Tesla goes up in flames!

[mongo]

With Tesla's known unwillingness to confirm problems before they are pushed thru media and publicized (i.e. M3 braking distance)

What are you talking about? What report of braking distance problems existed before the CR report?
When CR's report came out:

• Tesla issued general statement that it didn't match their testing, or other's testing, and offered possibilities why.
  
• Elon said that's weird, if there is an problem we will fix it even if it requires hardware replacement
  
• Elon said: looks like it can be address in SW
• Note, this has now been less than 24 hours
• Tesla rolls out fix that weekend.

So again I ask, when did Tesla show unwillingness to address the Model 3 braking issue?

If you want to say Tesla was slow addressing the electric steering rack bolt failure issue, I'm not going to disagree on timing, but I'm also not aware of any media reports on that one pre-recall.

The CR 3 brake response is a example of exactly what a company should do.
Other example of active issue addressing, the Ti guard piece was added after one car had a pack incursion due to a large solid metal object on road (non-typical problem).

 

[deonb]

I was driving a stretch of highway here (Seattle) last weekend where a few years ago a Tesla burnt up. There was a Subaru next to the road burning - no sign of accident or any other vehicle close by. The Subaru was burned to the ground. Both sides of the highway had 2+ hour delays around that spot.

Looked the next day for any local news to see what happened. Nothing. Not a peep. Couldn't even find it on the police blotter later. Absolutely zero reporting on it.

When the Tesla burned up in that same spot it made international news. My dad heard about it in South Africa.

 

[bhzmark]

Tesla's known unwillingness to confirm problems before they are pushed thru media and publicized (i.e. M3 braking distance)

How were they supposed to confirm a problem which was an artifact of the Consumer Reports testing protocol of at least three full speed stops that was never noticed or affected anyone else? As soon as they learned about it, they did confirm it and fix it -- amazingly fast.

something even basic regression testing must catch)...

grasshopper with probably good intentions -- try to direct your intellectual energy in more fact and evidence based comments.

 

[E-Ryc]

Tesla issued general statement that it didn't match their testing, or other's testing, and offered possibilities why.
...
The CR 3 brake response is a example of exactly what a company should do.

Well, according to me the first reaction should be "give me your repro scenario" not "works for us, your method is weird".

I might have missed something, but in the articles I've read, the sequence described was

• CR claimed long braking distance
• Tesla rejected the results with "our tests are fine"
• CR gave them "not recommended" (this is the media push I talk about)
• Tesla confirmed issue a provided patch

And honestly, in this specific case, I don't think they had other option than confirm and patch - Ignoring the issue and staying "not recommended" would probably send the stock to hell.

 

[bhzmark]

1. CR claimed long braking distance
2. Tesla rejected the results with "our tests are fine"
3. CR gave them "not recommended" (this is the media push I talk about)
4. Tesla confirmed issue a provided patch

#1 and #3 happened at the same time. #2 was actually "Very strange. Model 3 is designed to have super good stopping distance & others reviewers have confirmed this. If there is vehicle variability, we will figure it out & address. May just be a question of firmware tuning, in which case can be solved by an OTA software update." And #4 quickly followed.

You are off to a bad start. Try to post factually correct information instead of nonsense.

 

[mongo]

#1 and #3 happened at the same time. #2 was actually "Very strange. Model 3 is designed to have super good stopping distance & others reviewers have confirmed this. If there is vehicle variability, we will figure it out & address. May just be a question of firmware tuning, in which case can be solved by an OTA software update." And #4 quickly followed.

View attachment 310704

You are off to a bad start. Try to post factually correct information instead of nonsense.

I think @E-Ryc is referring the boilerplate media contact response included in the initial CR report. --Doesn't match our results, here are things that can effect braking distance.-- Front line of publication contact is not engineering..
#2 happened before #3 (was in article), however, there was nothing ever that said CR was wrong (in other words I am rejecting E-Ryc's characterization/ use of "rejected" in #2).

 

[E-Ryc]

I think there was nothing ever that said CR was wrong (in other words I am rejecting E-Ryc's characterization/ use of "rejected" in #2).

In sw development it works that way - "works for me" means "I'm not going to spend any time on it (now)", so rejection. May not be true in other professions.

 

[darrelld]

In sw development it works that way - "works for me" means "I'm not going to spend any time on it (now)", so rejection. May not be true in other professions.

I owned a 2006 Lexus IS350 that would at least weekly fill the interior with a strong smell of gasoline. Numerous trips to the Lexus dealer resulted in a written report stating they could find nothing wrong and we have never seen this before.

Several months later a national recall was issued for leaks in the high pressure fuel system that could potentially cause a fire.
Recall: Lexus GS 300/350, IS 250, IS 350—possible fuel leak

A Ford Fusion Hybrid I owned had problems with the blind spot sensor not reliably detecting the presence of another vehicle, a 1000 dollar option that never worked since the vehicle was purchased. I had video of the defect in action and the local dealer was able to reproduce.
Ford Corporate said since the sensor produced no error code they would not replace it. Finally the local dealer pulled a sensor from a new car on their lot, replaced mine and the problem was resolved. It took 3 years of complaints for this to happen.

 

[CuriousG]

And who says Teslas can't do burnouts?

 

[mongo]

In sw development it works that way - "works for me" means "I'm not going to spend any time on it (now)", so rejection. May not be true in other professions.

If you are defining rejecting as not immediately focusing on the report, sure.

I would say having a PR conact provide a boiler plate response is not equivalent to engineering/ management rejecting the results as erroneous. As shown by Elon's response to them. Though PR may have asked engineering about the CR call, but then we are in a game of telephone.

 

[Barklikeadog]

I was driving a stretch of highway here (Seattle) last weekend where a few years ago a Tesla burnt up. There was a Subaru next to the road burning - no sign of accident or any other vehicle close by. The Subaru was burned to the ground. Both sides of the highway had 2+ hour delays around that spot.

Looked the next day for any local news to see what happened. Nothing. Not a peep. Couldn't even find it on the police blotter later. Absolutely zero reporting on it.

When the Tesla burned up in that same spot it made international news. My dad heard about it in South Africa.

Who is the CEO of Subaru and is he/she hitting up the media and social media on a 24/7 basis desperately seeking attention and adulation?
Is he/she putting investors on blast during quarterly reports?
Is he/she making incredible promises and grand displays and bathing in all of the attention it generates?

Probably not.
It's ridiculous that Musk/Tesla demands so much attention yet gets his panties in a twist when that extra bit of attention is negative.
Blah, every day this just gets more Trumpish.

 

[chronopc]

174,000 vehicle fires a year, 445 deaths, and 1,550 injuries according to NFPA. Why does this vehicle fire make national news out of thousands occurring every year with hundreds of deaths?

NFPA statistics - Highway vehicle fires by year

Everything that's Tesla related makes the news. I'm fine with that actually. I'm a happy Tesla owner and I would like to know any potential problems with the car, even how small and unlikely. It the long run it'll just make Tesla better.

 

[walla2]

This is an early S and there are several mights but one potential is that it may have run over something and damaged the pack. Early cars didn't have a shield installed and some are likely still out there that never had it installed. The earliest of S fires were caused by breaches to the pack from running over metal road debris and that seemed to resolve/diminish with the lessened very low car mode and the shield.

Let's let Tesla figure it out though.

Hopefully, it's not arson since the shorts are down $2+ billion and nothing halts Tesla stock like a fire in the news even if 30+ other makes and models got toasted the same day.

 

[chronopc]

This is an early S and there are several mights but one potential is that it may have run over something and damaged the pack. Early cars didn't have a shield installed and some are likely still out there that never had it installed. The earliest of S fires were caused by breaches to the pack from running over metal road debris and that seemed to resolve/diminish with the lessened very low car mode and the shield.

Let's let Tesla figure it out though.

Hopefully, it's not arson since the shorts are down $2+ billion and nothing halts Tesla stock like a fire in the news even if 30+ other makes and models got toasted the same day.

Has it been confirmed that this Model S didn't have a shield?

 

[mtndrew1]

Who is the CEO of Subaru and is he/she hitting up the media and social media on a 24/7 basis desperately seeking attention and adulation?
Is he/she putting investors on blast during quarterly reports?
Is he/she making incredible promises and grand displays and bathing in all of the attention it generates?

Probably not.
It's ridiculous that Musk/Tesla demands so much attention yet gets his panties in a twist when that extra bit of attention is negative.
Blah, every day this just gets more Trumpish.

The Subaru folks are probably busy dealing with their fraudulent metal quality inspections and fuel economy falsifications.

Subaru investigates possible mileage cheating, shares drop

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

I’m guessing the “desperately seeking adulation” part will follow?

 

[Barklikeadog]

The Subaru folks are probably busy dealing with their fraudulent metal quality inspections and fuel economy falsifications.

Subaru investigates possible mileage cheating, shares drop

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

I’m guessing the “desperately seeking adulation” part will follow?

and upon searching... there are millions of hits for stories related to Subaru, recall, metal, scandal, etc.

That seems unusual, after being around this board, one would think that nobody is reporting on such issues.
The media only jumps on Tesla issues.
/snarky
There are posters on a Subaru forum somewhere who probably believe that they are always picked on.

 

[mtndrew1]

and upon searching... there are millions of hits for stories related to Subaru, recall, metal, scandal, etc.

That seems unusual, after being around this board, one would think that nobody is reporting on such issues.
The media only jumps on Tesla issues.
/snarky
There are posters on a Subaru forum somewhere who probably believe that they are always picked on.

It’s a major international scandal that’s also trapped a few other Japanese automakers.

Notably I’ve never seen it mentioned on the evening news. I have seen, however, “a self driving Tesla drove itself into the back of _____” repeated incessantly. Actual headline could have also read “woman speeding on local road with cruise control set was texting and drove into the back of a fire truck.”

 

[bhzmark]

In sw development it works that way - "works for me" means "I'm not going to spend any time on it (now)", so rejection. May not be true in other professions.

This is too easy to simply point out more factual errors in your statements. SW developers -- or at least intelligent ones -- know that "there’s a world of difference between “works for me on my machine” and “works for other people on theirs.” Ten simple rules for making research software more robust

SW developers don't say "works for me" to be dismissive -- they say it to isolate that there must be some relevant difference. Maybe SW developers who don't pay attention to facts and evidence and logic use that phrase (or think that it means) to be dismissive and insist that there isn't a problem worth looking at.

The Tesla PR response was factual -- their tests and that of numerous other testing publications had different results from CR. But Tesla still looked at it and fixed it faster than any other car company, and probably faster than most sw companies would fix a similar issue that had such massive safety issues to also control for.

Anyway -- the whole M3 brake issue and how correctly and quickly Tesla fixed it, is irrelevant to the fire issue.

There is some weird psychology at play in shorts and certain negative others who are so quick to find fault in either neutral or meritorious actions by Tesla. bizarre.

At a minimum the confirmation bias is strong in this one.

 

[RPhill]

This is shocking.. fire out of the blue. I was reading this news here goo.gl/2fZJxo

 

[SO16]

Yes... Investigating the incident and insists that their cars are less likely to catch fire than ice vehicles. Im sure that will make the S owners in this case feel so much better.

I prefer to understand problems in context. Tesla is investigating...obviously. But for people to expect them to sit back and take articles that in essence make it look like Tesla vehicles are less safe than the competition, is absurd.