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Consumer Reports Recommends Tesla's Model 3 After Braking Fix (reuters.com)
Consumer Reports said on Wednesday that it now recommends Tesla's Model 3 sedan after its latest tests showed that a firmware update improved the car's braking distance by nearly 20 feet. From a report: The magazine last week flagged "big flaws" in the car, including braking slower than a full-sized pickup truck, while also highlighting many positives. In a tweet, Mr. Musk said he really appreciates "the high quality critical feedback from @ConsumerReports. Road noise & ride comfort already addressed too. UI improvements coming via remote software update later this month."
CR was both right and wrong. Apparently the brakes did not exhibit this issue in real world use - where you only do an emergency stop once in a while. But CR was doing them back to back to back so that they could get average emergency braking distance. Apparently something in the firmware either took that as "lead brake" (like a lead foot but for stopping) or as "avoid heating the brakes" (as that can be problematic). So the firmware change simply allows that non-real world test to approximate real-world results. No real change for actual drivers honestly.
I'm more concerned that a) they released the car with crap brakes and didn't notice until Consumer Reports told them about it and b) an over-the-air software update developed in about a week can apparently affect the operation of a critical safety system.
It sure must be confusing for you old folks who think cars are dirty, oily things that need you to go in and manually set the gaps every few weeks to make them work properly.
No sig today...
They regularly have made defects that have actually had fatal consequences, which they often tried to cover up. The most recent GM one (aka Chevy) being the ignition switch scandal that was settled in 2014, which killed at least 124 people over the 10 years that GM knew about the problem but hid it. In addition to compensating the families they were fined nearly a billion dollars for that stunt.
Jesus: "Son of a
That's not how OTA updates work.
1) Tesla creates an update.
2) The update is tested internally on their own fleet for a period of time. If any problems occur, it goes back to development.
3) Tesla starts rolling out the update in small batches. Everybody does not receive the update at the same time. If any reports of any problems come in, the rollout is cancelled.
4) When a user gets an update, it does not just "autoinstall". The user can choose to install immediately, or schedule it for later. Your notion that you're driving along and suddenly your brake behavior changes is just not how it works.
Installing an OTA update is no different than getting a software update at the dealership except that it's a lot more convenient. And there's a much closer integration with the user. A user can literally activate voice commands, say "Bug report", and file a bug report about any aspect in the vehicle, which goes directly to Tesla's devel team. Along with the user's description, Tesla gets screenshots, vehicle logs, etc. You can also use the bug report feature to make feature requests.
Jesus: "Son of a
>> Consumer Reports Recommends Tesla's Model 3 After Braking Fix I've never seen "Braking Fix" as a euphemism for "Payola" before.
CR actually re-tested the car and it showed a braking improvement of 19 feet shorter -- which is now inline with what Tesla claimed and comparable to other cars of that size. They are also going to rent another Tesla Model 3 and test again.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
While I agree with most of what you said,
The problem only emerged when doing multiple emergency stops in a row. How often do you do that?
From CR website :
Our testers get a car up to 60 mph, then slam on the brakes until the car comes to a stop. They repeat this multiple times to ensure consistent results. Between each test, the vehicle is driven approximately a mile to cool the brakes and make sure they don’t overheat. In our testing of the Model 3, the first stop we recorded was significantly shorter (around 130 feet, similar to Tesla’s findings), but that distance was not repeated, even after we let the brakes cool overnight
CR did let the brakes cool off between each test. And unless you want emergency brakes that work fine "only the first time", I would said that CR was right to consider this a brake performance issue.
I'm glad Tesla took it seriously. Going from a bad braking review to a fix for all vehicles in a week is really amazing. Compare and contrast to the GM ignition switch scandal, where they played the denial game for over a decade.
Yes, the speed of the fix is quite impressing. But, to be fair, if GM ignition switch caused CR to no give a recommendation on it's vehicle during the launch (and affecting sales), I'm quite sure they would have worked on the problem way more quickly...
...or maybe not (Taking the Chevrolet Citation into consideration. Even with bad CR review, they didn't change much and the car went from #1 in NA to the scrap yard).
Elok