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Coding Error Sends 2019 Subaru Ascents To the Car Crusher (ieee.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: [A] software remedy can't solve Subaru's issue with 293 of its 2019 Ascent SUVs. All 293 of the SUVs that were built in July will be scrapped because they are missing critical spot welds. According to Subaru's recall notice [PDF] filed with the U.S. National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the welding robots at the Subaru Indiana Automotive plant in Lafayette, Ind., were improperly coded, which meant the robots omitted the spot welds required on the Ascents' B-pillar. Consumer Reports states that the B-pillar holds the second-row door hinges. As a result, the strength of the affected Ascents' bodies may be reduced, increasing the possibility of passenger injuries in a crash. Subaru indicated in the recall that "there is no physical remedy available; therefore, any vehicles found with missing welds will be destroyed." Luckily, only nine Ascents had been sold, and those customers are going to receive new vehicles. The rest were on dealer lots or in transit.
Right, because humans never make a process mistake that applies to more than one unit on the production line?
To be clear, this was not a mistake the robots made. This was a human (i.e. coding) mistake. What would be interesting is to know where the mistake came from - an engineer in the factory, or an offshored or contract position in India.
Explaining a joke is a bit like dissecting a frog. You might learn a lot from doing it, but it kills the frog in the process.
Joke aside the impact of the robot mistake is much greater but it is worth it for several reasons.
First the probability of mistakes is much lower with the robots than with humans, so for a million cars manufactured, the total number of mistakes by human vs robots will be higher for humans. So thatâ(TM)s the first win.
Second if humans make mistakes this will be much more random and less likely to be detected, even with quality check sampling. Which mean that more end users will receive the faulty product.
On the other hand, with robots since the mistake is consistent it is very likely that it will be noticed on one of the end products so it will be easier correct the issue and to track all of the defective units. Which is what happened here.
Cars manufactured before the advent of robots were much more temperamental and failing in various inconsistent ways from one car to the other even when coming from the same factory, the same week.
Because it was engineered for spot welds, and certified as such. Your type of repair is neither tested nor certified. It would cost more to *certify* the fix for 290 cars than the cars are worth.