Tesla recalls 1.8M cars because their hoods can open while driving | Hacker News Reader

Tesla recalls 1.8M cars because their hoods can open while driving

arstechnica.com

20 pointsLinuxBender25 comments

  Although the problem is with the hood latch, as with many Tesla safety recalls, the problem can be fixed with an over-the-air software patch. The new software is able to detect if the hood is open and, if so, will display a warning to the driver to alert them to stop their vehicle and secure the hood.

This seems like a generous interpretation of the word "fix" to me, but maybe I'm not understanding the problem.

All hood latches from all brands are double latched. You're not going to get a hood flying open unless both latches fail. If one is open you want to close it ASAP so you're not driving without the redundancy. But it's not an immediate hazard.

These are probably cases of the second latch "failing" or not being able to hold the hood closed at X mph and Y windspeed when the driver fails to latch it all of the way.

Not on a Tesla (1990-something...), but I've had a hood latch "fail" because I didn't close it all the way. Got on the highway, enough wind got under and the hood slammed open, wrapped over the roof and shattered the windshield but luckily safety glass held it in place. I didn't think hood latches had industry safety standards past the latch and common sense.

The imagery the title conjures is of someone driving along and suddenly having their entire view obscured by a raised hood, whereas it sounds like the bug causes the latch to come loose but doesn’t cause the hood to actually raise, Which would be a much bigger problem

> Although the problem is with the hood latch, as with many Tesla safety recalls, the problem can be fixed with an over-the-air software patch. The new software is able to detect if the hood is open and, if so, will display a warning to the driver to alert them to stop their vehicle and secure the hood.

So the OTA update doesn't fix the problem, just gives passengers a warning to stop and close the hood.

But does this mean they are not actually fixing the hood latches themselves? I don't think a warning will be very useful if the hood opens up while someone is driving down a freeway at 80 mph.

Apparently, the OTA patch doesn't fix the mechanical issue that causes the hood to open, but alerts the driver with a message.

So the fix is to go from one thing popping up to two?

There seems to be an inordinate number of Tesla recalls. Are their numbers worse than average for a modern car?

Hard to say. We have data in terms of number of vehicles recalled, and in terms of number of recalls per manufacturer, and Tesla doesn't make the top 10 in either. But Tesla has a relatively low number of vehicles shipped and a low number of models so might be relatively high in terms of number of recalls per model.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2024/01/12/vehicle...

How many Teslas are out there? I wonder what percentage are vulnerable.

They need a better word than "recall" when it's an over-the-air software update that addresses the issue.

When I hear "recall", I think "I need to take this to the dealer."

Totally agree. I've seen people argue before that "recall" means something very specific as defined by the NHTSA, and that may be all well and good, but that language came into existence before OTA updates existed. The very word "recall" implies taking something back, and the consequences of needing an OTA update vs. physically taking it in are so vastly different that I don't think it makes sense to conflate the two.

If it was just an OTA you probably wouldn’t hear about it, missing the fact that the hood might unlatch with Tesla just showing an error

This is why I think it makes sense to have explicit, defined categories for "physical recalls" compared to "OTA recalls", e.g. if something is defined as an OTA recall then you would get a specific kind of alert in the dash that says that an update contains a recall fix, along with detailed info. Most drivers would be more likely to see a warning if it came directly in the car's dash compared to a piece of physical mail that looks kinda like junk mail.

I think an additional Recall message in the dash would be a good idea. I wouldn't change the name, it's an established name and everybody knows its significance. Wether the car needs to be returned physically is up to the car manufacturer. I think most of the people complaining about the semantics are shareholders, they are just fine with "hanging up" their phone etc.

This is a particularly weird case, because it's a software update which _does not_ address the issue.

It’s not a fix, it’s a workaround.

a lot of fixes are kind of workarounds

"I don't understand what this word means, so people need to stop using it."

I'm sorry but the fix that they did over the air is bullshit.

From the article: "The problem first became apparent to Tesla in March of this year after complaints about unintended hood opening from Chinese customers. By April, it had identified the problem as deformation of the hood latch switch, "which could prevent the customer from being notified about an open hood state." [...] Although the problem is with the hood latch, as with many Tesla safety recalls, the problem can be fixed with an over-the-air software patch. The new software is able to detect if the hood is open and, if so, will display a warning to the driver to alert them to stop their vehicle and secure the hood."

All they did was add a pop up to tell you to stop once the hood has flipped up, the underlying issue with the hood latch is mechanical and unfixed. By all rights this should be a full physical recall.

The problem is that when the customer doesn't close the lid properly, the car didn't display the warning that the lid wasn't closed properly.

Now it does. Seems like a fix to me?

The hood could come unlatched while driving and having your hood flip up (or the driver stopping quickly if they notice it starting to) at 70 mph can cause an accident.

How is this any different from any other car? If you only partially close your hood the most you get is an alarm inside the car telling you should really close your hood completely.

Other car companies don't get away without fixing the broken latches

It's not the latch that's broken, it's the latch sensor. A lot of cars don't even have latch sensors.

> faulty hood latches that can open while its cars are driving.

> Although the problem is with the hood latch, as with many Tesla safety recalls, the problem can be fixed with an over-the-air software patch. The new software is able to detect if the hood is open and, if so, will display a warning to the driver to alert them to stop their vehicle and secure the hood.

WTF? That I reads like Telsa deciding not to fix the hardware issue causing people’s hoods to open while driving because an alert isn’t going to stop these things from opening if the hardware is faulty.

I don’t think people emergency braking on a freeway would be appropriate, but it can be a long distance between places to safety pull off the road so even with this update faulty hardware is presumably putting people into a dangerous situation.

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