This opinion piece claims {that a} Tesla software program replace shouldn’t be a recall. I am calling bullsh*t.
Article Hyperlink: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-believe-the-tesla-headlines-safety-recall-software-update-c2e95f3a?st=x6p4mcr79zaee10&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
This opinion WSJ piece has so many points… in essence arguing the frequent Tesla speaking factors that any security defect (a design defect which may kill somebody) would not depend if an Over-The-Air software program replace can repair it. Altering the tactic of repair supply doesn’t deliver potential crash victims again to life. Arguing the dictionary which means of “recall” is a rhetorical machine, and nothing extra. Whining about the price of publish playing cards misses the purpose that that is about individuals’s lives. If firms care about postage prices maybe they need to attempt more durable to not deploy unsafe software program.
If one actually wants to answer the phrase recreation arguments from Tesla supporters, it is fairly simple to take action:
- “Recall” => “Security Defect” (easy terminology change)
- “Recall[ed][ing]” => “Publish[ed][ing] a Discover of Security Defect” (easy terminology change)
- “OTA software program Treatment” => An over the air software program replace that corrects a security defect. (No change in which means.)
- “OTA software program replace” => Any over-the-air software program replace. Some updates are treatments, however hopefully most aren’t. If to not repair a security defect, then it isn’t a treatment. (No change in which means.)
The above doesn’t change any course of; simply terminology. Journalists can undertake these phrases proper now and nonetheless be correct by informally utilizing the phrase “Discover of Security Defect” to check with the “Half 573 Security Recall Report” that’s printed for each recall. Here is an instance of 1 for Tesla FSD for not stopping at cease indicators that Tesla admits in that doc “could enhance the danger of collision”: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2022/RCLRPT-22V037-4462.PDF
It’s already the case that solely SOME updates are related to recollects. Any OTA replace that doesn’t treatment a security defect is NOT a recall. By no means has been. (Additionally, an OTA replace that doesn’t deal with a security defect by no means has been a Treatment.) Anybody saying that the present guidelines require all OTA updates to be referred to as recollects is simply deliberately complicated issues, probably in an effort to get individuals to cease being attentive to the various security defects which have certainly been corrected by OTA software program Treatments.
BTW, when somebody says the OTA occurred in a couple of days, that overlooks the truth that the security drawback may need been on the highway for months (or years) earlier than being corrected. For the rolling cease treatment the firmware with the security defect was launched on Oct. 20, 2020, and the treatment was utilized Feb. 1, 2022: A period of about 469 days throughout which highway customers had been uncovered to undue danger by software program with a security defect.
It’s cheap to say that Software program Outlined Automobiles ought to trigger NHTSA to revisit and streamline the recall course of. If for no different purpose that they will doubtless be buried below an avalanche of safety-relevant software program updates. However arguing that they need to be out of the loop for software program updates that appropriate security defects goes towards moderately than in the direction of security.
