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Tesla Updates Model S Software As a Precaution Against Unsafe Charging
zlives writes "Tesla Motors has maintained that the most recent fire involving one of its Model S electric vehicles isn't the result of a vehicle or battery malfunction, but the company is still addressing the situation with a software fix, according to Green Car Reports. The California-based automaker has added a software function that automatically reduces the charge current by about 25 percent when power from the charging source fluctuates outside of a certain range, Green Car Reports says, citing the Twitter feed from an Apple employee, @ddenboer, who owns a Model S. You can read the text of the update below."
You're comments are a reason that companies drag their feet on enhancing safety. They could do the right thing to add more safeguards. Then some will take that to mean they were defective in the past, and sue. We're actually creating disincentives for companies to improve. The auto insurance IIS safety standards are one of the few places where we provide incentives for companies to improve. I'm kind of surprised it hasn't caused lawsuits "you sold me an x that wasn't as safe as y". Hmm, maybe CYA causes the car companies to have crash testing as early as possible the product cycle to avoid that.
So the basic idea is that if your power source is terrible (i.e. shoddy wiring in your home), then pulling too much through it could expose that problem via a fire. That isn't a problem with the car, but rather a problem with the substandard wiring. If Tesla merely responds with "it isn't us and isn't our problem", we'll invariably hear of more house fires and the Model S will be blamed.
So they develop a change that detects potentially substandard wiring from the symptom of poor quality power entering the vehicle. It then cuts the draw significantly in that case to reduce the risk of said substandard wiring causing a fire (notice the wiring would still be at fault). Suddenly, because Tesla has released a "fix", their car must have been at fault all along!
This is an absurd level of idiocy and quite frankly, if it continues and eventually sinks Tesla, then we deserve to choke to death on the smog of our own stupidity's making. It's really remarkable how terribly dumb the top of the bell curve is. All evidence points directly toward the future envisioned in the film Idiocracy.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
don;t meet his requirements.
His requirements? Try the National Electrical Code requirements, which are legally required by most state and local building codes. A 50A line that can't deliver 50A is in violation, and shoddy wiring like that is a serious hazard, regardless of whether you charge a Tesla with it.
The U.S. has had time to upgrade their infrastructure
Are you kidding? Imagine a power company telling its customers that they're being "upgraded" to 240V service, and therefore all the electrical equipment they have will be trash. Moreover, all wiring, outlets, etc. in their home has to be replaced.
120V is not an "infrastructure problem". The only ramification is a little more copper to wire up a home. 120V comes from the max practical voltage for a carbon filament bulb. Europe, being about 20 years behind the US in large scale electric power distribution, was able to choose a higher voltage, but one that was still limited by the then state-of-the-art in metal filament bulbs. If you were to choose an optimal household wiring voltage today, who knows what it would be. Maybe 350V would be better. Moreover, for large loads where 240V makes a significant difference (e.g. electric range or dryer, CAC, etc.), American homes have 240V lines.