Good on them? Yes, let’s give them a pass for even allowing this car to be shipped as is. It’s a freaking mustang, and they never floored it in any of their tests during development of the car? Nobody ever sat down with pencil and paper and did the math on the extreme conditions on what would happen if the max power was requested? No where in the computer code for throttle control has a software limiter to prevent surge requests like this?
Just seems like shit design process to me, it sure, let’s pat them in the back for doing a mea culpa
It would be interesting to hear the real story here. These cars tend to have artificial power restrictions for reliability.
It is possible that they did test it, but there were late software changes to reduce the power restrictions for marketing reasons. And maybe things weren't retested as much as they should be?
It could be as simple as them doing the engineering analysis, finding the potential problem, and then being overridden because someone thought it wouldn't happen in the real world.
Could be, but if the marketing department can push spec change past tested conditions on critical safety components without retesting then there's an organizational/cultural lapse running very deep.
We're talking about the relay that turns off high voltage in accidents and can weld itself in a permanent "on" state if people drive their sports car too sporty.
I remember when Top Gear got to test one of the early Tesla Model S on their track. They also managed to overheat the batteries and got it into limp mode. The 1% use case is hard to plan for apparently, especially for your first real effort at building a production EV.
This isn't unique to EVs either. You will find no shortage of people telling you to never buy the first model year of any vehicle if you value high reliability.
While I agree that this is a serious error in the design or tuning of the vehicle, a modern car is an extremely complex piece of kit and it would be miraculous if any new design didn’t incorporate several similar flaws.
Engineering to factory is a very complex path fraught with noise from the process, and very subtle and seemingly insignificant tweaks often add up to significant problems in complex designs.
That there was a flaw in the process is not the least bit surprising or even disappointing, every single new vehicle design brought to market will have numerous tweaks and modifications or recalls over the first few years of fielding the design.
That the flaw was safety critical is unfortunate, but that a major automaker that typically handles things responsibly (with some notable historical exceptions) responded in an appropriate way is the system functioning nominally as it should.
That new companies with a more “tech” oriented approach would probably have silently pushed a performance degrading software update instead of fixing the problem is a harsh indictment of a deeply flawed engineering culture.
Comments
Good on them? Yes, let’s give them a pass for even allowing this car to be shipped as is. It’s a freaking mustang, and they never floored it in any of their tests during development of the car? Nobody ever sat down with pencil and paper and did the math on the extreme conditions on what would happen if the max power was requested? No where in the computer code for throttle control has a software limiter to prevent surge requests like this?
Just seems like shit design process to me, it sure, let’s pat them in the back for doing a mea culpa
It would be interesting to hear the real story here. These cars tend to have artificial power restrictions for reliability.
It is possible that they did test it, but there were late software changes to reduce the power restrictions for marketing reasons. And maybe things weren't retested as much as they should be?
It could be as simple as them doing the engineering analysis, finding the potential problem, and then being overridden because someone thought it wouldn't happen in the real world.
Could be, but if the marketing department can push spec change past tested conditions on critical safety components without retesting then there's an organizational/cultural lapse running very deep.
We're talking about the relay that turns off high voltage in accidents and can weld itself in a permanent "on" state if people drive their sports car too sporty.
I remember when Top Gear got to test one of the early Tesla Model S on their track. They also managed to overheat the batteries and got it into limp mode. The 1% use case is hard to plan for apparently, especially for your first real effort at building a production EV.
This isn't unique to EVs either. You will find no shortage of people telling you to never buy the first model year of any vehicle if you value high reliability.
While I agree that this is a serious error in the design or tuning of the vehicle, a modern car is an extremely complex piece of kit and it would be miraculous if any new design didn’t incorporate several similar flaws.
Engineering to factory is a very complex path fraught with noise from the process, and very subtle and seemingly insignificant tweaks often add up to significant problems in complex designs.
That there was a flaw in the process is not the least bit surprising or even disappointing, every single new vehicle design brought to market will have numerous tweaks and modifications or recalls over the first few years of fielding the design.
That the flaw was safety critical is unfortunate, but that a major automaker that typically handles things responsibly (with some notable historical exceptions) responded in an appropriate way is the system functioning nominally as it should.
That new companies with a more “tech” oriented approach would probably have silently pushed a performance degrading software update instead of fixing the problem is a harsh indictment of a deeply flawed engineering culture.
The person you're replying to is named "delusional" I'm not saying they didn't mean their comment in earnest but, at the very least, the name fits lol