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Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

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Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#231
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I would also like to know how you could possibly know for certain if the parent was lying? And why the visceral reaction to boot?

The older I’ve gotten and longer I’ve worked in technical fields, the more I’ve realized there’s a true dichotomy of folks:

-The infinitely curious and willing to acknowledge the limit of their experiential knowledge

-People who’s self confidence is derived from their “expertise”/ ability to diagnose “anything” based on past experience

My first brush with this was working on the Xbox 360 OS. We hit an “out of memory” error out of nowhere, even when reverting all the code back. Assets were in their own branch and no one thought to look there. We were getting ready for the E3 “floor demos” so things like box art for the game library etc were just hard coded in. Stack traces commenced, etc. The OS was supposed to prevent loading too many static assets that would cause that. One engineer suggested something like “…wait what if is actually just too many textures loaded”. Everyone said it was impossible and dismissed him. He left the room. About 40 minutes later he’d converted all the box art to white PNGs and had it back working fine.

Turned out PNGcrusher modified the header of some assets in a way that interfered with the load limiter. We did eventually have to convert/ manually redraw a ton of OS assets from PNG to “SVG” (we used some in-house XML format to define ‘SVG’). I tend to think people in tech overuse Occam’s razor (particularly with systems involving humans), but many times, an over reliance on “domain knowledge” or past experience really serves no purpose and is just ego driven.

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re spot on. I’ve done exactly this for the last 20 years with several old Mercedes. It only works because I have a great local independent mechanic, and I don’t mind spending $2k/year in maintenance.

If that $2k/year gets you a car that runs fairly reliably, that's a pretty good deal compared to the depreciation of a newer car. I assume your cars are depreciated to the point where there's no further depreciation?

Yes, the maintenance is mostly preventative, with the goal of the car being in functionally new condition. Putting the second 100,000 miles on a well-maintained, reliably luxury car is the best deal going, I think, aside from not driving at all.

E.g, in 2011 paid $16,000 for a 2003 E320 wagon in perfect condition. It was $70,000 brand new, so the original depreciation is eye-watering. Since then I’ve probably put $2,000/year * 10 years into it, so less than half the depreciation. It’s still functionally new, with a fair share of small aesthetic issues.

I once bought a car with negative value, in that I spent more on deferred maintenance in the first month than I paid for it. That was a magnificent vehicle, though, once I fixed it up; identical to this — https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1987-mercedes-benz-300sdl-...

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#233
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this all the time but then if you want to buy a new Tesla you have to wait a year. And that is due to demand. The consumer reports reliability thing just seems like a meme at this point that doesn’t ring true for most people either in importance or reality. I can’t quite put my finger on why this meme is wrong but my intuition says it is.

Have bought several Teslas over the last 3 years (S->X->Y). Quality improves each time I’ve bought one. Lots to complain about, still wouldn’t buy from another manufacturer.

If you have the financial resources to buy 3 teslas sequentially (S->X->Y) you are in the probably top 1-2% of income per year globally.

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#234

For affected Model 3 owners, Tesla has pledged to install a new cable harness and guide protector free of charge. Wiring harness flexing and chafing is a decades-old well-known problem with well-known solutions. I wonder what the people who designed that area are thinking now, when they were presumably trying to save costs? If Teslas' issues were specific to being EVs or otherwise new functionality specific to its ca…

Why does the harness need to be on the moving part in the first place?

If there's lights or other electrical components (such as a backup camera in this case) mounted on the trunk lid, then the harness will need to flex every time it opens.

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have bought several Teslas over the last 3 years (S->X->Y). Quality improves each time I’ve bought one. Lots to complain about, still wouldn’t buy from another manufacturer.

If you have the financial resources to buy 3 teslas sequentially (S->X->Y) you are in the probably top 1-2% of income per year globally.

The intent was to demonstrate Tesla’s build quality rapidly improving over a short window of time. My apologies if it came across otherwise.

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#236
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the automotive industry is that they cut corners everywhere they can because they know it’ll save more money than a lawsuit or recall will cost. Do they do these things and when someone dies or raises a stink only then do they do the recall.

This is largely urban legend from the Corvair debacle when an internal document showed someone comparing costs of lawsuits to a cost of recall. I don’t think it ever made it into some sort of policy, it was just a math wonk running numbers

This is largely urban legend

There are numerous anecdotes about cost/benefit analysis. Not just Corvair.

The Ford Pinto fuel tank is one of the most notorious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Cost%E2%80%93benefi...

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#237
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recall is not specifically for vehicles with broken backup cameras. It is to deal with cars that have working cameras, but contain a flaw wherein closing the trunk could damage the cable and cause the backup camera to cease working. So TL;DR this should be fixed ASAP (hence the recall) but presumably those cars with currently-working cameras are perfectly safe to drive until then. The Model S hood issue, on the o…

Okay so let’s say someone is at the grocery store, loads up the trunk, while doing so breaks the cable. Tries to backup without the camera/ obscured field of view inherent to the vehicle, hits someone. I get most auto manufacturers calculate risk of death versus recall value, but Tesla doesn’t really have the cash on hand to survive that, and the stock would get obliterated. Why chastise them for being proactive?

Yeah usually when my camera goes out I just say screw it and back up without looking.

Just because it's a safety feature doesn't make it now the operators fault.

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone else is wondering: median income for a 50 year old American is around $90K/yr before tax.

median income for a 50 year old American at 90k is skewed high by a small number of people way above 300-400k. how many millions of americans have a gross yearly income of maybe 35k? randomly chosen Montgomery county in Kansas: The median income for a household in the county was $30,997, and the median income for a family was $38,516. Males had a median income of $29,745 versus $20,179 for females. The per capita inc…

>median income for a 50 year old American at 90k is skewed high by a small number of people way above 300-400k

Medians don't work that way. Maybe you're thinking of the average.

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#239
post #142

Didn't Musk sell a billion dollars worth of stock a few days before this recall was announced?

1) He announced the sales would happen months ago. 2) He had (I believe) stated the sales were to cover tax costs in California 3) He is still net increased his number of shares over the last year due to his compensation package.

Is it illegal to schedule the transactions months in advance, but then intentionally (but with plausible deniability) slow the release of damaging news like this till after the transaction completed?

Re: Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone else is wondering: median income for a 50 year old American is around $90K/yr before tax.

median income for a 50 year old American at 90k is skewed high by a small number of people way above 300-400k. how many millions of americans have a gross yearly income of maybe 35k? randomly chosen Montgomery county in Kansas: The median income for a household in the county was $30,997, and the median income for a family was $38,516. Males had a median income of $29,745 versus $20,179 for females. The per capita inc…

Median income is not the mean. It is the boundary where 50% make less, 50% more. It’s not skewed by outliers like the mean can be.

The median for 45-55 year olds is much higher than the population overall. It’s the highest of any 10-year cohort, IIRC.

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