Why have you put "recalls" in quotes? It gives the impression you think this makes it somehow lesser. The cybertruck, for example, was subject to a recall because the rearview camera wouldn't come up, but the mirrors are insufficient to back the vehicle up safely without the camera.
That's a safety issue, irrespective of whether or not the fix was in software.
> "I changed your oil, and I also replaced one of your door seals because there was a recall for the rubber cracking in cold weather"
> "Oh, okay."
It doesn't colloquially imply that the manufacturer is going to come take your car due to some major issue.
Maybe this is one of those situations where the US uses this term differently from the rest of the world? In a way that waters the term down so much that it might as well be meaningless?
Nah, doesn't really seem like it.
Exactly. But not just for vehicles or other durable goods. We see recalls of all sorts of food products[0] pretty regularly, and no one has to bring their carrots or ground beef back to the store/manufacturer to "remediate" the issue. Rather, you just throw it away.
And such activities are unfailingly called recalls.
[0] https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety...
Which of these would you, a Tesla stakeholder, prefer the news to report:
- Tesla Cybertruck has recall
- Tesla Cybertruck receives software update that resolves issue that put public safety at risk
And for equivalence, the first would need to be:
- Tesla Cybertruck has recall that resolves issue that put public safety at risk
> And for equivalence
But that's the whole point of my post.
Because the term "recall" often technically means "issue that put public safety at risk". But would you want that spelled out every time if you were a marketer?
Doesn't really matter if it hw, sw or maybe even the owners manual that needs to be changed ASAP.
I'm not misinterpreting; I'm saying the definition is too broad. A useful reply seems simple enough:
- yes it is too broad, and here's the additional criterion to narrow it correctly
- no it is not too broad, and here's why a flat tyre is a recall
E.g.
> "Murder" is a legal term, it means the act was premeditated.
Somebody who says that is not claiming that all premeditated acts are murder.
There’s also a “safety recall” system run by NHTSA, which is what most people think of by recall. Which then has a bunch of reporting requirements so people who aren’t taking their cars to the dealership still get notified.
Last time I took my car in they handled two recalls: the bracket for the spare tire could crack (mine wasn’t) and a floor drain plug was the wrong size.
Very few recalls are urgent or prohibit the car from being g driven.
No it doesn't. Sometimes it does, but certainly not always.
I drive a Ford Everest (SUV version of the Ranger). It has an open recall at the moment for a software issue where if you obstruct the power windows while they're closing, they may not detect the obstruction and stop automatically.
I can continue to drive the vehicle, I just need to get the issue rectified when I next get it serviced.
If you're opposed to it based on the assumption that it wouldn't take as long, I agree that might be true, but by that logic we should be categorizing _all_ recalls based on length (regardless of whether it's a software update or otherwise), since I'm not convinced that the average length of time until a problem is fixed will always be perfectly split with the software ones being super quick and the ones that would need to happen in person being super slow. What if the mechanics are already aware of how to fix the issue and can do it the same day, or if the software issue turns out to take a long time due to the developers needing a lot of time to fix the bug?
If you're opposed to it purely from the perspective of linguistics and "recall" sounds like "return to the manufacturer", I think I'd disagree due to the word "recall" not being super commonly used for that in other circumstances. If anything, the other usage of the word that springs to mind most readily to me is recalling someone or something "from service", which I think fits perfectly here.
Surely this causes a lot of confusion at the very least people thinking those vehicles actually have to be brought back.
First 2 answers in asq.org and wikipedia
Recall is the act of officially summoning someone or something back to its place of origin. A product recall is defined as a request to return, exchange, or replace a product after a manufacturer or consumer watch group discovers defects that could hinder performance, harm consumers, or produce legal issues for the producers.
and
A product recall is a request from a manufacturer to return a product after the discovery of safety issues or product defects that might endanger the consumer or put the maker or seller at risk of legal action. Product recalls are one of a number of corrective actions that can be taken for products that are deemed to be unsafe.
It specifically says "request to return."
It's very important because the word "recall" to me is rather about the cost to the business and consumer rather than severity of an issue or it being specifically safety issue.
Recall could be something that is done as a response to a safety issue, but recall could be done for some other reasons as well. E.g. the product could not just be performing as well, but not be a safety issue. There's a defect that means product lifetime will be limited, etc.
I did, just to be safe, once again look up the legal definition of recall (both in regard to cars and other products) and continue to find that it was never written in a way that would make OTA not fit the term. It isn't limited to vehicles, but extends even to perishables for which a physical return directly to the manufacturer is not expected even using a more liberal interpretation of the word.
Here, this is what recall, in this context means:
> A recall is issued when a manufacturer or NHTSA determines that a vehicle, equipment, car seat, or tire creates an unreasonable safety risk or fails to meet minimum safety standards. Most decisions to conduct a recall and remedy a safety defect are made voluntarily by manufacturers prior to any involvement by NHTSA.
> Manufacturers are required to fix the problem by repairing it, replacing it, offering a refund, or in rare cases repurchasing the vehicle.
Source: https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls#recalls-7746
OTA falls under that. Can you perhaps find some source saying the contrary somewhere on the internet (just like one can find numerous sources proclaiming the earth to be flat)? Yes.
Does that change the legal definition as it has been in place for decades? No.
And if you want to fully ho by whatever some random person may believe recall to mean, then does that mean that product recalls for produce, milk, etc. do not exist according to you, because the item isn’t necessarily interfacing with the manufacturer again, but may just get disposed?
That was my point. If people feel this definition should be changed, more power to them, but arguing that OTA have as of yet not been covered by the definition is just dishonest.
I'd be partial to calling these recalls something akin to "Mitigating unreasonable safety issue", but I feel that for some reason, some people may feel compeled to argue that this wouldn't be fair to Tesla either, no matter how dangerous or forseeable a fault might be.
> some people may feel compeled to argue that this wouldn't be fair to Tesla either, no matter how dangerous or forseeable a fault might be.
Also the point isn't about whether it's fair to Tesla or not. I don't care about Tesla here. It could be any manufacturer, point is that it makes it seem like it's a financial and logistical nightmare to come, but clicking on headline, it's just a software update.
Of course by now, I've personally seen this in headlines many times and grown indifferent, but it occurs to me still every time.
In my native language the term "recall" has even stronger implications of physical return, it means "call to bring it back". It sounds even more bizarre than in English for a software update.
If we go by what "it seem[s] like" (to a layperson), we could reasonably argue that the word (scientific) "theory" should be changed because a significant part of the populus confuses that with the definition of hypothesis.
This also, again, ignores that, long before OTA was a thing for cars, the logistics behind recalls for items ranging from meat, over mattresses, to medical equipment, etc. differed widely in execution and financial impact, yet again, have all been covered under the same term.
This started because you stated that by considering severe safety issues as recalls we'd have to adapt to a "new meaning", simply because you felt it is weird that OTA addressable safety issues are covered by that, when this has historically been the accepted, commonly used and well worn definition. If you want to change it, than more power to you, but don't claim that yours is the original definition, when it isn't. Especially since terms like these are regulated to ensure companies cannot weasel around them.
> In my native language the term "recall" has even stronger implications of physical return, it means "call to bring it back".
German? If we go purely by the literal definition of words, then I'd question why no one ever saw fit to complain that a recall/Rückruf rarely contains an actual call (or shout in the case of German) to the customers affected.
Add to that, is it really reasonable to just point at the most literal definition a, both well established and for good reasons regulated, word has? One that, again, has been in use for decades across many product types where the remedy was not having to bring the item to a garage for a fix to get wrenched on?
Idiomatic expressions exist, I hope deadlines aren't taken literally at any modern workplace.
Nilpferd also sounds bizarre considering they are closer to whales than horses, evolutinary speaking, yet we somehow manage, so I feel Rückruf isn't even close to the worst offender in that regard.
> but don't claim that yours is the original definition, when it isn't. Especially since terms like these are regulated to ensure companies cannot weasel around them.
I'm not claiming it's an original definition. It's just a very confusing and misleading term, that gets used in odd ways.
Someone in here suggested "Public Dangerous Defect Notice". Doesn't have to be this, but what about something similar?
You might note that while the definition presented doesn’t explicitly exclude over the air updates, it also didn’t explicitly include them. Very likely because it was written before they were a thing.
In my opinion this definition of the recall uses the original definition, and people are now saying that since an OTA update is not specifically precluded from being a recall under this definition, surely that must be part of the original meaning of the word (which the parent comments have already established is incorrect).
If I'd said "Electronic Mail" then maybe you would have a point, but I didn't.
I had plenty of recalls and it never happened even once that I could not drive the car before the recall.
I'm imagining (uneducated guess) that the software is updated more often than it is recalled, and so a "recall" is an update that addresses a safety issue.
"The Boombox function allows sounds to be played through an external speaker while the vehicle is in motion, which may obscure the Pedestrian Warning System (PWS) sounds. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 141, "Minimum Sound Requirements for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles"
"A software error may cause a valve in the heat pump to open unintentionally and trap the refrigerant inside the evaporator, resulting in decreased defrosting performance. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 103, "Windshield Defrosting and Defogging Systems."
" A factory reset muted the Pedestrian Warning System (PWS) sounds. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 141, "Minimum Sound Requirements for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles."
"An incorrect font size is displayed on the instrument panel for the Brake, Park, and Antilock Brake System (ABS) warning lights. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 105, "Hydraulic and Electric Brake Systems" and 135, "Light Vehicle Brake Systems."
Outside of these there are a handful of FSD recalls and a couple that are more critical, like rear-view cameras not working due to software. Stating again for the eventual naysayers, all of these absolutely should be fixed but I believe they are shades of gray in terms of how critical they are to safety.
That's not to say there are not more serious issues like the rear-view camera that did not work for specific models/software version combos.
They know they can fix problems cheaply. If they had to physically update vehicles they would have a lot more incentive to make updates unnecessary.
Think about how, even in software, knowing that a physical shipping of a product (CD / Blu-ray) can be updated from "day 1" has led to poor quality releases with last minute patches.
The cost of having to physically recall / resend CDs back in the day meant that what went out had to work. The cost of sloppy software has now been externalised.
Back in the day it was a major milestone for video game projects to "go gold". It meant that the rigorous QA process was passed, and that retail copies were ready to be manufactured. Since that involved significant costs and physical logistics, companies certainly didn't want major bugs shipped at this stage. There were some exceptions, but ultimately this led to much higher customer satisfaction. Removing this "inconvenience" for companies and allowing them to ship updates and fixes at any point is a major reason why most modern game releases are a clusterfuck at day one. They treat it as public betas, and day one customers (or, worse, preorder suckers) are testers and a replacement for a QA process they don't have. It's essentially crowdsourced development. This also allows them to hype the game up to boost initial sales, and then go "oops, sorry" while they finish implementing it. This scam has been pulled numerous times over the past decade+, yet these companies keep doing it because it's profitable and there's no legal accountability for it.
The fact these practices are now seeping into software on which human lives depend is criminal, and should be prosecuted and strictly regulated.
I had no idea. That sounds like fraud.
Those two somewhat offset and you end up with the classic business decision of whether quality is important.
Tell that to your kid this December, when you gift them a new console and a newly released game. Watch the wonderful experience of it taking forever to download a few gigabytes of patches from overloaded servers, and then not starting anyway because auth/billing/DRM/other bullshit server couldn't handle the demand.
Game studios love releasing around Christmas. I'm surprised they're not being held accountable for ruining that holiday for kids year over year.
I hope industry heads realize that they're actively pushing consumers towards piracy. These days you often get a better experience with a pirated game than a legally bought one: it runs better without DRM and doesn't infect your system, you can play it offline, and no license change will take it away from you. At least GOG seems to be the only store giving you DRM-free and offline installers, but not all games are released on it.
In the US there are still a lot of regions where a 50-100 GB download is just not reasonable.
I know console manufacturers hate retail and the used market, and want that sweet direct income. but it would be a powerful brand move to set higher standards for the physical release. I believe Nintendo has gone this direction.
For example, no copy of Space Station Silicon Valley for the N64 is completable because of a bug that prevents you from collecting the final plot device.
I'd say it's definitely worse now, with nothing meaningful being on the disc you pay $70 being insane.
It's not a matter of not relying on patches or updates altogether. The issue is when companies use this as a crutch to offset their shoddy development practices. Or worse: scamming consumers into buying their broken/incomplete game, and then taking years to deliver a stable experience or what they advertised (No Man's Sky, Fallout 76, Cyberpunk 2077, etc.), shutting down (Redfall, The Day Before, etc.), or straight up taking the money and running. Consumers are lucky if they even get their money back. Thankfully most storefronts have decent refund policies, but that's not an excuse.
The saddest thing is that a lot of people either don't care, or end up forgetting about this if companies appear to work hard to ship updates, which is how they eventually gain their good will back. The reputations of studios like Hello Games, CDPR and even Bethesda are practically untarnished despite of their scams, which gives them the freedom to keep doing this.
For the manufacturer this is still mainly a win I'd say... possibly even for the customer (because he gets features and fixes faster, at least), even though it sounds bad.
The same way that updates to Google Maps and Apple Maps kill people due to UI changes.
All systems are safety critical.
Back in the days before home internet was common I worked at a place that developed software for personal computers. The software was sold in retail stores such as Egghead, CompUSA, etc on floppy or CD.
Management was very insistent on high software quality. If a bug got through that was bad enough that an update to existing customers was needed the only option, aside from the small number of customers who would be able to use a modem to download an update from a dial up BBS, would be for us to mail them a floppy or CD with the update.
Even minor bugs that could be easily worked around by the customer were bad, because we had no means of contacting our customers except by writing or calling those who had filled out and returned in the prepaid registration card that was in the box when they bought the software. Instead what would happen is they would call our toll free support line.
Remember, this was not a subscription service. It's a one time purchase. If someone needs a long support call to solve a problem that could easily wipe out all profit made on that customer and more.
This wasn't just about bugs. If they had trouble using some feature due to poor UI or inadequate documentation that also meant calls to the toll free support line and so management also was very insistent on clear, well written, comprehensive documentation.
Compare to today. Updates are easy, you can have FAQs and searchable support articles on your website, someone will make a Reddit group where your customers can help each other, there will be bloggers and YouTubers posting tricks and solutions that in the old days would have been in the manual, and no one expects everything to work in any given release.
But then how will you know what you HAVE to fix. /s
To be frank I find the whole Tesla cult to be mind blowing. Seems to be the realization of believing in something that seems so good to be true alwith a company who promises to do so many great things, delivers non road worthy vehicles and people still dedicate their time and money defending them.
Is it sunk cost fallocy? Or just people who just wish Tesla was what they promised they would be?
Of which sunk cost were a huge thing. Your parents bought you only one...
And which Lamborghini specifically?
It's faster than a Lamboghini Spire.
In the old days, governments had departments which would inspect cars, verify they complied with legislation, and even examine build quality.
Quite easy, when everything was basically physical.
Now the ECU and modules are a black box, unknowable to such entities. Things can be caught (see VW scamming fuel/emissions tests), but it's by luck.
So solution? We pass laws that all code, every bit of it, all chip schematics too, all firmwares are open source.
Note I said open source, which in the old days just meant "readable". We're not talking GPL, all copyright would remain.
On top of that, all build scripts and methods to flash modules / etc would be provided to governement test environments.
Now we can test. Now, we can look for crappy code, hacky junk, fake emission cheats, bugs and more.
Don't like it? You don't sell cars. Tough.
The entire supply chain would be required to fall inline.
It's really not that hard.
In terms of security, that's what signing updates is for.
And (for example) you can already take hobby tools, such as forscan (for fords) amd flash updates to modules.
As long as it is signed.
I have NEVER heard that. It makes zero sense and sounds more like the fever dream of a Teslarati: "Wow, I know the median home price in my area is $500K, and the median household income $80K, but all of a sudden there is this explosion of million dollar Teslas on the road!"
Companies need to leave some value for regular people to live.
All car companies comply with thousands of regulations, and it's fine. If you have a simple view of the world, I don't think inverting it and claiming the people you think are the baddies hold that inverted view is going to get anyone closer to understanding anything.
How about the latest Palo Alto networks vulnerability? Lots of critical infrastructure behind their firewalls.
All in all, I'd say Tesla is among the top on software and hardware engineering, and I'd hire any of their engineers in a heartbeat.
> There are reasons why strict car safety regulations exist.
Besides, companies the size and influence of Tesla can lobby their way out of regulations. With Musk now becoming more politically involved, it's doubtful we'll see any of this change in the next 4 years at least.
Interesting to note that this thread seems to be full of a lot of people choosing to be pedantic over the word "recall" rather than taking a critical look at the Cybertruck and it's issues. While I agree that language is important (and dynamic), I suspect that discussion around this vehicle is also charged by politics and sycophantic thinking.
If I remove my personal opinions about Musk, I find that I actually do not hate the Cybertruck. Sure, I think it looks absolutely stupid and it bothers me that the flat paneling does not line up perfectly, but I am also cheering on it's attempts to break some rules, try something different and possibly spark some future innovation. With that in mind, it's easy for me to expect that it will have problems since anything new that breaks the mold tends to, so with that reframing, a lot of recalls make sense and could even be looked at as good since solutions are being developed.
The whole issue is a spectrum of consequences. Right now it seems that the term used confusingly is always justified because the issue is binarily bad in the first place.
Being pedantic over a single word out of 100 is HN's bread and butter. How many times have you read a comment here that boiled down to "The author's entire article is invalid because in paragraph 3, word 65 he used the wrong word!"
Bonus points when the poster is himself also wrong about the meaning of the word, as is the case in this thread where people don't know what a "recall" is in the automotive world.
We do kind of exist in a strange space where the meaning and intention of words matter for the sake of clarity, but to ignore the dynamic nature of language results in less clarity. If that makes any sense?
As others have noted, 'recall' brings to mind physically returning an item. I have, repeatedly, had to clarify to people that it was actually an OTA software update, which - to most people - is a lot less significant than the idea of having to return your car several times a year.
Maybe because an over-the-air update is hard to seriously consider a "recall"?
Also, in the head of most people, I think, a recall is something where the car needs to be returned physically. But still, obviously, the issues can be as serious as physical issues. It’s just that we’re used to physical recalls.
(The etymology of a word can be quite different from its current meaning today.)
It does not, no more than gaslighting implies lighting a gas lamp or the phrase crossing the Rubicon implies actually crossing a river in Italy, in any case. It hasn't meant anything of that sort since the mid-sixties.
Recall is what legislation requires you to call it if something is unsafe for public use and it has to be withdrawn for the market until it's remedied. It doesn't matter how that's done. The NHTSA guidelines don't include physically getting the product to a manufacturer or a distributor as a requirement to issue, or as a criteria for fulfillment, of a recall. (I don't think recall guidelines in any industry do, it's just the NHTSA's that apply in this case).
Yes, this also applies for firmware upgrades. No, it doesn't matter where they're performed. The FDA has issued firmware-related recalls for devices with programmable logic since programmable logic in medical devices was a thing so like... fourty years. If anyone in some company's safety staff just learned about that's let's all please give them a warm welcome to the 20th century.
The main reason why recalls typically involve returning the product to the manufacturer (or, more often, as the vast majority of recalls are for food, medicine or cosmetics, to the distributor) is traceability. Manufacturers need to maintain documentation that shows they took reasonable action to notify all customers, that depending on how they chose to handle it they made repairs for free, replaced them for free, or that the refund they issued made reasonable allowances for depreciation, and so on. Some foodstuffs or medicine also have disposal safety rules that require you to maintain adequate documentation as well. It's just the easiest way to deal with it, both in terms of remedying the actual issue, and in terms of legal risk.
But it's got nothing to do with returning something to the factory, it hasn't meant anything of that sort in like half a century.
....And yes, this IS leading to this place becoming more and more Reddit like (no, that isn't a tired cliché, no matter what the FAQs claim).
Downvoting needs to be reserved for comments that detract from the conversation. At this rate, we will need some form of meta moderation to ensure this happens.
I understand where you're coming from but truth is a post like that one does detract from the usual excusemaking conversation that some companies enjoy here, so I'm not surprised it was downvoted :-). It's one of the many ways in which karma points killed online discourse. I just happen to be old enough to have racked up a lot of pre-karma posting (including, of course, flamewars, what would life be without spice?) so downvotes don't really register on my radar.
Not all recalls are for big mechanical problems. I've received several recall notices for issues that just required the dealership to flash the ECU or some other controller with new firmware. Whether that update is flashed OTA or with a special dongle at the dealership doesn't really make a difference if you're looking at it from the perspective of vehicle safety/reliability/stability. The point is that a recall is a significant enough issue that the manufacturer _must_ notify their customers about it.
I agree that if you count _every_ OTA update as a recall, you can't really do an apples-to-apples comparison. The cost of pushing an OTA update is much lower than the cost of a recall, so Tesla probably pushes a bunch of minor OTA updates that other manufacturers wouldn't bother with. But it's a fair comparison if only some subset of OTA updates are counted as recalls (i.e. updates addressing a safety issue).
That it's used for OTA updates just (to me) means they should use some more suitable wording for it. And yeah, as other people have pointed out it's the word used for the legislation. I still think they should use some kind of different wording though.
So no, the word recall is used because is the official terminology used for these issues regardless of the solution required to fix them.
The word does have its origin in a world where solutions were rarely software updates. That they are software issues make them no less serious though. I suspect that in some cases the software issues might indeed be far more dangerous than errors which mandate physical recalls.
"We use a silly word for OTA software updates: 'recalls'"
"Recalls is the word we use"
"Yes..."
If that doesn't happen there are legal consequences.
The fact that software is involved changes exactly nothing. And honestly - the entire industry needs to get over the bizarre belief that software has a magical right to be less performant, less competent, less reliable, less robust, and more consumer hostile than hardware, just because it can be updated.
Tesla is treating its product-launches like it's just some browser-game in the cloud, instead of treating it as what it is: The handover of a 6000 pound bullet into the hand of a customer who will fire it into a crowd in expectation to not hit anyone...
This conversation happens every single time Tesla produces a product that is legally unsafe. We keep having this conversation because Tesla keeps making an unsafe product.
Every vehicle since 2018 has been required to have one for safety. No car or truck is sufficiently safe without one.
To a lot of folks, maybe older than the average HN user at this point, the reason recalls were such a hated thing was not primarily that it implied a safety defect, but because they were super inconvenient.
For example, I had a recall on my Tesla having to do with the automatic window closing being dangerous. That is a safety issue, and I do have kids, so I realize that there's a very small chance they could damage or lose a finger with it, so I do want it fixed. But because it was fixed OTA, I don't really mind it or hold it against them. In contrast, if fixing it meant taking it into a dealership and losing a day, it would be a hugely negative thing! I ascribe a negative sentiment to the fact that there was a safety issue in proportion to the chance of damage and how severe it was, so: minor.
In other words, I know why it's called a "recall" and it makes sense. But on the other hand, you have to realize why people put it in scare quotes, too. The plain denotation of the word hasn't changed, but the connotation is really disproportionate to the experience of someone with a Tesla.
I'm quite surprised that that is allowed at all. Seems like an unnecessary risk.
Why can’t I choose that feature as a consumer? Did their brother in law have the patent for backing cameras?
The cost at this point is pretty negligible.
Mandate went into effect (in the US) in 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_camera#Mandates
Yeah the cost is negligible if you are already planning to have a screen running chrome on Ubuntu server, but I hope it was still an option not to have that.
Zero software required.