should be long term but its tech isn't there yet.

I really wish they would stop using the driver facing camera and wheel force to determine if the driver is attentive. It very frequently judges against me because my arm is light, so I'm punished even though I'm gripping the wheel. The driver facing camera is blocked easily by the sun shade so that also causes inadvertent punishment. I shouldn't have to look at the sun just to appease the camera. I wish they had some kind of capacitive sensing lining the steering wheel instead if that's what they need to be compliant.

> I really wish they would stop using the driver facing camera and wheel force to determine if the driver is attentive.

Interesting, I didn't know they had a driver facing camera like that - that makes my encounter with that woman make a bit more sense, if she is required to be eyes open, looking forward, hands on wheel for autopilot to work, there's nothing to stop her from maintaining that position but being lost in a totally separate daydream and having no recognition of what's going on around her, which is in line with what I observed. Frightening.

As for the capacitance sensing, wouldn't that not work with gloves?

In general I don't think there's really any way to mechanically determine if someone is "paying attention". So any system that relies on driver attention and disaster intervention for safe operation is destined to be unsafe, and in my opinion and observation much more unsafe than a purely human driver.

> if she is required to be eyes open, looking forward, hands on wheel for autopilot to work

Once FSD switches on, the behavior I have gathered is that if it thinks you're looking away from the road for too large a percentage of the time (you're allowed some percentage of time to look at the mirrors etc.) or if you don't apply force to the steering wheel for a certain period of time, it classifies you as not attentive and starts warning you with a flashing blue gradient on the screen and a small-font text at the bottom saying "Please pay attention to the road" or similar.

The weird thing is, because my arm is too light for the force sensor to pick up, and the camera's judgement is easily obstructed by sun shade or by sunglasses, I have to pay attention to the screen to avoid missing the flashing blue gradient, and jerk the steering wheel as soon as I see the gradient. (Yeah, even if there are trucks on both sides, it requires you to jerk the wheel slightly to prove you're there or you get punished)

If you don't see the flashing blue gradient for several seconds, it beeps for about 2 seconds, turns fiery red, and punishes you with an FSD strike (5 strikes and your software is downgraded to a more dangerous version for a week) and not allowed to use self-driving until the next time you exit and re-enter the car.

Sometimes I'm often too distracted by the road to notice these stupid gradients on the screen and get a FSD strike.

But there are really no better cars on the market that serve my medical needs. Almost all the alternative cars' lane keep products are programmed to crash, not drive, if the driver loses consciousness. So while I hate Tesla's driver attentiveness implementation, it's still the only brand with a lane keep implementation that's designed to actually keep the driver alive.

> As for the capacitance sensing, wouldn't that not work with gloves?

Capacitive sensing can easily work with gloves. It's not required to be pixel-accurate like a mobile phone, it just needs to sense whether or not there's a hand there and that can easily be done through gloves.

Other lane keep is programmed to crash? How so? Does it not just slow to a stop and put lights on?

Most other cars I have driven that have active lane keep, if they deem you to not be holding the steering wheel, they just give up and stop steering entirely, so the car just goes in a straight line and crashes.

Yet others are programmed to auto-shut off at <40mph so even if the car slows on its own it will crash when it gets below 40mph if the driver is unconscious.

Tesla will punish you by not letting you use autopilot until the next time you exit and re-enter the car, but before the punishment starts it will at least continue autopiloting and lane-keeping all the way to 0mph, and switch on the emergency flashers.

Unconscious with foot on the accelerator is what I think you're describing... I didn't expect that. Would have guessed lane-keep would include old-school cruise control as well, that turns off when pushing the accelerator.

So, as soon as it disengages would expect it to slowly roll to a stop, while staying in the lane. I'm glad I don't have any of these features, hearing now that they are so poorly designed.

Why won't the headline just say "Tesla recalls nearly 2m vehicles by issuing software update". Are they allergic to the phrase "software update" or something?

Yes, and CNN wasted tons of ink printing that headline.

This seems like quite a big deal. The article doesn't state the likely cost, but that may be less important than the substantial loss of face for Tesla given all the claims that have been made for autopilot.

All they have to do is an OTA update though. It's like a bug fix basically.

Like a bug fix, except without the bug.

No loss of face. Some regulators perceive a problem and have proposed (and mandated) some measures to alleviate their perceived problem.

These measures will come in the form of a software update, something that is totally business as usual for Tesla, with zero car owners needing to do anything they wouldn’t already do anyway in the comfort of their own homes, much less needing to take the car in for service somewhere… they don’t need to do that either. Basically zero impact on owners. Tiny tweak for Tesla. Not a big deal.

The measures in the update simply add more reminders for humans to do the things they are already aware they are responsible for doing such as watching the road. On top of the reminders that are already given when an inattentive driver is detected.

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