Air Suspension no longer lowers at highway speeds (FW update v5.8)

[kendallpb]

"I accept that allowing the lowest setting may increase my risk of vehicle damage due to unexpected large road debris."

And if you don't pick low, you should get a prompt to "accept that allowing the standard setting may also have a risk of damage from unexpected larger road debris".... ;-)

(Seriously, I'm with ya, Evan.)

 

[neroden]

It would be rather more valuable to me to be able to drive in High mode during snowstorms, though. I hate dragging the bottom of the car on snow. I think it's even damaged some of the trim pieces at the bottom of my car.

This.

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Some things: this might have come from the clamoring of people who suggested this exact "fix" in response to the fires in other threads.

We suggested that it be an OPTION. Tesla needs to give reading comprehension lessons to its staff, apparently.

 

[Kaivball]

1) Because there is no road debris higher than 6"?
2) When you start contributing to my car payment or you are my wife, you can to have an opinion about how I drive my car.

Lol

 

[GravityPull]

Towman26, the Model S will continue to handle better than a Mercedes S550!

 

[omarsultan]

TM is kinda screwed if they try and hang the whole thing on ground clearance:

1) If they lock the cars at 6", then after the next fire (and eventually there will be some accident and fire), they are kinda stuck into what to do next--Tesla Lift Kit, anyone?
2) If they put the disclaimer in for an opt-in auto-low setting, as Kendallpb points out, they still need a disclaimer for folks that don't opt-in who have a debris-related accident who thought they were safe

Perhaps they just need a universal disclaimer before you put the car in park:

Driving is an inherently dangerous activity--bad things can happen to you or your car (on the other hand, you are in Tesla, so fewer bad things than in an ICE)

O

 

[neroden]

Just got confirmation from another owner that I forwarded this info to that his also lowered at 100mph to the low height setting, and that it stayed at the low height until he went below 70mph at which is changed to standard height. So it seems if you need/want low-suspension for highway driving, just go above 100mph for it to lower, then maintain 70+mph to keep it low.

Oh good grief. This is an actual bug, and a very bad piece of programming failure.

This also maintains the problem Tesla has that no communication is coming out of the programming team, so that the service people don't have any idea what's going on. When is Tesla going to get its communications straightened out?

 

[kendallpb]

Another debris-strike-fire would likely be devastating to the company right now, turning the Model S into a modern-day Pinto in the public perception. It could set the adoption of EVs back years, if not decades.

Keeping all of our cars at the standard setting will reduce the likelihood of more fires for now (as others have said, it means other cars are more likely to hit debris before ours) -- and that is the most important thing at this precise moment in time.

I disagree with pretty much all of the above.

Also, there's no proof the lower setting is more or less dangerous, so if you have Air and 5.8, you may just be more at risk (as mentioned upthread, but no one reads...) due to larger items now being able to go under you. Plus no one's talked about how moving objects, even smaller ones, e.g., bouncing off another car, could ricochet under your car and puncture the battery, no matter how high. (I'm not trying to be alarmist; I am not at all concerned about that, either.) With cars whizzing by and road vibrations from same, debris doesn't always just sit there placidly.

Even if some of you are willing to risk your own cars by going back to the low setting, I'm grateful you can't, frankly.

At the risk of disappointing you, I am not accepting the upgrade. ;-)

So let's give them some breathing room, and try to have a bit of patience, ok?

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Driving is an inherently dangerous activity--bad things can happen to you or your car (on the other hand, you are in Tesla, so fewer bad things than in an ICE)

:biggrin: Luvs it! Though really, anyone buying, renting, or otherwise accessing a car should have to sign off on a similar statement.... ;-)

 

[Twiddler]

So, at least for now, you have to manually adjust your suspension to the low setting once at speed. Is this really that bad? Granted, if intentional, it should have been communicated beforehand - or at least in the release notes, but really, the option is still there when most need it - conserving range when traveling at long distances (usually at speed). This will undoubtedly decrease the frequency with which the car is driven at the low setting. Whether that will mitigate fire risk is of legitimate discussion, but seriously - another model S WILL catch fire. This is pretty much a statistical certainty. Whether that happens sooner rather than later should be and likely is the company's main concern. Thus, the increase in suspension height. The cheapest and (arguably) most effective way to mitigate this short-term risk.

 

[Beavis]

So, at least for now, you have to manually adjust your suspension to the low setting once at speed. Is this really that bad? Granted, if intentional, it should have been communicated beforehand - or at least in the release notes, but really, the option is still there when most need it - conserving range when traveling at long distances (usually at speed). This will undoubtedly decrease the frequency with which the car is driven at the low setting. Whether that will mitigate fire risk is of legitimate discussion, but seriously - another model S WILL catch fire. This is pretty much a statistical certainty. Whether that happens sooner rather than later should be and likely is the company's main concern. Thus, the increase in suspension height. The cheapest and (arguably) most effective way to mitigate this short-term risk.

Yes, manually adjusting the ride height at speeds over 100 mph is really bad.

 

[NigelM]

Your posting to various other threads saying "looks like a bug after all" seems premature to me. There's nothing to support that, other than a wild guess because the old 60 MPH was a bit under 100 KPH and now the lowering seems tied to 100 MPH (a.k.a. 160ish KPH). But we have two people reporting word from Tesla--brianman and, in more detail, vgrinshpun--that it was on purpose.

Maybe will turn out to be premature but I think it was fair to give folks a heads-up; there's a fair few people worked up over the idea that Tesla did this deliberately (me included) that at least they should know. I've followed the thread in detail and the words from Tesla have been inconclusive at best, but we've had confirmation from two sources that the car lowers at 100mph while there's no reason I can think of for Tesla to pick that number and deliberately move there.

Upon contemplation in any case there are two scenario:

1. Tesla deliberately changed the handling and driving characteristics of the car without telling owners.

2. Tesla accidentally changed the handling and driving characteristics of the car without realizing it.

I'm not sure which is worse......

 

[strider]

Any idea why they pushed this release so quickly? It made sense it was to disable lowering, but without that why the quick rollout (and of buggy software at that)?

Can you be more specific? Many of us were on 5.6 and Tesla has said that folks on WiFi will get updates faster (bandwidth is effectively free for Tesla when using your Internet connection vs 3g). My car is on WiFi in the garage. We didn't drive yesterday but when I went out today it had the alarm clock. I don't think this update was "rushed", Tesla is just doing what they said they would and make updates available to anyone on WiFi immediately and those on 3g would follow the regular rollout schedule which I assume is based on an agreement w/ AT&T on how much bandwidth they can use at a time.

 

[tomas]

Maybe will turn out to be premature but I think it was fair to give folks a heads-up; there's a fair few people worked up over the idea that Tesla did this deliberately (me included) that at least they should know. I've followed the thread in detail and the words from Tesla have been inconclusive at best, but we've had confirmation from two sources that the car lowers at 100mph while there's no reason I can think of for Tesla to pick that number and deliberately move there.

Upon contemplation in any case there are two scenario:

1. Tesla deliberately changed the handling and driving characteristics of the car without telling owners.

2. Tesla accidentally changed the handling and driving characteristics of the car without realizing it.

I'm not sure which is worse......

First car in history with OTA updates. Also most software-based car ever. Either scenario is bad but we should all take a deep breath, wait to see what's forthcoming from tesla. It's been interesting watching this thread last couple of days. I think most posts ever. At least most emotional posts ever! A few of my forum mates may be wound a bit tight... But probably useful if tesla twigs that they should up the owner communications.

 

[Reed]

Another piece of information that points to this being a software bug, is that the website still describes the Air Suspension as lowering at highway speeds for aerodynamics.

From the design studio page (http://www.teslamotors.com/models/design):

From the features page (http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/performance):

Updating a website is much less risky than rolling out a software update for a car. Since the website still has not been updated days after the release, it also points to a software bug. Especially since people could still be buying a feature as described in the design studio that doesn't even exist.

 

[tomas]

Can you be more specific? Many of us were on 5.6 and Tesla has said that folks on WiFi will get updates faster (bandwidth is effectively free for Tesla when using your Internet connection vs 3g). My car is on WiFi in the garage. We didn't drive yesterday but when I went out today it had the alarm clock. I don't think this update was "rushed", Tesla is just doing what they said they would and make updates available to anyone on WiFi immediately and those on 3g would follow the regular rollout schedule which I assume is based on an agreement w/ AT&T on how much bandwidth they can use at a time.

wrong. I'm on wifi, no clock. Stuck on 5.6, May I burn in hell.

 

[dsmith2189]

Very good question. Probably not as long as IE6.

That's why I use IE7

 

[MartinAustin]

2. Tesla accidentally changed the handling and driving characteristics of the car without realizing it.

Bless 'em, but Tesla's software testing isn't military-grade yet... they do release bugs in their updates.

The spinning GPS stuff was proof enough, I think there were other examples - bluetooth and so on. (I have ordered a car but I'm not an owner yet, so I am in a pretty weak position to comment specifically)

If the air suspension low setting is now going wrong, we should wait before we crucify Tesla for not communicating about it - since, if it's a bug, they obviously had no intention to communicate about it.

This is going to seem so like needless 20-20 hindsight that you don't want to pay any attention to me, but IMO it is worth waiting at least a week before accepting any update from Tesla.

Just wait until admitted (and addicted) early adopters have had a chance to make comments on it.

 

[dsmith2189]

Well every centimeter counts. 33mm above standard versus 23mm is 43% more. I will just have to go slow.

I have a drastic drop off on a ramp from where I park at work. in standard mode I scrape, but in high I am able to descend the ramp without contact. every little bit helps.

 

[apacheguy]

I'm ok with a couple bugs here and there. If Tesla comes out this week and says oops, our bad, we promise to fix all cars affected by the bug within a week then that'll be fine by me.

However, something about the unprecedented rollout pace tells me this was intentional. Hope I'm wrong.

 

[Twiddler]

The speed may automatically adjust at that (likely erroneous) speed, but the car can still be lowered into the low setting above the speed of 45 MPH. You have to do it manually, it does not occur automatically.

Again, is it really that bad that (for the time being at least) you have to select the option to lower your car at freeway speeds??

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Again, is it really that bad that (for the time being at least) you have to select the option to lower your car at freeway speeds??

Yes it is, because in order to do so you have to take your eyes of the road and mess with the touch screen.