this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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The electric car manufacturer Tesla had to issue a massive recall this month to fix faulty hood latches that can open while its cars are driving. The problem affects more than 1.8 million cars, which means it's slightly smaller than the recall in December that applied to more than 2 million Teslas.

The problem, according to the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Part 573 safety recall report, affects model year 2021–2024 Model 3s (built between September 21, 2020, and June 2, 2024), model year 2021–2024 Model Ss (built between January 26, 2021, and July 15, 2024), model year 2021–2024 Model Xs (built between August 18, 2021, and July 15, 2024), and model year 2020–2024 Model Ys (built between January 9, 2020, and July 15, 2024).

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.

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[–] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world 270 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (16 children)

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 should not be legal. They should be forced to recall vehicles and replace the faulty part instead of kindly asking drivers to pull over when the part fails.

The shit this company gets away with is astounding.

[–] TriPolarBearz@lemmy.world 156 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Driving on the highway

Hood pops open. Can't see anything. Try to brake but crash.

⚠️ Warning! Your hood is open. Please pull over in a safe location and secure your hood.

Tesla: OTA update successful

[–] ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 72 points 3 months ago (7 children)

Yup. No reason to rewrite the playbook.

"Full self driving" detects an imminent collision of it's own doing. Car beeps and shuts off "full self driving"

Human was "in control" at the time of the crash, not our fault.

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[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 3 months ago

Just like the rumored cut all driver aids instant before crash to say it wasn't due to any of the auto pilot features

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[–] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 62 points 3 months ago (4 children)

It’s not the actual latch that’s faulty, but the warning the driver should get, if they haven’t closed the frunk properly.

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 31 points 3 months ago (8 children)

does tesla just not bother to hire a qa team or something?

[–] Liz@midwest.social 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's pretty tough to say without looking at comparable recall rates for other companies. My Toyota Corolla had two recalls that I know about while I owned it, and Toyota is known for their reliability. Tesla is just always in the news because they're always in the news.

Toyota is also known for their reluctance to issue recalls even though they REALLY need to do a recall because they don't want to tarnish their reputation for reliability. Often waiting until the government forces them to issue the recall. I'd much rather the Ford approach and just issue recalls like candy on Halloween. Sure having 700 recalls sucks, but driving a defective car sucks even more.

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[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 28 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The latch is fault, and so is the sensor. Sensor doesn't go off when the latch starts to fail from deformation.

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[–] Banichan@dormi.zone 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's the owner that's faulty for buying one in the first place.

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[–] cantrips@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Is a frunk a front trunk, or is that a typo?

[–] CliveRosfield@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Front trunk, yeah

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 25 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This right here is why there should be a distinction between software updates and physical recalls. Calling this a recall without actually taking the product in and fixing the product is really deceptive.

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[–] proudblond@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That’s not what they’re saying. It’s essentially a “door ajar” warning. The sensor is what’s failing, rather than the physical part.

[–] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Isn't a sensor... A physical part???

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[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Each country has it's own authorities. Hopefully they don't get away everywhere...

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Oh so here's a fun thing. All American corporations have this level of freedom. We're just paying extra attention to Tesla because their CEO can't keep himself out of politics and the news. Ever notice you only see the CEO of GM/Stellantis/Ford when it's a crisis or a new CEO? That's how it works in a functional business. They aren't any less shady, they're just better at brand and scandal management.

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[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 100 points 3 months ago (2 children)

giving elon another $55b bonus should fix it

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We need more children from him, because apparently we don't have enough!

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Considering it seems all his children hate him, more can’t hurt.

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Thankfully you don't need to be one of his kids to hate him.

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Yeah I was about to write that some of the children seemed to turn out sane.

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 months ago

Do your thing, ma-gic man! Chanted the crowd as Elon in robes entered the golden restroom with his xPhone in the right and a ceremonial vial of coke in the left hand. It was followed by a series of thunder-like farts and sniffs.

[–] aramis87@fedia.io 72 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

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.

Patching the software isn't a "fix". Changing out the hood latch so it doesn't come open while driving is a fix.

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org 26 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"Warning: wheels falling off imminent! Please pull over!'

[–] kambusha@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 months ago

You have 3 seconds to comply. 3. 2. 1. Goodbye!

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[–] Isoprenoid@programming.dev 58 points 3 months ago (9 children)

Trying to solve a hardware problem with a software solution. Where have I seen that before?

Boeing lurking in the shadows

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Right? It's deformation of the hood latch. So a physical change. How long until the warning is permanent?

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[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 30 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (7 children)

Is this a real recall or an OTA update?

I hate Tesla, but a lot of news outlets are like

TESLA RECALLS BAJILLION CARS And what they really mean is they released an OTA update to fix some extremely rare race condition.

The issue is still bad, but I feel like the news outlets are sensationalizing to the point of dishonesty sometimes.

To be clear I'm not sure I understand the actual underlying issue here, so idk how deserved the headline is, but whenever I see them, I'm immediately skeptical

[–] freddydunningkruger@lemmy.world 33 points 3 months ago

The problem is with a shitty latch: the hood appears closed, but it's not.

The OTA Update doesn't fix the shitty mechanical latch - it still doesn't latch consistently. What it fixes is another poor design choice: evidently, the car has sensors that can tell if the hood was closed correctly or not, but this was never turned on/programmed? The OTA Updates this so now the car can warn you when the shitty latch fails.

Or who knows, maybe they initially turned off that sensor because it was going off all the time because of the latch...

[–] Lev_Astov@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social 19 points 3 months ago

Beyond any issues with the owner of the company, these cars have multiple dangerous issues.

You cannot treat a company that makes physical stuff that can endanger lives the same way you treat a software company that makes a leisure activity platform.

Iterative design for a purely software environment is way more forgiving than iterative design for physical hardware or even software that interacts with physical hardware. You can profoundly fuck up the backend for a website and take the whole thing down until you could roll back to last known good production, you won't kill anyone, but you'll make the line go down temporarily.

If you profoundly fuck up an iteration on an embedded vehicle system and don't catch it because you don't respect safety regulation or existing engineering norms you can and will kill people.

[–] skymtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 3 months ago (8 children)

I wanted a Tesla as a teenager, I recently realized that they are getting so low I could in theory finacance a used one, but they are so much shit lmao, worse than a Kia

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[–] Mereo@lemmy.ca 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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."

Given that China is now an electric car superpower, this situation will not bode well for Tesla in that country.

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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

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.”

I think there was a scandal before with the logic of that thing being not good at all and it becoming dangerous if you've put sufficiently heavy pressure to prevent it from closing a few times.

[–] Hubi@feddit.org 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

the problem can be fixed with an over-the-air software patch

I was about to make a bad joke about Tesla trying to fix a mechanical issue with a software patch but apparently Elon beat me to the punchline.

[–] gasgiant@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 months ago (6 children)

The comments read like a lot of people don't quite understand the issue.

The bonnet (hood if you insist) latch may not warn a driver if it isn't secured correctly. If it is secured correctly then it is fine. So it isn't going to suddenly open.

If the latch isn't shut correctly and then the sensor doesn't report this then the bonnet may open unexpectedly.

If they can use a software update to correct the reporting then that's it fixed.

There's no issue with the actual latching mechanism. It's just the sensor for reporting the latching state.

It may be that it currently works on a two value system. i.e a value for correctly latched and a value for not latched. If that's the case and isn't just not providing the second valve correctly then a simple software change to only use the latched value would fix this. As any other value or the absence of a value will report it at unlatched.

[–] aodhsishaj@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago (3 children)

It's a soft close latch, the frunk pulls the lid into the latching mechanism. The mechanism isn't doing it's job and needs to be replaced either with a properly adjusted soft close mechanism that grabs the lid, or with a non soft close standard latch that is very obvious to the user when it has not been properly closed.

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[–] Lemonparty@lemm.ee 10 points 3 months ago (3 children)

The comments read like a lot of people don't quite understand the issue....There's no issue with the actual latching mechanism.

..."Although the problem is with the hood latch" <--- literally from the article. Care to re-read?

It's just the sensor for reporting the latching state.

You skipped over the part where a) the latch is deforming, and as a result of that deformation b) the sensor can't detect that it's not closed, and so c) Tesla is pushing an update that lets people know their deformed latch isn't closed properly.

But yes, we all misread the article. Not you. Definitely not you.

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[–] drdabbles@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You missed the part where the latch is deforming, causing it to not close or alert the driver. The software fix is yet another attempt to dodge the fact that they do not have enough repair capacity or financial reserves for a major fleet recall.

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[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Every day I'm reminded how glad I am that I changed my mind about buying into the early run of the 3 series. Shit quality and even a bigger POS in the head office.

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