Tesla Recalls 2,700 Model X Cars, Highlighting Risk of Massive Model 3 Rollout (bgr.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Tesla has recalled 2,700 Model X cars due to a design flaw affecting the vehicle's third row of seats. Specifically, a faulty locking hinge on the last row of seats could potentially cause the seats to collapse forward during a crash. "Despite [15] prior successful tests and no reports of a third row seat slipping in any customer vehicles," Tesla said in an email to affected owners, "we have decided to conduct a voluntary recall as a precautionary measure and will be replacing all affected third row seat backs." Even though the Model X recall is small, it brings to mind the Model 3 and what possible manufacturing issues will pertain to it. BGR writes, "The current number of Model 3 reservations is absolutely staggering and Tesla will have no choice but to get as many Model 3s manufactured and out on the road as soon as humanly possible. So even in a best-case scenario where the rollout of the Model 3 goes swimmingly, Tesla will need to do all it can to ensure that the Model 3s rolling off the line in late 2018 and early 2019 are flawless." Recalling 2,700 vehicles is one thing, but a recall affecting the Model 3 could be a logistical and publicity nightmare.

Comments

Really...???

[Anonymous Coward]

You know how many recalls companies like Honda or GM deal with in a year?? A b0rked third-row seat 'aint nuthin.

Re:Really...???

[EEPROMS]

i agree, I read an article 3 years ago when Toyota was having issues with recalls and they mentioned in England alone they have over 30 recalls a month 4-8 of them serious the rest to be fixed on the next service.

Re:Really...???

[frovingslosh]

I'm certainly not an Elon fan-boy, but I completely agree. Other manufacturers have recalls too, and much worse they don't have recalls when they should (think explosive airbags and faulty ignition switches). Tesla is doing the right thing here and they deserve an acknowledgement of that.

Re:Really...???

[silentcoder]

Now consider the number of scandals in recent years from serious people-killing problems in cars where the companies knew about it and did not do a recall.
Tessla is pushing itself as a market-creator, and a key part of their strategy is to over-engineer in the extreme. They want to prove the viability of electric cars and part of how they go about it is to build the best cars in the world by not sparing expenses or trying to maximize margins. This is exactly why every non-Tessla electric car is so much cheaper: there's no reason an electric car has to cost that much, you can do it much cheaper if you don't over-engineer to build the highest-quality, safest, vehicle in history.

But when that's your strategy - a single person dying because of a bad seat that the company knew about would utterly destroy it. The risk to the company is far higher than the norm. To not do this recall would be crazy. GM and Toyota came out of their recent major scandals relatively unscathed, even a minor scandal would kill Tessla because Tessla is supposed to be the perfect car.

It makes absolute strategic sense for Tessla to do recalls at the slightest hint of a risk - it doesn't for most car companies, and that's a good argument for regulations with serious teeth. If the fall-out from "your car killed hundreds of people due to a flaw you knew about and ignored" is guaranteed to be "you're entire turn-over for the last 5 years" then the incentives for GM or Toyota or Ford to do recalls would be about on par with Tessla's and scandals like that wouldn't happen again.

Re:Really...???

[dave420]

and C) possibly ushering in the end of their beloved ICEs.

Re:Really...???

[bluefoxlucid]

No, I am actually generalizing from a field I fucking studied.

Have you ever seen the Red Cross work? When the Red Cross enters an area, it's a disaster. No shit. That's what the Red Cross does. In the course of fixing a disaster, a lot more shit goes wrong; this is pretty much the nature of entering a disaster. That includes logistics failures, procedural failures, and political failures. Along the way, the Red Cross documents everything that goes wrong; they review these documents and work out ways to prevent or respond to similar problems should they ever occur in any future disaster. In this way, the Red Cross reduces the amount of time and money wasted in responding to all future disasters.

That documentation is called Lessons Learned. It's part of archived historical project documentation. It's how large organizations emulate the human facility of executive function in which we use past information and future goals to make decisions about current activities by planning. We evaluate our plans through the lens of experience (essentially acquired knowledge) and determine risks and reliable strategies. We use what we know from mistakes we've made in the past to avoid similar mistakes in the future. In individuals, we often call this process "learning".

Maybe it's not that you're not having conversations with people who have a distorted sense of reality; maybe you're just stupid.

Re:Really...???

[Shoten]

You know how many recalls companies like Honda or GM deal with in a year?? A b0rked third-row seat 'aint nuthin.

Also, this was probably not a design flaw. Given the specifics of the recall, I'm guessing it's a situation where the manufacturing tolerances slipped, or needed to be changed.

As others are pointing out, this kind of thing happens all the time, to every car manufacturer. If a proactive recall against a subset of the Model 3 population would prove disastrous for Tesla, then they need to get out of the car industry...because it's going to happen.

Re:Really...???

[Matheus]

Article clearly written by someone who doesn't understand what a "recall" is. These happen all the time to nearly if not every vehicle. Given how much these cars cost, I'm pretty sure Elon can afford the maybe couple million this recall will cost tops (and that's retail cost of the part... you *know they're not actually spending retail cost on the replacement parts and the labor is virtually nil to replace a seat)

Spin being what it is this article could have easily been written to the headline "Tesla continues to ensure delivered vehicles are top-notch!" with similar content to the summary including that they are voluntarily recalling 2700 vehicle despite no known failures in the wild. Spending low 7 figures so they their customers can know they are safe to the best of Tesla's ability.

Instead they are casting this in a negative light and spreading fear. I have no need to blow sunshine up Elon's ass but I really can't stand journalists who's only talent is playing off of people's fears.

Big freakin whoopdie doo

[TurboStar]

Cars are recalled all the time. Or worse, they aren't recalled because it's cheaper to pay out for dead and maimed people. Why is this article about fear instead of praising Tesla for catching this before anyone got hurt?

Re:Big freakin whoopdie doo

[alvinrod]

Indeed. I've received a few service notices for my vehicle over the last several years where the company will fix some small problem if I bring it in to a dealership. It hasn't been anything as potentially serious as this issue, but this kind of thing happens all the time.

If anything, this makes me more likely to buy a Tesla because I know that if there is a problem, they'll take care of it.

Re:Big freakin whoopdie doo

[blankinthefill]

True story. A recall like this will NEVER be bad publicity when it's made as soon as the manufacturer realizes a problem exists and before anyone in the field has even seen anything. I've wanted a Tesla for awhile now, and if my current car can make it long enough, my next new car is going to be a Model 3... exactly BECAUSE of recalls like this. Tesla not only makes the safest cars on the road, but they have the safest organization as well. Clearly their management is more interested in making a safe car than turning a quick buck, and that's the kind of company that I want to do business with.

Re:Big freakin whoopdie doo

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise this is because the quality of japanese cars has forced american and european manufacturers to up the game, not because japanese car quality has gone down. Honda and Toyota still generally top the reliability and build quality charts.

Re:Big freakin whoopdie doo

[dj245]

True story. A recall like this will NEVER be bad publicity when it's made as soon as the manufacturer realizes a problem exists and before anyone in the field has even seen anything. I've wanted a Tesla for awhile now, and if my current car can make it long enough, my next new car is going to be a Model 3... exactly BECAUSE of recalls like this. Tesla not only makes the safest cars on the road, but they have the safest organization as well. Clearly their management is more interested in making a safe car than turning a quick buck, and that's the kind of company that I want to do business with.

I think this may be more due to the fact that Tesla is a small company. This has 3 effects- their product line is small, their management structure is probably a lot more tighter and less compartmentalized, and their financials are not as strong.

The small product line lets them devote more time and resources to each model.
The tighter management structure better facilitates a larger portion of the management being involved and knowing what all the problems are.
Their comparatively weaker financials (compared to a larger auto manufacturer) likely makes them more careful about recallable defects. One good valid recall with multiple customer deaths could potentially sink them.

I think their attitude and culture is more reflective of big company vs small company than any sort of extraordinary altruism. Most people, including those at large auto companies, are not evil. However, the size of a company sometimes affects how it reacts to mistakes like this. A smaller company is typically better able to make decisions and implement them faster..

Re:Big freakin whoopdie doo

[harperska]

If there is one lemon, it is likely that there will be three lemons, even from a company with the best quality control ever. And in today's Age of the Internet, it is likely that those three lemon owners will find each other, verify their confirmation biases, and get very noisy about how the product is a flop.

F.U.D.

[quintessencesluglord]

Apparently the author isn't aware of the thousands of recalls other manufacturers make, and is further unaware several owners forgo getting service since the recalls are often for minor issues that don't really affect them.

If anything, Telsa taking the extra steps to prevent a potential problem should relieve Model 3 purchasers that Tesla stands behind their products.

A PR nightmare indeed!

[pushing-robot]

What sort of dangerous idiots fix a potential problem pre-emptively out of an abundance of caution?

Tesla must learn to do the right thing by its customers: cover up defects until the wrongful death lawsuits start rolling in.

Re:A PR nightmare indeed!

[gweihir]

Not everybody want to do business according to the traditional US "screw the customer as best as possible" "capitalist" model. Some may want the dual satisfaction of delivering a good product and still making quite a bit of money off it. And no, that is not socialism, not screwing over your customer is a very, very capitalist thing to do, it just requires the ability to think strategically.

Re:A PR nightmare indeed!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The company is still being run by the founder and the visionary leader. That is the source of this problem. Just wait till it goes public and institutional share holding crosses the threshold.

Then the MBAs will move in. They will pay themselves first, raid the cash reserves, cash out the good will. Define short term is tomorrow and long term as this quarter. Once they move in, they will make sure profits are made in their tenure and the wrongful death law suits come after their stock options have vested and cashed out.

Re:A PR nightmare indeed!

[silentcoder]

You're assuming that will happen - there's no actual law that says it has to.
The company I work for was founded in the 1970s by a visionary in his field with a view to a certain way of doing business. That way of doing business was a key competitive edge, and a fundamental part of it is that the company must be privately owned, not publicly traded - so that the company's incentives will align with those of customers and not shareholders.
He not only wrote that into the company charter, he made it part of the contract for every person who became a share-holder in the private company that in order to acquire shares they must agree to
1) never ever make the company public
2) Never ever give shares to anybody else who did not agree to the same two agreements.

It's like a GPL for "make sure the company is eternally private". Now, in 2015, we remain one of the smaller companies in our industry, the only private one in the industry - and consistently the best performing company in the industry. We may not have nearly as many customers as the others - but our customers are by far the most loyal, because what we offer is worth it. We charge less and deliver more. The founder hasn't been involved in the company for 2 decades and each of his successors not only shared that vision but made damn sure THEIR successor was somebody who shared it as well.

And no, I'm not marketing and I won't reveal the name of the company or even what industry we are in. Suffice to say - that it's perfectly possible for a company to be private for-ever.

Hell, sometimes a company can BECOME private when the founders are not happy with how "going public" ended up - that happened with Virgin. Virgin became publicly traded in the 1990s, within 6 months Branson came to despise the pressures that the board was putting on him and the things they were demanding. Things that would, sure enough, increase profits but he believed would do so to the detriment of customers which would ultimately cost him the brand loyalty that made the company succeed in the first place.
So he bought back every share at the original list price, and took the company private again.

Re:A PR nightmare indeed!

[KGIII]

Tesla went public years ago. Not many years but, still, years.

In other words, shares were once $24 each. Well, they were when I got 'em. You might wanna get in now and just not be too greedy and bail before it goes bad. Then again, it might not go bad. Either way, there's a number that will be crossed and that's when I'll sell. It has gotten pretty close to that number but it hasn't crossed it just yet. I expect that number to be crossed when the release date for the Model 3 hits. Actually, I expect it to happen just before that. And that's when I'll be bailing and no longer invested in Tesla. There are a few events that could make me sell sooner but they're unlikely to happen, so it's a dollar amount.