
Tesla recalling 90,000 Model S sedans to check seat belts - leephillips
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/20/us-tesla-recall-idUSKCN0T92CR20151120?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter
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mikeash
I just got the official e-mail. I thought this part was interesting:

"If you are concerned about the status of your seat belt prior to your
scheduled inspection, you may be able to detect this condition by pulling very
firmly on the lap portion of your seat belt with a force of at least 80
pounds. This procedure may detect an improperly attached seat belt but
performing this procedure does not replace the need for an inspection by a
Tesla technician."

It's cool that they're being so straightforward, but it's weird to see that
sort of procedure so casually recommended to the end user.

Edit: I got my appointment scheduled for next week. Pretty quick and easy. I
was afraid it might be a substantial wait, as the last time I needed a service
appointment they were booked for a month. This inspection is only supposed to
take 20 minutes, so maybe they're able to squeeze it in earlier because of
that.

~~~
BuckRogers
It's nice to see a company treating people like adults again.

I find that pretty refreshing. I try to handle my responsibilities so maybe I
don't have to rely on a corporation or the government to hold my hand. In that
ideal scenario both the consumer and company can be sensible, limit pain,
suffering, costs, lawsuits and so forth.

That said, in my experience the most common is the corporation not holding up
to their side of the bargain. I recently had a recall on a GM vehicle I own,
the car has been great. 110,000 miles and nothing extreme has happened. GM
only got 90% of the way there though. I took it in for an ignition recall,
they rekeyed my ignition to my driver's side door and now my keys won't work
on my passenger side or trunk. They told me to pay for all new locks or take a
hike. Or, they said I can use my keyless entry or carry two keys. I complain
to GM corporate, they sided with the dealer as per their policy and also told
me to take a hike. The correct thing to do would have been to key it to the
VIN. But they wanted to make sure they didn't have to replace my driver's side
door lock, since that's the one that's most likely to be worn down. Oh, and
GM's own blog on the subject has a company official stating very clearly all
your locks should work with your new key. I told GM corp that and even sent a
link and showed them a screenshot of it. They ignored it.

We're thrifty but we have a slightly higher than average household income. I'm
a developer, she's a teacher. GM won't get another dime from me or my wife,
and I like to share my recall story with others. :)

Our next car is going to be a Tesla Model 3.

~~~
Shivetya
Didn't realize companies haven't been, went through a recall with a 95 Dodge
Stratus back in the 90s where the rear seat belt shoulder mount was decided to
be defective with regards to regulation. The disclosure sent even then went
into detail about the problem and the resulting fix. In fact every recall I
have seen with regards to safety is pretty explicit just so that fear isn't
the reaction

~~~
DrScump
I think the Tabata airbag fiasco is an exception.

------
justinph
Seat belt and safety system defects usually have a very low threshold for
necessitating a recall or raising the ire of the NHTSA. Some manufacturers,
notably Honda, have a lifetime unconditional warranty on seat belts.

~~~
pc86
It states in the article they are recalling every Tesla because of a single
complaint.

Pretty good on the customer service/safety aspect if you ask me (I do not own
a Tesla nor do I own Tesla stock).

~~~
twblalock
They constantly mention the safety of their cars as a selling point. It's not
surprising that they want to take care of this as quickly as possible, before
it damages the brand.

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BogusIKnow
This thread is hilarious. Tesla has quality problems on seat belts (!) and the
thread is almost absolute positive focusing on how well they do the recall
instead of focusing on the quality issues of a security (!) feature. I wonder
what Tesla needs to do to get negative feedback on HN.

~~~
cyphax
The way it works for me is, people can make a mistake, that's something we
just have to accept. But whether I get negative about it or positive, depends
on how the mistake is handled. Tesla gets one warning, two weeks later they
announce that they want to see all their cars for inspection. What would make
me stop trusting someone is if they'd try to sweep it under the rug or shrug
it off.

Tesla seems to take its responsibility the way I wish all companies would when
it comes to their products. It inspires trust. For me, anyway, and I think
many people feel the same way -- many people in this thread, anyway :) Also,
Tesla has a pretty solid reputation when it comes to supporting their own
products, so that probably helps.

The alternative is to say "Okay Tesla made a mistake, they suck for making a
mistake and I don't trust them anymore" and that's usually unfair because
everybody makes mistakes.

~~~
BogusIKnow
I wonder how your comment would look like if your wife or husband would die
due to faulty Tesla seat belts.

There is value in blameless post mortems, in openness and how you handle a
crisis.

It is not the most important thing though. The most important thing is how you
set up and fix quality so people don't die.

This reminds me of the Zen teaching where one points with his hand to the
moon. And people forget about the moon and focus on the hand pointing instead.

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everlost
Is it normal to issue a recall for a problem that has not been reliably
reproducible?

~~~
pgeorgi
If it's in a safety sensitive area, definitely. As soon as you know how to
deal with a potential issue, the liability clock starts ticking, and so it
should be.

~~~
ethanbond
And if you've just started to get the public to trust you/any slight issue is
a PR timebomb.

~~~
mikeash
In another comment you said they're "fighting for trust" and here you say
they've just started to get the public to trust them. What is this referring
to? In terms of safety, Tesla seems to be extremely trusted, and has been for
a while now.

~~~
ethanbond
Well I think they are fighting for trust, and they will be for a long time.

As the other commenter says, in these circles, Tesla is very well trusted. Out
in the world though, there are still a lot of people who associate Teslas with
spontaneous combustion. Even if that same person would say that they're
"probably safe" or some similar hedged assessment.

~~~
mikeash
I think I've heard people mention the fires once or twice, but they also seem
to be aware that it involved exceptional circumstances and that no lives were
at risk. And yes, I've talked about the car with a lot of people outside the
tech community too.

I think in terms of safety, Tesla is more associated with things like blowing
out the NHTSA rating system.

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mraison
I'm wondering to which extent the uneven distribution of Tesla cars around the
world lowers the cost of recalling them (i.e. I suspect 50% of them live in a
10-mile radius of Palo Alto :) )

~~~
SEJeff
I've been kind of shocked at how many Model S cars drive on the roads in
Chicago, even in the dead of winter with (2 years ago) -17 degrees F. My wife
and I count them on the way to work and generally see 3 every morning at
least.

~~~
izend
There is a Tesla owner down the road from me who keeps his outside all year. I
live in Calgary, Alberta. It was -14F last night...

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amluto
The notice was very clear that this problem didn't affect rear seatbelts.
That's reassuring, but the rear seatbelts are certainly not immune to
problems. My side rear seatbelts were replaced a while back under a service
advisory after one of them started fraying pretty badly, and one of the
replacements has also been replaced.

I guess the rear seatbelt problem wasn't considered a safety issue. It was
certainly quite difficult to put on the rear seatbelt in both my car and the
early test-drive cars, though.

~~~
mikeash
As long as the failure is visible, it's not nearly as much of a safety issue,
since you can just see that something is wrong.

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jackreichert
Once the whole self-driving thing is completely integrated it'll be even
easier.

~~~
Corrado
OMG! I didn't even think of this. Here's how I imaging it might go:

    
    
      [CAR] Sir, I need to visit the service center and will be gone for about 1.5 hours.  Is that OK?
      [ME] Will you be back before I need to go home?
      [CAR] According to the traffic patterns and the availability of the service tech's I'm 98% sure that I can return by 5:00PM.
      [ME] OK.  Have fun!
      [CAR] Thank you, sir.

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dogma1138
That might not be good, but the biggest surprise here that they've actually
made and delivered 90,000 Model S's I didn't knew that they built so many of
those already.

~~~
mikeash
Production is accelerating fairly rapidly, so it's easy to get behind on that.
About half of those 90,000 have been sold in the past 12 months and they're
currently producing at a rate of about 55-60,000/year. Next year they're
aiming for 100,000, although that will include Model X.

~~~
sowbug
> About half of [all Teslas ever sold] have been sold in the past 12 months

If Tesla hits its goal of 500,000 cars produced annually by 2020, then this
will remain true for several years, at least.

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mikecb
The decision and messaging both seem like the right way to deal with an issue
with this, with respect to the consumer, the market, and the public at large.

~~~
FireBeyond
How is this any different from any other manufacturer recall? My Jeep has an
ignition key issue.

"Recall issued. Bring it in. We'll fix it. It'll take x amount of time."

~~~
kbenson
Jeep refused to acknowledge the issue as a problem when the researchers
contacted them until the researchers broke the story through wired and a
conference talk, and got national coverage on it. Ignoring a problem until it
gets national media coverage is not the appropriate way to deal with safety
issues.

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pearjuice
I once overheard a few Tesla owners chatting about their cars and most of them
had a weekly two hour maintenance buffer for scheduled appointments with
Tesla. People who buy Tesla are early adopters so they shouldn't be surprised
when stuff like this happens.

~~~
mikeash
Really, two hours a week? That doesn't even pass a basic smell test. A typical
owner might see the service center a few times a year at _most_.

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satyajeet23
In a corporate world almost devoid of trust, Tesla are building brand trust on
a deep level

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cmdrfred
This is in such stark contrast to the way automakers have been behaving
lately. I never thought i'd buy a new car, but if I get the chance it'll be a
Tesla.

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suprgeek
This is probably the first real test of the "Unconventional" car maker. Tesla
scoffs at the Dealership model, hates Gas stations and champions disruption in
general.

Now a somewhat massive issue forces a recall...Traditional Car Makers have
fixed ways (with well known issues) to deal with stuff like this. I am
genuinely curious if Tesla can "innovate" again.

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tnerb11
And on the same day the Volt was named 2016 Green Car of the Year! <\- how did
that happen?

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roflchoppa
its nice to see that they are taking owner ship for the issue, rather then
just trying to pass it under the rug. >> GM im looking at you. but then again
who really classic american cars anyway? Everyone i know is buying JDM / Euro.
Unless they buy a Tesla, but the factory is literally down the street from my
house, so that would explain why i see them all the time.....

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jessaustin
Hahaha UTM-Mangler...

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awestley
Wait. So hundreds of people did die from this? Seems a little early for a
recall...

~~~
jjulius
Hah!

It's refreshing to see a large company that realizes that getting in front of
an issue before it's an issue will keep you in better standing with customers,
press, shareholders and general public than trying to hide your mistakes in
the hope that people will never find out.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _It 's refreshing to see a large company.._

Large in the sense of market cap, maybe. But nowhere _remotely_ close to the
size and scale of the large automotive companies. Obviously, Tesla can be more
agile.

~~~
ethanbond
Agile? How about responsible?

Letting safety issues slide for as long as possible, even at the expense of
life and limb, has _nothing_ to do with agility.

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tekism
marketing ploy

~~~
astrowilliam
I don't see how a recall can be a marketing ploy. Please explain

~~~
hlmencken
"Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in
inches." andy warhol but tesla seems pretty dedicated to maintaining a really
strong pr image and messing up something as simple as seatbelts seems like a
bad thing

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gamesbrainiac
These things are bound to happen when you're trying to push new technologies.
I think its a good thing that Tesla is trying to prevent potential accidents
by recalling the cars.

~~~
jacquesm
Seatbelts are new technology?

~~~
__abc
ELECTRIC seat belts.

~~~
DrScump
With regenerative braking.

~~~
__abc
Honestly, the brake is SO sensitive on the Model S (a slight tap has you
flying forward I've found) that you COULD almost make this a reality.

