
The Tesla Model 3 reminds me of the times the electronics failed in my first car - cpncrunch
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/20/16063728/tesla-model-3-electronics-mini-cooper-concerns
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georgefrick
I assumed the article was written by an owner, or at least a reviewer - low
and behold it's someone filling article quota? He purports that he thinks the
electronics in it might break down on him, if he bought on. This article is
thin as it is, and makes no point.

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gehwartzen
I do t think a pure electric vs pure gas necessarily has more electronic
components to fail. A modern gas engine has many electronic parts that allow
it to work and an electric drivetrain isn't exactly complicated. All the other
aspects of a modern car are going to be the same; electric Windows,
navigation, safety stuff. So I don't think there is anything inherently more
likely to break, electronics wise.

Now the big difference is that it seems we have decided electric cars =
autonomous cars. And I would agree that autonomous function opens the car to a
whole host of electrical problems (sensors, computers, etc). But this would be
the same in an autonomous gas powered car.

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gargravarr
I think what the author was getting at was things being _unnecessarily_
electronic, such as door locks or even the glovebox (seriously, why do we need
a push-button to open that?). Manual, mechanical devices are fairly reliable
and if they fail, you can poke a screwdriver into the mechanism to get around
the issue. Now imagine a bad firmware upgrade breaks the glovebox button on
your Model 3 and your AAA card is in there...

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ruytlm
My question is whether these systems will still be receiving support in 10-15
years time.

Yes, autonomous vehicles are on the horizon, so all vehicle lifespans should
be considered limited, but cars generally don't suit the gadget life cycle of
being discarded after a few years when the new model comes out.

What was the last piece of technology you purchased that has survived 10 years
intact or without replacement by the newer and better?

I'd argue that it's much easier to maintain a supply of mechanical parts than
of 10-year-old electronics; unless there's been some serious consideration of
future-proofing in the design process?

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King-Aaron
They probably will. Most vehicle manufacturers offer support for a fairly long
time post-production, and there's always a plethora of aftermarket
alternatives for most cars.

Even in terms of computers, there's a massive range out there (from companies
like Adaptronics, Link, Haltech, etc) when you have to move away from an OEM
unit.

Already if you look at the EV scene, there's a huge variety of motor
controllers/inverters/etc to choose from. I think keeping older EV's running
in the future won't be too hard for people.

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ruytlm
As someone who is far from knowledgeable about the field, I'm glad to hear it.

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_ph_
Yes, when the main electronic of a Model 3 fails, the car is broken, until the
failure is fixed. On the first glance, it is somewhat a concern. But then, it
is not so that more conventional cars are much more useful if some important
electronic component fails either. With the Model 3 the switch to electronic
control comes with a huge simplification of the whole car. Most of the
components that can fail beyond electronics in a "normal" car, the Tesla just
doesn't have.

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lsaferite
I think the only thing here that would concern me is the (apparent) lack of a
mechanical door opener. If there is a critical failure in the electronics
_and_ you have an urgent requirement to exit the vehicle, that seems like a
dangerous thing to me. That's assuming there actually isn't a mechanical door
latch release.

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King-Aaron
Things break down, all the time. Trying to unbind a mechanical window winder
mechanism that's jammed in the down position can be a nightmare... So can
trying to release a tailgate when the tension wire snaps half way between the
release handle and the rear door.

I don't know if it's really justified saying that electronic parts can fail
more often or not - My first-generation mx5 has electrically operated popup
lights, which are still going strong nearly 25 years later. I once had a 1985
Nissan Bluebird that had an LCD Digital dashboard, still working fine in the
early 2000's.

Treat your equipment right, maintain it well, store it correctly, and you'll
get a good long life out of it. Leave it out in the weather, never check the
condition of things like batteries and terminals, and just run the car forever
on hopes and dreams and sure... things will break.

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gargravarr
One of the reasons I love my 1985 Supra is for its mechanical and electrical
simplicity. There's no CANBus. Wires and switches operate all the electrical
(not electronic) components directly. The tailgate has a mechanical lock. The
door locks are mechanical with electric actuators. The only electronics are in
the engine controller and the beautiful digital dashboard (with VFD meters for
speed, fuel and temperature, and LEDs for the tachometer). Probably a very
good reason why the car's electronics are still working 30 years later is
because they are very isolated. The engine ECU doesn't need to talk to
anything, just receive signals from the engine sensors and send fuel/spark
data to the components. The dashboard sends a simple speed signal to the
cruise control ECU and nothing else. In isolation, any of these components can
fail and it will only disable the related systems. I have had a complete
failure of the engine controller, but that turned out to be a very simple
electrical relay cutting all power intermittently. I can trace any failure
with nothing more than a multimeter.

Modern vehicles are not just computers on wheels, they're entire _networks_ of
computers on wheels. And all these systems are intrinsically interlinked. A
failure in any one system can be enough to either stop the car working, or
forcing it into limp-home mode. And you as the owner have no hope of fixing
it. Even if you can plug a diagnostic computer into the OBD interface, the
best you can usually do is poke around the engine controller. You need
specialist hardware to interface with the other systems such as brakes and
airbags. My Supra is long past the point Toyota will support it (although to
their credit, I can still get a surprising number of parts). Looking at smart
devices these days, manufacturers stop caring the moment the product is even
released. Support gets pushed to one side and the successor takes priority.
Cars have a lot more established history with this, but I'm sure that, with
almost every major manufacturer having their cars purely electronic (even the
ICE-powered ones), by the time the car gets to be the age of my Supra, there
is going to be no hope for maintaining them. Some people view any consumer
product more than a few years old as 'antiquated'. I don't get this mentality;
the sign of a quality product should be longevity. Sure, there needs to be
improvement, but as manufacturers basically tell us 'no, only we can support
this car for you, and it's going to be expensive', and then five, ten, fifteen
years down the line, 'nope, we don't care any more, buy a new one', people who
like to get the most out of their vehicles are going to hate living in this
era.

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dmode
Weird article, as the Model S is already free of mechanical controls and has
been around sine 2012.

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gargravarr
I think the point of the article is that the Model 3 is aimed at a
considerably larger market of people who might not have the same budget to
support the repair costs of a purely electronic car when something goes wrong;
the Model S is mostly owned by people with considerably deeper pockets.

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hndamien
The point of all of this is to disrupt Uber, and not to be cool.

