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A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

thedrive.com

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Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#4

Post by stefan_ »

This is rather disingenuous. Of course Tesla doesn't replace the eMMC; that's a soldered on chip. No car manufacturer in the world does chip level electronics repairs. Instead you replace the entire board, and I have no doubt you can get this repair from Tesla.

That's not to entirely excuse Tesla. If you have a modern operating system running from flash that needs to work for 20+ years as people expect from a car, it needs to be very carefully designed - all logging and runtime data written only to a RAM disk, system and user data on entirely separate partitions, etc.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#6

Post by pfortuny »

stefan_ wrote: post #4

This is rather disingenuous. Of course Tesla doesn't replace the eMMC; that's a soldered on chip. No car manufacturer in the world does chip level electronics repairs. Instead you replace the entire board, and I have no doubt you can get this repair from Tesla. That's not to entirely excuse Tesla. If you have a modern operating system running from flash that needs to work for 20+ years as people expect from a car, it…

You are right but at the same time one does not expect a component of the dashboard to actually brick a car. I guess.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#7

Post by BluSyn »

This issue is best explained on Rich Rebuilds' recent video here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=o-7b1waoj9Q&t=525

This has been a known issue for some time, and it's amazing Tesla hasn't fixed it yet. As explained in the video, the issue is simply the base linux OS has full syslog's still enabled, which over time burn own the eMMC chip used for storage. Currently Tesla just replaces the entire media unit when this happens, which is extremely expensive for them. In reality they only need to replace a tiny part instead of tossing entire boards.

The GOOD news is this issue is almost fully solvable through a software update. They just need to disable base syslogs, or at least only store logs in RAM while car is running (if they need those logs for debugging purposes, which I doubt). Long term, they should replace this eMMC with a proper SSD, or removable SD card that's easily serviced when it goes bad (as is the case in other parts of the car).

I think this must be an issue of visibility in the company, and the right engineer just isn't aware of this issue yet. I hope this gets more visibility and gets patched in a future software update.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#8

Post by stcredzero »

wil421 wrote: post #2

Any other examples of the big 3 US, German, or Japanese car makers having a similar issue? Where a media center issue causes the car to not run and the manufacturer refuses to fix the issue or even provide a part for it?

The late 90's security systems electronics for Mercedes were pretty temperamental. Bricking the car is what it was designed to do. I know firsthand that it's capable of bricking the car for the wrong reason.

EDIT: Also, I don't know how it was for dealers, but 3rd party repair shops just throw their hands up for those systems.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#9

Post by vajrabum »

wil421 wrote: post #2

Any other examples of the big 3 US, German, or Japanese car makers having a similar issue? Where a media center issue causes the car to not run and the manufacturer refuses to fix the issue or even provide a part for it?

The article is misleading. The manufacturer does fix this. They just don't fix the bad chip. The replace the card instead.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#10

Post by pfortuny »

BluSyn wrote: post #7

This issue is best explained on Rich Rebuilds' recent video here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=o-7b1waoj9Q&t=525 This has been a known issue for some time, and it's amazing Tesla hasn't fixed it yet. As explained in the video, the issue is simply the base linux OS has full syslog's still enabled, which over time burn own the eMMC chip used for storage. Currently Tesla just replaces the entire media unit when this happ…

It is a bit baffling that a company which enables “autopilot” OTA does not do this as well...
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