Major Safety Issue - Hoping a Tesla engineer watching the forums reads this!

[nasell]

Last night, while driving down the highway in pitch black lighting, my headlights suddenly shut off! This has happened before, but not during a pitch-black scenario, and I was assured that this was a firmware bug, that it was identified, and was fixed. Obviously that's not the case. I had to quickly pull up the controls and switch on the lights manually, leaving about 10 seconds of pitch black driving at highway speeds.

Luckily we arrived home safe. I was able to pull dashcam footage this time (didn't have one previously), and took several videos where I turned the lights from Auto -> On -> Auto, etc. The lights turned off every time on Auto, despite it being pitch black outside.

Unfortunately, just like the previous two times, the next morning (today), the lights were working normally again. From a technical perspective, this has to be one of the worst case scenarios, because it's not constantly broken, it's intermittent (and rare). Someone could be very seriously injured or killed.

Additionally, this is the SECOND major safety issue I've had in less than 3 weeks. The other issue is the windshield wipers suddenly not working on intermittent/timed settings. You have to turn them to continuous on to get them to work once the car starts acting up. Again, the next day they are back to normal. This has happened twice now. Again, luckily, I reacted after the windshield started to get soaked with water and I noticed my visibility was greatly reduced - but I don't know what would've happened if my wife would've been driving.

I opened up an NHTSA complaint to ensure that this gets looked at, and want to make everyone aware to be incredibly vigilant and aware that this is a potential issue.

My Tesla was delivered on December 29th, 2016. I'm not sure if this is isolated or a widespread issue.

Link to the NHTSA complaint, which includes some of the videos can be found here.

 

[BluestarE3]

Have you already contacted and worked with Tesla on these issues? Don't assume any Tesla employees are monitoring these unaffiliated forums.

 

[techmaven]

Link to the NHTSA complaint, which includes some of the videos can be found here.

Your video links don't work for me.

 

[nasell]

Yes, the car is at the SC. And again, hopefully I'm the only one that this is happening to, but based on the common, unfixed, 'Drivers-Side Mirror' defect that has been present for the past 6 months, I wouldn't be so sure.

 

[nasell]

Your video links don't work for me.

Thanks, here are the videos:

 

[Zero CO2]

Ok this is interesting I thought it was just me with the headlights (pilot error) since my car is only 3 weeks (5/26/17) in my possession...there seems to be some strange behavior with lights going on and off (could be ambient light ).... have to see what happens next time I am driving at night .... will post if I see any issues

 

[jddssc121]

Fill a bug report from the car as well I hope?

 

[artsci]

Last night, while driving down the highway in pitch black lighting, my headlights suddenly shut off! This has happened before, but not during a pitch-black scenario, and I was assured that this was a firmware bug, that it was identified, and was fixed. Obviously that's not the case. I had to quickly pull up the controls and switch on the lights manually, leaving about 10 seconds of pitch black driving at highway speeds.

Luckily we arrived home safe. I was able to pull dashcam footage this time (didn't have one previously), and took several videos where I turned the lights from Auto -> On -> Auto, etc. The lights turned off every time on Auto, despite it being pitch black outside.

Unfortunately, just like the previous two times, the next morning (today), the lights were working normally again. From a technical perspective, this has to be one of the worst case scenarios, because it's not constantly broken, it's intermittent (and rare). Someone could be very seriously injured or killed.

Additionally, this is the SECOND major safety issue I've had in less than 3 weeks. The other issue is the windshield wipers suddenly not working on intermittent/timed settings. You have to turn them to continuous on to get them to work once the car starts acting up. Again, the next day they are back to normal. This has happened twice now. Again, luckily, I reacted after the windshield started to get soaked with water and I noticed my visibility was greatly reduced - but I don't know what would've happened if my wife would've been driving.

I opened up an NHTSA complaint to ensure that this gets looked at, and want to make everyone aware to be incredibly vigilant and aware that this is a potential issue.

My Tesla was delivered on December 29th, 2016. I'm not sure if this is isolated or a widespread issue.

Link to the NHTSA complaint, which includes some of the videos can be found here.

I assume you informed your service center about this problem and they attempted to fix it but failed. If not why jump straight to NHTSA?They can't fix it and you'll wait months before that will have any impact on your problem.

 

[calisnow]

@nasell - wow sorry. That's some scary sh*t. I hope it gets fixed and please let us know anything more you find about about this issue. Best of luck.

 

[calisnow]

@nasell - actually I know a Tesla engineer - I will email your post to his personal address. I'm sure he'll at least forward it to someone internally.

 

[NoMoGas]

OK. At the risk of sounding like a fanboi, posting these things here simply serves to feed the anti-Tesla trolls over at Exxon. Linking to NHTSA reports merely feeds them further. Tesla has it's own blog where verified owners can discuss issues and Tesla will see trends (even though they monitor these as well). This isn't meant to take away from your situation, but filing actions against Tesla (or anyone for that matter) will put them on a much different posture then simply calling HQ and running your problem up the food chain... much slower as well. Unless your car has a loose harness or something, your issue should be in other cars. Tesla would start to see this.

By all means climb up the service center's rear end and scream at Freemont if you need to but I really think unless Tesla is engaging in egregious behavior what happens in the Tesla Family should stay in the Tesla Family... and this forum is way too open (and often the source of anti-Tesla articles) for that.

Also... if it ever happens again, pull the wiper stalk... it will immediately activate high beams until u can safely pull over and reset your lights.

Last night, while driving down the highway in pitch black lighting, my headlights suddenly shut off! This has happened before, but not during a pitch-black scenario, and I was assured that this was a firmware bug, that it was identified, and was fixed. Obviously that's not the case. I had to quickly pull up the controls and switch on the lights manually, leaving about 10 seconds of pitch black driving at highway speeds.

I opened up an NHTSA complaint to ensure that this gets looked at, and want to make everyone aware to be incredibly vigilant and aware that this is a potential issue.

Link to the NHTSA complaint, which includes some of the videos can be found here.

 

[Zero CO2]

OK. At the risk of sounding like a fanboi, posting these things here simply serves to feed the anti-Tesla trolls over at Exxon. Linking to NHTSA reports merely feeds them further. Tesla has it's own blog where verified owners can discuss issues and Tesla will see trends (even though they monitor these as well). This isn't meant to take away from your situation, but filing actions against Tesla (or anyone for that matter) will put them on a much different posture then simply calling HQ and running your problem up the food chain... much slower as well. Unless your car has a loose harness or something, your issue should be in other cars. Tesla would start to see this.

By all means climb up the service center's rear end and scream at Freemont if you need to but I really think unless Tesla is engaging in egregious behavior what happens in the Tesla Family should stay in the Tesla Family... and this forum is way too open (and often the source of anti-Tesla articles) for that.

Also... if it ever happens again, pull the wiper stalk... it will immediately activate high beams until u can safely pull over and reset your lights.

I thought this site was for Tesla owners to post serious issues(which this seems to be) with their vehicles without fear of reprisals from other Tesla owners....i do agree that the SC should have an opportunity to fix issues first....but my limited experience with OA and DS was not the greatest so I wonder how the SC experience will be .....

seems to me that TSLA shareholders are getting concerned about real issues with real vehicles (i.e. potentially lives) hurting their stock price, I am concerned about safety of the vehicles first and foremost....

Exxon trolls have already lost...they should not be a concern ....they are too busy trying to figure out how to disguise a Tesla when they show up for work at the oil refinery

 

[calisnow]

OK. At the risk of sounding like a fanboi, posting these things here simply serves to feed the anti-Tesla trolls over at Exxon. Linking to NHTSA reports merely feeds them further. Tesla has it's own blog where verified owners can discuss issues and Tesla will see trends (even though they monitor these as well). This isn't meant to take away from your situation, but filing actions against Tesla (or anyone for that matter) will put them on a much different posture then simply calling HQ and running your problem up the food chain... much slower as well. Unless your car has a loose harness or something, your issue should be in other cars. Tesla would start to see this.

By all means climb up the service center's rear end and scream at Freemont if you need to but I really think unless Tesla is engaging in egregious behavior what happens in the Tesla Family should stay in the Tesla Family... and this forum is way too open (and often the source of anti-Tesla articles) for that.

Also... if it ever happens again, pull the wiper stalk... it will immediately activate high beams until u can safely pull over and reset your lights.

Okay I won't attack you because unlike @artsci you explained your reasoning for not wanting the posts public. I will however say I vehemently disagree with your reasoning. You claim that going public with an issue like this feeds anti-Tesla sentiment among people who wish the company would fail. You're correct! 100%! That's an unfortunate byproduct of the free and open airing of problems/defects/bad behavior of individuals/products of any organization. Whether we are talking about the Catholic church covering up pedophilia by priests because they wanted to deal with it "within the family" as you put it - for fear of anti-Catholic bias in the larger world using the evil behavior of a few individuals to paint the entire church with a negative brush, or corporations covering up sexual harassment - or Tesla fans hoping that what looks like a safety defect won't be made public. It's all the same thing - "Please keep this bad thing hush hush and let us handle it in the family so that outsiders who don't appreciate the good we do can't use this against us." In the process you place the individual customer's interests beneath those of Tesla corporate's. You are actively discouraging the airing of a potential safety defect in a public forum.

This is all the same reasoning and it's based off fear. But notice what you're doing here @NoMoGas - you're privileging the importance of Tesla's corporate survival and public image over the real need for individuals like us to know if there is a safety problem. You also quite clearly hope and believe that organizations do the right thing - that is, privilege ethical treatment of problems over making profits. History has proven over and over that organizations do not behave ethically.

Public disclosure of problems is one of the most important functions an internet forum serves.

You're simply going on faith that if enough people report something internally to Tesla that Tesla will do everything possible to fix it fast and that we the customers don't/shouldn't know about the problems. I believe your attitude is naive wishful thinking, with all due respect.

Finally - Tesla isn't a fragile startup now. A headlight problem won't kill the company - but public disclosure of it (if it exists) will certainly spur internal efforts to solve it even if Tesla never publicly acknowledges that it exists in the first place. And for that we will all be better.

 

[artsci]

Why do you and so many other forum people attack posters and criticize them for posting what looks like a serious safety problem? From where does the urge to pick somebody's decision apart come from - why is your primary comment about how the OP handled the issue - rather than some empathy for what looks like a serious safety problem?

YOU are the problem buddy. You know why? Your crap attitude discourages people from posting and bringing things like this to light. You should be supportive of the OP - not trying to take him down.

Crappy attitude? I just stated some obvious facts. I'm fine with a complaint to NHTSA but that won't get his problems fixed. Tesla needs to do that.

 

[nasell]

Fill a bug report from the car as well I hope?

Yes, I not only did a "Note" in the car for each incident per the SC request, but also took the time to call in to Tesla tech support to speak with someone and notate each incident. As I've come to learn, they also forward this information to the SC, but say that it helps because they do very detailed notes.

I assume you informed your service center about this problem and they attempted to fix it but failed. If not why jump straight to NHTSA?They can't fix it and you'll wait months before that will have any impact on your problem.

So I know someone else stepped in to respond to this, and I'm okay with the criticism. You are correct, this was reported all three times, and was dismissed as a firmware bug/fixed. I don't consider it "jumping straight to the NHTSA". In fact, I feel morally obligated to report such a massive safety issues to the authority that tracks...massive safety issues. That's the whole point of the agency - if your point is that I am doing some unfair damage to Tesla by reporting a defect in my car that could've had very serious repercussions, I'm not sure that we have the same interests in mind.

Now keep in mind, I have been fully transparent and upfront with my SC. I immediately informed them that I reported this to the NHTSA. In fact, if I would've reported it the first time, maybe...just MAYBE the NHTSA would've been there to confirm that the issue had been resolved, versus me taking the car and having it happen two more times. If my wife and I would've gotten in a wreck last night, would you be saying the same thing?

OK. At the risk of sounding like a fanboi, posting these things here simply serves to feed the anti-Tesla trolls over at Exxon. Linking to NHTSA reports merely feeds them further. Tesla has it's own blog where verified owners can discuss issues and Tesla will see trends (even though they monitor these as well). This isn't meant to take away from your situation, but filing actions against Tesla (or anyone for that matter) will put them on a much different posture then simply calling HQ and running your problem up the food chain... much slower as well. Unless your car has a loose harness or something, your issue should be in other cars. Tesla would start to see this.

By all means climb up the service center's rear end and scream at Freemont if you need to but I really think unless Tesla is engaging in egregious behavior what happens in the Tesla Family should stay in the Tesla Family... and this forum is way too open (and often the source of anti-Tesla articles) for that.

Also... if it ever happens again, pull the wiper stalk... it will immediately activate high beams until u can safely pull over and reset your lights.

Hi, as you can probably read from my responses above, I'm not here to feed anti-tesla trolls, or fanboys. My interests are purely to get a satisfactory resolution, see if there are other owners that may be experiencing the same issue(s) - which it sounds like there may be, and restore my confidence in the car so that I can feel comfortable with my wife getting back behind the wheel again.

I chose this forum for very specific reasons. Do a linkedin search for Tesla engineers, google search a few of those key employees, and you'll notice that many of those have accounts here. Flame me all you want, but I only have one goal in mind.

I also don't buy into the construct of "what happens in the tesla family should stay in the tesla family". When it's your family's safety on the line, I would hope that you would report it - for MY family's sake also. This is more of a squeaky wheel gets the grease, situation.

I closing, I appreciate everyone's comments and feedback. I don't take this lightly. And it shouldn't just be swept under the rug, handled behind closed doors, etc. We have to be okay with the fact that Tesla isn't perfect, but if something like this happens, I sure as hell want to know about it.

If anyone wants to pull my call records, SC records, etc - go ahead. I think you'll find in the very short time period that I've owned the car that I've been very patient, understanding, and haven't asked for a thing. I don't have a lawyer, not going to the media, don't wish to feed the haters, haven't asked for a refund, etc.

 

[NoMoGas]

I have absolutely not done any such thing. If this problem exists, don't you think others would know it? There are PRIVATE forums to share this info and see how widespread the issue is. That would ACTUALLY help solve the issue at hand, such as there is one. Calling Tesla with the time would allow them to pull logs as well.

To compare your headlights turning off and one attempted fix that apparently didn't work to the active cover up of the Catholic church of sexual abuse is so far beyond the point of rationality that I'm concerned about your judgement. Did you not see me say "
By all means climb up the service center's rear end and scream at Freemont if you need to but I really think unless Tesla is engaging in egregious behavior what happens in the Tesla Family should stay in the Tesla Family... and this forum is way too open (and often the source of anti-Tesla articles) for that." You can't then cite egregious behavior and make a false equivillancy.

Okay I won't attack you because unlike @artsci you explained your reasoning for not wanting the posts public. I will however say I vehemently disagree with your reasoning. You claim that going public with an issue like these feeds anti-Tesla sentiment among people who wish the company would fail. You're correct! 100%! That's an unfortunate byproduct of the free and open airing of problems/defects/bad behavior of individuals/products of any organization. Whether we are talking about the Catholic church covering up pedophilia by priests because they wanted to deal with it "within the family" as you put it - for fear of anti-Catholic bias in the larger world using the evil behavior of a few individuals to paint the entire church with a negative brush, or corporations covering up sexual harassment - or Tesla fans hoping that what looks like a safety defect won't be made public. It's all the same thing - "Please keep this bad thing hush hush and let us handle it in the family so that outsiders who don't appreciate the good we do can't use this against us." In the process you place the individual customer's interests beneath those of Tesla corporate's. You are actively discouraging the airing of a potential safety defect in a public forum.

This is all the same reasoning and it's based off fear. But notice what you're doing here @NoMoGas - you're privileging the importance of Tesla's corporate survival and public image over the real need for individuals like us to know if there is a safety problem. You also quite clearly hope and believe that organizations do the right thing - that is, privilege ethical treatment of problems over making profits. History has proven over and over that organizations do not behave ethically.

Public disclosure of problems is one of the most important functions an internet forum serves.

You're simply going on faith that if enough people report something internally to Tesla that Tesla will do everything possible to fix it fast and that we the customers don't/shouldn't know about the problems. I believe your attitude is naive wishful thinking, with all due respect.

Finally - Tesla isn't a fragile startup now. A headlight problem won't kill the company - but public disclosure of it (if it exists) will certainly spur internal efforts to solve it even if Tesla never publicly acknowledges that it exists in the first place. And for that we will all be better.

 

[nasell]

I'm fine with a complaint to NHTSA but that won't get his problems fixed. Tesla needs to do that.

I totally agree. the NHTSA certainly won't fix it... but they have oversight to ensure a proper resolution. We should all want that.

On the good side - the reason why it took me so long to respond to everyone is that I went by the SC to check in and see how it was going. The tech has been on it all day, and they have their main tech flying back in from Chicago on Monday. I don't want to get into specifics yet, because there are a lot of theories that we were collectively working through. I am really impressed this time with their willingness to disclose what they are testing, and why.

I think letting them know upfront how concerned I am, that I indeed reported it as a major safety issue, and that I need a definitive answer on causality before driving it again has given them an intense focus on finding the problem. I am feeling better this evening that they are going to get to the bottom of it one way or another.

I also let them know that Zero CO2 potentially had headlight issues (not sure if related or not). They said they are going to investigate internally to check for additional cases.

Of course, as I learn anything that is concrete, I will keep everyone updated.

 

[Saghost]

Definitely scary, turning off in the middle of a freeway like that. The suggestion of pulling the turn signal stalk so you can see to drive while going for the center console setting is a good one (though it'll annoy some folks on the road with you who don't know what's happening.)

Pre-AP and AP1 cars use a dedicated light/rain sensor in the windshield to turn the headlights on and off, while I believe AP2 cars like yours are using the front cameras and the AP computer to decide when it needs the lights.

I hadn't read of problems with that before, but it's new code (I think you had a manual headlight switch when you first got the car, in the upper left corner of the screen?)

 

[nasell]

I have absolutely not done any such thing. If this problem exists, don't you think others would know it? There are PRIVATE forums to share this info and see how widespread the issue is. That would ACTUALLY help solve the issue at hand, such as there is one. Calling Tesla with the time would allow them to pull logs as well.

To compare your headlights turning off and one attempted fix that apparently didn't work to the active cover up of the Catholic church of sexual abuse is so far beyond the point of rationality that I'm concerned about your judgement. Did you not see me say "
By all means climb up the service center's rear end and scream at Freemont if you need to but I really think unless Tesla is engaging in egregious behavior what happens in the Tesla Family should stay in the Tesla Family... and this forum is way too open (and often the source of anti-Tesla articles) for that." You can't then cite egregious behavior and make a false equivillancy.

I know you're not actively engaging with me right now, but I respect your opinion enough to respond.

I've lit up the SC, tech support, tweeted elon directly, sent email to elon's office email account, etc. I've been assertive, angry, vocal. Trust that I'm not just jumping to public outcry.

As to your first paragraph above - I think I wrote this already, but I called in each time so that they could do a detailed report, placed a "Note" in the car for the SC to track, and of course have the timestamps from last night's videos. They are working through the logs now.

 

[calisnow]

If this problem exists, don't you think others would know it?

How would they know it if it isn't posted? Now I know at least one guy thinks the problem exists - because he posted it here. What about all of us owners who do not frequent some verified owner Tesla corporate blog? What about people who don't own the cars but are considering them?

There are PRIVATE forums to share this info and see how widespread the issue is.

I don't agree with your reasoning. Why keep it private? This is a really strange instinct you have - you're discouraging the public dissemination of information. What about all the owners who aren't hard core beta tester bug-reporter types and just browse forums? Maybe it happened to one of them and they didn't think to report it but this guy's report will jog their memory.

That would ACTUALLY help solve the issue at hand, such as there is one.

Does free and open discussion in public make the issue (if it exists) less likely to be solved? If he hadn't posted the issue then you wouldn't have known to give him the tip about Tesla's internal blogs - would you? Maybe he didn't know about them. Now he does. He's more informed - and so are we.

To compare your headlights turning off and one attempted fix that apparently didn't work to the active cover up of the Catholic church of sexual abuse is so far beyond the point of rationality that I'm concerned about your judgement.

Call it what you like - a philosophical thought experiment or an extreme analogy. The point is jolt a person into seeing that the logic is the same. It's discouragement of a potentially embarrassing problem in public. No it isn't the same as covering up pedophilia on the evil scale but the logic at work here is the same: keep private a potentially embarrassing issue to protect the public image of an organization. That is what you are advocating.

Did you not see me say "
By all means climb up the service center's rear end and scream at Freemont if you need to but I really think unless Tesla is engaging in egregious behavior what happens in the Tesla Family should stay in the Tesla Family

Yes - I don't think Tesla is engaging in egregious behavior. No engineer purposely stuck a bug in the code to turn off the headlights. Nor do I think Tesla is covering anything up. If a problem exists it is probably simply a software bug. The problem here is not Tesla - the problem is the attitude of people who want to keep discussion of defects/bugs/failure "private" and privilege "saving face" over disseminating knowledge of a potential problem in the community.

If you had your way @NoMoGas I would not know that the OP's problem existed because you would have preferred he never posted it here! To me - that's unbelievable.

So there are anti-Tesla articles? So what? How sensitive are you? Do they hurt your feelings? Is Tesla's stock price not high enough? Are there not enough Model 3 pre-orders to suit you? Is Tesla your little sister?