Tesla Model 3 Traps TikToker Inside 115-Degree Car During A Software Update:
Tesla warns owners that opening their doors or windows while installing a software update could damage the vehicle, so she stayed put
According to the Tesla owner's manual, "Vehicle functions, including some safety systems and opening or closing the doors or windows, may be limited or disabled when installation is in progress and you could damage the vehicle." Janel chose to heed Tesla's warning and did not attempt to open her doors or windows during the installation process for fear of damaging her vehicle, but this seems like a very dangerous oversight on Tesla's part that she was able to be stuck inside at all.
The door mechanisms on the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y are electrically operated, and under normal circumstances are opened from the inside using a simple button to unlatch the door. Should the vehicle have no power, these models do have auxiliary manual cable release levers also found on the door panel, but Tesla warns against using the manual mechanism, citing that it should only be used when the car has no power. Janel said she was aware of this option but didn't want to risk damaging her car, and she felt confident that she could stick out the heat.
In contrast to Tesla's potentially dangerous warnings, Lucid Motors requires all occupants to exit the vehicle before the installation process begins, and the Lucid Air owners manual states that owners will not be able to lock or unlock the doors during an update. The Air will start a two-minute countdown when an owner chooses to install an update, giving them enough time to get out prior to the update beginning.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jelizondo on Monday April 15 2024, @02:32PM
Microsoft has won.
It is now "patch Tuesday" for every sort of device and please do not attempt to operate while updates are being installed.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 15 2024, @02:33PM (19 children)
Well, there's your no-brainer. Also,
Does Tesla give you control over when to start an update? Imagine, you're a thousand miles from home, and Tesla pushes an update which breaks your car. Lucid apparently gives you the option to install or not to install, allowing you to get home and park your car in a perfectly safe spot before doing an update.
Elon has done plenty wrong with his cars, this is just one more bit of stupid. He needs to hire a real automotive engineer to start working out all the kinks he has built into his cars. That engineer might start with removing electric door controls, and installing some additional sensors, like lidar.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 5, Informative) by PhilSalkie on Monday April 15 2024, @02:54PM (5 children)
Tesla vehicles by default schedule updates for 2AM, and give you advance warning both on the vehicle screen and on the app as to when they'll occur - you then have the option to install immediately, schedule a different time, or defer installation. They clearly tell you the vehicle won't be operational during that time, and that the alarm won't be active and the air suspension might drop. They also won't happen if the battery charge is too low.
The manual release for the doors doesn't lower the window before opening, so you have to push the door open a little carefully so the window slips out of the door molding. If you were to pull the release and shoulder the door open, you could tear the molding or maybe do something to the window or door itself. Lots of car windows work this way now, it's a way to make the window seal tighter to reduce cabin noise.
People doing things like this are why we have so many warning labels on things - every warning label was caused by someone doing something nobody would have ever thought they'd do.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 15 2024, @04:54PM
>the air suspension might drop
Now taking bets on when we will hear of the first Tesla owner being crushed, or crushing something dear to them (pets?), during a software update.
My money is on "within 2 years."
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Monday April 15 2024, @07:30PM
This was true for early Model 3s, but fixed years ago. Now if you use the manual release, it drops the window.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday April 16 2024, @04:44AM (1 child)
Using a manual release when an electric door opener fails or even just because you feel like it doesn't strike me as anything like unexpected. I don't know how fast or slow the electric mechanism works, but if it's too slow, need bathroom might be a reason to abruptly open the door manually if not warned against it. Most everyone has grown up with cars and the vast majority of them have manual doors and no consequences at all if you open them as quickly as you are able as long as you don't push it past fully open in the process.
(Score: 1) by steveg on Tuesday April 16 2024, @07:54PM
The window moves down (or up when you close it) so quickly that you might not realize that it's happening. It's not going to slow down the process of opening the door.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday April 16 2024, @11:36AM
So if you're going to break into a Tesla, just wait for a software update and then hang around them at 2am.
How about updates that don't render devices inoperable, which we've been able to do for decades?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Deep Blue on Monday April 15 2024, @03:37PM (2 children)
Is it really? When was the last time you had to get out of the car to update something, before these Tesla/Lucid vehicles?
When you can't open a god damn door while updating, you've taken the software aspect waaaaayyy too far.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday April 15 2024, @05:54PM (1 child)
I have never had to update a car, period. I have never owned a car with a built in cellular modem, an I hope I never will.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday April 16 2024, @11:46AM
I have a car without over-the-air updates. This was a deliberate decision at the time ("Are you ever like... if I see one more cup of coffee...?!").
The only update it ever had, the car was due for a recall for a minor battery issue (it's an ICE car, but apparently people were so dumb they were shorting out the battery when using tools, so they put a extra fuse in one of the cables).
Putting the fuse in took 10 minutes. The guy said "Your software is also very old, do you want me to update it while you're here?". Sure. Why not. It's not my problem if it goes wrong.
Four hours later, the new software was finally installed and... did nothing new whatsoever. Not even a new satnav map (they want you to pay for those). Nothing. But the guy struggled with it so much and obviously couldn't return it to me "broken" when it hadn't come in for that.
I was glad they did it but I'd never update the software myself.
The irony is, I also deliberately bought a car where the car software only runs: The media centre, the satnav, the aircon. All the driving functions don't have updateable software. And I've even had that unit crash and get into a reboot loop while driving and the car just carries on. The only thing that happens is the aircon goes off. It's only ever done that once and turned out to be a faulty SD card where the music is stored.
There is an option to connect the car to the Internet. I refused it, so it literally doesn't have the hardware to do so.
I intend to hang onto this car as long as practicable because I absolutely do not want to go to an electric car (and my next car will be electric) where this kind of over-the-air update mechanism is commonplace.
(Score: 2, Funny) by OrugTor on Monday April 15 2024, @04:18PM (7 children)
PhilSalkie's comment got moderated Funny instead of Informative, presumably by some mindless Musk-hater so I'm repeating it here.
Tesla vehicles by default schedule updates for 2AM, and give you advance warning both on the vehicle screen and on the app as to when they'll occur - you then have the option to install immediately, schedule a different time, or defer installation. They clearly tell you the vehicle won't be operational during that time, and that the alarm won't be active and the air suspension might drop. They also won't happen if the battery charge is too low.
The manual release for the doors doesn't lower the window before opening, so you have to push the door open a little carefully so the window slips out of the door molding. If you were to pull the release and shoulder the door open, you could tear the molding or maybe do something to the window or door itself. Lots of car windows work this way now, it's a way to make the window seal tighter to reduce cabin noise.
People doing things like this are why we have so many warning labels on things - every warning label was caused by someone doing something nobody would have ever thought they'd do.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Nuke on Monday April 15 2024, @04:25PM (5 children)
Well I'm a Musk hater (whether mindless or not), but I'm lost why you think the "Funny" mod was by a Musk hater, and I'm lost why anyone would think it funny anyway. Perhaps someone simply hit the wrong choice accidentally.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday April 15 2024, @05:31PM
All the moderations appear to have been done by regular users who just might see a funny side to the story as well as appreciating the useful information that PhilSilkie provided.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday April 15 2024, @05:50PM (3 children)
I think it's pretty funny that if you open a car door wrong these days you might tear the seal or even break the window, but, on the plus side, slightly reduced cabin noise. Not a fan of Musk.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday April 15 2024, @10:10PM (1 child)
Just taking the Apple mantra to the car world. You're doing X thing wrong.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2024, @07:18PM
ftfy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Monday April 15 2024, @10:28PM
If road noise is a priority, just get a car that has framed windows. Most car still have framed windows. You mostly need/see frameless windows on convertibles because it looks better with the top down. I'm not sure why an EV coupe or sedan would go frameless -- because they run quieter without an engine, road noise is worse, so the advantage of framed windows seems obvious.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday April 15 2024, @07:32PM
Was true once, but hasn't been true for years. It's possible that this might be true during updates, but my experience is that the normal door open buttons work during updates, so I think it unlikely.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 15 2024, @04:52PM (1 child)
Didn't the Apollo astronauts cover this after the loss of the Apollo One crew?
We are never dependent on complicated systems or outside support to allow us to exit the vehicle.
That should be some kind of universal safety standard for anything that could potentially trap a human being inside. Violations of this principle to be clearly labeled as "Potential imprisonment risk."
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2024, @05:26PM
> We are never dependent on complicated systems or outside support to allow us to exit the vehicle.
Agreed. However, this will ruin one of the big players of horror stories/movies -- stuck in the freezer locker, bank vault, etc.--with no internal door knob, and the bad people on the outside!
(Score: 5, Touché) by acid andy on Monday April 15 2024, @02:36PM (17 children)
OK, this crazy has gone on long enough. Pull the plug on any mass market applications of computer tech to consumer appliances, vehicles and homes that didn't have widespread adoption before, say, about 2003. We can have it back if and when our species grows the hell up a bit.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ox0000 on Monday April 15 2024, @02:59PM (12 children)
The Luddites weren't against technology as such. They were against the loss of livelihood that the way how particular technology-du-jour was introduced under would (and did) cause.
They just happened to take it out on the technology, rather than on those in control of the technology and its roll-out. Whether that choice of action was a mistake, or in other words whether they would have been more 'successful' (by whatever definition you want to go by), if they had taken it out on those in control of the technology and its roll-out, I'll leave that for you to ponder.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday April 15 2024, @03:06PM
I'm not against technology either, as such. I'm against the kind of user hostile, sloppy engineering that results in fears that opening a mere door with a mechanical latch--you know, something that has worked great every day for many hundreds of years--might actually break your software! These mindsets are utterly ruining tech.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday April 15 2024, @03:10PM
Oh, not break the software, "damage the vehicle". Well, that sounds much worse.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 15 2024, @05:22PM (6 children)
Luddite anecdote for you. I've been brewing coffee for over 50 years. Started out using a percolator, that sat above the heat - gas, electric, campfire, maybe even an over heated engine. Very basic, very simple, it just worked, so long as you supplied the heat. Never had a problem with it. "Graduated", if you can call it that, to electric drip coffee makers. Still very basic, very simple. Heater comes on, you pour water into a tank, and the water is perked out over the grounds. Never had a problem with one. Saw a programmable drip coffee maker in a store for cheap enough, about the same time my older coffee maker was wearing out. Shelled out the thirty or forty dollars, brought it home, used it for a week or two - then threw it out the window one morning. Literally. The damned thing didn't make coffee, instead it caught fire, and woke me up with the smell of burnt electrical wires.
To this day, the most "complicated" coffee maker I own is a Bunn coffee maker. Hot plate, water tank, drip mechanism, that's it. To hell with anything more advanced that can go wrong, and burn your house down.
Oh yeah, I still have an old timey percolator. I can walk outside, gather up some sticks, balance a wire grill across some rocks, fill the percolator with water and coffee, wait a few minutes, and drink the nectar of the gods. When the power goes out, I still have life's necessities.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Monday April 15 2024, @06:56PM (3 children)
One could always start drinking coffee in the Turkish style [wikipedia.org]: finely-ground, and boiled, served without filtering. Then all you need is a container in which you can boil water and a source of sufficient water and heat. A Moka-pot [wikipedia.org] keeps the grinds separate from the liquid, but also does not need a filter.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday April 15 2024, @08:15PM (2 children)
That's just "cowboy coffee". Throw ground up roasted beans in a pot and boil, either over a stove or campfire.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Monday April 15 2024, @08:36PM
That makes me think of Greek coffee: Turkish coffee, but with a sand filter. Not bad, but for a real kick-up, there's nothing better than a strong Italian espresso (with sugar).
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday April 17 2024, @02:08AM
Cowboy coffee isn't ground as finely. But it is very similar,
(Score: 3, Informative) by crafoo on Monday April 15 2024, @08:40PM
older percolators are nice. they have that glass perc bubble. the newer ones are some high-temp plastic
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Tuesday April 16 2024, @05:04AM
Similar. When I needed a new drip coffee maker, I sought out one with zero digital features. It's just a heater, thermostat and a switch. Then the switch failed so I bypassed it. Plug in to turn on, unplug to turn off.
My backup is an old stovetop percolator from the late '50s or early '60s and an auxiliary burner on the propane grill. If I have to wake up to a power failure, I at least want my coffee.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday April 16 2024, @04:57AM (2 children)
I suspect the Luddites attacked the machines because attacking the people was more likely to result in their death or long term imprisonment.
It's the same reason some have protested speed cameras in the UK by putting tires around them and burning them down with diesel rather than doing that to politicians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2024, @11:53AM (1 child)
Yes, well, sure more likely, but not to say that the punishment for attacking the machines were light. The various "frame breaking acts" passed in Britain made the destruction of "frames" either a capital crime (some 60-70 Luddites were hanged during the time the death penalty was on the books; 1812-1814) and at other times the punishment was either transportation 7-14 years, or transportation for life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Stocking_Frames,_etc._Act_1812 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 17 2024, @04:56PM
Also a matter of access. The machines were right there. The decision makers were absentees.
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Monday April 15 2024, @05:04PM
I think pulling the plug here is going to come down to right-to-control/repair/tinker laws. You can't threaten multi-billionaires with pulling their advertising revenue [youtu.be], it's going to take something stronger or scarier [youtu.be].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 15 2024, @05:06PM (2 children)
It's just hopeless all over.
I was in a "UPS Store" at opening this morning to mail my tax returns. They have a "self service Amazon Returns" kiosk. While the clerk was helping me, there was a gentleman attempting to return an Amazon package.
The clerk was already exasperated 30 seconds after opening the store: "Sir, do you have your QR code? Yes, just scan that and follow the instructions on the screen." The kiosk provided a bag and printed a label, time passes. "Sir, place your item to return in the bag and seal the bag shut using the label." Exasperation visibly increases. Finally, clerk physically crosses the store to demonstrate how to seal the bag shut using the label so the next customer may begin using the self service kiosk... Hopeless elderly gentleman totters out to his, unattended while parked in the fire lane, 2023 AWD Honda Pilot Black Edition and drives away. The, clearly exasperated with the banality of his job, clerk no doubt arrived in some barely functional 15+ year old beater car which costs him more for insurance in a year than he could sell it for.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday April 16 2024, @03:26PM (1 child)
Please remember that you posted this when you are old and struggling to cope with life.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 16 2024, @04:19PM
I'm not insulting the elderly gentleman, if anything I am insulting the Amazon self-service return kiosk for not communicating adequately with their target audience. A simple "Would you like to see a demonstration video?" button that appears after a few seconds of inactivity would have gone a long way in that circumstance.
As for "tottering back to the firelane" - that was a bit of poetic license, he seemed more than capable of parking in a regular spot and walking the extra 50 yards required in the cool morning air. He certainly had enough time to do that while he sat in his car with the windows rolled up, engine idling spewing exhaust around me and the other patron standing outside the door before opening. As for whether or not he shut the engine off and took the keys inside with him, I cannot say... I was stuck dealing with the clerk who helped him seal his bag shut before taking my parcel for mailing.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2024, @02:53PM
Seems like a good idea, keeps them away from the general population.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Opportunist on Monday April 15 2024, @02:57PM
But it took longer than 10 seconds and his ADHD viewers didn't want to wait for the end.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Monday April 15 2024, @05:17PM (7 children)
Does Falcon 9 get software updates at inopportune times?
Maybe Tesla could learn something from SpaceX?
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2024, @05:33PM (6 children)
> Does Falcon 9 get software updates at inopportune times?
Don't you remember "T minus 9 and holding"? Or was that too early in the US space program for you?
Sometimes the radio/TV broadcast would later say why there was a hold, other times not. The whole country (or so it seemed to me) was on the edge of their seat, waiting for the launch...and then the count down stopped.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 15 2024, @06:03PM (5 children)
I clearly remember the early (1980-82) Space Shuttle failures to launch attributed to their triple redundant computer system failing to satisfy pre-launch criteria to proceed. It seemed like about 80% of launch attempts were cancelled this way.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday April 15 2024, @11:02PM (4 children)
There was a slight chance that the three redundant computers wouldn't sync properly when booted up.
Once they figured that out, the remedy was simple when it occurred -- just turn them off and boot up again.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 16 2024, @02:10AM (2 children)
Seemed like it took them more than my entire freshman year in High School to figure that one out...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday April 17 2024, @03:36PM (1 child)
I read about it in a ACM special interest publication.
I remember that they figured it out in a few days, so, with the work-around, they approved another launch attempt quite soon.
Of course people kept talking about it for a long time, and I don't know how long it took for them to actually fix the problem.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 17 2024, @04:22PM
I was 13 at the time, so not exactly tapped into the technical details. All I knew is that every time they announced a new Shuttle launch it never went off on the first try, and usually took three or more, and usually the radio announcers blamed it on the computers.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday April 16 2024, @01:56PM
I didn't know Microsoft was the contractor for shuttle ground complex computers.
And if rebooting doesn't work, then reinstall.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2, Informative) by turgid on Monday April 15 2024, @06:57PM (3 children)
This is what we do,
Multiply by nine fifths,
And add on 32.
That'll be ((115 - 32) * 5) / 9 = 46 in real money.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by pTamok on Monday April 15 2024, @07:12PM (2 children)
Nah. 319.261̅1̅ Kelvin. Everything else is non-standard.
(Score: 4, Funny) by turgid on Monday April 15 2024, @07:49PM (1 child)
Gas Mark 3?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Tuesday April 16 2024, @07:10AM
Pretty much ( Gas Mark [wikipedia.org] ). Germany [wikipedia.org] and France [wikipedia.org] have their own equivalents.
I think the use of gas-fired cooking ovens is diminishing, so that particular temperature scale is becoming less familiar to people.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Monday April 15 2024, @07:01PM (1 child)
A slightly more sophisticated update mechanism would have a 'A' and 'B' storage device. The update would be applied to one while the car was running off the other, and rebooting the car to run off the updated version would, I hope, take less than 40 minutes.
But doing that costs money. Which is probably why it isn't done.
It is a standard approach in many systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2024, @03:47AM
(Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Monday April 15 2024, @07:27PM (1 child)
Tesla owner risks her life by failing to try to get out of vehicle when the temperature reached dangerous levels.
Or perhaps:
Tesla owner puts the cost of a few scratches on her car above the value of her own life.
This owner was not trapped in the car by anything except her own mind.
The car has a physical handle she could have pulled, but did not. The physical handle would have opened the door. It's possible, but no means certain, that this might have resulted in some minor damage, because the window may have failed to drop to allow the door to open cleanly.
She could have tried opening the windows, but didn't.
She could have tried pressing the door open button, but didn't.
Yes, there is a warning about possible damage from doing the above, but at dangerously hot temperatures, I think a little damage would be warranted if it actually removed the danger of being in an excessively hot car.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 15 2024, @08:21PM
Bbbbbut it might hurt my caaaaar, and there's still 63 months left on the loan!!!!
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 15 2024, @08:20PM
>two-minute countdown when an owner chooses to install an update, giving them enough time to get out prior to the update beginning.
I'm recalling an afternoon we spent at and near the Hoover Dam in July, being given two minutes to exit the vehicle then being forced to stay outside where the temperature ranges from 40C and up... I would hope you can choose not to update until a more hospitable outside environment is available.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by RedGreen on Monday April 15 2024, @09:16PM
There I fixed the title and whole premise of the article that she was so hard done by by voluntarily staying in the vehicle during the update. As much as I despise that Nazi piece of shit and his companies it is not their fault some idiot fails to open the door and get out of the car. I have said it before but what passes for journalism these days is simply pathetic.
Those people are not attacking Tesla dealerships. They are tourists showing love. I learned that on Jan. 6, 2021.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2024, @09:34PM
If the cops want to hold somebody, they can just call Tesla and have them stop the car and lock the guy inside.
But yeah, "Person stays in car during an update" would be the correct headline. So many of our prisons are self made and locked from the inside.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday April 15 2024, @11:39PM (7 children)
Most of the comments worry about computer control of hardware, but I've had computer-controlled transmissions and engines since, I believe, 1987, and nothing awful has happened and none of the modules are connected in my circa 2014 car nor my wife's 2017 van.
What is new about the Tesla story is:
The systems are so deeply interconnected that if the daily upgrade to "fix" the screensaver or display new radio icons is interrupted, maybe the battery will explode, so the user is in total panic mode.
The deep integration is the problem, especially when it likely provides little to no value to the end user.
The engine computer controlled the choke and ignition advance on my '87 Horizon, and the radio "computer" controlled the FM radio preset buttons, but they were completely independent and you can mess with one system without interference with the other. Apparently, the Tesla users believe this separation of concerns from 1987 is NOT how a Tesla works and if you change the FM radio station preset buttons on a Tesla, possibly that could make the motor overspeed or the battery charger explode, so dumb stuff happens.
It doesn't help that it's a meme car from a meme company owned by a meme guy, so of course there's a tic-tok video about it. Generally, in 2024, the most intelligent way to improve your standard of living is to ignore social media or do the opposite of the propaganda on social media.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Tuesday April 16 2024, @07:15AM
Computer control, per se, isn't the problem. Most commercial airliners control the engines with FADECs [wikipedia.org]. Computer control can be very reliable.
Tesla's design choices, and their safety engineering, can be open to critical review, however.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday April 16 2024, @11:49AM (4 children)
Computer control is amazing - your ABS absolutely relies on it and in the EU ABS has been mandated for so long basically every car has it.
What's dumb is running one central machine doing everything, without redundancy, not using special-purpose computers for special purposes that shouldn't be tampered with (e.g. ABS), updating the entire car in one hit, and allowing the car to join critical systems with entertainment systems, window controls, etc. AT ALL. It just shouldn't be possible.
Teslas are particularly dumb in this regard, whereas I have a car with ABS, electronic ignition and timing, etc. etc. etc. but the entertainment unit is just that... the only thing it's connected to is the aircon. And nothing else connects to the aircon.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday April 16 2024, @02:38PM (3 children)
My wife's van radio gets a (one way?) feed from the transmission about road speed and has some kind of level control such that the ratio of road noise to radio noise is held constant across varying speeds. My dad had a 90s SUV that did the same thing in the old days. The aircon used to hardware shutdown when compressor RPM exceeded X with the implication that overreving is bad for the compressor and high engine speeds mean you need to dump power to the wheels not the aircon (also the aircon dumps tons of heat into the engine compartment, another thing you don't need while climbing hills in the summer). In the old days it was some kind of dampened slow speed centrifugal clutch in at least some cars. Nowadays its probably thousands of lines of javascript code (or worse) connecting the throttle position sensor and engine computer and aircon all together.
An intelligently programmed RTOS can survive a lot of dumb stuff. The danger is something like this theoretical scenario: ABS is programmed to send an acknowledged CANbus packet to the text-to-speech ratio to say "ABS" right before the ABS activates on the brakes. The radio fails the protocol in some dumb unpredictable way (maybe infinitely sends a NAK and resend message, who knows) so the ABS gets stuck in the "bother the radio" subroutine and never quite reaches the "do the ABS thing to the brakes" subroutine so the ABS fails. An intelligently designed RTOS would have a separation of concerns going on so one soft limited task talks to the radio and another hard limited task runs the ABS hardware, so if the connection to the radio fails the ABS task keeps on working even if the radio task times out or locks up. It's quite plausible some UI designer thought it would be cool to flash the interior lights in time with the ABS activation or auto-mute the radio during ABS, or who knows, and the more interconnected the system, the less likely it is to continue safely working.
There are other alternatives to RTOS. A classic is ladder logic or people who don't know what ladder logic is claiming they've invented the idea. If you don't know how PLCs or ladder logic work, give it a try its cool its "there is only ONE loop that loops as fast as it can". A single loop computer is indeed Turing complete BTW, it can do literally anything a complicated multi-loop computer does although it might take a pile of intermediate variables etc. This design is handy when you can tell OSHA/etc that its a hardware guarantee that every thousandth of a second it'll run the safety shutdown code first before running the rest of the code, etc.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 16 2024, @04:29PM (2 children)
I turbocharged a Miata - adding a big intercooler in front of the AC condenser... Miatas have a Wide Open Throttle switch that disengages the AC compressor, but with the turbo I had Wide Open Throttle wasn't something you usually engaged. So, one fine summer afternoon after getting away from Miami-Key Largo traffic on Card Sound Road, I opened up the throttle (not quite wide) and ran through the gears... just as we were passing through 100mph the heat from the intercooler (which was trivial in normal driving, but pretty extreme when pulling a heavy load at 5000 RPM) overwhelmed the condenser and we got a heavy blast of heat out of the AC vents, just as we were passing the little makeshift memorial for what appeared to be a triple fatality accident...
At cruise around 110mph, the AC function returned to normal-ish cold air out the vents, but the drama was unforgettable.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday April 18 2024, @08:18AM (1 child)
"just as we were passing the little makeshift memorial for what appeared to be a triple fatality accident..."
"At cruise around 110mph"
You have bigger lessons to learn that an AC.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 18 2024, @09:26AM
Personally, I view 120mph on a straight empty highway in good weather as much safer than 65mph in heavy traffic.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday April 16 2024, @07:33PM
I recently had a rental car from ...hmm.. 2018 maybe? I can't remember the make/model but it was American-made and it had an ICE engine. As we were driving down a rainy freeway the windshield wipers FROZE. As in completely stopped diagonally across my windscreen. As in I had a whole new dynamic of melty light to look through and try to avoid a collision for like 5 minutes. Then... magically they started working again. Any Windows user that has had their machine lock up for no apparent reason then suddenly right itself has an idea of what I mean.
That might be the silliest reason I've ever been frightened on a highway. I've also never heard of that happening before. I guess even in the future nothing works.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BlueCoffee on Tuesday April 16 2024, @03:24AM
A TicToker, who just happened to be perfectly dressed up and made up in 2024s latest shitty makeup trends, decided to deliberately 'accidentally' lock herself inside a Tesla during a manual software update that starts a countdown timer, and warns that the doors will not work.
Then she cries to her audience, and as more ppl view her she gets more and more of those precious internet points.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday April 16 2024, @03:46AM
It's just that she obeyed without questioning the order:
If I was forced to stay in a hot car long enough that it would become either uncomfortable, or just plain waste my life when I have a finite amount of hours left on this dirtball, when the FUCKING DOORS ARE UNLOCKED, I'd get out, then tell Tesla the update went wrong and I don't know why (if it did), then sue Tesla if they refused to fix the car.
But staying inside a hot car because my car told me so? I'd have to be as dumb as a TikToker...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday April 16 2024, @02:52PM
"Tesla Model 3 Traps TikToker Inside 115-Degree Car During A Software Update"
No it didn't. TFS clearly indicates "these models do have auxiliary manual cable release levers also found on the door panel". So, no one was "trapped", unless you count the author falling into the trap of Musk Derangement Syndrome.