There really needs to be a distinction between an actual recall (my Model S had one to change the latch on the frunk) and this type of "recall" that is nothing more than an OTA software update.
Why? It involves a safety system! That needs to be tracked publicly and updated! Nothing more than an OTA - does not mean much when everything is fly by wire and a bug could mean your car does not stop accelerating or something.
Recall implies something being returned. This should be called a mandatory software patch, or something like that.
The problem is Tesla owners repeatedly see "recall" to mean "software update", so this might lead to a lot of confusion if a physical recall is actually required in the future.
I like that we're arguing over the word "recall" being an issue when the system it applies to is called "full self driving". I think calling a level 2 driver assistance system "full self driving" is a much bigger inaccuracy.
Not really. If someone says "Full self driving beta" I'm thinking "The goal is full self driving, the current approach should deliver full self driving, beta means that it requires some tweaks and testing".
Nobody outside of tech understands it this way. "Full Self-Driving Beta" is a marketing stunt that borders on fraud. These cars can't drive themselves for shit, they're not even in beta.
> I'm thinking "The goal is full self driving, the current approach should deliver full self driving, beta means that it requires some tweaks and testing".
It seems to me that calling it a "recall" emphasises the severity of the problem, which might make it easier to argue that a lot is being done for customer safety to the interested authorities. But I don't think Tesla wants this to be seen more than an OTA update from the perspective of their customers (at least those who ignore Tesla news).
I had a VW car that was "recalled" shortly following the emissions scandal. The dealership asked me to come in for a free software update related to emissions. So you can say it's a "recall" to the lawmakers but call it a "free software update" to the user.
> Recalling the hardware is a drastically more difficult request to impose on customers and financially/logistically for the car maker.
And the distinction matters to consumers because...?
A component is faulty. It needs to be fixed. Whether or not you have to drive to a dealership, if it's OTA, if someone at a dealership needs to plug a specialized device to your car's OBD port, or the car is unfixable and needs to be melted to slag and you get a new one doesn't really matter. There's an issue, it is a safety issue, and it needs to be fixed.
How efficient the process can be it's another matter entirely. That's up to the manufacturers.
> Whether or not you have to drive to a dealership, if it's OTA, if someone at a dealership needs to plug a specialized device to your car's OBD port, or the car is unfixable and needs to be melted to slag and you get a new one doesn't really matter.
As a car owner, those scenarios are drastically different to me. I have a hard time imagining anyone saying "It doesn't really matter to me if my car receives an OTA update or if I need to drive 2 hours to a dealership or if my car is melted to slag."
If you had to send in your cellphone each time there was an android update vs all IOS updates being OTA, I think you would see the distinction as a consumer.
> And the distinction matters to consumers because...?
Because in one I have to book a time with a dealer and take half a day off of work and in the other I have to do... nothing and it will just fix itself.
I would say that whether a "recall" requires some action on the part of the owner is a very important distinguishing factor.
A recall should unambiguously mean that some action from the owner is required to resolve the issue (e.g.
taking it to a dealer to get a software update installed.)
If no action is required (other than caution / not using the product feature), we should use some other term such as "safety advisory" to avoid ambiguity around critical safety information.
'full self driving' is an even more incorrect term, then, if you want to be pedantic. if the car mfg takes zero liability/accountability, then it is zero self-driving.
you can, in fact, 'recall' software. this is semantically accurate description of what is happening.
I don't see how calling it a Software Recall will soften the blow for the car's user when the user has to drive it to a place where a device can be plugged in to do the update.
With a Recall in the normal sense, isn't there a record that the car has been updated? How is this done if the car is kept fully available to the user?
If you want owners to understand that it's a serious safety issue, the word "recall" won't help. Most recalls are for minor, non-safety-related issues. My car has had a few recalls, and none were urgent, just things that got replaced for free the next time I brought my car in for service.
There is a big difference between taking a car to a dealership for them to apply an update, and the car updating itself overnight as it sits in the garage with no action required by the owner.
Are these delivered directly to the device and installed overnight automatically (like an iPhone iOS update) or do they have to be hooked up to a computer to install the software update?
Recall is the word we use when a defect was found and must be repaired or retrofit. The actual process of repair could involve customer action or not.
Teslas are basically digitally tethered to the dealer, so they can be "recalled" anytime (without your approval, fwiw), but it doesn't make the word not apply.
If Tesla replaced the actual computer that runs the software that they're recalling, would you consider that a recall? What if there was no actual physical fault with the computer, but it just had firmware flashed to a chip that couldn't be reflashed?
I'm looking at a piece of mail right now that's an official recall notice for a different make/model of car I own. The issue? Improperly adjusted steering components. The company is offering to make the correct adjustments for free. Nothing is being replaced.
Whether the recall is to replace a poorly designed physical component, or to make an adjustment, or to apply a software update doesn't make a difference to regulators.
A recall is a legal process that's designed to encourage manufacturers to fix safety issues while also limiting their liability. Companies avoid recalls if they can because it's costly, time consuming, and isn't good PR. But it's worth it if the issue is bad enough that it risks a class action lawsuit, or individual lawsuits, and most desirable when someone like the US government is demanding a recall or risk legal consequences.
When a company issues a recall, they make their best effort to notify consumers of the issue, provide with clear descriptions of how consumers can have the issue fixed, and make it clear that it will be paid for by the manufacturer. In return, the manufacturer is granted legal protections that drop their risk of being sued to nearly zero.
> If Tesla replaced the actual computer that runs the software that they're recalling, would you consider that a recall?
Yeah, it requires physically taking the car to a mechanic or dealer who does this. Very different from using the software update button on the car touchscreen.
> Improperly adjusted steering components. The company is offering to make the correct adjustments for free. Nothing is being replaced.
This is clearly a recall, because it requires taking the vehicle to a mechanic or dealer.
Depends on the device. Some require connection to a host system, some can be done over the air. 100% depends on the security profile of the device in question and what the FDA allows.
This is most likely a legislative issue with NHTSA, I don't think they have a mechanism by which they can enforce a software update since the concept didn't exist when recalls were first implemented.
Why not? At the end of the day its a binary check box on the paper that you had the fix. Whether that fix was a software update or a new piece of hardware should be irrelevant.
Inaccuracy is inaccuracy no matter in which direction. If an outdated law made it easier for Tesla PR to spin something in a positive light, would you consider that an issue?
Electing congresspeople who actually stay on top of the expert consensus in various regulated fields is the only way the frameworks themselves can be improved.
My Honda had 2 recalls on it recently: one was a software update and the other was over the fact that a few of the cables on the audio system were slightly too short. This sounds like the same thing other than the fact that I had to pop over to the dealership to do them. Even with the cable replacement, in and out in an hour with a nice lounge to sit in.
While we're talking about semantics, the auto industry seems to have a thing called "Technical service bulletin" which is a piece of actionable knowledge. If it applies to you, you act on it. You would probably have to go to the shop to get the TSB considered and applied. I don't think it has any regulatory weight, except as an input to deciding if a recall is a good idea.
I just looked it up. The relevant definition of recall is to request returning a product.
If it's possible to buy a software license online and then return it online after deciding you no longer want it (i.e., a non-physical return), then it stands to reason that Tesla can request that you return the defective software OTA and receive replacement software OTA, and that would be a recall. The fact that you are forced into returning the defective software by virtue of not having the opportunity to block the return request is a fairly minor detail.
I wasn't told about either of these recalls, though. I went in because the audio was clicking, and they told me they had 2 recalls out on my car, including for the audio issue, and that it was a quick fix.
FSD has been a cartoonish display for the better part of a year now, it wasn't until last month that the NHTSA actually pushed on them to do a recall, and from there they "disagreed with the NHTSA but submitted a recall"... which is code for "submitted the recall NHTSA forced on them to submit"
Elon knows better, but he knows he can weaponize people's lack of familiarity with this space and inspire outrage at the "big bad overreaching government"
Surely a hardware recall would specifically tell you to go to a dealer, right? I’m not sure it’s really confusing. The specific thing here is that these are mandatory things that are tracked by vehicle.
That's where the word came from, that's true. But a legal framework has built up around the concept over the decades which isn't dependent on you having to drive the car to the dealer, all of which still applies, so the word is still used.
Over-the-air software updates haven't really been a thing until Tesla (previous cars that required software updates still required visiting a dealer or service center) so what we have here is an outdated legal framework.
It's not outdated. It's simply that the word recall in the context of cars has a specific legal meaning which isn't entirely the same as the conversational english usage of the same word.
A defect that is subject to a recall, for example, is tracked as part of the car history. When considering buying a used car, you can see whether that repair has been made yet or not. The means of how that repair is delivered is inconsequential.
Recall should just mean affected vehicles must have the fix. What component of the vehicle is affected or how it is supposed to be fixed should be irrelevant, something is defective and the vehicles should probably not be used until that's sorted.
A recall is a legal process only. Whether the recall repairs, replaces, adjusts something doesn't matter. Whether a fix is applied as software, or labor, or replacement parts doesn't matter. Whether a customer needs to do something or not doesn't matter.
A recall simply says: as a manufacturer, working with government authorities, while taking specific prescribed steps to communicate and correct an issue at the cost of the manufacturer, the manufacturer is then immune from lawsuits that could arise were they to ignore the issue.
Yeah, but the reason why they used the word "recall" is that "recall" was already a word that means to officially demand that something (or someone) be returned to a previous location. Of course, before over the air software updates, essentially anything on an automobile that needed to be replaced/repaired/modified would need to be returned to a dealer/mechanic to do so. So now it sounds a little weird to some people to refer to an over the air software update as a recall.
The software isn't returned but it is destroyed and replaced. In a world where the behavior of the things we own is driven by software, it's pretty much just the same as if you recalled and replaced faulty gas tanks.
Software recalls are nothing new. This particular use of the word “recall” refers to the legal process used by regulators to mandate a fix to a product.
> It’s like crying wolf, eventually you start ignoring it
The problem here lies in having a manufacturer shipping an unfinished product then relying on an endless stream of recalls to finish developing your vehicle.
These are supposed to be exceptional events. If they've become so frequent you're ignoring them, don't shoot the messenger.
Laypeople have an incorrect perception of what a recall actually means, especially when it comes to vehicles. The most important effect that comes along with an official vehicle recall is that the manufacturer has to fix the issue for you for free, or otherwise compensate you in some way for reduced functionality you may have paid for.
Recalls happen in other product spaces all the time, and they often have "fixes" that say "stop using our product and throw it away". That's still a recall. The word "recall" in relation to this regulation is simply a term for "something is broken in a way that a merchant should not have sold"
We should probably go beyond the verbiage of recall but right now since it is removing a feature I think that recall is appropriate. A better verbiage might be safety reversion .
The use of the word "recall" isn't because someone just felt like using it. It's an official legal process, followed to limit the manufacturer's liability.
Whether it's a "good" word or "bad" word is irrelevant. It describes a very rigid and official legal process.
Exactly. I had a "recall" at one point where the manufacturer had a typo on a label in the engine compartment. The fix entailed receiving a new sticker in the mail and applying it over the old one. To this day, I can look up my vehicle on the NTSB site and see that that sticker was delivered to me.
If I had chosen not to actually apply it, the dealer would have been expected to do so the next time my car was in for service.
I don't think this is removing a feature, the recall notices says:
The remedy OTA software update will improve how FSD Beta negotiates
certain driving maneuvers during the conditions described above, whereas
a software release without the remedy does not contain the
improvements.
"Recalls" almost never involve being returned. There's a recall out on my car's water pump (Thanks a lot VW) and no part of it involves sending my car back, or even interacting with VW or a dealer. It's just something I'm supposed to keep in mind over its life and various maintenance in the shop.
Other cars get "recalls" all the time that amount to updating the software in the ECU or TCU. Tesla is simply being treated like everyone else.
Hell, even in food, a "recall" usually means "throw it away" not return it.
Why? It involves a safety system! That needs to be tracked publicly and updated! Nothing more than an OTA - does not mean much when everything is fly by wire and a bug could mean your car does not stop accelerating or something.
True, but by announcing things in this fashion it is making Tesla look bad. Regulations really need to be updated so that car makers can hide this type of problem from customers as easily as possible. Especially when it comes to Tesla, regulators really need to bend over backwards to prevent articles from being written that could be interpreted in a negative way.
Or are people concerned about the word "recall" for a different reason?
> announcing things in this fashion it is making Tesla look bad.
I almost didn't catch the sarcasm of this comment, but there are other comments in this thread that are saying basically the same thing, but actually meaning it. It defies logic.
People seem to think that the government is being mean, and singling out Tesla, and being nasty using the word "recall." A recall is a legal process. The word means something very specific, and when a company issues a recall, they do so because they don't want to be sued.
It's almost like complaining about the word "divorce" or "audit" or "deposition" or other similar words that describe a legal process. The words used mean something specific. Tesla is conducting a legal process, and there's a very specific word for that process, and it means something. It's a recall.
Regulators dont care about the perception of a recall, they care about the safety of the consumers and more importantly the general public who have not signed up for Teslas beta program.
Musk stans poison discussion so thoroughly that it becomes impossible for people do differentiate between Paul Verhoeven levels of sarcasm, and the ernestly held opinions of his fan club.
It's a great example of Poe's law at work. Tesla apologists are just that absurd when it comes to holding the company to a double standard about anything that could make them look bad.
> so that car makers can hide this type of problem from customers as easily as possible
What. No! At an absolute minimum, I want to be aware of any changes to the thing in my life most likely to kill me. Maybe we could use a better term like "Software Fuckup Remediation" or "Holy Shit How Did We Not Get The Brakes Right".
If there were a word for "we would do anything we could possibly do, legally or otherwise, and more if we knew how, to avoid having to spend a second or a penny trying to fix the thing we knew was broken when we sold it to you, but the government is looking at us funny and we might get sued if we don't, so we'll grudgingly do it,", it'd probably be "recall."
It should absolutely be tracked and publicized. But it's fundamentally different than "this car is fundamentally broken and you have to take it back to the manufacturer"
"Recall" with cars is a legal term that means something specific.
> But it's fundamentally different than "this car is fundamentally broken and you have to take it back to the manufacturer"
That's not a criteria for a recall. A recall can be for a small thing completely unrelated to driving safety. Someone else mentioned having a recall to replace a sticker. My most recent recall was to replace the trunk lifts.
"Recall" for a car just means a specific procedure now has to be followed, tracked and reported. It says nothing about the safety criticality of the fix.
To me "recall" clearly implies that I have to drive it to the dealership and let them fix or install something. "Mandatory software update" might be a better term.
The suggestion wasn't that it should not be tracked, just that it shouldn't be called a recall, since they're not actually recalling your car to have something fixed.
One can kill people the other not. Guess which one.
>> "...The FSD Beta system may cause crashes by allowing the affected vehicles to: “Act unsafe around intersections, such as traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution,” according to the notice on the website of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration..."
I think that it’s more about using the most appropriate known terminology in order to try to get the most people to do the needful. “recall” sounds more urgent/dire than “software update”, and will likely encourage many more people to take action vs using “software update” or some less familiar terminology. The word “recall” in terms of autos has built up a lot of history/prior art in people’s minds as something to really pay attention to. I have no idea, but perhaps that is why they are going with this known terminology.
The whole point of over-the-air updates is that the owner doesn't need to do anything. For example, both Tesla and Toyota have had bugs in their ABS software that required recalls. The owners of the Toyotas had to physically bring their cars in to get the software update which slows down the adoption drastically. The Teslas received the update automatically and asked for the best time to install the update the next time the owner got in the car.
There are really two issues here. The FSD and the OTA updates. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater and blame OTA updates just because Tesla's FSD software is bad. The OTA updates do provide an avenue to make cars much safer by reducing the friction for these type of safety fixes.
> The OTA updates do provide an avenue to make cars much safer by reducing the friction for these type of safety fixes.
True, but let us also acknowledge the immense systems safety downsides of OTA updates given the lack of effective automotive regulation in the US (and to varying degrees globally).
OTA updates can also be utilized to hide safety-critical system defects that did exist on a fleet for a time.
Also, the availability of OTA update machinery might cause internal validation processes to be watered down (for cost and time-to-market reasons) because there is an understanding that defects can always be fixed relatively seamlessly after the vehicle has been delivered.
These are serious issues and are entirely flying under the radar.
And this is why US automotive regulators need to start robustly scrutinizing internal processes at automakers, instead of arbitrary endpoints.
The US automotive regulatory system largely revolves around an "Honor Code" with automakers - and that is clearly problematic when dealing with opaque, "software-defined" vehicles that leave no physical evidence of a prior defect that may have caused death or injury in some impacted vehicles before an OTA update was pushed to the fleet.
EDIT: Fixed some minor spelling/word selection errors.
This is a totally fair response since I didn't say that directly in my comment, but I 100% agree. OTA updates are a valuable safety tool. They also have a chance to be abused. We can rein them in through regulation without getting rid of them entirely because they do have the potential to save a lot of lives.
It'd probably be just as effective to require that every version of the car software that is made available to the fleet must also be provided to the NHTSA. There's no sweeping shoddy versions under the carpet then.
> The word “recall” in terms of autos has built up a lot of history/prior art in people’s minds as something to really pay attention to
Tesla didn't choose the word "recall." The legal process known as "recall" chose the word. It's not like people at Tesla debated over whether or not to call it a "recall" instead of a "software update."
If Tesla had it their way, they'd have quietly slipped it into any other regular software update alongside updates to the stupid farting app, if they cared to fix it at all.
When a company issues a recall, it's because there's pressure from regulators, or investors, or both, and/or a risk of class action lawsuits and fines. Using the word "recall" isn't a preference or even a synonym. It's a legal move meant to protect them.
If Tesla gets sued over a flaw, "we issued a software update" isn't legally defensible. "We cooperated with official government bodies to conduct a recall," does because a recall describes an official process that requires manufacturers do very specific things in specific ways as prescribed by law. In exchange, manufacturers are legally protected (usually) from lawsuits related to that flaw.
It is the terminology that exists in US automotive regulations (what little there effectively are).
A "recall" is just a public record that a safety-related defect existed, the products impacted and what the manufacturer performed in terms of a corrective action.
Additionally, I believe that the possibility exists that Tesla must update the vehicle software at a service center due to configuration issues. Only a small number of vehicles may require that type of corrective action, but the possibility exists.
Historically, there exist product recalls (especially outside of the automotive domain) where the product in question does not have to be returned (replacement parts are shipped to the impacted customers, for example).
I hope by participating in this thread you're aware by now but just to be clear there is no "physical" recall necessary. The recall is about documentation, customer awareness, and fixing the problem. "Physical recall" is meaningless and unimportant, it's not what "recall" means at all.
And I hope you see that you've demonstrated why "recall" is a poorly chosen word for that, since the word's normal definitions have nothing to do with "documentation," "customer awareness" or "fixing the problem."
I think it’s closer to the physical product recall: it’s a strong “everyone with our product needs to get it fixed” message which they’re doing to avoid liability and further damage to their reputation.
The majority of "actual recalls" is you taking your car to the dealership and them plugging into the diagnostic port and running one line of code. So this one is the same, just that Tesla is able to do it over the air.
Don't forget how many recalls are "Next time you replace this part, it will be replaced with a new version that doesn't have the defect" or how many recalls are "A tech will look at the part and then do nothing because your part is fine" or "A tech will weld the part that is currently on your truck" or "Be aware this part may fail ahead of schedule and if it does it will suck, but you don't technically have to replace it right now so we don't have to cover the cost"
"Recall" means that the Manufacturer MUST follow rules related to record keeping and customer engagement. If you have a recall, please make sure you get it completed. It is someone's job to call and write to you until you do.
Finally the correct answer in a wave of "well ackusally" comments.
A recall means exactly what it means. The manufacturer is responsible for a fix. If for whatever reason they can't push an OTA update to your car, Tesla is still responsible for sending you a postcard in the mail and calling you every 6 months telling you to bring it in for service until they have reasonable evidence the car is no longer on the road.
It's nice that they can quickly fix it without people needing to drive to a service center, but you can understand that people would be concerned by the "may cause crashes" part?
It's a bit of a semantic play here. But there's a difference between it might happen and things actually happening. Tesla has had several safety related "recalls" in the last few years. All of which were fixed without much hassle via an over the air software update. And of course their record on safety kind of speaks for itself. Not a whole lot of bad stuff happening with Teslas relative to other vehicles that are facing issues related to structural integrity of the car. Like wheels might fall off with some Toyota's. Or spontaneous combustion of batteries because of dodgy suppliers (happened to BMW and a few others). Which is of course much harder to fix with a software update and would require an actual recall to get expensive repairs done.
The headline of that many cars being "recalled" is of course nice clickbait. Much better than "cars to receive minor software update that fixes an issue that isn't actually that much of an issue in the real world so far". One is outrage-ism fueled advertising and the other is a bit of a non event. It's like your laptop receiving some security related update. Happens a lot. Is that a recall of your laptop or just an annoying unscheduled coffee break?
Was the recall a voluntary recall by the company or something the company was told to do by a regulator? To me, recall means much more than just having to have the company replace something. It means they have to do it at their expense. So in this case, it's not as bad for Tesla's bottom line if it is just an OTA update. A recall is something that the car industry is used to doing whenever they have to fix a mistake. I would not be surprised if the industry doesn't have ways of writing those expenses off in taxes or something, so need to be able to specifically itemize the recall work.
> Was the recall a voluntary recall by the company or something the company was told to do by a regulator?
"Voluntary recall" in this case means that Tesla did not choose to take the hard route where there's a court order for a mandatory recall. Few manufacturers fight that, because customers then get letters from the Government telling them their product is defective and that it should be returned for repair or replacement.
Somebody in the swallowable magnet toy business fought this all the way years ago.[1] They lost. It's still a problem.
Almost all car recalls are voluntary because once it becomes a mandatory recall the government can require them to provide a buyback option to the vehicle owner.
oh, that would be amazeballs to have Tesla reimburse the cost of the FSD purchase. i never drank the Tesla kool-aid, so it would be good karma to see them get dinged for the snake-oil they've sold as FSD
My Honda has had recalls where I had to bring it in for a software update. The only difference here is that Tesla has infrastructure to do that remotely.
I used to be on the other side of this, but now I agree with you.
The official meaning of a recall is providing a record of a defect, informing the public that the product is defective, and making the manufacturer financially liable for either remediating the defect or providing a refund. However, the colloquial definition of a “recall” now means a product must be physically returned.
To better represent the nature of a “recall” they should instead call it something like “notice of defect”. In the case of safety critical problems like here they should use a term like “notice of life-endangering defect” to properly inform the consumers that the defect is actively harmful instead of merely being a failure to perform as advertised.
tl;dr They should change the terminology from “recall” to “Notice of Life-Endangering Defect”