A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas • Hacker News Board

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#21

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #6

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.

[deleted]

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#22

Post by zrobotics » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #17

vajrabum wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wait. Do they have a fix but the fix is replacing the board and not the bad chip? Is Telsa not fixing things or did they just use something that had a short life span? Not sure why I read this article.

Tesla screwed up by using eMMC memory (flash memory with an integrated controller) and not disabling system logging. The additional writes cause the flash memory to wear rapidly, which should have been mitigated as this is not a new issue in embedded devices. As the chip is soldered and not socketed, the solution is to swap the entire (expensive) board, and Tesla won't do this for out-of-warranty vehicles and hasn't extended warranty support.

What makes this somewhat egregious is the lack of foresight, as well as the fact that Tesla uses standard socketed SD cards in other modules in the vehicle.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#23

Post by trsohmers » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

vajrabum wrote: post #13

As is so often the case with articles about Tesla the headline is completely misleading. No cars are getting bricked. Tesla fixes that problem by replacing the bad board but they won't replace the bad chip on the board and they won't sell the chip separately. Other manufacturers don't generally do that either.

Except this is exacerbated by a very dumb software oversight that is corrected for by virtually everyone in the Tesla software modding community, and in many cases Tesla has not covered the board replacement after the initial warranty expires (which happens just before the estimated failure time).

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#24

Post by zaroth » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

zrobotics wrote: post #22

wil421 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait. Do they have a fix but the fix is replacing the board and not the bad chip? Is Telsa not fixing things or did they just use something that had a short life span? Not sure why I read this article.

Tesla screwed up by using eMMC memory (flash memory with an integrated controller) and not disabling system logging. The additional writes cause the flash memory to wear rapidly, which should have been mitigated as this is not a new issue in embedded devices. As the chip is soldered and not socketed, the solution is to swap the entire (expensive) board, and Tesla won't do this for out-of-warranty vehicles and hasn't…

Tesla won’t do this for free for out-of-warranty vehicles.

Replacement cost of the entire board is unfortunately high at around $2,700.

[1] - https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/2700-to-fix-mcu-migh...

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#25

Post by zaroth » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

nemosaltat wrote: post #18

Model 3 owner here. Having same issue as back in March. No AP, no FSD and most frustratingly, no cruise control. Multiple TS steps over phone with no resolution. The earliest appointment was months out so I drove into a service center. A frazzled, yet personable, tech assured me that the issue was NOT from the recent FW update but rather a hardware malfunction with the left repeater. I pressed for details- is it wiri…

This report is both impressive and frustrating. I’m sorry your AP is not functioning and their fix was not permanent, that must be incredibly frustrating as a huge benefit of the car is the AP system.

At the same time, it is pretty amazing they are remotely logging into your car to review system logs and diagnose the issue, and then pushing firmware updates to try to remedy the problem.

There may be no choice but to drive back to the service center to try to get a quicker response from Tesla. At some point if they can’t fix it there could be a remedy under the lemon law — they only get 3 chances and a certain number of days AFAIK.

I can understand how a single fault could disable the adaptive cruise and likewise all of AutoPilot functionality. But Tesla is expected to be able to fix the issue promptly.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#26

Post by icelancer » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

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…

An SD card has a much different set of problems, including physical contact issues. eMMC is an acceptable tool for the job, it's just complete negligence to not use a batch logging technique if you even need full syslog data.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#27

Post by icelancer » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

rizwank wrote: post #11

vajrabum wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thank you. What a willful ridiculous article from the author.

No, it isn't. When the board is out of warranty they make you replace the entire media unit, which can cost up to $5000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-7b1waoj9Q&t=525

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#28

Post by rootusrootus » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #26

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…

An SD card has a much different set of problems, including physical contact issues. eMMC is an acceptable tool for the job, it's just complete negligence to not use a batch logging technique if you even need full syslog data.

They use an SD card for the car logging, according to the Rich Rebuilds video, so it's doable. It just needs to not brick the car when it fails.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#29

Post by zaroth » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #6

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.

“Bricked” is supposed to mean “permanently and unfixably ceasing to function”. That’s absolutely not what is happening here. The article is completely and inexcusably wrong on this point.

The car won’t run when the eMMC chip fails, and Tesla solution is a new MCU board which costs $2,700 out of warranty. Not surprisingly Tesla is not desoldering and reworking just the eMMC chip.

There are any number of components that can disable a car, from the battery to the starter to something with the ignition, electronics, anti-theft, etc.

Sometimes the repair is as simple as a new battery, sometimes the repair is an expensive piece of hardware.

Re: A Single Component Can Brick Older Teslas

#30

Post by icelancer » Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #28

icelancer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An SD card has a much different set of problems, including physical contact issues. eMMC is an acceptable tool for the job, it's just complete negligence to not use a batch logging technique if you even need full syslog data.

They use an SD card for the car logging, according to the Rich Rebuilds video, so it's doable. It just needs to not brick the car when it fails.

That they use it in other applications doesn't make it automatically the best idea. SD cards are fairly unreliable compared to the other options, and as Rich's friend points out, smartphone manufacturers use eMMC and don't have issues because they understand wear cycles.