As a cute new graphic editor, the most bald thing for me is that I don't know what to write recently.
As the old saying goes, "But fifteen years is a year", but now that the Lantern Festival is almost a week old, it's time to reinvigorate!
It is impossible to touch a fish, and it is impossible to touch a fish in this life.
While flipping through the upgrade plan of the company's NAS, I also set my sights on a car brand that has been a bit unlucky recently, Tesla.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Tesla received a "opening red" - recall
Within a week, the U.S. Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced three recalls against Tesla.
In fact, according to NHTSA data, from January 2021 to the present, Tesla has carried out 15 recalls, involving all its Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y and other models on sale.
Some people say that Tesla's frequent recalls are in the hell of quality, and some people say that most of the recalls reflect the superiority of OTA.
Singing down? praise?
Today, let's take stock of Tesla's frequent recalls, why?
Component quality issues
The first category was a recall caused by a component quality issue, involving 8,426 vehicles in total.
1. On November 9, 2021, due to the risk of airbag failure, Tesla will recall some 2021 Model S and 2021 Model X, a total of 7600 vehicles.
2. On November 21, 2021, tesla will recall some 2020-2022 Model Ys due to the fact that the strength of the front and rear knuckles does not meet the design requirements, a total of 826 vehicles.
As a mass-produced industrial product, the yield of automobiles is an unavoidable problem.
Part quality problems have always been one of the main reasons for recalls by automakers, and Tesla is no exception.
Of the two recalls, one involved driver's seat airbags and one involved steering knuckles.
First, let's talk about airbags. The driver's seat airbag is folded and compressed on the steering wheel when not activated. When a vehicle collides, the airbag inflates within tens of milliseconds, unfolding, and acts as a buffer between the driver and the steering wheel.
The batch of airbags recalled by Tesla, when inflating and unfolding this action, will tear the airbag itself, resulting in airbag leakage and loss of protection function.
This situation is like when we shake off the plastic bag, the quality of the plastic bag is too inferior, and the influx of air directly breaks the plastic bag.
As for the steering knuckle, you may be a little unfamiliar with it, and its position on the car is shown in the following figure. The steering knuckle is also commonly known as "sheep's horn".
The steering knuckle is mainly used to connect the wheels to the suspension and is an important load-bearing component on the chassis.
This part of the steering knuckle recalled by Tesla is at risk of deformation or fracture during use because the strength does not meet the design requirements.
In extreme cases, the suspension linkage may also come out of the steering joint, which is what netizens often call "broken shaft".
The risk of airbag failure and broken axles, both of which can cause fatal injuries to the driver, so Tesla's two recalls are not unjust.
But to be sure, both times were recalls due to quality issues with the parts themselves. The main responsibility for the quality of parts batches lies with the parts supplier.
It's just that ordinary consumers will not divide it so finely, and will only feel that Tesla has a quality problem. In this way, although the cost of a single recall is borne by the supplier, the loss caused to Tesla's brand image needs to be borne by Tesla itself.
Design issues
The following two design-induced recalls, involving a total of 491,260 vehicles, are completely Tesla's own pot.
1. On January 29, 2021, due to the life of the built-in 8GB eMMC memory chip, Tesla will recall some of the 2012-2018 Model S and 2016-2018 Model X, a total of 134951 vehicles.
2. On December 21, 2021, due to the risk of failure of the reversing image, Tesla will recall the Model 3 in 2017-2020, with a total of 356309 vehicles.
Speaking of eMMC, friends who pay attention to mobile phone configuration may be more familiar, it is a memory chip that can be repeatedly erased, and it is also a memory chip widely used in our mobile phones a few years ago.
There is an upper limit to the number of erases and writes of an eMMC chip. When the number of erases and writes of the eMMC chip reaches the limit, the eMMC chip will lose the function of the normal data storage chip, resulting in the inability to use the large screen in the car.
In fact, Tesla's choice of eMMC chip erase life is as high as 3000 times, and there is no quality problem in itself.
Tesla's problem is that the car, as a high-end durable, has a much higher product life cycle than mobile phones, and tesla OTA upgrades are more frequent, so Tesla greatly underestimates the amount of data read and write required throughout the life cycle of the vehicle.
The maintenance method is also very direct, and the 8GB memory chip is directly replaced by 64GB, and the medicine is eliminated.
As for the problem of the failure of the reversing image, by extension Tesla's statement, as long as the user does not switch the trunk, it will not cause this problem.
That's ridiculous.
Switching the trunk is a normal behavior during the daily use of the vehicle, but due to the problem of Tesla rearview camera harness arrangement, this normal behavior may cause excessive wear of the harness, so that the core of the coaxial cable in the harness is separated, resulting in the failure of the reversing image function.
This failure is obviously caused by Tesla's unreasonable layout design of the Model 3 reversing image harness. The maintenance method is to add a protective sleeve to these wiring harnesses, thereby solving the problem of wear and tear on the wiring harness by the trunk opening and closing action.
In summary, these two recalls, one is an underestimation of the amount of data, and the other is to ignore the wear and tear of parts by daily mechanical actions. This situation is like those students who are always praised for their intelligence, but often fail to get high scores because of various carelessness.
Of course, the innovation is great, but a small problem that seems to be caused by lack of experience will greatly reduce the experience of the vehicle.
Assembly process issues
Of these recalls, the most frequent of these recalls was caused by assembly issues, 6 in total, involving 135472 vehicles.
1. On May 25, 2021, due to the risk of loose and falling off the second row of seatbelt fasteners, Tesla will recall some Model Y models in 2019-2021, a total of 2166 vehicles.
2. On May 25, 2021, due to the risk of loose and falling off the front seatbelt fasteners, Tesla will recall some Model 3 models in 2018-2020 and Model Y in 2019-2021, totaling 5530 vehicles.
3. On May 25, 2021, due to the unscrewing of the brake caliper bolts, Tesla will recall some Model 3 and 2020-2021 Model Y models in 2019-2021, for a total of 5974 vehicles.
4. On October 25, 2021, NHTSA announced that due to improper installation of side curtains, Tesla will recall the Model 3 in 2020-2021, a total of 2 vehicles.
5 . On October 25, 2021, tesla will recall the Model 3 in 2019-2021 and the Model Y in 2020-2021 due to the failure of the front suspension bolt tightening to reach the specified torque, for a total of 2791 vehicles.
6. On December 20, 2021, due to the lack of assembly of the front trunk lock latch, Tesla will recall the Model S in 2014-2021, a total of 119009 vehicles.
The above 6 recalls are all due to problems caused by the lack of assembly processes such as tightening torque and assembly position during the assembly process.
Problems like insufficient tightening torque are really confusing. Because modern automobiles are assembled with torque setting wrenches, the wrench will automatically stop reinforcement when the tightening torque reaches the set value, which greatly facilitates the front-line assembly workers and also ensures the tightening quality.
It can only be said that Tesla has leaked in the management of the first-line assembly process in its rapid expansion, which is also a major problem that Tesla needs to solve at this stage.
Software issues
The last category of problems is the recall caused by software problems.
1. On October 29, 2021, due to communication errors that may cause automatic emergency braking to be accidentally activated, Tesla will recall the 2017-2021 Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y 2020-2021, a total of 11728 vehicles.
2. On January 27, 2022, due to the regulator's belief that the "rolling stops" function has a safety hazard, Tesla will recall the 2016-2022 Model S, Model X, 2017-2022 Model 3 and 2020-2022 Model Y, a total of 53,822 vehicles.
3. On February 1, 2022, due to the failure of the seatbelt prompt system, Tesla will recall the Model S of 2021-2022, Model X, Model 3 of 2017-2022, and Model Y of 2020-2022, for a total of 817143 vehicles.
4. On February 2, 2022, due to software errors that led to the decline in the defrost performance of the heat pump, Tesla will recall the Model S, Model X, Model 3, 2020-2022 Model Y in 2021-2022, a total of 26681 vehicles.
5. On February 4, 2022, due to the regulator's belief that the BoomBox volume is insufficient and there are safety hazards, Tesla will recall the Model S, Model X, Model Y, and Model 3 in 2017-2022 from 2020 to 2022, totaling 578607 vehicles.
The above 5 recalls were all due to software issues. Among them, some are the pots of Tesla's own software bugs, such as seat belt tone failure, abnormal automatic braking, and decreased heat pump performance. Others are considered security risks by regulators, such as removing rolling stops and restricting BoomBox.
Musk has tweeted that the regulator has "taken too much care" of Tesla, but this cannot all be blamed on the regulator for being too strict.
According to North American law, when driving at an intersection with a "STOP" sign, it must first stop unconditionally and then move forward according to the situation. The FSD beta's rolling stops function will determine whether there are other traffic participants at the intersection, and if not, it will only slow down slightly and then pass through the intersection.
This act itself is a frantic temptation on the verge of breaking the law. There is nothing wrong with the regulator shouting to stop this function in accordance with the law.
The discussion sparked by "rolling stops"
Following the topic of the "rolling stops" recall, two interesting debates arose in our editorial office.
1. In the era of intelligent driving, how to balance the contradiction between regulations and human nature?
Let's take the "STOP" logo as an example.
"STOP" signs generally appear at smaller intersections to replace traffic lights and perform traffic dispatch functions.
Although the regulations require the sight of the "STOP" sign, the vehicle must be stopped. However, in reality, frequent braking and starting is an operation that consumes both energy and is uncomfortable.
If no pedestrians or vehicles are observed at the intersection, more North American drivers will choose to slow down only slightly and then pass directly through the intersection.
Musk has always stressed that today's road environment is designed for humans, and the pure visual scheme that FSD adheres to is to imitate the driving mode of human "visual collection of information + brain processing of information".
So, when FSD encounters the "STOP" flag, the "rolling stops" feature makes it behave more like a human.
Technically, the "rolling stops" feature handles more complex scenarios and is successful.
However, this "success" stepped on the red line of the regulations.
I can't manage people, and I can't manage you a machine? As a result, once OTA, the "rolling stops" function was recalled and removed from the shelves.
In this round, the statute wins.
But in the foreseeable future, with the deepening of the development of intelligent driving, the contradiction between this regulation and human nature will be more and more. How to balance, this is the era of intelligent driving, regulators and car manufacturers need to face the problem.
2. Does OTA count as a recall?
Recalls of software issues like "rolling stops" have been made by Tesla five times in the past year, all of which have been fixed through OTA upgrades.
You know, in the imagination of many people, the recall is a very serious and formal thing.
The OTA recall is like an ordinary system upgrade for users, which invisibly dilutes the seriousness of the recall psychologically.
So the question is, is OTA a recall?
In fact, on this issue, as early as the end of 2020, our State Administration for Market Regulation issued a "Notice on Further Strengthening the Supervision of Vehicle Remote Upgrade (OTA) Technology Recalls".
The Notice clarifies two things about OTAs.
First, automotive OTAs must be filed with the Quality Development Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation.
Second, if an automobile manufacturer adopts the OTA method to eliminate automotive product defects and implement a recall, it must formulate a recall plan and perform the main responsibility of the recall in accordance with the law.
That is to say, in the mainland, OTAs are not how manufacturers want to play, OTAs are regulated by national regulatory authorities. Secondly, the regulatory authorities have also classified the OTA, for the car software defects, manufacturers do not want to quietly solve through the OTA, the same have to go through the recall process, the same need to bear the corresponding responsibility.
This undoubtedly reflects the progress of the rule of law in the mainland - it can respond to emerging things in a timely manner and introduce corresponding management rules to protect the rights and interests of consumers. In this regard, we must give praise to the State Administration for Market Regulation.
Dragon Path of the Dragon Slayer
The conversation returned to Tesla.
Tesla's total global delivery volume in 2021 is more than 930,000 vehicles, which is still a big gap with Toyota, Volkswagen and other old guns that deliver 10 million vehicles a year.
If you want to become a giant in the automotive industry, you have four core competencies: innovation and R&D management, quality management, supply chain management, and operation management.
And the "plank effect" is significant: car building is a systematic project, and the mistakes of any link may have a serious impact on the landing of the terminal product downwards, and then feedback upwards affect the company's superstructure.
From full touchscreen central control to the removal of the driver's seat dashboard, from refactoring FSD to Cybertruck, Tesla's innovation and R&D capabilities are there for all to see, and there is no lack of courage to push and start over.
The 87% annual delivery growth rate also proves that Tesla has better supply chain management capabilities, at least at its current scale.
But such an intensive recall shows that Tesla's quality management and operations management are the shorter boards in the barrel. Small design mistakes also prove that the accumulation of experience is as important to the automotive industry as innovation.
Supply chain quality issues, assembly process issues, regulatory issues... Although Tesla is a high-tech car company, it is still a beginner in the manufacturing industry, and the aura of high-tech and the richest man has not helped it escape the various pains of production expansion.
These are all lessons that Tesla needs to make up.
"4680 battery, structured battery, one-piece die-cast body", Tesla as a cutting-edge company, has been with a variety of eye-catching innovations to influence the entire automotive industry.
The traditional automobile manufacturers " stable quality, lean production, cost reduction and efficiency increase", these are not in the clear, but are crucial to large-scale production of the "must kill", is Tesla's most needed at the moment.
How to go from market capitalization first to production first, Tesla still needs a long time on the road to becoming a manufacturing giant.
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(Please remember to pay attention to our video number, Musk's new love affair is exposed)