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Consumer Reports Recommends Tesla's Model 3 After Braking Fix (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the all-good-now dept.

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."

29 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Some good news for Tesla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Slashdot crowd isn't going to like this...

    1. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
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      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There was a whole thread last time about how the idea of a firmware update improving the braking was just an absurd idea. I wonder what they'll say about it now.

      --
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    3. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      why? they changed the value ratio of break pedal to caliper pressure.... in a older car they may have had to plug in a thingy to reprogram the same thing, but thsi is what you get with any drive by wire vehical.

      you just have to hope that how they deliver firmware updates is "secure" enough... so you dont get the every pedel/switch/nob/screen is now an accelerator patch

    4. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2, Funny

      There was a whole thread last time about how the idea of a firmware update improving the braking was just an absurd idea.

      Pull out your secret corporate-speak decoder ring:

      "firmware update" == "bribe"

      As in:

      "Some wonks wrote some critical reviews of our product. We'll fix those with some firmware updates."

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    5. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      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.

      At least I could afford the tools to keep my 65 VW Bug running, even if it was a greasy, oily mess to crawl under it every 3,000 miles to change the oil, adjust the valves and breaks.

      These days, getting a full set of tools to maintain all the electronics on your average car is going to cost more than the car.

    6. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      The problem only emerged when doing multiple emergency stops in a row. How often do you do that?

      A number of reviewers had reviewed the Model 3's brakes previously. Some noticed no issues at all. A couple noticed "inconsistency" in their repeated hard braking tests, but nonetheless rated them well. It was only Consumer Reports that managed to show that it was an actual problem.

      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.

      Of course, Slashdot is going to be full of people pretending that recalls only affect Tesla, just because media coverage focuses so heavily on Tesla. Literally, within days of the CR brake finding - affecting only repeat emergency braking events, and only to the point of braking like a pickup - Fiat issued a recall for around 5 million vehicles due to a problem where the cruise control could get stuck on and the engine unable to be shut off, leading to the terrifying situation of the driver having to fight the vehicle to a stop with the brakes. But it got almost no coverage versus the Tesla issue.

      --
      Jesus: "Son of a ..." OnStar: "I have a son of a ***** on 5th and Clemson." -- "Jesus Christ Supercop"
    7. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by Rei · · Score: 4, Informative

      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 ..." OnStar: "I have a son of a ***** on 5th and Clemson." -- "Jesus Christ Supercop"
    8. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I drive an EV (hate fossil cars), am not that old (I keep telling myself) and write embedded software for a living.

      I test my software for longer than a week before releasing it, and it's not even safety critical.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by Chameleon+Man · · Score: 2

      No kidding. The ignorance in this community is astounding. I saw a lot of comments on the last article where people were arguing "You can't change breaking distance with an update! That makes no sense!" Stupid fucks never heard of regenerative breaking and that these cars are probably tuned around having the most amount of electrical return. So many people in the community put such a high degree of confidence in their limited knowledge of topics they really don't know much about.

    10. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by bananaquackmoo · · Score: 2

      I imagine that the programming was already done and they only had to adjust a few constants/variables. Testing for something like brakes could easily be automated/simulated and then verified in the real world, easily under a week.

    11. Re:Some good news for Tesla? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have some experience in this area.

      There must be some limit they were up against. Presumably heating of the brakes or something like that. So they adjust the limit to allow more consecutive hard stops.

      Testing for that kind of thing takes more than a week. You need a good number of samples. Talk to the manufacturer. Do accelerated testing to destruction.

      It's probably fine. Probably.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re: Some good news for Tesla? by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2

      So you don't think that they may have been working on this already from other feedback and reviews they've gotten that said basically the same thing? Who ever said that the Consumer Reports review was the starting gun for this particular software change? Who's to say they didn't already have this ready to go in a larger update, and then cherry-picked this out for a quick update in order to deliver better braking and a needed PR win?

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  2. If an over-the-air update can fix it... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... and over-the-air update can also break it. Or take away the "feature" once the car leaves the showroom. If it were so easy of a fix, one has to wonder why Tesla didn't recognize and fix the problem in the first place? Why did it take a third party tester to find it?

    1. Re:If an over-the-air update can fix it... by mrops · · Score: 2

      Disclaimer: speculation

      I think they were trying to recover energy from breaking rather aggressively earlier. Some kind of balance between how hard the pads squeeze on the rotors so some breaking happens from magnet/coils to recharge the batteries.

      Something like this could be tweaked rather easily.

    2. Re:If an over-the-air update can fix it... by Eloking · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... and over-the-air update can also break it. Or take away the "feature" once the car leaves the showroom.

      Really, are you serious?

      And why would anyone in Tesla do that?

      If it were so easy of a fix, one has to wonder why Tesla didn't recognize and fix the problem in the first place? Why did it take a third party tester to find it?

      First, the braking distance from 60 mph to 0 changed from 152 feets to 133 feets. We're talking about a 12.5% improvement so it's not like the brake were completely unsafe neither.

      Also, if you took the time to read TFA, you'll have learned that the issue were about the Anti-lock braking systems not aggressive enough. Not exactly a simple "bit 0 to 1" fix, it would take a lot of on-road testing to find the most optimal value.

      My guess is that the car production was rushed and they decided that the brake performance were "good enough" for now. But it was until CR bashed on it by comparing the brake performance to a F-150.

      --
      Elok
    3. Re:If an over-the-air update can fix it... by Rei · · Score: 5, Informative

      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 ..." OnStar: "I have a son of a ***** on 5th and Clemson." -- "Jesus Christ Supercop"
    4. Re:If an over-the-air update can fix it... by Aristos+Mazer · · Score: 2

      Go read the article about why a 3rd party found it and not Tesla. It's an edge case scenario involving repeated use of emergency breaking. It isn't a mainline scenario, and Tesla never thought to include it in its test bed. Someone found a corner case, reported it, and Tesla fixed it.

  3. Re:Tesla changing its tune by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:Tesla changing its tune by fred6666 · · Score: 2

    except that CR drives the car at slow speed to allow the brakes to cool down between each test. No excuse.

  5. Re:Tesla changing its tune by Lothsahn · · Score: 2

    Agree with most of what you said, except the "No real change for actual drivers". The cool down period that CR gave the car was overnight, and yet it still had the problem. We don't know what the actual "cool down" period is, but it's at least 12 hours.

    While I agree it's unusual someone may need to panic brake twice in quick succession, with the number of cars and drivers on the road, it's almost guaranteed to happen. And when "quick succession" becomes "within a 12 hour period or more", there's a serious problem.

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    -=Lothsahn=-
  6. "Payola" by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2, Funny

    >> Consumer Reports Recommends Tesla's Model 3 After Braking Fix

    I've never seen "Braking Fix" as a euphemism for "Payola" before.

    1. Re:"Payola" by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Informative

      >> 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. . . .
  7. Not what they said at all. by Brannon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    CR said: Breaking distance is > 150'

    Tesla said: Our testing says 133'

    CR said: Same, on our first try, subsequent tries were longer.

    Tesla said: Oh crap, that's probably a bug in our regen breaking stuff--thanks for pointing that out.

    Tesla rolls out a fix and CR verifies the fix. It seems like everyone was well-behaved all the way around.

    1. Re:Not what they said at all. by Rei · · Score: 2

      Indeed. Literally Musk's first tweet on the subject (and he's not famous for keeping his opinions to himself) was:

      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.

      The team remotely diagnosed the problem and created a fix in less than a day. Name another automaker that has ever done anything remotely like that.

      And yes, yes, I know, summon the chants of "other automakers wouldn't have had a problem", because we apparently have jumped into another dimension where the key difference is that in this dimension, major automakers haven't had a continuous stream of recalls over the years.

      --
      Jesus: "Son of a ..." OnStar: "I have a son of a ***** on 5th and Clemson." -- "Jesus Christ Supercop"
  8. Consumer Reports broke the fix? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

    Consumer Reports Recommends Tesla's Model 3 After Braking Fix

    Seems counter-productive. :-)

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  9. Re:self driving car by King_TJ · · Score: 2

    Funny.... I'm not too concerned.

    The owner's manual clearly states that the autopilot feature isn't supposed to be used unless you're #1 on a highway (not some smaller side road with vehicles parked along the side of it), and #2 the lines are clearly painted.

    Pretty much all of the accidents people had with autopilot engaged where when they ignored these things AND didn't bother to pay attention to what was happening in front of them, or even have their hands on the wheel.

    If you're too stupid to get that this technology is only a fancy cruise control with some ability to match speeds with vehicles in front of you and to stay in a lane that's well marked? Then I don't know what to tell you..... How do you manage to safely use cruise control on other cars and trucks? It's the same concept.

  10. Re:Tesla changing its tune by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2

    The test if FIVE hard 60 to 0 braking with 1 mile of cooling lap in between. Then when the results were inconsistent, they repeated it next day giving 24 hours to cool from the test, and did FIVE more hard brakes.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  11. Re: self driving car by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2

    I'm exhausted by people thinking that autopilot isn't just a pumped up cruise control, completely ignoring the thing telling you that you still have to pay attention and not be stupid, and then proceed to be stupid and not pay attention.

    Would we be hearing about someone that drive their corolla into a parked police car because they were texting? It's basically the same shit.

    --
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