back to article Update your Tesla now before the windows put your fingers in a pinch

Tesla owners ought to check for firmware updates, or risk their windows proving to be less than (h)armless. According to what is technically a recall issued by Tesla and published [PDF] by America's National Highway and and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) earlier this week, windows on affected vehicles may fail to detect …

  1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "Fingers and elbows may get caught in the window when closing"

    A different kind of digital problem.

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Happy

      ... altogether?

      1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
        Windows

        If your "altogether" gets trapped in the window, you're definitely holding it wrong.

        1. Kane
          Joke

          "If your "altogether" gets trapped in the window, you're definitely holding it wrong."

          Rounded corners?

    2. NATTtrash

      Considering the "creativity" of the human species, it's the "Fingers, elbows, or worse..." that is really fascinating...

      1. Sgt_Oddball
        Childcatcher

        I believe worse would be....

        The head of a child which IIRC was the reason the sensing tech was introduced after a few children lent on window controls whilst leaning out of the opened window leading to choking/crushing of neck and death of said children.

        Tragic yes, accident also yes, preventable? Very much a yes with a number of sensible tweaks (force limiters, improved switch designs, inability to use the windows when the cars off and thus unlikely to be unattended, etc)

        Kiddy catcher, because as it turns out they were thinking of the children.

        1. Solviva

          Re: I believe worse would be....

          Once gave a guy a lift to work for a while. He had previously spent time at Bosch and was the lead of their anti-pinch group (or something like that).

          Me never having heard of such things, he proceeded to show how wonderful my car is with his Bosch anti-pinch and proceeded to demonstrate what it actually can do with me watching nervously on as he did some unusual things with the window...

          It's not as simple as sensing an opposing force, as this could be caused by going over a bump on the road, so if you thump down on the window as it's coming up, it ignores you. But similarly if something is being squashed and you are going over bumps then it has to detect this too. Also an ageing mechanism/dirty door frame may cause extra load on the motor but this also must be differentiated from a pinching event (parent's Corsa seems to be missing this bit as it always gets to 80%ish and reverses).

        2. teknopaul

          Re: I believe worse would be....

          My sister got her head caught in an automatic sun roof. It was no joke, once yer head is stuck you can't see the controls

      2. gandalfcn Silver badge

        how does an Essex girl put the lights out after sex?

        1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

          Re: how does an Essex girl put the lights out after sex?

          You've got some explaining to do if her feet get stuck in the window.

    3. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

      The Register knows that some people really love their Tesla.

      1. aerogems Silver badge
        Coat

        Talk about your hunka hunka burning love if the battery pack ever ignites.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Dell batteries?

          It kinda makes me wonder if Tesla uses the same supplier as Dell did.

          :)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Worse

    They've already pinched your wallet.

  3. Sleep deprived

    Compensation is available

    Tesla owners with severed limbs get a free Autopilot subscription.

  4. Howard Sway Silver badge

    To the best of our knowledge, there have been no injuries

    That's because typing out a letter of complaint or a tweet about it is quite difficult when your fingers have just been sliced off.

    Musk's feeble corporate excuse attempt only fools people who don't realise that it is missing the word "yet" at the end.

    1. gandalfcn Silver badge

      Re: To the best of our knowledge, there have been no injuries

      Leon doesn't like people who expose his f ups and neither do his adoring fanbois.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fingers?

    I have one for Musk

  6. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    My car's window ...

    ... has never had a safety system failure. You just stop turning the crank before your arm is caught.

    1. My-Handle

      Re: My car's window ...

      Upvoted, purely because I also drive a car that's old enough to have non-electric windows.

      On a side note, the two other vehicles I own have both had issues with their windows, where they will go down but not up. The old car has never had a failure with it's window mechanism.

      1. Sam not the Viking Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: My car's window ...

        Whilst acknowledging your personal experiences, if you have never had a problem with wind-up windows on cars, you haven't clocked enough personal mileage....... To be honest, I've had cars with no mechanism for opening windows at all, just a sliding pane.

        Have you noticed how 'windows' and 'pane' are closely related in a way never dreamed of by our ancestors.

        1. My-Handle

          Re: My car's window ...

          It's a Toyota from the mid-90s. I've been told by several people, my mechanic included, that Toyotas from that era don't tend to go wrong :)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: My car's window ...

            My Toyota from the early '80s had electric windows. My parents' Oldsmobile from the mid '70s had electric windows. By the mid '90s crank windows were almost completely gone, at least in the US.

    2. Andy The Hat Silver badge

      Re: My car's window ...

      that reminds me, I need to grease my mechanism before the friction makes my knob break off ... ooh err missus, nay nay and thrice nay! and other such phrases of a similar age.

      1. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

        Re: My car's window ...

        "need to grease my mechanism"

        Had a problem with my 2002 Audi electric window (yeah, not all my cars date back to the 1970s). Window would drag while closing until the motor electronics detected the condition and reversed the motor. The mechanism was OK. Turns out, it was the window gasket itself that started to dry out and drag. The recommended fix is to give the gasket a good spray of silicone lubricant. Mask the rest of the area first.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: good spray of silicone lubricant...

          I've heard that some spray on silicone lubricants can damage rubber car gaskets.

          It's been awhile but it seems like you could test the spray by spraying it into a foam coffee cup. If the cup bottom is gone soon afterwards you may want to buy a different spray. I would suggest an internet search to see if my memory is correct.

  7. Jan K.

    Fingers, elbows, or worse may get caught in the window when closing,

    So... no matter how much i love my Tesla, no more humping it?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      So, you're actually admitting you have a Tesla ?

    2. Sgt_Oddball
      Trollface

      Shocking behaviour

      See title...

    3. gandalfcn Silver badge

      Is it an Essex one?

  8. Kapsalon

    Beauty

    Reading the article and the comments I have only one question:

    Does no one see the beauty and ingenuity of this?

    With a software update a window safety system can be fixed.

    The same was done in the past with brakes on the Model 3.

    And many many more things have been improved on Tesla's without any effort/involvement from the owner.

    There is a BIG IT angle to all this and its completely ignored by everyone.

    1. stungebag

      Re: Beauty or beast

      With a software update a window safety system can be broken. As can the brakes on a Model 3.

      The complexity of all this software makes a constant stream of problems inevitable, not all of them trivial.

      Yes, a big IT angle, but not as pretty as you paint it.

      1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

        Re: The complexity of all this software...

        Not sure of the current status, but when I was there London Transport did not trust software, even electronics, for signalling safety systems. Two examples:-

        (1) Software commands given to change the route of a train were fed into a mechanical interlocking frame which dictated whether it was safe to allow it to happen. Random link: https://www.leadhillsrailway.co.uk/railway-locomotives/signalling-track/

        (2) Timing relays (JR's in signal engineering terminology) were used extensively to allow situations to settle down before allowing certain circumstances to happen. For example, if it was desired to change the route of a train, a 120 second JR was activated which prevented any change for a minimum of two minutes to ensure the trains in the area were at rest, at which point occupied train detection could assess whether it was safe to reset the route and set it anew. Other JR periods were used for different purposes, all of which were seriously constrained to work to a Fail Safe philosophy. One of them was a 4.5 second JR. This was turned into a solid state version for the Victoria Line IIRC. The way it was implemented was very clever, using circuitry to construct a wave-form of appropriate frequency, then using the principle of resonance to pass the successful construction of the waveform to a switch (a band-pass filter), activating the completion of the 4.5 second delay period. The idea being that there is no way to cheat a resonant circuit that a condition had been met, when it hadn't.

        This fanaticism for safety is something that car manufacturers need to take on board. It affects everyone, not just drivers, we are all road users, including pedestrians.

        1. H in The Hague
          Pint

          Re: The complexity of all this software...

          "when I was there London Transport ..."

          That reminded me of the wonderful world of railway relays, and led me to

          https://www.morssmitt.com/uploads/files/page/brochure-railway-relays-v1-4.pdf

          Perfect bedtime reading for Commentards :)

          Have a good weekend -->

        2. imanidiot Silver badge

          Re: The complexity of all this software...

          This goes back to the old chestnut that nobody gives a shit if 1000 people die in 1000 car crashes, but if a single train crashes and kills 1000 people it's a tragedy and the culprit must be found, heads must roll and no stone left un-turned until the cause has been found and solved.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: The complexity of all this software...

            If there are many car crashes killing many people in the same make and/or model with the same root cause, that's what leads to recalls. A 1000 random crashes with a 1000 random cars of all makes and models and causes, not so much. Likewise, accident "hot spots" being given lower speed limits (and/or speed cameras) or junction realignments to lower the risk. But those often don't make the headlines the way a mass death incident does, even though the end result is often similar.

      2. Evil Auditor Silver badge

        Re: Beauty or beast

        This is exactly what scares the shit out of me.

      3. Nifty Silver badge

        Re: Beauty or beast

        A complete PhD could be made out of the safety with software complexity issue. Is it possible to silo certain functions of the software so that software updates can happen with close to 0% risk that certain safety related functions can't be broken? What about runaway CPU caused by a bug - how isolated are the safety related functions from that? Nature has given us some reflexes that bypass the brain for this reason. I'd like to read a digestible article that goes into more detail about this topic.

        1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

          Re: software complexity issue... close to 0% risk

          Trouble with software of this kind is that it is Real Time, which means multi-threaded, interrupt driven. Even without considering hardware failures. Then there is the stability of the ancillary memory too. Some would advocate bringing in multiple systems using voting techniques, but this can cause its own major complications.

          One has to remember that the brain has been through thousands of years of testing. However, the ability of man to travel at greater speeds will not be factored into this testing regime for some considerable time. Who knows, future reflex actions might evolve that skirt the issue completely by inducing hyperventilation when travelling in a Tesla, or seeing one in motion (assuming that Tesla stay the passage of time).

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Beauty or beast

        "The complexity of all this software makes a constant stream of problems inevitable, not all of them trivial.

        Yes, a big IT angle, but not as pretty as you paint it."

        See Windows

    2. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: Beauty

      That's not new to Tesla, several car manufacturers were already doing over the air updates. What IS new with Tesla is the sheer number of pure unadulterated fuckups that require such patches. Because Tesla thought it could do better and cheaper than "old automobile" but then proceeded to royally ignore, screw up and reinvent every industry best practice they could.

      Their quality, at every level, software to hardware to finishing is abysmal and I for one think they'll fall apart as a car manufacturer when "old automobile" gets it's shit together on BEV production and charging networks.

      1. Ciaran McHale

        Re: Beauty

        If you have credible sources to back up the claim you are making, then you should cite them. Otherwise, your comment risks being viewed as baseless FUD.

        1. imanidiot Silver badge

          Re: Beauty

          As to software quality, no sources I can link to. As to hardware problems, a simple google will give you all the information you need. (Or start looking at the panel gaps of every Tesla you see. I haven't found a single on yet where all panel gaps are neat, straight and even.)

          Also: https://www.thedrive.com/news/44068/over-10-percent-of-tesla-model-s-evs-fail-germanys-strict-inspection-after-3-years#:~:text=The%20worst%20by%20far%2C%20however,Dacia%20Logan%20and%20Dacia%20Duster.

          Service and maintenance on Tesla is also shit, because they don't have dealerships and very few places have the required knowledge or access to parts, since Tesla seems to be refusing to supply it.

          1. stiine Silver badge

            Re: Beauty

            Only someone who's handle is 'imanidiot' would suggest that panel gaps should be fixable via an OTA update... please stop, just stop.

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: Beauty

              Only someone who's handle is 'imanidiot' would suggest that panel gaps should be fixable via an OTA update.

              I don’t believe you could have misunderstood the comment so badly, you must be being deliberately obtuse.

            2. imanidiot Silver badge

              Re: Beauty

              Where in the world am I saying anything like that?

              I was saying that Tesla has massive quality issues, both in software and in hardware. I can't provide a source for the software issues, but I provided an example of the well known hardware issues Tesla is having. Panel gaps being one of them. I was implying that a company building hardware such as cars being unable to get something as utterly basic as panel gaps consistently right points to an underlying lack of understanding of quality management and manufacturing that will be undoubtedly present in all layers of the company. That includes software. Obviously the existence of uneven panel gaps can't be fixed in OTA updates, but the fact cars leave the factory floor with such obvious quality defects shows Tesla quality is shit.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Beauty

            I think the "sudden unintended acceleration" category alone already qualifies as 100% software related.

      2. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: Beauty

        What IS new with Tesla is the sheer number ...

        of people who obsess over every little update.

        Partly because they actually issue them, unlike most other manufacturers who would need the vehicles to go back into the shop...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Beauty

          Going back to the shop for an update costs for my car exactly nada, but it does mean I control when the update takes place. It's the same reason why I avoid WIndows where I can - I like to know what gets installed, and when that happens.

          I'm waiting for the mistake to update when the car is still driving - I suspect that's only one bug away from happening. If you live around London that will be OK as you won't be driving at anything faster than walking pace anyway, but doing that while clocking 130km/h on de German Autobahn or in France is going to have interesting results.

          On the plus side, that would result in fewer Teslas on the road.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Beauty

        Yup. I have called it the Microsoft of the car world already, also because you have little control over it.

        The biggest problem is that the similarity doesn't end there. There's aso the fact that this quality issue is not just a problem localised to the woner, it affects others - in this case with potentially more direct lethal consequences (with, for instance, hospital IT there's at least some delay between problem and injury/death).

        Oh, it's not that bad? Really? What exactly controls the steering in a car that pretends it can drive automatically? And do you know how ABS works? How certain are you that that is segregated from the rest of load set? Can you react fast enough when things go wrong, and how certain are you that you even can?

        Add to that the potentially same sense of responsibility that the owner has towards his public utterances on the Twitter facilities he may be forced to buy (also again more cost cutting needed to cover that hole in the budget - let's hope it's not done by cutting corners in the IT department) and these are not just vehicles I don't want to buy, I don't even want to be near them when driven by others.

      4. midgepad

        I've had Br Leyland cars with

        lighting by Lucas.

        Don't tell me that story.

        Joe Lucas: Prince of Darkness.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Beauty

      On the other hand, in the highly regulated market of car manufacturing, how did this get past the regulators and out the door in the first place? It's not a manufacturing defect. It's an incorrect parameter. If the regulator has discovered there is an issue with the windows "pinching" people, then that surely must mean there is something in the regulations specifying the amount of force the window mechanism is allowed to apply and under what conditions it must stop or reverse back to open. Tesla didn't apply those regulations and specifications properly. This is quite different from finding out some time down the line that the brake lining wears faster than expected in the real world than it does in the lab, or the glue holding the headlight glass in place deteriorates quicker than expected when in sunlight much of the time (had that latter one happen to me when the headlight glass flew off and over the top of the car while doing 70mph!! Scared the shit out of the driver behind me, luckily well back and out of harms way)

  9. Big Softie

    Autonomous here we come...

    So, it has taken them until now to find and fix a straightforward bug in the window control code, decades old technology. And these guys really expect us to believe they'll be producing cars that can safely drive themselves anytime soon?

    1. gandalfcn Silver badge

      Re: Autonomous here we come...

      Leo9n's adoring fanbois believe him.

    2. Mike 137 Silver badge

      Re: Autonomous here we come...

      "these guys really expect us to believe they'll be producing cars that can safely drive themselves anytime soon?"

      I suspect not, but rather that by the time the ostensible objective is scrapped having proved non-feasible, they'll have realised their inflated stock holdings and laughed all the way to the bank.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Autonomous here we come...

      And these guys really expect us to believe they'll be producing cars that can safely drive themselves anytime soon?

      That would require a majority owner who could display a degree of selfcontrol when speaking in public. Such a lack of discipline is never a good leadership sign.

  10. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    Will Microsoft be threatening Tesla...

    For stealing its ideas?

    1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Will Microsoft be threatening Tesla...

      Never heard yet of a case of someone fingers being pinched by Window, with or without updates

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Will Microsoft be threatening Tesla...

        .. but both have had plenty crashes ..

  11. Screwed

    Typical Musk

    He tweets (ironic in itself) about the word applied to the process!

    "Recall" might not now be the word anyone would choose. But it is familiar and, with the extra information about it being possible over the air, has pretty obvious meaning.

    Would he really prefer some sort of "Ban from the highway until updated" notice?

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Typical Musk

      THe obvious meaning of the word "recall" is that the product is being "recalled". Which means "officially order to return to a place" and implies physical return.

      Although it DOES make you scared enough to make sure you do something which is of course the main priority. Terminology could be improved because a minor software update should not need to be as harmful to reputation as something that requires a trip to the garage and losing your car for a time. If anything, it's wonderful that you CAN fix stuff like this over the air.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: Typical Musk

        I'm guessing it's more to do with 'recall' being baked into a whole pile of Federal and State legislation from a time where a 'recall' actually meant hitting the problem with a hammer. So there's probably a pile of stuff about what manufacturers are supposed to do in the event of a safety 'recall' that hasn't caught up with OTA 'fixes'. And then there's probably a whole slew of insurance and liability stuff tied to that simple word as well.

        Then again, be glad they haven't gone total recall yet. So pretty much all new vehicles get fitted with a 'black box' now, and it'd be possible to remotely disable a vehicle until the fix is in.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Typical Musk

          I'm thinking you're correct. The complexity of actually performing the repairs to fix the issue could range from a firmware update all the way to swapping out an engine. No matter how comple the repair, the manufacturer still has the same effort involved in notifying all the affected owners and tracking which vehicles have been repaired.

          The communications part is on the manufacturer, the implementation is typically done by the service department at the dealers,

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Typical Musk

          Then again, be glad they haven't gone total recall yet.

          At least the autonomous cars worked. And they were already on Mars :).

  12. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    obstacle detection

    Teslas really aren't good at spotting obvious obstacles which are in the way, are they?

    1. Frank Bitterlich

      Re: obstacle detection

      All part of the Rise of the Machines...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: obstacle detection

      <joke>

      Probably because it's a subscription based option?

      </joke (probably)>

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: obstacle detection

      Teslas really aren't good at spotting obvious obstacles which are in the way, are they?

      Given Musk's social talents I suspect the next fix will at least switch on the screenwipers when it detects a pedestrian.

  13. aerogems Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Sad

    A 51-year-old chief executive of multiple companies acting like a petulant toddler.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sad

      There's a reason why he is friendly with Trump..

  14. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Coat

    So the modelas affected are....

    ...the S, 3, X, Y models? Yeah, Elon, we all saw what you did there.

    1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Yes, we did

      Mainly because he wouldn't shut up about it.

      See also 42, 69, and probably some other numbers I'm too innocent to know about.

  15. TeeCee Gold badge

    I suspect that, while the standard tech may be a well-trodden path and reliable, Tesla have elected to just fit the load sensors and to do all the interpretation and control in software. Just like everything else they do.

    It seems to work as well as everything else they do too. As this is a recall, I guess they have to sort this now and put "slaughters children when automated" on the back-burner.

    I reckon that Tesla's main purpose in life is to provide something for Alfa owners[1] to point and laugh at when reliability comes up.

    [1] A group of automotive masochists who number myself in their ranks.

  16. An_Old_Dog Silver badge
    Terminator

    The Cult of New and Shiny Tech Things

    From what I see, some (many?) people whom you'd expect to know better, adopt a cult-member-like attitude toward the new shiny tech thing, ignoring any possible -- and even obvious -- problems those new things might have. Tesla, based simply on the sort of company it is, would, I think, hires more of the "break-things-and-move-fast"-mentality programmers than the stodgier, "Let's think this through, end-to-end, first" mentality programmers. And it only takes one "fast mover-and-breaker" to introduce hidden, fatality-creating flaws. What are Tesla's internal testing and QA processes? What is Tesla's management's priority re: "ensure existing code works correctly" vs "add new and shiny features?" (Hint: there's a feature which flashes headlights, taillights, backup lights, and turn signals, opens-and-closes windows and the rear hatch, and moves the rear-view mirrors, all in time to loudly-played music.)

    A friend purchased a Model Y last year, and it recently arrived. I had the chance to sit in the driver's seat. My first thought: "This is a comfortable car." My second thought: "The team which designed the displays was dominated by stylists who had not a lick of common sense about UI design for automobile controls." 99.9% of the controls are activated by touching a single flat-panel display which sits in the middle of car. The driver has to look 45 degrees offside, and down 20 degrees, to see the speedometer, etc. So right there, you've got a "distracted driver".

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