
Tesla issues its largest recall ever over faulty Model S steering - fmihaila
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17177888/tesla-recall-model-s-size-power-steering
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refurb
Unlike the quality issues with the Model 3 that continue, this is no big deal.
It happens to other manufacturers all the time.

Seems like a quick fix.

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kumarski
Tesla is 15 years old.

Tesla has produced 300K cars.

Tesla just recalled 123K cars.

~~~
model_m_warrior
Zero profit. This is good for bitcoin.

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myrandomcomment
Nothing to see here. Stuff like this happens all the time, would not even be
on HN if it did not have the world Tesla in it.

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jperras
While disappointing and costly for Tesla, thankfully a power steering failure
isn't typically a big deal, safety-wise.

If you've never driven a vehicle without power steering: it's marginally
harder to turn the wheel, which really only affects you in parking lots and
making turns from a dead stop (as is mentioned in the article).

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rootusrootus
Try driving a car designed for power steering with a failed pump. It's much,
much, much harder than a car that was designed from the beginning to be used
without power assist. Moving or not it's a hand-over-hand struggle to turn the
wheel.

~~~
jiggliemon
It’s not “you’re going to die now” harder.

More like “this isn’t comfortable, better pull over and see what’s wrong”
harder.

~~~
prewett
Depends on what is going on around you when it happens, how long it takes you
to realize that something is wrong, and what to do about it. It wouldn't
surprise me if many people would not even realize that they have power assist
in the first place, and just assume that the wheel somehow got stuck and there
is nothing they can do.

Although I would imagine that the most common failure case is the wheel slowly
getting harder to turn over a period of days or weeks.

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ucaetano
"Tesla said it has only seen this problem occur in "very cold climates" where
road salts are commonly used."

Ah, the usual "designed in the Bay Area" issue...

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greglindahl
Bay Area people are known to spend a lot of time in Tahoe when it's cold. So
this is more, "Let's repeat that untrue joke about people in the Bay Area
knowing nothing about winter."

~~~
soperj
hahaha average low in Lake Tahoe is -5 degrees C (23 F). When you think that's
cold, then you truly do know nothing about winter.

~~~
greglindahl
Given that the flaw revolves around road salt, and not the absolute
temperature, yeah, doesn't matter in this particular case.

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beamatronic
Regardless of whether Tahoe winters are “real winter” or not, I don’t think
they use salt in CA because of the environmental effects downstream - I
believe they use sand instead.

~~~
greglindahl
California has a variety of climate areas, and a little googling tells me that
they use various kinds of salt in the high Sierras, including the Tahoe area.
Also, half of Tahoe is in Nevada, which uses salt.

Sand only works when it's barely freezing. Which can be true at low
elevations, but not at 10,000'.

~~~
soperj
they use sand and gravel in Edmonton. Which is below barely freezing.

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Cretin2
Edmonton is barely below freezing in the winter?!?

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soperj
Almost thought I screwed it up... "below barely freezing", not barely below
freezing.

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SriniK
To be specific "The automaker said 123,000 Model S vehicles built before April
2016"

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dmix
That's quite a minor recall compared to almost any typical recalls in recent
history is it not?

Although that's not to say it isn't still a serious issue for a smaller firm
like Tesla.

~~~
pixelcloud
There are literally 2 much bigger recalls happening right now.

Airbags! Multiple companies have recalled a specific airbag module that
catches on fire. 1+ million cars

Ford recalled 1.3 million cars last week, the steering wheel can fall off.
That "internal manufacturing expertise" in action.

~~~
cup-of-tea
Glad you added the literally, otherwise I might think that 2 was an
exaggeration.

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throwaway84742
I’m actually mostly surprised there are 123k model S cars manufactured before
2016. Those cars are $70-80k each on average. That’s a lot of revenue.

~~~
kingkongjaffa
How did they get this many people: Number of employees 37,543 (2017)

[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.)]

~~~
throwaway84742
Well, they do make a lot of what goes into the car in-house. And they design
it in house, too.

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mirceal
How would a self driving car be impacted by a failure like this? Can the
onboard computer still drive the car (and has a sense there’s something wrong
w/ the steering) or is it just dead in the water?

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ExcelSaga
Is this going to effect them trying to shift workers from the S line to the 3
assembly line? Or is this just a matter of maintenance services doing the
replacement?

At the very least, this is the last kind of news they need, for sales, PR, and
internal morale.

~~~
btian
The fix will be done at local service centers. So I don't see how this will
affect production at Nevada and Fremont.

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gmueckl
Guessing from the article, the fix is replacing a few bolts with more
corrosion resistant ones. The labor around that should mostly be about
reaching the parts in question and maybe some minor recalibration on the
steering column.

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balupton
Getting a 404 not found. Perhaps dodgy reporting?

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
It's working for me, here's a mirror though:
[https://outline.com/m8mpV4](https://outline.com/m8mpV4)

Here's some other sources:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/29/tesla-
recalls-123000-model-s...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/29/tesla-
recalls-123000-model-s-cars-over-potential-power-steering-failure-
reports.html)

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-recalls-123-000-model-
s-c...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-recalls-123-000-model-s-cars-over-
bolt-issue-1522361482)

[http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/29/technology/business/tesla-
mo...](http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/29/technology/business/tesla-model-s-
recall/index.html)

