this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Well when a “recall” is the government removing software feature after software feature from your car, yes there’s a lot of recalls. There really should be a separate process for non-safety critical software changes that the government mandates.
At least part of the reason is software updates are so easy.. Tesla can do dozens of them without incurring any cost outside their normal development processes, so they do.
Another manufactuer may wait until there are several or just not issue some of the more minor ones at all, because each one is a dealer visit.
What happens when Elon loses more money and decides you're going to pay for the software updates or you're going to get one that makes your car useless? It won't be long before you'll have to pay a monthly "maintenance fee" just to be able to operate it. That's the problem with buying a car that they can do whatever they want to it whenever they want. I'll stick with a dumb car that doesn't tell anyone how I drive or where I go.
I love electric though and when it becomes more feasible, I'll start swapping some old fun stuff to electric. Until then though, I'll stick with dinosaur bones and boost.
Then again Tesla has caused new safety issues with the easy updating. Though it isn't really about the update method, but their software culture. Some of the recalls are about bugs that weren't on the original factory software. Rather Tesla created need for safety recall by sending over OTA update, that had bug or misbehaviour on the new update software. Then causing them to have to update, the update with now recall flagged OTA to fix the safety issue they created by uploading flawed software update to the car.
Which I would assume won't happen with others, since they test the software to death before deploying it. Since it's a service visit. So it's far cheaper to spend extra couple million on software testing, than finance yet another round of service visits to update with fix a flawed software update.