Huge Model S software glitch...

[whitex]

.

The ability to update is a blessing and a curse. How many other car companies continue to push free upgrades to customers for years after purchase? Most traditional car dealers will charge you $500 just to update the maps in your GPS system after you drive off the lot.

I’m not a Tesla fanboy in any way, and I think the QA process for their software could certainly improve, but in totality I think the updates and upgrades are more of a benefit than a downfall.

I used to think so, but over time I realized that the way Tesla does it is actually worse. First, Tesla uses this to sell incomplete product which sometimes never completes. Things like selling features which don't work AT ALL for years, selling features which never do what they were advertised to do, or selling features and later saying "oups, we thought we could deliver this, so let us find some fancy wording lawyering so that we can have an excuse to never deliver it"., or "you know, when we say the car will find you anywhere on private property, we meant as long you are along a straight line up to 40 feet ahead or behind the car, sorry we forgot to fine print that". Second string of drawbacks being a test vehicle for Tesla. Someone has some new idea how to manage a battery better, "sure, take few thousands cars and update them to that scheme, two years later batteries didn't fare so well, ok, let's limit the maximum charge of the car, after all we do officially only guarantee 70% of the original battery capacity, but we did learn what not to do and that is very valuable to future customers and Tesla of course". Lost or broken features are a third string of Tesla update side effects. Then there is a fourth one - the software is being written for newer, faster hardware, so it starts lagging on the old hardware forced to update.

Updates can be a great thing - every feature sold should be complete, i.e. the car does everything. Updates only fix bugs and potentially enhance performance. New features can be made available optionally (and possibly for a price) once they are ready, or as beta to people who agree to test it. Using updates like Tesla does only gives them a bad name.

 

[Big Toys]

Am I missing something? Don't all garage doors have a disconnect rope that allows you to open them manually?

Not from the outside....

I had to do factory reset for the failing chip, and it erased my Homelink as well. I had the clicker for the garage, but front gate clicker is gone. So, I'm still punching in the gate code with my arm out the window.

 

[2101Guy]

I have a detached garage as well, but the garage also has a standard entry door that I can/do use regularly.

But if it didnt have the entry door, I'd most likely at least mount one of these outside of the garage somewhere

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Chamberlain-Wireless-Rolling-Code-Garage-Door-Opener-Keypad/999920718?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-mlw-_-google-_-lia-_--_-garagedooroperator-_-999920718-_-0&placeholder=null&ds_rl=1286981&gclid=CjwKCAjwqIiFBhAHEiwANg9szrVimz5cAY1Kfqqal1-zHBrsH4XUH8vGBIcmo65GBusw5BtTCKtkkhoCsqEQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[Darren Donovan]

And Tesla (and fanbois) tout the OTA updates as a huge plus over other cars/manufacturers, making fun of others that their cars don't "improve" over time. It's just as likely that Tesla's "updates" can fix a prior issue as introducing new ones.

So true, at first you are excited to see new things announced, ooohh I better update. Then the realisation starts to sink in after a while - "Tesla giveth, Tesla taketh".
If you want new fun stuff then it comes at a cost, usually that cost is the breaking of existing functions that may or may not ever be rectified (USB album art, 6 months on!!), and more bugs, endless bugs.
For morbid curiosity I would love to know the turn over rate of their software personnel, and if they actually have any processes in place to stop code regression (such a common issue).
I've learned to live with the rattles and fear of needing to visit the service centers, but it is the horrid software that will push me away from the brand. Range and acceleration be damned, sometimes the grass is greener elsewhere even if you have to compromise.

 

[whitex]

And Tesla (and fanbois) tout the OTA updates as a huge plus over other cars/manufacturers, making fun of others that their cars don't "improve" over time. It's just as likely that Tesla's "updates" can fix a prior issue as introducing new ones.

"Your Tesla gets better with every update" is one of the bigger marketing lies Tesla spreads. It gets closer to what Tesla sold you on long ago, but actual improvements are really few and hard between. Perhaps other manufacturers will offer a "Tesla fanboy option", for an extra $1,000 your car will come with a bunch of features not working, and then those features will be enabled piece by piece on some random schedule over say 20 years. To match Tesla, some features will never work, and some will stop working after a while, and the user interface will get slower and slower while harder to use (buttons will get smaller and start moving farther and farther away from the driver's line of sight). Oh, and around year 3 you get fart mode for free.

OTA is a huge benefit, but to Tesla, not to customers. It allows Tesla to ship incomplete products, sell vaporware without any completion guarantees, and experiment on customer vehicles as if they were their own test fleet.

 

[tranzndance]

Because I don't carry a garage door opener any more? Thanks for being a smartass.

How would you open the garage door if you were outside of the garage and the car is inside of it? PP was smart but not the ass.

 

[BPeter]

Similar thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. Browser crashed and hung the whole system. I did a scroll wheel reset and it factory reset my MCU.

After doing the scroll wheel reset, the MCU failed to boot probably about 10 times (kept looping). When it finally came up all data was gone, so it seems like there is a failsafe for boot failure that just wipes the whole data partition.

This whole process took about 10 minutes, and I had to go so I started driving about 5 minutes into the boot failures.

NoA was also unavailable until it was able to connect to Wi-Fi and redownload some data.

It also seems to have deleted some security certificates from the car. They were probably stored in the same partition that got wiped.
I was unable to use the mobile app to unlock the car or open the trunk (but I could lock the car and control climate).
This sounded very similar to what happened with some people who got the MCU2 upgrade and service forgot to install the certificates. I put in a service request and they were able to remotely install the certificates and get the mobile app fully functional. I asked about the resetting and they said there was a recent bug introduced that can cause this.

 

[Huachipato]

Not wanting to tempt fate here - but I did just get an 2021.4.18 this morning. Minor fixes is the update for it.