This week, Tesla finally complied with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s request to recall its Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicles due to flash memory errors affecting the distinctive 17-inch portrait-oriented central touch screens of the cars. a certain length will cause failure. of time – but not without reprinting the definition of the word ‘defect’, reads a letter from Tesla’s legal department released today.
Tesla’s vice president of Legal Al Prescott, who addressed federal regulators, argued that the touchscreen faults are not a defect worthy of remembrance, as the parts would only last five to six years in the first place, which is definitely a novel. strategy.
Prescott explained that the eMMC flash memory device behind the problems has only been rated for so many cycles that they believe the component will last a lifetime:
“[The eMMC flash memory] is inherently subject to wear, has a limited service life (as NHTSA itself acknowledges) and may need to be replaced during the life of the vehicle … Although wear and tear is strongly influenced by the active use of the center display system, even more So if driving or loading the vehicle, with a reasonable average daily use of 1.4 cycles, the life expectancy would be 5-6 years. NHTSA has not presented any evidence to suggest that this life expectancy is outside the industry standards. ‘
Furthermore, Prescott argued that it was wrong of the NHTSA to claim that the touch screen “should have at least the useful life of the vehicle, which would essentially double the expected life.” The fact that the average age of vehicles on American roads peaked at 11.6 years in 2020, per CNBC.
He calls the eMMC ‘state of the art’ for the time when it was designed, claiming that the NHTSA’s regulations regarding defective parts are ‘anachronistic’, which further drives the NHTSA’s life expectancy:
“[E]electronic components are becoming increasingly complex, while the life expectancy of vehicles has grown significantly at the same time. It is economical, if not technological, feasible to expect such components to be designed or engineered to last the entire life of the vehicle. ‘
While Prescott’s letter informs the NHTSA that Tesla would make a voluntary recall, it also made it crystal clear that the carmaker was not happy about it.
The fact that the flash memory device could only handle half the life of the average vehicle on the road raises numerous questions about new vehicles’ technology and planned aging. If it is expected to last only five or six years, what else on the roads could fail sooner than consumers expect?
Like the Washington Post the way Teslas carries high-tech components can have serious consequences for the resale value of the vehicles. Unless there is a way to recycle and reuse these disposable components, their disposable nature can also leave a bad taste in the mouths of eco-conscious consumers.
Moreover, why should consumers be expected to think that an internal component required to have access to the most important safety features of the car should be a wear and tear? While Tesla has meanwhile added warnings warning owners about a pending eMMC failure, a processor embedded in the internal components of a car is not something you can easily check like a set of brake pads or tires, and nor do most consumers. know to take care after so many miles of use.
The recall contains 134,951 Model S and Model X cars, making it Tesla’s largest recall to date. This includes 2012 to 2018 Model S sedans as well as 2016 to 2018 Model X crossovers. That is less than the 158,000 cars that the NHTSA requested for recall, as Tesla excluded the vehicles that replaced memory upgrades or touchscreens. Washington Post.
Failure of the recalled memory chips is not the only problem caused by Model S and Model X touch screens. Tesla CEO Elon Musk once boasted about purchasing the then 17-inch groundbreaking screens outside the regular car supply chain to save costs. Unfortunately, the screens are not built to handle the vibrations and temperature fluctuations inside a car, causing them to yellow prematurely, bubble and even leak.
You can read Prescott’s full letter to the NHTSA here.
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